Leigh started kindergarten this fall. She’s doing great and we are slowly adjusting to being parents of a “school-age” kid.
Our district is extremely supportive of GLBT-headed families. They have a family-liason specifically for GLBT issues, who is a resource for teachers, students and families. We’ve always been certain that the school and the district will have our back should difficulties arise.
It’s nice not to worry about the big stuff, but we all still have to find ways to navigate the day-to-day interactions. We’re the first two-mom (or two-dad) family that Leigh’s teacher has had in class, so we can tell there are some things she’s unsure about, not in that our presence makes her uncomfortable, but in that she wants to do and say the right things. To the extent we can, between back-to-school night and drop-off/pick-up we’ve let her know we’re available for any questions, and more than that, we’ve tried to be forthcoming with information, including at some point in there I told her that Gail gave birth to Leigh. We’ve also tried to both be present at drop-off and pick-up and school events.
At Leigh’s first parent-teacher-conference, we were reminded again how glad we were to have picked the parental “titles” we did. At the end of the conference we checked in with the teacher to make sure both she and Leigh were doing OK with the two-mom explanations, and let her know a few more details about how Leigh came to be (i.e. conceived via banked donor sperm, and we do not know the donor. This might seem like overkill, but since Leigh can explain it all, and probably will at some point, we want the teacher to know the brief adult version). At this point, looking at me, the teacher said, “Now, you gave birth to her right?”
“No, it’s the other way, Gail gave birth to Leigh.” (remember, we’d already told her this)
“Oh, but she calls you (Lyn) ‘Mama’ right? and you (Gail) ‘Ima’?”
We clarified our titles, let her know that “Ima” is hebrew for “Mom.” She also asked how careful she should be to always say “Ima” and we answered that she really doesn’t have to be, that Leigh goes back and for between “Mom” (for both of us) and our individual “titles” with ease, but that it is nice if she sometimes uses the right titles. I also said that we were both “pretty interchangeable.” What I was trying to say with that last comment was that we are both really in there, both “primary” parents, that she can communicate with either of us and the message will get through, that there’s a reason she hasn’t figured out who is “more” the mom so she’s not going crazy. I don’t think I pulled it off gracefully, but I do think she got the intent. (I don’t like how the way I said it, that we’re “interchangeable”, implies we are actually “the same” — but hey, I can’t always be perfectly deep and balanced on the fly.)
We were glad the teacher felt like she could ask us these questions, and inwardly, I know both of us were doing a private “high five” about our selection of “titles.” We’ve written about how our somewhat inadvertent title selection (with the more identifiable “mom” name going to the less socially recognized (non-bio) mom) helped solidify our family early on. Five years later, it still makes us happy that Leigh’s use of our titles (likely combined with both of our presence in the school) overcame both a strong resemblance in looks and being previously told who carried Leigh, such that for a little while, the teacher perceived me as the mom who had given birth, and more to the point, helped the teacher see both of us as integral in her life. It’s another reminder that the parental titles our kids use day-to-day are powerful tools to shape how other people perceive our families, and that if you want to be perceived as a mom, particularly if you won’t be giving birth, taking a title that easily identifies you as a “mom” can go a long way.
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I always appreciate how you have emphasized doing things to balance out the privilege in your family — specifically, the privilege of being the gestational parent. I was thinking about how the same thing could be done in a male-female relationship around sexism and male privilege (and in other relationships around other things, of course). Do you think that makes sense or does it feel like a totally different thing?
Cindy Blank-Edelman recently posted..The Difference between a Therapist and a Friend
I always love it when important people (e.g. Teachers) feel comfortable enough to ask these “awkward” questions. You guys are such a great example as this teacher’s first lesbian family!
The name thing works really well with only one gestational mother, but if you end up switching, you kind of miss out on the second (or whichever number) kid, huh? I noticed that, at least, in our family. When I was gestating, we chose a donor to match my wife’s physical characteristics, and we gave her the name, “mama.” It worked very well for us, for the reasons you describe. But then when she gestated (with the same donor), and was still “mama,” I felt like we were inadventertently playing into the stereotype. Of course, by that point we were seasoned queer mamas, and I do think this kind of thing matters most the first time around, but it seems worth noting that Gail will also be “Ima” to Ira, potentially reinforcing someone’s assumption that she’s “less” his mother for not having gestated him.
@Lex — That’s a really good point. And I agree with you that it being the second time softens that a bit. But how is it going to feel when Ira’s kindergarten teacher assumes that Lyn gave birth to him because both his coloring matches hers AND he calls her Mama? And then makes the leap that I’m “just” the second mom?
I guess in the end I think this is the place where I have to really bring it and put myself out there. Lyn had to do that when she bushwhacked her way through the jungle being a non-bio-mom first. In comparison, I sailed easily into the role (although it wasn’t all easy, if you remember some of the things I wrote), and now I’ll have to take my head out of the sand and keep asserting myself.
@Cindy — I totally agree that straight parents have that same balancing act, but of course with some different subtleties to the power dynamic. Men do get really shut out of caregiving and often no one even notices. And of women do “opt out” of careers because of lots of important and clear reasons that, when averaged over all of us, boil down to patriarchy. I think the balancing task is just a whole lot harder because it’s so hard to see what it would look like to be clear of sexism.
But then again, I’ve seen lots of lesbian couples make what look for all the world like heteronormative choices except that it’s two women. So maybe it’s just hard for all of us!
@Cindy So Lyn notes to me that I actually misunderstood your comment and she’s right! You are thinking about how we could use this idea to combat the wider problems of sexism in male/female relationships, which is interesting. So, for instance, can we balance the fact that for most male/female couples the man is going to earn more because of sexism? What would that look like? Can we give a subtle preference to HER career over HIS because everything else in the world tips the other direction? Or could a couple switch the typical gender of household tasks (she does the yard maintenance while he does all the bake sales) for balance? I love it.
And right now Ira is asking for more dresses in his size while Leigh has been initiating Thomas the Tank Engine so perhaps the kids are in on the balance
Lex– I think there’s another piece here too, in that our first interaction with every system is happening through Leigh. So, Gail will still be “stuck” with the less-recognizable “Ima” when Ira heads to kindergarten (I hesitate to say “stuck” — she carries the name off very well…), but it is very likely that Ira will be attending kindergarten at the same school. By then, everyone will know and understand our family, and hopefully we’ll have less ‘need’ of the title cues to balance how people perceive us. But you’re right, the approach is perhaps more useful, or at least less cumbersome, when only one mom gives birth.
Yes, it makes sense that navigating all of these things the first time around is potentially more complicated, and that things such as mom titles will likely feel less loaded the second (or third, or fourth) time around (especially if subsequent children are in the same kindergarten class, for example). I think it’s hard in my case just because my kids’ other mom (NGP to the first three) really never struggled with her role as the NGP. It was what she wanted, and she never worried about a lack of recognition for her role. Instead, it’s been a struggle for me (NGP to our fourth son), and it would be nice if things like mom titles could have somehow cushioned my transition into this role. Whereas our friends and family were so careful (well, for the most part) to not overly emphasize the fact that it was I who birthed our first three kiddos, everyone was so excited for my ex-wife to finally be taking a turn (myself included), and likely so unconcerned with any potential that I might not feel secure as a mother, that I feel like all of the scaffolding we had built to protect against that dynamic was lost when I became the NGP, and the gestational mom’s biological connection to our fourth son has been very much noted and even celebrated. Does that make sense? I do agree that if our fourth babe is able to go to the same school that his brothers have gone to, that will really help me to feel understood and recognized.
That does make a lot of sense Lex. I have a hunch that had our order in birthing been reversed, my experience would have been much more like yours. Gail likely would have sailed through as an NGP, not quite figuring out how to talk about the parts that may have been hard, or resigning herself to them and making the best of it, and likely genuinely being perfectly fine with all of it. Knowing our personalities, I likely would have been a much more “primary” parent, and then turning the tables, and suddenly feeling a lot of complicated stuff, when apparently my wife had just sailed through with not a care? That would have been really hard.
And even though this post is about “titles” (not sure what you go by with the kids Lex?), more important is our presence at the school. I don’t think the “titles” would have mattered if it was clear that one or the other of us was the mom who was “always there.” This kind of subtlety doesn’t always matter — this was just one place where we noticed it did and it helped. As you point out, sometimes it can hurt.
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