On Being the Mum Who Dates Other Mums

Guest Post by Mary Breen

When my daughters were 10 and 4, I left their dad. It wasn’t because I had come to a realization about my sexuality – I’d always known I was bi – but because he was turning into an alcoholic, and was no longer willing or able to be a loving partner. For several years after we split, I still dated men (which he hated). Then one summer, about 12 years ago now, I started dating a woman. Not any woman, but another mum at High Park Alternative, where my younger daughter went to school. Really, where else was I going to meet romantic partners, given my schedule as full-time breadwinner and primary caregiver to my children?

Having raised my girls to embrace diversity, I had no qualms about how they’d react. Truth be told, they weren’t all that interested; as long as kids are feeling secure, loved and cared for, they don’t give a hoot what their parents do for fun. But that didn’t mean the situation was without its drama. I told my ex, so he wouldn’t hear it from somebody else. His reaction: “It’s not enough that we’re divorced? Now the girls have to go through this?” Go through what? I wondered. He was the one who had brought a girlfriend into their lives with little warning. I, on the other hand, was adamant that no partner of mine would get to know my kids for at least 6 months. I also felt that having a mother who dates women was going to have no impact, or a positive one, whereas having a dad who was descending into alcoholism could (and did) do severe and lasting damage.
One day my 7 year old told a school friend, “My mum’s going out with Jane’s mum.” It wasn’t shocking to her, but it was kind of interesting, so she innocently shared the information. Another older girl overhead this exchange, told some more kids, and pretty soon everybody knew. It’s a small school, and it must have been a slow news day. A couple of days later, my ex-husband was standing in the hallway, and heard an exchange between two mothers, that went something like this:

Mother #1 - “Did you know Sophie’s mum is going out with Jane’s mum?”
Mother #2 - “I heard. There’s nothing wrong with it, of course, but I didn’t want to have to explain homosexuality so soon!”

To his credit, my ex was pretty enraged. Kids are exposed to sexual violence, spousal abuse and a plethora of awful truths about human behaviour from the time they can turn on a TV or computer, but these parents were saying there is an age below which they shouldn’t know that some grown-up women love other women, and some grown-up men love other men. What???

Things kind of blew up in the face of Jane’s mum because she had not had the foresight to tell her daughter we were dating, and the poor girl heard it from another kid... at the spring concert. After that things fizzled. Neither of us was really up for dealing with the hassle of the parent chatter. I got pretty tired of hearing comments like, “Oh, I saw a photo in the paper of your friend at the Dyke March.” And? I was never clear whether this was a wink, wink, nudge, nudge kind of remark, or an attempt to acknowledge that my identity was known and accepted. The intention might have been kind, but I wasn’t asking anybody to judge whether I was “acceptable”.
Fast forward a dozen years, and I’ve settled down with the love of my life. She’s not a step-mother to my children, exactly, having come into their lives when they were already 21 and 15. But it’s really nice to have expanded the size of our tiny family. As for my sexual orientation, it remains a non-issue. But I will always cherish the moment during her first year at university when my older daughter phoned expressly to thank me for bringing her up in a household free from fear and discrimination. She had just befriended a young man who had been disowned by his parents and kicked out of his own home because he was gay. My children always celebrate Pride weekend with me, not because I happen to be a lesbian, but because they believe that everyone in this world deserves the same rights, freedom and respect.

Mary Breen is the owner of the Wise daughters Craft Market, she is also a talented community organizer.