Glenn Motola, Mark Walden, Sasha Motola-Walden, and Roberto Huerta
It’s a long way from Los Angeles to the rural Kenwood home of Glenn Motola, 53, chief executive officer of Arc SF, a center that assists the developmentally disabled, and his husband, Mark Walden, 54, a psychologist and consultant. On a farm in Kenwood, the couple — together for 25 years, married since December — have a house, a guest house, a cottage and a menagerie: six alpacas, two cows, three horses, two mini donkeys, six ducks, three dogs, an African gray parrot, 20 lovebirds and a flock of chickens, almost all of them rescues.
It’s also home to their daughter, Sasha, 17, and her brother, Roberto, 29.
The rural Sonoma County farm has been dubbed “Queen Acres” by a Hollywood friend — a riff on “Green Acres,” the 1960s TV show about a Manhattan couple that moves to the country. But to the family, it’s paradise.
Motola and Walden, who met in graduate school in Malibu and lived in Southern California for a time, both hold clinical doctorates in psychology. Careers led them to San Francisco, where in 1999 they began thinking about fatherhood, and took steps with the county to adopt. On Valentine’s Day 2001, they were shown a picture of their match, an 8-month-old named Sasha. Then came a phone call the day before they were to meet. “We did a test; she’s mentally retarded,” Motola remembers the social working saying. “Do you still want her?” The couple had no doubts. “Of
course we want her,” an indignant Motola replied.
Sasha was a twin, one of eight siblings being raised in a SoMa apartment by parents who would disappear for days, leaving a son in charge. That was Roberto, who did his best by feeding his brothers and sisters Pepsi from a bottle. The city’s health and human services workers placed all eight children into foster care. When Sasha’s twin died at 3 weeks of age, doctors didn’t immediately know why. The answer came within a year of Sasha’s adoption. A UCSF physician who had been working on the mystery diagnosed her with Joubert syndrome, a neurological disorder that in extreme cases affects not only muscular control but the ability to swallow. She wasn’t the only one — three other siblings, including her twin and Roberto, had Joubert syndrome, too.
Roberto was adopted by a Bay Area uncle and stayed in touch with Sasha and her fathers. At 15, his uncle moved them to the south side of Chicago, where the boy worked the night shift at a Dunkin’ Donuts shop, struggled with learning disabilities in school, and fended off gang violence in the neighborhood. Motola and Walden learned to parent a child with special needs. In her early years, Sasha’s eyes moved rapidly, her tongue thrust and her head wobbled; she took her first steps at 18 months; she didn’t read or write until fourth grade. They also navigated a world where school forms had spaces for the names of mother and mother, but not father and father. On Sasha’s first trip to the emergency room, Walden still remembers the nurse asking: “OK, which one of you is the real dad?” To Sasha, they’re both real dads. She calls Walden “Baba” and Motola “Daddy.” “They’re loving, caring and protective, and sometimes overprotective,” Sasha said. “I love it.”
Four years ago, Roberto joined them on the farm. He learned to drive last year and is studying to be a nurse, overcoming his learning disabilities with the help of visual and audio techniques that Walden and Motola have taught him.
Motola, who initially resisted fatherhood, said over coffee recently that he couldn’t imagine himself without kids. “It’s really enriched our lives,” he said. Walden came out as gay later in life than he might have because he always wanted to be a parent and thought he had to be straight to do so. “It encouraged me to stay in the closet longer,” Walden said. “There were no role models.”
But all Walden has to do, Roberto said, is be himself. “As long as the human beings are good, that’s all that really matters,” he said of his father figures. “No one’s perfect, but they’re pretty damn close.”
“They’re loving, caring and protective, and sometimes overprotective. I love it.” Sasha Motola-Walden