Today is Mother’s Day, and my Facebook wall is filled with Mother’s Day wishes.  My own mother has been dead for many years; she succumbed to lung cancer at a very young age, and I miss her every day. We had a very good relationship when she died, even though we had been through some rocky times over the years. So, I especially thin of her today.

But not every LGBTQ person feels similarly. This morning I chatted with a friend, whose family has pretty much disowned him because he is gay. His mother is no longer overtly hostile, but anything about his life which touches being gay, gets ignored. He wants a closer relationship with her, as well as his Father, but also feels so conflicted. Why should the only efforts to have a relationship with them come from him, and none from his parents? He was looking fort some message to send to his Mother today, that would be authentic to his feelings and come across aligned with a Mother’s Day sentiment. For people like him, all the very positive posts on Facebook, are like rubbing salt into a wound and just remind him of what he doesn’t have- a loving closeness with his Mother.

For others too, Mother’s Day is a celebration of the validity of our queer families. Sons ands daughters sharing loving messages with their two mommies. Manufactured holidays like today are another opportunity to make our families visible for all to see.  As gays and lesbians, we are mothers and fathers as well as daughters and sons.

The number of LGBTQ youth fully disenfranchised from a loving home is huge. Estimates run as high as 40% of homeless youth are queer youth, most of whom have been thrown out of the house or left because living there was too unbearable. As RuPaul says:

We love you, you are so welcomed here. You know we as gay people we get to choose our family. We get to choose the people we’re around. I am your family, we are family here. I love you.

For many queer people, if we didn’t choose our families, we would have none at all. I know I wished several women and men, whom I love “Happy Mother’s Day” today!

Yet, at its core, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are a perpetuation of a heteronormative patriarchy.  Systemically it enforces the notion that gender is an inherent quality of parenting, and that there are gender roles that supersede love. These myths of gender and gender roles damage human beings, and this is illustrated by all of the stories of youth as well as parents who struggle to be good mothers, good children, and all that is associated. Perhaps as queer people, we do not rebel against such heteronormative brainwashing, because we still want to be these good mothers and good children too much?

No matter which side of Mother’s Day you fall, it is what it is ad what you make it out to be. We have relationships that matter and both recognizing those we have as well as those which we lack is a part of being human. Happy Mother’s Day to you.

Photo: Some rights reserved by Laura Thykeson