“Nooooo”, our two-year-old daughter corrects me in her customary sing-song voice, “not two mummies!” That takes me by surprise.
I am her mother and so is Deb, my partner of 12 years. When we were lucky enough to have a baby, it never occurred to me my daughter wouldn’t think of us as her two mummies. We tried for over six years to get pregnant, so I had plenty of time to buy into the romance of the two-mummy family.
I’d heard straight friends mention this or that kid in their own child’s class with two mothers; and as soon as we started trying to conceive, I’d trawled Amazon for children’s books depicting kids with same-sex parents, like that American classic, Heather has Two Mommies. Of course, the root of my daughter’s disavowal was no more than the simple fact that in our family I’m known as Mummy and Deb is known as Ma, names we assigned before she was born.
We hadn’t opted for symmetrical titles like lesbian mothers Bette and Tina did in the American TV series, The L Word, who called themselves “Mama B” and “Mama T”. So, as far as our daughter was concerned, it’s preposterous to suggest she has two mummies: clearly, she had one Mummy and one Ma.
It’s such a common-sense proposition, yet when I delved into it I found myself running headlong into several assumptions about us as lesbian parents. I realised I had assimilated the lesbian parenting model constructed for us by the outside world. It’s society that constructs us as a female parent conglomerate, not our daughter. She discerns us in the specific, not the generic. Ma takes her to the park to feed the ducks and Mummy makes her laugh by putting a nappy on her toy chicken.
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I don't think father is the right word for the donor. I can't recall my mumS ever telling me I didn't have a father, to us he was a young man who gave my parents a wonderful gift - me! As I grew up I told people I didn't have a father I had 2 mums. I referred to him as my donor. When I had the chance to meet the anonymous sperm donor less than 12 months ago, I wasn't expecting an instant father, after meeting him I struggled with what to refer to him as donor donor seemed to clinical. I got very lucky and he is a wonderful and generous man who I have grown close to, I refer to him as my dad but I call him by his name. Seeing the similarities I have with him and his daughters made me realise how strong that genetic link is. I think it's wrong to tell a child they don't have a father or refer to the generous man as nothing more than sperm in a cup, he is their biological father and should never be dismissed
Thanks for your personal story, Lucy. This is exactly what I was trying to say in my earlier comment below, but did not have a private experience to share.