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say my timing wasn t as impeccable as on that very first mother s day nor was my announcement greeted with the same joy as my happy arrival into the world i d actually given my coming out a lot of angst ridden thought and after weighing the multitude of pros and cons had naively concluded that doing it on mother s day wouldn t be such a big deal my mother who d grown up in england had always downplayed the significance of mother s day along with all the other north american hallmark holidays it s just another day she d say as we showered her with flowers and cards you really don t need to make such a fuss until the year i dropped the lesbian bomb not only did i destroy her life as she knew it by turning out queer but i d completely ruined her mother s day she was so upset that she retreated into her garden for days tending to her flowers and barely talking to me for the rest of the visit every time i approached she d dissolve into tears live and learn hallmark holidays do matter no matter what she says i ve spent every mother s day since overcompensating for my cringe worthy twenty something faux pas one of the reasons my mom was so devastated by my coming out i later found out through the family grapevine was that she assumed it meant i wasn t going to have children of my own she was so looking forward to having grandchildren my aunt relayed sadly to her own kids as she processed the latest family tragedy which actually wasn t such a tragedy to my savvy adult cousins who says sara s not having kids two sets of ovaries two wombs being a lesbian actually doubles her chances of becoming a mom my aunt was totally floored it s amazing what you can do with modern reproductive technologies one of my cousins went on my aunt s eyes widened as she scrambled to process this was a bold new world that she and my mother had never before considered i d actually tried to reassure my mom that day i first came out to her i still want to have kids i d insisted i ve always wanted to have kids and that hasn t changed at the time this upset her even more i don t know if she didn t believe me didn t want to go there or was just too overwhelmed by my newly announced queerness to really hear me luckily my entire family has since come around to a place of acceptance the process took years my mother couldn t even bring herself to mention my sexuality for almost a decade by the time i met amanda the first girlfriend that my mom actually liked and got engaged it was no longer to possible for her to dismiss my queerness as a passing phase our wedding ceremony marked a seismic shift for both my parents seeing me and my beloved up there warmly supported by our gathered family and friends declaring our love and commitment to one another in the same way that straight people do finally seemed to make them get it that we were a couple like any other and that this was love end of story my mom hadn t lost a daughter after all in fact she d gained a daughter in law my son s arrival a year later sealed the deal i d finally given her the grandchild she d so badly wanted the one she d given up on that mother s day so many years ago the fact that he had two moms and was conceived with donor sperm no longer mattered we were a family my own first mother s day was also memorable my birthday happened to land on sunday again that year meaning there was much to celebrate another year older after a year full of exciting changes birthday cake intermingled with family celebrations as amanda and i jointly marked our first mother s day as new moms there was something extra special about sharing that first mother s day with a partner as well as the ones that followed it gave us a wonderful pause in that crazy busy first year an opportunity to stop grumbling about sleep deprivation lack of couple time and all the other myriad of complaints that pepper life with a newborn and instead reflect together on the miracle of our son s birth and growing little family we marvelled at how much had changed in our lives in such a short time and how we d both been challenged to stretch and grow in positive ways in our new role as parents that first mother s day also marked something for me personally a happy reminder of the bridges i d been able to rebuild with my own mother by becoming a queer mom i was amazed by the power of my small son an ambassador of the next generation to bring my family back together in spite of the initial fears prejudices and differences that had ruptured my relationship with my parents when i first came out my experience is not unique i have seen similar scenarios play out in many queer families in my community it seems that the very act of bringing a child into a queer partnership and creating a family by whatever means known or anonymous donor birth or adoption has the potential not only to help legitimize our relationships in broader society but also to promote powerful healing within our own extended families posted in coming out extended family gratitude and affirmations misconceptions mother daughter relationships uncategorized tagged coming out lesbian daughters mother s day mother daughter relationships motherhood queer parenting same sex marriage 1 comment tommy mommy posted on may 7 2012 by queermommy mama i have to go pee ee ee my son announced at the top of his lungs he was on the cusp of four and every trip to the loo was deemed worthy of broadcast with the same volume and intensity as a boxing day door crasher announcement on this particular occasion he was visiting science world with his other mom and managed to make himself heard even over the formidable prehistoric roars of the extreme dinosaur exhibit all eyes in the room were suddenly on my wife and small child okay amanda responded cheerily and took our son s hand acutely aware that they now had an audience let s go to the bathroom some parents exchanged knowing smiles with her as she led our son out of the exhibit hall but as she approached the women s washroom he tugged suddenly on her hand and pulled her towards the men s no mama over here he had to go so badly he was practically dancing wait a minute amanda said gently stopping him we can t go in there but it s for boys i know honey you re a boy but you re too little to go in by yourself but you can come too no i can t she explained i m a girl never mind the countless times she d endured double takes from confused patrons in the ladies room our son just looked at her wide eyed for a moment and then laughed as though this was the funniest thing he d ever heard nooo he squealed you re a boy just like me no i m not she insisted even though she was once an eight year old tomboy who stole a pair of her male cousin s boy briefs and longed to change her name to paul i m a girl our son scrambled to process you re not a girl he reasoned you re a mama as if that clinched it but as contradictory as this statement might sound in any other context it actually made a whole lot of sense coming from the mouth of a preschooler talking to his butchy non biological lesbian mom yes i m your mama amanda assured him hurrying him now into the women s washroom and i m a girl just like mommy which is why we have to go in here they headed into a stall together and took turns going pee as our son hiked his pants back up over his buzz lightyear underwear he regarded amanda carefully mama you re not really a girl are you he asked again half giggling yes i am she smiled back no ooo he responded in a sing song voice look you have a penis and i don t but mama he implored you are a boy just like me and there s the rub he desperately wants an image of himself reflected back by at least one of his parents it s developmental stage that all kids go through where they want to identify with the same gendered parent and that gets a bit tricky when you re a little boy with two moms amanda told me about the incident later after they d come home and our son had breathlessly debriefed about how scary the dinosaurs were but how he d kept going back through the exhibit with his mama until he wasn t afraid anymore he went to play trains upstairs and amanda and i quietly shared a laugh about the bathroom escapade we figured this was simply the latest chapter in the mama daddy saga that our son had been continuing to try to make sense of himself and how he fits into the bigger world and like all children his age wanted to see himself mirrored back by one or both of his caregivers see mama daddy papa bear he d become increasingly interested in gender ever since he d started preschool the previous year he d recently gone through a phase where he was categorizing everything into boys and girls our eldest pug oliver was proclaimed a boy while finnegan also male but younger and less boisterous was deemed a girl he s got a fluffier face than ollie but they both have penises amanda had pointed out finnegan has a girl penis he d explained i m sure the young amanda paul would have coveted one of those gender confusion wishful thinking or both or perhaps neither our queer dog walker has strong suspicions that finnegan is gay our pug reportedly had a boyfriend at the dog park last summer a frisky black lab so perhaps our son was picking up on something else he couldn t fully articulate yet which brings us back to the bathroom episode when amanda relayed the tale to another queer mom a therapist whose two boys are now in their late teens the woman shared an immediate laugh of recognition her youngest went through the exact same thing with his other mom when he was about our son s age she suspects a big part of it has do with our kids picking up on their other parent s butchiness and not knowing how to name or categorize it rather than simply pining for a male role model and or equating the parenting role of other mother with daddy kids are smart and certainly not blind they can clearly see and sense that something s different about their butchy moms both physically and energetically that strong butch energy that s almost male yet at the same time distinctly female the same qualities that make it impossible for butches to pass as straight when they walk down the street the very qualities that cause butch loving dykes like me to fall head over heels for them and how does one begin to name that if you re not quite four and only given two labels boy and girl and so amanda initiated a chat with our son about tomboys she explained that some girls like many of the little girls at his school like princesses the colour pink and wearing pretty dresses she then pointed out that there are some girls who look and act like boys and who even dress like boys and like to do a lot of things that boys do such as climb trees and play with trains although yes girly girls can also do boy things and boys can like princesses and pink and do girl things and that these kinds of girls are sometimes called tomboys just like his mama which is why she s a girl who still uses the girls washroom but also looks and acts a lot like a boy our son who d been listening with rapt attention nodded quietly it was a lot to wrap his little head around but it all seemed to be making sense mama he asked after a long moment can i be a tomboy too posted in butch femme father figures gender non biological lesbian mother parenting preschool role models roles tomboys uncategorized tagged motherhood non biological lesbian mother queer parenting tomboys 2 comments making up for lost time posted on april 6 2012 by queermommy confession my son was conceived in the middle of an on line graduate class a class i was teaching no less in mid discussion or rather discussions as the internet enables me to teach two classes simultaneously at that fateful moment when egg met sperm i was actually in three places at once virtually speaking anyway confused i sure was the year i moved from a live classroom to a virtual one my internet workshops are the on line equivalent of the same two hour courses offered in a seminar room on campus except mine stretch over thirty three hours we use a bulletin board format no web cam no live chat meaning i can show up to work in my pyjamas it s distance education in the truest sense students in disparate time zones with complex family work schedules can drop in and out any time over the two days posting comments on the class forum as the instructor i m expected to be ever present guiding and monitoring both classes heated dynamic conversations that run in tandem i take breaks to eat and sleep of course and on this particular occasion make a baby and no we weren t going at it under the desk or even in the next room modern lesbian couple that we are our act of conception involved ducking out of work mid afternoon and driving to the fertility clinic where thanks to the wonders of reproductive technology previously frozen donor sperm was inserted through my cervix by intrauterine insemination as amanda stood by and held my hand i lay on the examining table feet up in stirrups thinking how strange it was my students were carrying on without me at that very moment without an inkling of what i was up to this was would not be the last time flash forward thirteen months i am out in the pissing rain pushing the infant stroller up and down the leafy greenway near my house willing my three month old to fall asleep the stroller is the last resort usually it does the trick but today my son just stares up at me from under the plastic rain cover cooing away all bright eyed and bushy tailed completely oblivious to my mounting frustration i wish i could just follow his lead like any other neighbourhood mom on mat leave okay you don t want to sleep let s go home and play but i cannot even enjoy the walk or the dose of fresh air as i m all too aware that i m supposed to be present in both my on line classes right now wrapping things up for the week but my baby has steadfastly refused to nap all day so i ve barely made an appearance in either classroom in fact i haven t had a chance to weigh in in one class at all since last night this isn t how it was supposed to go my colleague had told me how she d breastfed her daughter at the keyboard the first year she d taught in our program it s totally doable she reassured me back when i was still pregnant and trying to determine whether returning to work without childcare when my son was only two months old was as insane as it sounded in fact a good number of students have become new moms while enrolled in our program and have completed their degrees without missing a beat maybe a class or two around the birth but that s it that s the beauty of the virtual classroom the worst part was cleaning the upholstery on my office chair to get rid of the stench of sour breast milk one student posted in a forum for new parents in the program who knew there was so much spillage even the head of my department who still teaches live on campus shared fond recollections of writing a novel while his infant dau...
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