TWO MEN AND A BABY
DUSTIN LANCE BLACK, TOM DALEY AND LITTLE ROBBIE RAY. STORY BY IAN HORNER.
Screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, Olympian Tom Daley and their little Robbie Ray.
Little Robbie Ray is your average toddler. He’s cheeky, copying his parents’ habits, loving some foods, spitting out others. Nothing unusual, except that he’s got two dads who are both famous.
Oscar-winning writer Dustin Lance Black and his husband, Olympic diver Tom Daley wanted to start a family and explored everything from surrogacy to adoption. They settled on surrogacy and opted to do it in the United States, Lance’s birth country, even though they live in Southwark, London, in Tom’s birth country.
Ahead of our special interview with Dustin next month for our 250th edition, he talks to us here about how he and Tom are navigating family life. They join the ranks of many samesex parents around the world, an inevitable result of marriage equality.
Dustin’s LGBT advocacy is reflected in his work. He won the Best Original Screenplay Academy Award in 2008 for Milk, wrote the 2017 LGBT civil right series When We Rise, and the stage play 8 about the overturning of California’s anti-gay Proposition 8.
Upon becoming a father, he tweeted: “Thank you to those who helped turn our dream of having a family into this wonderful reality.”
DNA: Why did you and Tom choose the United States for your surrogacy rather than doing it in Britain, where you live? Dustin Lance Black: I’d lived in California so I had resources at my fingertips. It’s where I knew the most people so it was simpler to be surrounded by folks I knew who could help. We’d decided on surrogacy and we had our surrogate, a friend, and wanted to make sure everyone involved was safe and looked after. You need to do this under good law and good medical practice, and currently the UK is far behind when it comes to surrogacy law. It’s not illegal, but there’s no law to protect the surrogate or the intended parent or even the child. It’s the Wild West of surrogacy!
Are the US surrogacy laws designed to ensure that all parties are treated properly?
I don’t believe in doing anything, particularly surrogacy, which can have terrible ramifications, if people aren’t treated properly. We wanted to do it where we were absolutely sure it was going to be a joyous occasion with no one harmed, to have that beautiful act of altruism repaid with happiness and joy, and no hurt. And that’s what happened. California has wonderful surrogacy law. Surrogates are screened to ensure they can do it financially, that it’s not being done for money, that it’s being done for altruistic reasons, and they’re physically and mentally okay to do it. Also ensuring the surrogate is empowered to make the choices, so the intended parents aren’t in the driver’s seat.
In the absence of good law I believe people behave poorly and in the presence of good law people behave better – not always perfectly but better because there are rules, hopefully, to look out for everyone. That’s not in place here in the UK yet. The government is working on it, and I applaud that, but a few things have got in the way of having legislation passed.
You have to be selected by the surrogate in California, not the other way around. It turned out wonderfully and we have our beautiful son who’s two now and we have a wonderful relationship with our friend who was his surrogate, as it should be. Is surrogacy legal in Australia?
Altruistic surrogacy is legal in Australia. The surrogate doesn’t get paid but is reimbursed by the intended parents for medical and pregnancy expenses. It costs $55,000 to $75,000 over two years including (non-rebatable) IVF (if used), legal fees, mandatory counselling, surrogate expenses, insurance, travel and compensation for time off work. Commercial surrogacy is
The number one attribute for success as a human is curiosity… raising your child to be curious is ridiculously fun.
illegal, and some states prohibit overseas commercial surrogacy. Adoption can get complicated if relinquishing parents want their children back.
Yes. We’ve looked into adoption because Tom and I would like to grow our family further — it’s gone well so far. In the US, depending on which state you’re in, parents can take back the children. And not just the parents, other relatives can take back the children within a certain period, which differs depending on what state you’re in, from just weeks to months. To me it seems like a good law that if someone in the family says, I found out about this adoption but we’d love to raise this child within the family. But that rule has led to a highly disproportionate number of gay and lesbian couples having their children taken back when a homophobic member of the family finds out it’s a gay or lesbian family who’ve adopted the child. So it becomes a homophobic law, not in the text of the law but in the application of it. We’ve seen this happen three times to two of our friends. We just couldn’t put ourselves through that.
Robbie was named after his grandad, yes? Yeah, he’s Rob because Tom’s family has a tradition. Each generation it’s either the first or middle name. Tom’s dad was Robert Daley, Tom is Thomas Robert Daley. So the next child would be Robert. We named him after Tom’s father because of the tradition but also Tom lost his dad. And I put Ray in the middle because in the South, where I come from, everyone’s Ray whether you’re a boy or girl. You can be a Robbie Ray or a Josie Ray – a Miley Ray. He may be one of the first country music stars with a British accent! He’s been calling himself Robbie. At first he couldn’t say it so he called himself Bobby.
You and Tom are happy to share “glimpses of parenthood” on your social media and in the press but for the moment you’re shielding Robbie’s face. [Lance has given DNA permission to use images here, protecting Robbie’s identity.]
Sadly, we live in a time and place where paparazzi feel it’s okay to chase children. It’s at its worst here in the UK, a country I love. We’ve had men with cameras parked outside our home. They’ve chased us with our child. If we don’t show his face it means they can’t sell those photos. It’s helped keep that harassment down. We don’t want our son to feel frightened when he goes outside. The day will probably come when he says, “Why am I not on your Instagram? When do I get my own account?” But it’ll be his choice.
A child’s life is full of hopes and dreams, plans and promise. In 20 year’s time you’ll look back and, I say from experience, all you’ll see is everything you’ve done wrong! All dads are acutely aware of that. How will you and Tom manage that, do you think?
What you just described is likely inevitable. You’re going to have regrets. I actually worried so much about that in the early days, and I got good advice from Ron Howard, who I’m working with right now. He’s a dad to many kids, and famously to his daughter Bryce [Dallas Howard], a wonderful actress.
He said, “Lance, you’re going to look back and realise the critical moments that help shape that child and their personality, their habits and behaviours. But for the most part it’s going to be very surprising what did the shaping. Often the things you think are critical won’t have a huge impact and it’ll be the little tiny thing you said okay to that you never thought were going to be a problem, which became the habit, which became the bad behaviour, which led to this thing that’s now a challenge.”
And he said, “Try to control it all you like, but you probably won’t know until further down the line what created what.”
And in a way that kind of releases you. I think what we try to do is focus on giving him the tools he’s going to need to succeed and be a good human being.
What sort of tools?
The number one attribute for success in any profession and as a human being is curiosity. My mother instilled that in me in a big way. Although she walked on braces and crutches and had a very difficult time getting around, if we wanted to go see something, she did her very best to help us get there. I mean, we’d go on camp-outs at the beach and collect shells and jellyfish. She was paralysed chest down and was raising three kids, on her own, taking crutches out onto a sandy beach and setting up a tent with three little ones. How did she do it? But feeding our curiosity was critically important to her.
We’re doing the same with our son. When he becomes interested in something we dive in head-first – pun intended in this household – and we love that he’s curious, and that he’s becoming even more curious. That will help him in any endeavours.
And it also means you probably won’t raise your son or daughter to be an asshole. Because two things that don’t live well together are prejudice and anger and hate on the one hand and curiosity on the other. Curiosity eats up all the oxygen. You’re too busy being curious about something to hate it. We could do more to cure fear and prejudice overnight if we raised our children to be curious. And, by the way, raising your child to be curious is so fun! I mean, it’s ridiculously fun. It turns you into a two-yearold, a three-year-old, a four-year-old. Enjoy it while you can. Wheee!
How does Tom put up with you?
I don’t know. More often than not he’s got a couple of two-year-olds running around the house!
Next month, Lance talks about how he and Tom are treated as a couple, his muchawarded screen work, why Sean Penn wasn’t the best choice for Milk, and how he got Clint Eastwood to come out in support of marriage equality. And, if we think we’ve won the gay rights war, he says, we’re very much mistaken.
Sadly, we live in a time
where paparazzi feel it’s okay to chase children. We’ve had men with cameras parked outside our home.