To Anderson Cooper: A Son Deserves His Mother

Dear Anderson,

Isn’t it an amazing feeling to be a father? To know that the precious little baby that you hold in your arms is, in a real sense, your own flesh and blood? That in a unique way, he carries part of you in his very life and soul? Yet when I saw the announcement of his birth, I felt sadness more than happiness. Sadness for him and for you.

Obviously, you don’t know me from Adam. But you’re a public figure, you made a public announcement and I’m confident, as a lesser-known public figure, that I speak for many others as well.

Anderson, a boy deserves his mother, yet if I understand your plan correctly, your son will not be raised together by her and by you. That’s what saddens me the most.

Can you imagine what your life would look like today without the influence of your mother? Can you imagine Anderson Cooper without Gloria Vanderbilt? (Or, can you imagine only knowing her as the other half of a biological equation?) Who would you be without your mom?

Think back to all the memories the two of you share, especially since you lost your dad at the age of 10. Think back to the impact your mother had on who you are as a person. Think back to the tender moments that only a mother and child can experience.

And then ask yourself this question: Is it right that Wyatt will never have the special relationship with his mother that you had with yours? Is it fair to deprive him, by your own choice, of having the benefit of a mom and a dad?

To be clear, I don’t believe that you simply chose to be gay one day. I don’t believe that any more than I “chose” to be straight.

And I don’t mean that you won’t try to be an amazing dad. And a devoted dad. And a caring dad.

But the world’s best dad is not a mom (just as the world’s best mom is not a dad). Yet you have made a decision to bring Wyatt Morgan Cooper into the world without a mother, even though he has a mother.

That’s because biology is very stubborn, and the way God created us, every human being has a mother and a father and is meant to be nurtured by both.

Two men, no matter how much they love each other, cannot produce a child. It’s the same with two women.

But this is not simply a matter of biology. It’s a matter of complementarity. The mother and the father each bring something unique and special, more unique than the difference between two dads or two moms. That’s because male plus male or female plus female can never equal male plus female.

Who would you be today if your dad had been gay and made a decision to bring you into the world to be raised by him and a male partner? Gloria Vanderbilt might have been your biological mother, but she would never have mothered you.

Or who would you be if you had a nanny instead of a mother, again, by the choice of your father? And would you feel that your father did what was best for you by bringing you into the world to be deprived of your mother?

That’s the difference between your situation and that of a woman whose husband abandons the family. She is now a single mom and her kids are deprived of their dad, but not by her choice.

In your case, Wyatt will be separated from birth from his mother by choice, and not his own. Or will Wyatt simply be told one day, “That’s your mother,” leaving him to figure out what it all means?

It was very touching to hear of the time you spent with your mother after she was diagnosed with advanced stomach cancer at the age of 95. You said, “She lived nine more days. . . . Being able to spend those nine days and nights with her was a great, great blessing. They were the most extraordinary days of my life and I’m very grateful.”

Anderson, if those nine days were so precious to you, the culmination of your lifelong relationship with your mother, shouldn’t Wyatt have the opportunity to have his mother as well?

In many ways, you are a private person, and I’m not trying to intrude in your life. And you may simply write me off as a hateful gay basher.

But it is love that compels me to write. What is best for Wyatt Morgan Cooper?