No two parents are alike, including when they’re both women. Tess Rogers pens an ode to Mum and Mama.

“Who’s your real mum?”

It’s a question I became used to as I grew up, though it never stopped making me flinch. I quickly taught myself to stand up straight, look the other kids in the eye, and say “they’re both my real mum”. I knew what they meant to ask: which one gave birth to me? It was never intended to offend, but it did imply that one of my mums was more important than the other, and even at seven years old I knew that wasn’t the case.

Often I presume the world has caught up – we all go about our lives and most people don’t bat an eyelid. But when I speak to queer couples my age (late 20s), women in particular, they have a lot of questions about how I feel about having two mums. They would love to have kids, but want to check how it has shaped me, for better or for worse.

Not that it affected me hugely, but I did manage to go way too long in life before realising that the word that described my parents’ sexuality was “lesbian”, and not “ellesbian”. A girl had once asked me if my mum was “a lesbian”. I misheard, and the damage was done. As far as I was concerned, I had two wonderful ellesbian mothers.

Mum gave birth to me in 1997, and four years later, Mama took her turn and gave birth to my sister. At the time they each had to go through the family court to become both of our legal guardians. My donor has never been a part of my life, although I did meet him for the first time last year. It was an amazing experience, but there was no man-shaped hole in my childhood to fill – I had two parents who loved me deeply. My sister has a different donor who has always been in our lives, meaning that she and I share no biological connection. Yet, we would get confused for each other on the phone constantly, and she is in attendance at any closet clear-out I have ever had, as any little sister should be.

When I was 11 years old I had the world’s worst language teacher. She matched her eyeshadow to her cardigans, and took great pleasure in bullying children. One day she had our class respond to the roll call by listing our family, poorly, in French. I didn’t know how to say two mums, so I said: ma mère, ma mère. She glared daggers and told me I was wrong. She told me to stand up and do it properly, and I didn’t change a thing, looking straight at her: ma mère, ma mère. I was ordered to go again, and then one more time. I didn’t want to pretend I had one mum, or a dad even. My heart was racing and my face was probably bright red, but with an audience who knew my family and hated this woman, I said clearly and calmly “my parents are lesbians” (I had learned the correct term by this point, thank god). She quickly moved on.

When I got home and told mums, they were furious. Furious that I had been forced to explain myself, furious that it had happened in front of 30 other children, and furious that this woman hadn’t even considered the possibility of an unconventional family. Mama wanted to complain. I BEGGED her not to. I had stood my ground, my classmates thought it was cool, and I really wanted the whole thing to be over. I didn’t want any more attention and I’d be distraught if she did anything further. It upset her, but she never told the school.

Mama was right, that teacher absolutely deserved discipline. They would have fought for me hard, and I knew that, but instead I was taught that I could trust them to listen to me. I could come to them with a problem and know it was safe. And at the end of the term the teacher had to give me a certificate for being the top of my class, so I got the sweet, sweet revenge I felt I deserved.

That is one of the only times in my life that I was singled out because of my family, and I actually love that story. I think it sums us up pretty nicely. We stand up for ourselves when we need to, and we have each others’ backs.

In my 20s I started dropping the fact that I have two mums in conversation much more brazenly, without feeling like the follow up questions fall back on me: Is one more like a dad?

It’s asked with curiosity, no malice, but it’s a difficult one to answer gently. What do you mean? As far as I can tell, most fathers are different, and I can’t possibly know if one of my mums is more like your dad. Is one more stern? Is one more athletic? Is one more prone to tough love? Is one giving me mummy issues?

I’m aware that on the surface they mean: do two women raising a child subscribe to (very) traditional family dynamics? Maybe one is the breadwinner, maybe one seems more masculine for that reason.

Well, is your dad a good parent? Yes? Then, yes. Both my mums are a little like your dad in that sense. And, like any two people who have chosen to spend their life together, I’m more likely to call one to change a tire, and one to proofread my homework. That’s how personalities work, and gender stereotypes won’t help you to understand who they are as people, or who I am because of them.

My mums are two very different people but they are both thoughtful, funny, kind and flawed. They each have their strengths and weaknesses, neither of them give tough love, and neither is particularly masc/femme. Just women now in their 60s, minding their own business in their coloured puffer jackets.

The truth of it is, no two people make me feel safer, and any time I have ever needed them, they are there before I can blink twice. When I was stuck in my car during the Auckland floods, I called mum before I even considered an emergency service, and 15 minutes later she was somehow by my side. When I called them crying in a Melbourne park the other week, I was on a flight home the next day, just because their couch was where I needed to recoup (and to be clear that has only happened one time when I was truly going through the ringer).

They’re quiet people, who have always cheered me and my sister on to follow the paths that make us happiest. I’m endlessly proud that we walk through life and get to point to our two unassuming mums behind us when people comment on our successes.

Of course we also drive each other up the wall and I wouldn’t dare give any details about their previously stated flaws, but I have known one thing to be true my entire life: they’re both my real mum and I wouldn’t have it any other way.