Getting flak from strangers is not new for Kate Langdon and her wife, but since they had a child together, there’s been a new barrage of questions.
It still surprises me if I’m out somewhere, whether it’s a work event or a social one, and a stranger – who has clocked my wedding ring – asks me if my husband is here too, or what my husband’s name is, or sometimes even what my husband does for a living. I don’t know why these types of questions surprise me, they shouldn’t anymore as I’ve been asked them so often. Because I don’t have a husband, I have a wife. But the sum parts of seeing a wedding ring still equals a hetero marriage for many people. My wife has also been asked these same questions on multiple occasions. Perhaps this is because we don’t fit preconceived stereotypes of what a lady gay should look like, whatever that is. (We like to call ourselves lady gays, I’ve personally never loved the word lesbian).
Questions like these used to send me into an internal spin and I’m ashamed to admit there have been a few occasions when I’ve lied and replied that my husband isn’t here tonight, or that his name is Steve, just to make the questions stop. I don’t do that anymore. Now, I answer honestly, regardless of who is asking. I hope that by answering honestly it might make the person rethink the kind of questions they ask in the future. I refrain from replying: “The 1950s called and they’d like their questions back.”
As a same-sex couple my wife and I have had to put up with some flak from strangers over the years but thankfully this is few and far between these days. In the early days of our relationship there were occasionally some men (a certain type) who couldn’t quite grasp the concept of two women being in a relationship and saw it as some sort of affront to their manhood. We would endure “It’s just because you haven’t met the right cock” type of comments, which were as tedious to endure as it sounds. My wife and I were both straight for many years, we have seen plenty of penises, their penis was most definitely not going to make us straight again. Life would have been a lot easier for us both if it were this simple.
My wife and I have a 10-year-old daughter together and this has led to a whole barrage of new questions from people we don’t know about how she came to be. My favourite reply: “Well, we had been trying for years with no joy, so we decided to go to a fertility clinic.” One thing you can guarantee is that if a same-sex couple has a child a LOT of thought has gone into it. Often a lot of money too. There is no way in hell this baby is an accident.
We were very fortunate in that one of my brothers agreed to be our donor. He is also gay and he and his husband had decided not to pursue having children of their own. I am often asked what involvement my brother has in our daughter’s life, many people assuming he must have a fatherly role of some sort. He doesn’t. He is her uncle, nothing more, nothing less. Our daughter knows that her uncle helped to make her and this is something she has known since she was a toddler.
I also have a younger brother who is gay so it’s three out of four for my lucky parents, who are thankfully very accepting people. It would be a very quiet Christmas Day for them if they weren’t.
Another hot question my wife and I are often asked is which of us gave birth to our daughter. I tend to find this question a little alarming if it follows straight after the “where did you get the sperm?” question. The thought of my brother’s sperm being anywhere near my eggs (even inside a petri dish) is the stuff of nightmares. I get that technically it is possible I could have carried an embryo created from my wife’s egg and my brother’s sperm but no, we used my wife’s eggs and she also carried our daughter. Call us traditional. I had already given birth to my son 10 years prior, so it made sense to us that my wife got to experience this side of things. For me, experiencing both sides of a birth was an interesting juxtaposition and it gave me a new respect for fathers. No one gives a flying shit about you during this marathon event, they really don’t.
My daughter’s existence makes people curious; it’s only natural and I get it. I often forget that it makes a good story because it’s just our life. We have been called a “modern family” more times than I can count.
My daughter is very good at telling anyone who asks that she doesn’t have a Dad, she has two mums, Mama (me) and Mummy (my wife). She says this with pride and it makes me chuffed to see her wear her difference with such confidence. Because she is different to all her friends who have a mum and a dad and she is reminded of this by society on a regular basis, like when Father’s Day rolls around and all the other kids in her class are making cards for their dads. Instead, she has to make two cards and two breakfasts on Mother’s Day, a frantic day for the kid. My wife and I have been in a stalemate for years over one of us switching to Father’s Day, neither of us prepared to budge.
My family aside, we are the only same-sex couple amongst our close circles of friends and we’re certainly the only same-sex couple raising a child together. We don’t know how we compare to other same-sex couples raising children but there’s certainly no difference between us and our hetero friends with how we parent. If there are two parents present there’s generally one who is more likely to be a bit stricter, or one who coaches the football team, or one who takes them to the library, or one who enjoys cooking with them. That’s just how parenting rolls, regardless of the sexes. Like any hetero couple, my wife and I each have our different roles within the household. Not based on gender, simply based on who is better at it, or who has more time.
Our daughter is fortunate to have plenty of wonderful adult male role models in her life; hands-on grandfathers, uncles, our many wonderful male friends, and her 20-year-old big brother who is undoubtedly her biggest and most influential role model and whom she idolises. My wife and I both came out a little later in life (in our early 30s) and both of us had come from long-term relationships with men. These two wonderful men are now our daughter’s two godfathers and a big part of our lives still.
We are lucky to be surrounded by such an accepting and supportive wider whānau and I know that, unfortunately, this isn’t the case for everyone like us.
The little girl I once was, who assumed she would have a husband and four children one day, could never have foreseen the family she would actually end up with. But I reckon she’d think it was pretty darn awesome all the same. By the time our little girl grows up I hope there’s no need for anyone to refer to a family like ours as “modern”, just “family” will do.
