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Move over Hallmark. Mother's Day is coming, and for millions of school-age children, it's not about the store-bought greeting card. It's about the arts and crafts project fashioned with felt or clay or yarn under their teacher's watchful eye — a gift they'll be presenting to mom as part of our nation's annual ritual.
It often begins like this:
"We're going to make something today that you can bring home to your mother for Mother's Day," says the well-intentioned teacher. And minutes later, the classroom is abuzz with youngsters smearing Elmer's Glue on construction paper and shirtsleeves.
But what about the child — like so many of ours — with two mothers at home, where one gift may not suffice? Or the child with one (or two) dads and no mother in her life? How do these kids relate to the task?
It's easy for our children to feel separate and apart —a kind of invisibility — in moments like this, deviants in the social world to which they are highly attuned.
Our son was seven or eight when he came home from school years ago with his Mother's Day project in a brown paper bag. Somehow, he sneaked it into his bedroom and set in on the floor in the corner, where it remained for days until we discovered it and asked a few questions.
"Something I made at school," he said, turning his eyes away.
When we pressed for more, he shrugged and indicated that it was some "dumb" Mother's Day project. His face told of sadness and a kind of regret: it was a waste of my time.
Whether his quiet emotions reflected some core pain at the absence of a mother in his life, or the alienation he felt participating in an activity he saw as irrelevant, we didn't know. We complimented him on the nice job he did and asked if we could make the item ours. He offered a nod.
The Mother's Day ritual — "We're going to make gifts for you to bring home to your mothers" — remains one of many ways old assumptions about family life fail to reflect contemporary realities. Lesbian and gay parenting is not typically on teachers' radar, and so it falls to us to help our children's teachers expand their awareness.
We learned our lesson after our son's first Mother's Day setback, and made a point each year of sending a note to his teacher, something like this: "With Mother's Day approaching, we'd like to make a suggestion so that our son won't feel left out if you have the children make cards or gifts to bring home. Perhaps you can broaden the instruction and let the kids make something for both moms (if there are two) or dads (if there's no mother) or even a grandparent. Let's make it a day for expressing appreciation to whomever it is that gives our children special love and care."
It's part of the challenge of lesbian and gay parenting — doing what we can to make the world a safe and supportive place for the kids we love.
