Confessions of the Other Mother: Nonbiological Lesbian Moms Tell All!

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It doesn’t mean I don’t want things for myself, because I do. It just means that sometimes, those things can wait. I agree with a previous person. There needs to be a name for the other mom. honestly, I think dad fits nice – sadly it’s hard to separate gender from the terms mom and dad. My son refers to me as his dad in the playground. He calls me his “ rettadad” when asked.

RUTH: You'll always come across people who are prejudiced. What's amazed us is that we're going through it as adults, and it's easy to forget what it's like for a child. Just recently Lara and I have tried to look at prejudiced behaviour from a seven-year-old's point of view and teach them skills to deal with what may come.

Thank you!

If you go with someone you know, it’s a good idea to consult an attorney to ensure that you have all parental rights outlined from the outset.

We started out with Mama and Mommy, but never really committed and both just referred to ourselves as Mama (as in, ‘your mama’) until it lost all meaning. Then for a while it was Stephamommy (Stephanie + Mommy) and Other Mommy (who is technically the bio-parent. Stephamommy thought that one was hilarious) until we convinced our daughter to start using Mommily (Mama + Emily). Our donor is a close friend, and we refer to him and his wife as Uncle [his first name] and Aunt [her first name]. NATALIE: My family didn't take my coming out very well. They were so homophobic that I moved out at 17. It was only after Ashling and I got together that there was some level of acceptance. Having our children has brought the whole family closer together. They've accepted us and realise that times have changed.

Fun facts about Tassia

We’ve got lots of “Mommy” and “Mama,” but also “Anya,”“Mayma,”“Baba,”“Big Mommy” and “Little Mommy”, “Cita,”“Eema,”“Lala,”“Maddy,””Maman,”“Manna,”“MaPa,”“Mim,”“Mutti,”“Ommi,”“Meemoe,”“Foofie,”“Mami,”“Momo,”“Momily,”“Mombo,”“Mop” (for “My Other Parent,”) and more. For the dads, we’ve got “Dad,”“Daddy,” and “Papa,” as well as “Dadda,”“Papi,”“Pabbi,” and more. Nonbinary parent names include “Maddy,”“Adi,”“Poppy,” and “Nibi.” RUTH: We wanted the children to know who these men are. We don't call them a dad – they are a donor – although the word doesn't quite match or fit the role they play in the children's lives. We see them once every couple of months and the relationships have developed over time. The whole process was quite intense, but we're aware that these fantastic men have helped us out in the most enormous way. Started as Mummy and Daddy, then when I transitioned I became Bibi as a contraction of my new name, Ruby, as son was still mostly non verbal at the time and the ‘b’ sound was one he had in his repertoire so would be easy to say while keeping a clear distinction between parents. Below is a selection of the many wonderful stories people have shared, loosely organized by some themes that emerged (my bold). I also encourage you to browse the full results spreadsheet here. If you haven’t yet submitted a response, I invite you to do so through the form below. Results are public, but are anonymous unless you choose to share your personal name(s). Things are a little mom-heavy right now, but I encourage parents (and grandparents) of all genders to participate! NATALIE: You'd be surprised how many men want to help women in our situation. After our experience, we decided to set up gayfamilyweb.co.uk, offering to connect gay families with donors and other gay families. It was difficult for us to meet other gay women with children in our area – although we had the support of our straight friends, we felt isolated as we had no one to talk to in the same situation.

DAKSHA: I always wanted a child. We asked friends to ask their friends if they'd be a donor, and when one said yes it turned out we knew him already. It was important to us that he was Asian, as we figured Lia would have enough to contend with without having to deal with issues about her nationality, too. We inseminated at home and it took us almost a year to get pregnant. It was difficult and stressful, but we got there in the end. We see Lia's biological father every couple of months. DAKSHA: Seema and I met through work and it was quite instant for me. I hadn't dated an Asian woman before, but it felt so right. When Girton finally told her parents about Freedman, Girton says her parents stopped talking to her for nearly eight years.

Education

I so wish there was another word out there for “non-biological mother” (in a lesbian context, where there is a bio-mom who’s equally part of the parenting). “Non-biological mother” is defined by its negative quality: the person is defined as being *not* the biological mother. I want some word that is descriptive and informative, a word that would help adults describe these relationships we have with our kids to other adults. What I mean is, not something like “heart mom” or a term we might use with our kids, but rather something that could be used to explain our family composition in simple, direct terms. RUTH: My firm belief is that a child's well-being is down to the quality of parenting. Academic results are a little bit about a child's ability and 95% about support from parents to achieve. Lesbian couples have to work so hard to have their families – I suppose for that reason there's a possibility that you make more of an effort. What children need most is unconditional support and love. I don't think it has anything to do with having two mothers. NATALIE: We planned and researched our options thoroughly beforehand, and of course we had to decide what method we wanted to take. It was about finding the process that we felt most comfortable with. We'd initially considered a friend based in the US, who was happy to help us, but we felt it could over-complicate matters. We decided to go for an anonymous donor instead. I am generally the working parent; my wife works part time. Kids have gone through a phase during which they call whatever mom is home “ mommy” and whatever mom is at work “ mama.”

Our 4yr old son calls me Baboo– it’s Italian for dad but many in our area aren’t aware of that. The donor was 100% Italian, so he is 50% Italian, 50% Dutch/English. When he gets older, he can decide if he wants to call me mom or what… Sometimes she calls us collectively ‘ mommyandothermommy‘ which is really cute. She’s 19 months now and still not consistently calling me Mema, but she’s got ‘Mom’ firmly established in her vocab. Sometime before they turned 2, they started calling us “ mama/mommy (first name).” They are 4.5 now, and it’s still going strong. Before they were born, I thought that hearing them use our first names would be strange or uncomfortable, but it happened organically and came from them, so it feels like the most natural thing in the world now.Lara, 41, and Ruth, 45, have been together for 10 years. They have seven-year-old twins, Bell and Isaac, and Ross, who is three and a half, and they live in north London My oldest calls me mama and her other mom is mommy. We are divorced and I have remarried so my wife is her step mom. My current wife and I have a son – both kids call me mama and my wife (daughters step mom and sons mom) Ba -it’s Chinese for dad and the title she was most comfortable with. We are raising our son bilingual English/Spanish. In Spanish “a” at the end of a word signals feminine and “o” signals masculine. So Mamo sort of means “masculine or butch mom.” We both respond to Mom and Mommy. Our kiddo sees those as “category” words and switches to the right name Mama/Mamo for a specific parent. NATALIE: For us, our focus is to be honest about our sexuality and open to any questions we're asked by our children as they get older. We probably emphasise how special they are and how special our family is a lot more than straight families. Sanne is only three and a half, but she's already being asked questions at nursery about where her daddy is and why she's drawing two mums – we just make sure she feels secure enough in our family to answer.