Mother’s Day (and Father’s Day after it) can be fraught times for LGBTQ parents and our children, often underscoring that our families are different. I try to see them, however, as opportunities to reclaim and extend the holidays and to remind the world that queer families exist. This year, that’s more important than ever.
Simply being visible as an LGBTQ-headed family takes on renewed importance in this era when governments are trying to ban our identities, prevent us from becoming parents, fire us from our jobs, and (without success) invalidate our marriages, among other things. Add in the attacks on all types of families, particularly the most marginalized, including attempts to restrict access to fertility healthcare and make budget cuts that put prenatal and postpartum care, child care, and more family-related resources at risk.
By being visible, we offer positive examples to LGBTQ prospective and new parents, and we remind those outside our community that a nation’s commitment to its children means all of its children. By raising our voices and being seen on the parental holidays, we resist the attempts of those trying to ignore, silence, and reject us, and we welcome all who take on the mantle of parenthood.
We also resist every time we meet with our children’s teachers to discuss how they are going to be celebrating the parental holidays in their classrooms and how they can make sure all families are included and honored. Teachers resist every time they proactively offer children inclusive ways of celebrating these holidays.
We resist when we repunctuate the holiday names (we’ve all seen that cartoon), or when we keep them as is to honor single queer parents or those parenting with someone of a different gender who gets their own day. (Fun fact: 53% of LGBTQ parents are partnered with a different gender, cisgender person.) Leaving out the apostrophe entirely, a la “Veterans Day,” is another solution. (Mother’s Day founder Anna Jarvis wanted the singular possessive to indicate that one was honoring one’s own mother—but today, I think we need to be more flexible.) Or go with “Motherz Day” and “Fatherz Day” if you’re feeling edgy.
We resist when we go out to eat as a family and insist on the Mother’s Day discount for both moms. (My spouse and I have done this; I highly recommend it.) Same for Father’s Day and both dads. We resist when we use the holidays (or develop our own) to honor our children’s birth parents, donors, or other important grown-ups in their lives as well.
We resist when we celebrate the holiday that aligns with our gender identity; when we celebrate one holiday as Mommy’s Day and the other as Mama’s Day, or Daddy’s Day and Papa’s Day; or change one or both to Baba’s Day or Maddy’s Day or whatever parental name we use; or observe our own holiday, like Nonbinary Parents Day.
Resistance can also mean not celebrating the parental holidays at all because our relationship to our parent(s) or child(ren) is poor; if we have struggled to start or grow our families; if the loss of a parent or child makes them too painful; or for any other reason that connects them with sadness or trauma. Practicing self-care is healthy for ourselves and can give us more energy for our families and for taking action in the world.
We resist, too, when we use the time between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day as a season to speak out for the wide diversity of families, even if we also use the days to honor particular members of our own. This is one of the reasons I created LGBTQ Families Day (formerly Blogging for LGBTQ Families Day) to be the first weekday of June. Not only is it the start of Pride Month, but it sits roughly midway between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day—honoring both, but reminding us that not all families fit neatly into those two days. I hope you will join us this year on Monday, June 2, 2025—here’s how.
Finally, but importantly, we resist when we simply celebrate the parental holidays with our children at home, reveling in our love for each other and in our survival, despite the attempts to bring us down. Queer joy is itself an act of resistance.
However you celebrate (or not) Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, may you find love, joy, and a renewed resilience for the rest of the year.
I first wrote a version of this piece in 2019. I wish the need for resistance was no longer growing.