A family like his

Medill Reports: Chicago

Kijan Jonovich is a natural musician. Though he’s not old enough to talk much, he scoots his toddler-sized racecar across the wood floor and sings along as it plays “The Wheels on the Bus.”

But the batteries in the car are dying and as he turns the big yellow key that plays the song again and again, rolling his hands over each other at the part that goes “round and round,” the wheels on this bus sound like they’re melting. The sound becomes more and more garbled and strained and it seems Kijan’s little friend needs a jump. Mom decides that’s enough.


“I think your car is sick, Kijan,” she says as she scoops him out of the ailing, yet still smiling, car. She plunks him in front of his music table and toy drum. “If you’re going to play something over and over, let’s do it on something with a little more power.” Kijan protests for a minute but then switches on more music and pounds along on his drum – impressively on the beat for a two-year-old.

Like most little boys, he loves cars and trucks and things that go, but nothing lights him up like trains. He can name all the Chicago trains he sees near his home. He knows that the babysitter takes him on the L train, they take the Metra to the zoo and the Amtrak to visit his aunt. Earlier while eating his oatmeal he looks up with a start when he hears a noise outside. Eyes wide, he just shouts, “Metra!” through a mouth full of mush.

Kijan’s parents say he’s always been happy-go-lucky and, like most children, loves attention from them. He is black and his two mommies are white. His family has four cats and they live in a pleasant condo where Rogers Park and Andersonville meet.

Lara Ravitch, 33, and her partner Britt Johnson, 40, met in graduate school at the Monterey Institute for International Studies in 2000 while they were both studying linguistics. “We decided we couldn’t live without each other upon graduating,” said Johnson.

Johnson and Ravitch aren’t married because gay marriage isn’t recognized in Illinois. They haven’t bothered to get married in another state either because Illinois doesn’t acknowledge same sex unions that happen outside its borders.

They are allowed a domestic partnership in Cook County however, and have had a commitment ceremony, even though according to Ravitch, “It doesn’t actually give you any rights, it’s just a piece of paper to prove that it’s true.”

But while the laws in Illinois don’t make their union easy, they have found that its people have. And fortunately, its adoption laws make it a welcoming place for all kinds of families.

The couple had hoped to have an open adoption, but after a year of waiting when their case worker offered them a baby that was in need immediately, they jumped at the chance. Kijan was a safe haven baby, meaning he as been left somewhere anonymously, the modern equivalent of a basket on a doorstep.

Ravitch admits that raising a boy in a house full of girls seemed daunting at first, “even all the cats are girls…when I was a child I never saw the charm in talking trucks and trains, but now I’m learning that transportation can be very exciting.”

But more important than that to the couple is making sure he’s in touch with his black heritage. “We’ve been gay for a long time but we’ve only been an interracial family for two years so I think that we tend to focus more right now on trying to as best as possible raise a child in an interracial family,” said Ravitch.

But Johnson says that presented some unforgettable moments, “Now that he’s getting older I’m starting to get more stuff about his hair from elderly black men which is pretty cool actually,” they both laughed.

“Some guy came up to me and was like, ‘He your son?’ and I said yeah he is. He [gave me an address on Monroe] and told me to go up to the third floor. I said, ‘Haircut?’ He was very concerned that I know where to take him for a haircut.” The family attends a Unitarian church in Hyde Park so Kijan can have as much cultural influence as possible.

Ravitch is a Russian teacher and is raising him bilingual. They derived his name from a town in Poland where Johnson spent some time when she was younger and made his last name as a combination of both of theirs. “We’re not a conventional family so we figured his name didn’t have to be either,” said Ravitch. “He can always change it when he’s older if he likes.”