Tweet
Yesterday, I tweeted the following:
I don’t feel like I have a day as a parent. I’m not truly a mother, & I’m truly not a father either – I’m just a parent.
It was in response to an Allyson Robinson’s tweet that was only tangential to considering transgender parenting. Frankly, my oldest son calls me “Autumn,” and my twins and I aren’t on speaking terms. But even if my twins and I were on speaking terms, I’m about 100% sure that they don’t see me as a Mom to them at all.
Mom’s Day hasn’t seemed like my day, but Dad’s Day hasn’t felt like my day either. And, as far as I know anyway, there is no gender neutral parents’ day.
Anywho, yesterday began as another kind “Hallmark Card” kind of day where people celebrate motherhood or fatherhood in a way that I haven’t felt a connection to as a parent.
But, I forgot about April.
April is a wonderful, young, now 21 year old trans woman I took under my wing a few years back. Sometimes April and I act like friends, sometimes I act as her mentor — and sometimes I’ve acted as her “trans mom,” and she as my “trans daughter.”
Yep, I forgot about April, but she didn’t forget about me. She called me up on Sunday, and wished me “Happy Mother’s Day.” I told her I didn’t feel like a mom, and then gave her the story about how I didn’t feel like a mother or a father to my three kids, and what feelings I did have for my three kids were of that of a kind of gender-neutral “parent.”
Then she reminded me that she was my trans daughter, and asked if I forgot about her.
Y’know, I love April dearly as family, but I was thinking too “in the box” about parents and children yesterday to remember her in that way. I had to tell her I did forget, and boy-oh-boy, did I ever feel stupid for a moment.
Many of us in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community create our own families in our own, non-traditional ways. Sometimes these are formal families, and sometimes these families are very informal. Sometimes we lose all or some of our traditional families when we come out, and sometimes our new formal or informal families become family we cherish deeply because of the losses in traditional family we experience.
Well, April is my family, and I forgot about our informal family relationship on Mother’s Day until she reminded me of our family relationship. After reminding me, she again wished me a Happy Mother’s Day.
My eyes welled with tears, as they’re welling now as I think about that call.
I’ll never think “in the box” about my family again. Thank you, April, for reminding me that often times in the LGBT community, family love isn’t just about who our partners are, or the children that are warmly embraced by partnered LGBT couples. Sometimes, it’s love between disparate community members that creates family in our very broad, yet very granular LGBT community.
So, with a smile I add here too that I forgot that I’m also the “Mom” to my kats Bon-Bon and Maggie. 
Reeeeeally thinking out of the box now, LOL!
7 Comments
Happy Mother’s Day, AutumnI wanted so much to say that to you yesterday when I saw the tweet, but chickened out and didn’t know how to say those few simple words. It broke my heart a bit…
A wonderful story.
I think this is an issue for a lot of people who don’t fit neatly into a gender box.My partner is a female-identified butch woman. We hope to be parents this time next year. She has been clear that she doesn’t want to be called Mom or any other feminine term, nor does she want to be Dad or a masculine one. (We have a more unique term we picked up from another family with a butch and a femme parent that we plan to use.) I asked if she’ll want to share Mother’s Day next year, or if we should designate a different day for her. She said she’ll just have her birthday instead. I do wonder what it will be like when it’s time for projects in school for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, and what our potential child might decide to do.
Autumn, I’m glad you have a chosen daughter to celebrate the day with you.
That’s the problem with Mother’s and Father’s Day-there’s a lot of creepy normalization embedded into them that leaves a fucking lot of people out. Facing South wrote a post on the origins of Mother’s Day as a progressive, pacifist, activist holiday:
“Anna Jarvis intended the new holiday to honor all mothers beginning with her own — Anna Reeves Jarvis, who had died in 1905. Although now largely forgotten, Anna Reeves Jarvis was a social activist and community organizer. In 1858, Anna Reeves Jarvis organized poor women in West Virginia into “Mothers’ Work Day Clubs” to raise the issue of clean water and sanitation in relation to the lives of women and children. She also worked for universal access to medicine for the poor. Reeves Jarvis was a pacifist who served both sides in the Civil War by working for camp sanitation and medical care for soldiers of the North and the South. In short, Mother’s Day was founded to celebrate a radical community organizer who favored universal health care and was a pacifist.”
http://www.southernstudies.org…
At its roots, it’s an inclusive, universally-oriented holiday that got incredibly distorted by commercial forces. Dunno, maybe everyone knew that already, but reading that made me feel a sense of positivity and empowerment that I certainly never associated with the holiday.
you have lots of family Autumnfrom April to Zythyra! And we’ll all be over for lunch soon
I never got around to posting this yesterday, folks should also check out Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation of 1870. Funny how the pacifist origins of various holidays are always left out of the Hallmark-ization!
And now you know why i said…I was soo lucky to have two days
Oddly enoughMy daughter made me a mother’s day card. And my prodigal son (long story) called at 12:30 am to wish me a happy mother’s day as well. I’m not as weirded out by the day this year.
Thanks AutumnFor reminding us that not all family relationships are biological.
I have one brother who is not related at all, he’s my other brother’s best friend. His mom had very little interest in raising him so he spent most of his time with my family. He only went home to sleep most nights. He too sends Mom a mothers day card every year and his kids call her Nana just like the rest of the grandchildren. His own mother tells people that she gave birth to him and my parents raised him.
Love truly is the basis of a family.