Identity.  It is a fundamental human construct.  It’s interesting to watch my kids move from the puppy dog-level questions of “Who are you?” and “What’s that?” to the infinitely more complex question of “Who am I?”  But unlike being able to name “ducky!” and “kitty!” for them, “Who am I?” is a question they’ll have to struggle lifelong to answer for themselves.  Sometimes I can barely answer it for myself.

“Mom,” says the apron I wear in the kitchen when I’m cooking something particularly spattery or messy.  A number of very thoughtful writers have explored what happens to individual identity when one makes the jump into parenthood.  In my quest to understand this process, I read lots of them.  Having done the coming out thing previous to parenthood, the process of transition, of crossing over, was at least a little familiar.  That is, if the total unknown can ever be described as familiar, and whoever gave you directions was a little drunk, and then it snowed so the whole place looks different anyway. 

But I’m not the only one who has seen the similarities between these processes.  Meg Wolitzer’s essay in a book on new motherhood describes that period of indoctrination into motherhood with a story about a friend of hers, who (yes I’m going to quote it for you, shush):  “had realized she was a lesbian, and partook of everything gay or lesbian-related she could find.  She joined groups, she marched for miles, she stuffed envelopes, and she had lots and lots of sex with women.  Then, after a while, she didn’t need to remind herself she was a lesbian so often, and even when she wasn’t reminding herself, the title stuck.”  We stalk, capture, and eventually inhabit these new identities, until it’s no longer that we are them, we are just us.

Neat and tidy.  I have a baby, I become a parent, I am Mom.  Great.  But wait… am I still a lesbian?  I look up at Wolitzer’s list and notice marching for miles, stuffing envelopes, and having lots and lots of sex with women doesn’t seem to have much to do with breastfeeding and diapers and which sippy cup doesn’t leak.  Even now that I’m out of those years, the list also doesn’t have much to do with making school lunches, arranging playovers, and being the homework bitch. Sometimes these identities don’t play nicely together at all.  Sometimes the juxtaposition is awkward.  Unfortunately, it is identity we’re talking about, and stifling any part of it, especially a hard-fought-for queerness, will only work for so long.

Some lesbian mothers, usually happily coupled ones, settle graciously within motherhood.  Both the earth mothers and the overachievers delightedly trade their cats for offspring with opposable thumbs.  Others of us feel each identity grate on the other like cogs that just don’t mesh.  I found myself pondering recently while driving carpool that I know a number of queer mommies with pierced nips.  Well, I do!  Then I realized I cannot imagine any of the straight mommies I know even contemplating such a thing.  I know it’s just as likely they have blindfolds and riding crops in their closets, and yet, that still falls so much more clearly into queer identity than motherhood.  Although the blindfold comes in handy for the birthday party Pin the Tail on the Donkey games!

Thus I juggle these two equally legitimate but sometimes quarrelsome facets of my own queer mommyhood.  I’m the one who is always on edge when reading at the local x-rated open mic, alert in case one of the school mommies stops into the women’s bookstore for a book on sensitive parenting.  I’m the one debating whether wearing that stylish skirt would tip me into anyone’s femme column.  This queer parenting thing constantly requires one to work for balance between Somewhat Hip Dyke and Responsible Mommy, elbowing new spaces into both roles.  The compromises show up in odd places.

For a number of years now, since I’ve worn my hair cut short again, I’ve implored my stylist with one simple warning:  cut it as short as you want, but please, don’t scare the mommies -- because of course it’s one thing to be a little edgy, to be (whispered) gay, to wear boots instead of sneakers and button-flys instead of track pants.  But you don’t want to scare the other mommies.  The tricky thing about motherhood is that your identity is no longer just about you.  If you scare the mommies, your children don’t have playovers anymore.  Even if they have friends at school, their social sphere does not extend outside school hours. 

My eldest attended a Catholic school in suburban Chicago for three of her tender years.  I scared the mommies a lot.  We had ended up there after a couple of bad preschool experiences with a very challenging little person.  The school was very good to her, absence of playovers excepted.  It was very bad for me.  I was not managing much balance in those days, and turned my identity inside out trying not to scare the mommies.  Long hair.  Nail polish.  Skorts!  But to no avail.  I’ll never forget the time one of the other Girl Scout mommies pulled her daughter out of the restroom as I walked in with mine, saying, “No, no! I don’t want you in there while she’s in there.”

Now we’re in a relatively welcoming environment, and even though I’m somewhat more a one-mommy family than a two-mommy family, it’s amazing to me to find two-mommy kids on our Tee Ball teams, or families at the PTA meetings.  I know most of this world doesn’t have that luxury.  Still, we definitely have that see-how-tolerant-I-am minority status in some ways.  You find us on the periphery, worker bees, but not part of the mommies and daddies social scene.  My kids have friends; they even get to have their friends sleep over without anyone balking at their exposure to The Gay.  The balance, while not perfect, is much more livable.  But I decided to put my identity dichotomy on the line recently when I conducted a small social experiment. 

The school’s annual Sock Hop is a dress-up affair.  Boys in white t-shirts and rolled up jeans, girls in poodle skirts and pony tails.  There’s the occasional girl in white shirt and jeans, though I’ve never seen a boy there in a poodle skirt.  Hmm.  My hair has been growing unchecked all winter, partly from procrastination and partly for warmth.  I’ve kept it mostly tucked under caps and hats. I don’t like the way it looks as it creeps mullety down the back of my neck.  For the occasion, however, I blew it all fluffy dry, tied a flowery scarf round my head, put on scarlet lipstick and wore an old pair of ballet flats with my cardigan and jeans.  I wasn’t ten feet inside the door when the compliments started.  I was grabbed.  And gushed over.  And told how amazing I looked.  The mommies kibitzed that I must grow it out.  One of the dads told me he didn’t even recognize me.  That’s because I didn’t look like me, I looked like one of them!  And I am.  That apron, it still says, “Mom”.

But I’m getting my hair cut next week.

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