Our Own Little Cocoon of Family Weirdness

Every month, I get to write about topics that mean something to me, and hopefully to you as well. Sometimes I am a bit stumped, but then inevitably, I have a conversation or observe something regarding being human, and I think, “whomp, there it is”.

This month is different.

This month is personal and I feel vulnerable and really “out”, which is surprising to me. This month, my wonderful editor has asked me to write something about Mother’s Day, and specifically about my family’s experience of Mother’s day. Because, in my family, there are two of us – moms, that is. I have been thinking about what to write for a month now, and each time, I just feel like a fraud. I don’t have the classic story of coming out. I didn’t identify as gay as a child or adolescent, I didn’t hide my true self for years, and when I fell in love with a woman, most people in my life were just happy that I was in love.

Writing about Mother’s Day and what it means as a same-sex, female couple feels like it should be something reserved for all of the women who have gone before me, in order to get to a point where my experience of “coming out” was essentially painless. That said, this is my column and I agreed to write about Mother’s Day in my family, so let me tell you what it means for us…
Likely, the same exact thing it means for you.

Mother’s Day means we get a sweet, yet odd craft that was made at daycare. It’s beautiful and impractical and we both struggle with how to store this year’s paper-popsicle flower for a lifetime. Mother’s Day is scrambling at the last minute to get cards from our three year old, and booking an overpriced brunch where we are given a single carnation (we just ask for two carnations). Mother’s Day is spent trying to live our best life and not worry about that Sunday laundry pile in the corner. It’s about looking at our stunning and hilarious little girl and being grateful that we all found each other in this lifetime. If I had my way, Mother’s Day would also include some sort of family dance routine, but both my partner and my daughter are too cool for that.

I guess that’s the thing: my family and other same-sex couple families are really more “normal” than you’d think, and by “normal”, I mean functionally dysfunctional because a therapist knows these things. We get into fights, we squabble over who the hell loaded the dishwasher like this, we worry about each other, we love each other, and together we have created our own little cocoon of family weirdness – which feels like the best kind of home.

So, to my fellow mothers: whether your home has one matriarch or more, happy Mother’s Day. May we continue to walk with each other in this beautiful sisterhood, arm in arm, because as tired as we all are, this really is the best gig in the world.