Father’s Day is this Sunday—a holiday that might seem to exclude families with two moms. The reality is a little more complex.
Here’s what to keep in mind about the holiday:
- Some two-mom families celebrate one parent, regardless of gender, on Father’s Day (sometimes renamed to Mama’s Day or Baba’s Day, or the like), just to give each person a day of their own; others pile both moms onto Mother’s Day. (LGBTQ Families Day is for the whole family, but it’s still nice to honor people for their specific chosen titles.)
- Some of our children do have people they consider fathers, however, either a birth father in an adoptive or foster family, a father from a mother’s former relationship, a or a father coparenting with the mothers, among other possibilities. Whether they choose to celebrate them on Father’s Day is an individual choice.
- For families formed via donor insemination, however, a donor is in most cases not the same as a father. Often the child never meets their donor or only does so at the age of 18. In some families, though, the donor does play a more active role in the children’s lives—though that doesn’t necessarily mean they will take the title “father”—so it’s always a good idea to ask a family how they refer to their donor (assuming you have reason to refer to the donor at all and aren’t just being nosy).
- Some children have one parent who is a transgender woman, but who still thinks of herself as their father. Other times, though, as Brynn Tannehill wrote a few years ago in Salon, sometimes that doesn’t quite feel right. Dawn Ennis, another trans woman, has also offered her perspective on being “a mom whom my kids call ‘Dad.’” Conversely, other children started with two moms, one of whom transitioned and now identifies as a dad. There are lots of possibilities, and no single way of marking Father’s Day.
- Even when our children don’t have fathers themselves, their lives are full of fathers in other ways. Many of us LBTQ moms have at least one, if not two, grandfathers to our children (although some of us have two moms or nonbinary parents ourselves). We may have brothers and other relatives who are fathers or father figures, and we know fathers of our children’s friends. We often know gay, bi, and trans dads who (along with many straight, cis, dads), remind us of the various ways of being a father today.
- Just because many of our children don’t have someone they call “Dad” doesn’t mean we and they don’t value the many people in this world who claim that title. My own family always celebrated my and my spouse’s dads on Father’s Day (though this was usually a low-key celebration in the form of a card and phone calls, as they didn’t live nearby). My dad died more than a decade ago now, and not a day goes by that I don’t still miss him.
- If you have a need to know which parenting holiday a family celebrates (say, if you’re a teacher planning class projects), just ask, “How does your family celebrate Mother’s Day and Father’s Day?” with a tone of polite inquiry, not incredulity. Welcoming Schools has more ideas for how teachers can make these holidays more inclusive of all students—something also valuable for children who have a nonbinary parent (though there’s a day for them now, too), may have lost a parent, are being raised by grandparents, or who have some other “non-traditional” family structure.
- The bottom line for the parenting holidays, to me, is the celebration of our parenting roles and relationships, labels be damned.
I should also note that while my dad was fully accepting of my lesbian identity, I also know that too many queer people have difficult relationships with their fathers because of the fathers’ biases and difficulties accepting them as who they are. For others, too, fathers who were abusive or grossly irresponsible can make the observance of Father’s Day challenging at best. I wish healing and peace to everyone who struggles with this day.
For anyone who does celebrate Father’s Day, however you do so and whomever you honor, I hope it is a day of love, joy, family, and connection.
(This piece is based on several earlier posts, but reflects how I’m feeling this year.)