It's an easy issue to succumb to in our world. I remember dealing with the "Other" mother role. On one hand, I was not the person giving birth to our child. On the other, I'm a woman. I wanted control over every aspect of our child's initiation to this world: from his genetic make up to his independent sleeping rituals. More important than my gender identification, was my title. I was (and still am) a mom, not a dad.
Dad's can be aloof. They can find comfort in being second. It's part of their role.
So that was fine. We did it "my" way inseminating with my uncle (so that I was genetically connected) and I co-breastfed and surprisingly often felt like "first" in his life, but 4 years later he still sleeps with us. (You negotiate these things in a same sex household.)
Then I became "not other" mother. I'm "first" with one but solidly "second" now with the other. I lost it in a torrid of tears the other day in a separate room after he casually mentioned how he loves Ema more. I think the dependency of our second on my breast milk hurt the first and now, well the bed is really crowded now. It's not always easy to really connect with the first. I think Ema will still be primarily "first" as long as I'm primarily "first" with our second.
Someone referred to me as "the butch" the other day, and I think it's because they, a fellow "other" mother, felt like a butch. My high school students refer to "butches" as "Aggs" (short for "Aggressives") and refer to me as such if I wear comfortable clothing. If my shirt has a low neck line however, or a couple sparkly touches, I've noticed I instantly lose my "Agg" status.
How ridiculous, right? My role, my status, my very personality changed by whether or not the laundry is done? I'd utterly reject these roles as a heterosexual if that were my plight and I was keen enough to notice them, but we don't. It took me a lifetime to become aware of how all encompassing my life was affected due entirely to the fact of my being born a woman, let alone the additional years it took to compartmentalize my life as a queer (although that happened quicker). Now we add family dynamics to the mix.
It makes you worry. Like when the notion that because we have two boys, we'll "lose" them when they grow up and marry. This notion reduced me to tears when I found out the sex of my second! But now, I imagine Niky as a female and can't see how he'd really be any different than he is. And the way attitudes are changing - like how I read a blog off Facebook about an overheard conversation between two heterosexual dads on a subway as they discussed their gay sons. When one asks what they "do" now (that they've discovered they both have gay boys) the other says “We don’t do anything. We let em be gay and if some kid calls em a faggot we go to their house and raise hell with the parents like normal.” - This seems normal to me, like it shifts a lot of nonsense around until the path becomes simply obvious.
Maybe that's the way it's going to be with us. It bothers me when Kody refers to me as a "dad" of sorts, or expresses discomfort with male/female genderized dichotomies but he knows I'm the one who softens the consequences his Ema imparts on him, and I'm the one who makes him his chocolate chip pancakes. I daresay the differences between the roles of "mom" and "dad" are less and less important as we move away in time from the initial difference of who gave birth. I think breast feeding perpetuates the mom's role as "first". How is he going to negotiate all these expectations as he grows to humanhood under our care? Will it matter much to him? Will he even notice the differences?
My guess is no, at least not right away. Until then, at least the speed of progress appears to be increasing.
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