Waiting for the Call: From Preacher's Daughter to Lesbian Mom

by Jacqueline Taylor

“Well-written, absorbing, and a great pleasure to read . . . will appeal to Christians struggling to square their traditional beliefs with acceptance of homosexuality as well as to all those interested in adoption, lesbian marriage, and the changing shape of America’s families.”

—Elizabeth C. Fine, Virginia Tech University

 

Waiting for the Call takes readers from the foothills of the Appalachians—where Jacqueline Taylor was brought up in a strict evangelical household—to contemporary Chicago, where she and her lesbian partner are raising a family. In a voice by turns comic and loving, Taylor recounts the amazing journey that took her in profoundly different directions from those she or her parents could have ever envisioned.

 

Taylor’s father was a Southern Baptist preacher, and she struggled to deal with his strictures as well as her mother’s manic-depressive episodes. After leaving for college, Taylor finds herself questioning her faith and identity, questions that continue to mount when—after two divorces, a doctoral degree, and her first kiss with a woman—she discovers her own lesbianism and begins a most untraditional family that grows to include two adopted children from Peru.

 

Even as she celebrates and cherishes this new family, Taylor insists on the possibility of maintaining a loving connection to her religious roots. While she and her partner search for the best way to explain adoption to their children and answer the inevitable question, “Which one is your mom?” they also seek out a church that will unite their love of family and their faith. Told in the great storytelling tradition of the American South, full of deep feeling and wry humor, Waiting for the Call engagingly demonstrates how one woman bridged the gulf between faith and sexual identity without abandoning her principles.

 

Genres: Queer, Nonfiction, Biography, Biography Memoir

232 pages, Paperback

First published March 8, 2007

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t know how I came upon this book…maybe in a random browse of new books on Libby…although this was published in 2007 so I really don’t know. But wow! This was a beautifully written memoir about being raised a pastor’s kid and then growing up to find yourself a lesbian mother of 2. There were a lot of interesting tidbits about faith and family as well as the challenges of raising adopted children who struggle with their origin stories. It’s interesting to see how society and organized religion has changed in the 19 years since this has published and the ways it really hasn’t. I found myself highlighting a lot of passages in this, especially those dealing with Jacqueline’s evolving faith. My only issue is how in-depth this story went discussing specific challenges in her young daughters’ lives. It seems they would have been teenagers when this published and I hope those stories were vetted and approved by them.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exploring numerous layers of identity and connection, you don't have to be a southern baptist lesbian mother to get it. As a teacher, I was particularly struck by the origin stories her children embrace throughout their childhoods. I highly recommend this memoir.

[Marilee · Rating 5 out of 5]

My review of this book may be biased because the author and her partner are good friends. Knowing them and reading this portrait of growing up in a Baptist family made me feel quite fortunate to have such an intimate peek into the life of a woman who I hold in high regard.

[TJ · Rating 2 out of 5]

An ok story. Nothing really remarkable or to write home about