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5 gay celebrity couples who are are raising kids and warming our hearts

On Monday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and his husband Chasten shared details about their twins’ first day in daycare.

While Pete Buttigieg mentioned all “the bottles… little jars of baby food… spoons” and everything else that parents rely on to raise kids, Chasten Buttigieg merely tweeted, “If anyone saw me walking around Target looking a little confused and sad earlier today now you know.”

Of course, Pete and Chasten Buttigieg are just one of several famous gay couples raising kids.

Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka

The actor couple’s twins — a son named Gideon and a daughter named Harper — were born via surrogate in October 2010.

“We live up in Harlem so they see a ton of stuff, and they’re exposed to stuff at a young age,” Burka said in an Us magazine interview. “I think they grow from that. I think when you’re living in a house in the Valley or Beverly Hills you don’t get to see that much, whereas here, you get to see and experience so much.”

 

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Elton John and David Furnish

The pop god and his filmmaker husband have two twin boys, Zachary and Elijah. John and Furnish have both said they’re trying to raise their kids to be down-to-Earth and to respect work and money, despite being born rich.

“[My dad] never told me he loved me, he didn’t hold me, and he didn’t come to see me perform,” John said in a 2015 speech. “And when [David and I] had our own children, I never stopped telling them I loved them, and they never stop telling me they love me.”

 

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Denis O’Hare and Hugo Redwood

O’Hare, who is best known for his work in the American Horror Story TV series, and his husband adopted their son, Declan, in 2014. The couple began raising the boy as foster fathers when he was just five days old.

“We have always been a family – the legal system just caught up,” O’Hare tweeted afterward.

“Just to have it legal and on paper really makes our tribe complete,” Redwood wrote.

Ricky Martin and Jean Yosef

The Latin pop star and his artist husband have four kids: twins named Matteo and Valentino, a daughter named Lucia and a son named Renn. Martin began raising the two youngest kids as a single parent in 2008.

“Many years I dreamt of being a father, and many, many, many times I went through this grieving process of ‘I am gay, I am a closeted gay man, and I’m not going to be able to be a daddy,’” Martin said.

“I became a daddy when I was 35; it’s not the same thing when you’re 48,” he added. “You need the energy! And I’m strong, trust me, I’m healthy — I’m carrying two babies at the same time and the stroller and the backpack — but it’s a lot. It’s a big responsibility.”

 

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Matt Bomer and Simon Halls

The actor and his husband, a PR executive, have three boys: twins Walker and Henry and Kit. The boys are all in their teenage years.

“I just want to be hopefully somebody who helps shape these souls without changing how they came into the world,” Bomer told People magazine. “To just give them the structure they need to thrive in the world but at the same time let their own personalities shine through. Some days that’s easier than others.”

 

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Lesbian couples and queer single parents

We also want to give a shout-out to two well-known celebrity female couples raising kids.

Actress Cynthia Nixon and her wife Christine Marinoni have three kids: Samuel Mozes and Charles Mozes (from Nixon’s ex-husband), and Max Ellington Nixon-Marinoni. Samuel Mozes, pictured below, is a trans man.

 

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Comedian Wanda Sykes and her spouse Alex have two fraternal twins, Olivia and Lucas. Wanda Skyes joked about wanting to return one of her kids after she realized just how little sleep mothers get when raising newborns.

 

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It’s also important to give some love to all of the out single celebrity parents raising kids out there, including journalist Anderson Cooper, Queer Eye‘s culture expert Karamo Brown, director Lee Daniels, Bravo executive Andy Cohen, and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, to name a few.

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