Queering Mother's Day

This Mother's Day blog is a guest post by Loren of Fuck Yeah Weddings. (Photo: Loren and their little; Photo Credit: Aeden Smith, In the Wild Art & Design)

If you would like to submit a guest blog to the Seattle Pride website, please email us at: pr@seattlepride.org

Holidays can be a little bit of a sticky spot for those of us in the LGBTQIA community at times, and when we are queer parents we have a special opportunity to reclaim them with our children, or opt out all together. I personally have found reclaiming holidays and creating new traditions to be healing for both my partner and myself, and the kid loves that we do things differently. Mother’s Day is one that I have had a difficult relationship with for different reasons, contributing to that was the process of realizing, and coming out, as non-binary with a 4 year old who calls me by very gendered Mom names. I was the gestational parent for my child, and at the time I was going through pregnancy and early days of “motherhood” I struggled with relating to the usual mom stuff, not to mention the ways in which other mothers related with each other, the majority of them being cis, straight and married to men. Few knew I was queer, and even I didn’t understand my gender yet.

I still identify as my child’s mother, and he calls me mom and we celebrate Mother’s Day. To others I call myself a parent, and prefer to be referred to as such. So what are we to do when we have these holidays that feel very binary, cis/het focused that don’t fit? We queer them right up for ourselves & our community!

Alternatively, those who are non-binary, there is a non-binary parents day which my kid celebrates with his Baba. I’ve found a lot of my non-binary parent friends aren’t aware of this holiday, so put it on your calendar for the 18th of April next year and wish a Happy Non-Binary Parents Day to all the enbies (non-binaries) in your life with littles!

Don’t want to celebrate that holiday, but Mother’s & Father’s Day don’t fit either? There is also Parents Day- celebrated June 1st according to the United Nations, or Nationally the fourth Sunday in July. Why not celebrate all of them? We deserve it!

When I think of Mother’s Day I think of handmade coupon books, tulips & flowers, gift certificates to the spa and handmade crafts. Marketing and gifts are geared very floral and femme, which is just too stereotypical for the range of amazing queer moms/parents and personal style. For those queers who are looking for gifts for Mom I highly recommend checking out the “Weird Mom” merch from Drawings by Nicole, from clothing to patches/stickers, sunglasses and more you can’t go wrong for those alt moms looking for some swag. For art prints, plant pots for the Plant Daddies (my favorite are inclusive representations of fat bodies, trans bodies, etc.) you can’t go wrong browsing on Etsy for a small queer owned shop.

One of my favorite kinds of gifts to give and receive are art prints, and there are so many options out there for affordable prints from artists. What does the queer mom in your life love? Maybe a Schitt’s Creek Print, or a beautiful reminder that they matter, and deserve to take up space like the Milky Way.

For a whole experience a class from a favorite artist, poet or author? Andrea Gibson recently started offering poetry classes on Zoom, and having gone through the series myself I can say nothing beats a compliment from your favorite queer poet to go with a signed copy of one of their books. I also highly recommend the good old classic: Queer Brunch. Either at home with your kids, or grab all the Mom’s in your life, grab takeaway from a local restaurant doing specials and take it to a park to enjoy in a Covid-friendly way!

However you celebrate, I hope you feel seen and loved this Mother’s Day.

Links Referenced:

https://drawingsbynicole.com/
https://plantdaddyco.shop/
https://andreagibson.org/