When viral TikTok dads Terrell and Jarius Joseph got together in college, they quickly talked about having kids together. It was Terrell’s dream, as he comes from a big family and “always had this desire to be a father.” Jarius needed more convincing, but he joined Terrell’s baby bandwagon and the young couple started to have conversations about how they would want to pursue fatherhood.
“I wasn’t going to let my sexuality stop me from becoming a dad,” Terrell told Blavity News. “And it was really important to me.”
Talking to Jarius and Terrell, as I did via Zoom, it’s quickly evident that they are both instinctively paternal, giving and natural guides. They seem settled into those characteristics, as if they’ve nurtured them for a while. So I’m not surprised when the married parents of two tell me their fatherhood journey dates back to their early twenties.
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Terrell and Jarius are from Louisiana — a state not exactly known for its progressive views on parenthood. Terrell tells me that it “took a lot of research” to figure out how to have a child as a young person in a same-sex partnership. And there wasn’t a community of Black LGBTQIA+ parents they could turn to for advice. “It was very taboo,” he explains. “We couldn’t get a lot of information. Everything we did, we found out on our own.”
Their research led Terrell and Jarius to surrogacy agencies in Mexico that the couple reached out to to learn more about the surrogacy process and what was required of them before embarking on it. As they got closer and closer to becoming dads, Terrell recounts that Jarius had a few stipulations before they took the plunge.
“[Jarius] said, ‘well we’re going to have to graduate first and get a house,” Terrell said. “We graduated and had a house by May 2015, and we were pregnant by October 2015.”
The future husbands were overjoyed. They got pregnant on their first try with surrogacy, and it felt like everything was falling into place. Terrell and Jarius were well on their way to having their dream family. But unfortunately, their dream didn’t come to fruition.
“We had a miscarriage,” Terrell said. “It was a very difficult time. We didn’t have a support system outside of each other to lean on, and we were so young.”
It was a trying time for the couple, to say the least. Not only were they blindsided by an unimaginable loss, but they were also confronted with how the world could devalue their fatherhood. “We quickly realized at the hospital while we were going through the miscarriage that it wasn’t a lot of emphasis placed on us as fathers. I couldn’t determine whether it was the lack of care because we are fathers or because we’re gay dads.
“We didn’t feel supported at all by my hospital staff. We weren’t really acknowledged. And that was a difficult pill for us to swallow,” Terrell said. I see Jarius reach for his hand, and the two exchange a tender look.
For the first time in their relationship, Terrell and Jarius found themselves on different pages. Terrell remembers feeling like he “didn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel” and he was consumed with mourning their loss. On the other hand, Jarius had a hard time letting go of the excitement and anticipation they felt and was hyper-focused on getting it back. Terrell felt like he was just trying “to replace one situation with another,” and their relationship was tested.
“I was really concerned with how do we get that feeling back,” Jarius said. “I felt like we just needed to hurry up and pick up the pieces so we could move on and get back to that feeling.”
For Terrell, the experience has made their relationship a lot stronger. “Eventually, we just relied on each other because we didn’t have much of anyone around us,” he said.
They also learned a lot about how they wanted to share their journey to fatherhood on social media. During their first pregnancy, Terrell and Jarius shared every little detail on social media. “It was more of an outlet for us,” Terrell explains. “A tool to be able to share our experience. We were even really honest about genetically who that child was.”
Because of their openness, the couple felt they had to address the miscarriage on social media, which was difficult. “Not everybody checks every post that you do at that time, so we were constantly getting asked what was going on with the baby,” Terrell said. “It was always just like a painful moment for us to kind of be on social media.”
So they took a much-needed break and allowed themselves to heal as both individuals and as a couple. And when they got pregnant again, they decided to approach their social media use much differently.
“We didn’t tell anyone when we were pregnant with Ashton and Aria,” Jarius said. “Which was such a big thing. It was kind of our return to social media.”
Their return to social media has truly taken off. Since sharing their family life with Ashton and Aria, who are now 4 years old, the Josephs have garnered millions of followers across social media platforms and have gone viral on more than one occasion. Their content, which features the Josephs loving on each other and their adorable toddlers, is actively redefining Black, gay fatherhood. And Terrell and Jarius are committed to challenging the norm of what fatherhood looks like.
@terrell_jarius One thing they gon do is talk about homosexuality and one thing Imma do is get up and leave 😂😂 #gaycouple #blackchurch #lgbtfamily #lgbt #equality ♬ original sound – prettyaxme
“You don’t see a lot of African American fathers of the same sex in the media,” Terrell said. “You typically see Caucasian men together, but you never see any other ethnicities representing same-sex couples.
“We’re rooted in what we do,” Terrell continued. “It’s all about just changing the narrative around Black fatherhood and same-sex parenting.”
Some of the Josephs’ most popular content captures Jarius doing Aria’s hair. It’s a sweet daddy-daughter moment Aria will surely remember for the rest of her life. And Jarius, who Terrell describes as a “girl dad,” is proud to show that he can lay her edges and slick her ponytail as well as any maternal figure.
“We had conversations about what type of parents we want to be, and in those discussions, we thought about the kind of backlash we would get,” Terrell said. “We knew people who questioned how we would be able to take care of a girl because we’re not women.” That inspired Jarius to go harder and learn different hairstyles and hair care so that their baby girl would never feel like she was missing out on having a mom.
@terrell_jarius All I ever wanted was to be a dad and raise a daughter! God made no mistake in giving me you! #parentsoftiktok #parents #daughterlove #girldad ♬ Do We Have A Problem? – Nicki Minaj & Lil Baby
The Josephs have learned a lot about Black, gay fatherhood in their journey thus far. And they want BIPOC same-sex couples pursuing parenthood to stay strong and true to themselves.
“You have to develop a thicker skin,” Terrell said candidly. “You’re not going to be accepted by everyone at this current time, but we hope down the line this changes. In the meantime, don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t be a parent based on your sexuality.”
Jarius adds, “Be all in with parenting, and be who you are as a parent despite the words or comments that could potentially be sent to you. Just know that you have a hand in shaping what the next generation is going to look like. Take it seriously, because it’s a beautiful thing.”
