Father, Mother, Butch, Femme, Parent

LesbianDad has a thought-provoking Father’s Day post on fatherhood in lesbian families, and her chosen role as Baba, a “parent midway between Mother and Father.” This brings to mind some of Kwynne’s earlier postings on Butch Baby Makin’ in which she talks about parenthood and butch identity.

These are important views that don’t get a lot of airtime, especially in mainstream discussions of same-sex parenting. In a society that can barely get its collective mind around the idea of LGBT parents in general, the thought of a butch mother or a parent betwixt mother and father is totally off the scale.

This was one of my main criticisms of Peggy Drexler’s book, Raising Boys Without Men. Despite the goal of showing that lesbians and single moms can raise “normal,” masculine boys, she never brings up issues of butch-femme identity or explores how butch moms might affect lesbians’ sons conceptions of masculinity.

LesbianDad, however, handles matters with an openness and a willingness to teach:

When others who aren’t queer ask me the paternity questions (usually with the graciousness that accompanies questions that are, after all, good-naturedly voyeruistic) I, for one, answer with the cheery, practiced diplomacy of a museum docent. And with no resentment. I get it that that’s what I am at this point in the history of the American family—docent to the early 21st century lesbian wing of it, and it behooves me to enlighten everyone who shares my child’s world.

This reminds me of what I wrote last fall on both “How to Respond When Meeting Lesbian Moms,” and how to influence the “unbiased but unknowing.” I love LesbianDad’s “docent” analogy, though. Not all of us want to take on this role, but for those of us who do, the term fits perfectly.

I’ll save my own experience with parenting and butch-femme identity for another post, since this is getting long already. Thanks to LesbianDad for her insights.