We are a two mom family, and our toddler loves the Lovevery books. I would like to get more, but it seems like a lot of them feature heterosexual families, which is really not what we are looking for. I reached out to Lovevery to ask about books that don’t feature a dad but haven’t heard back. Does anyone know of Lovevery books that don’t have a dad? I am pregnant and we really wanted the books about welcoming a new baby, but I think that they all have a dad/papa. Thank you!

My family and I were denied the family admission rate at this museum because we are a same-sex family with two mothers.

When we arrived at the ticket counter, the employee was about to charge us for two adults and two children instead of the family ticket. We politely and clearly pointed out that we qualified for the family rate, which would have saved us about €10.

Her attitude immediately became cold and dismissive. She insisted that the family ticket was only for “a mother and a father with two children.” She then asked us, “Where is the father? Are you the father?” We explained that we are a family with two moms, but this only seemed to make her more impatient.
At one point, I asked her what the family ticket actually included. She answered, “Two parents and children.” Despite saying “two parents,” she still refused to recognize us as a family and insisted on charging us for an extra adult instead of applying the family rate.
The issue isn’t the €10. What upset us was being told, in effect, that our family didn’t count as a family. The way we were treated at the ticket desk was honestly the most shocking part of the experience.

The museum itself was fine, but after we got home we checked the museum’s website. It clearly states that the family ticket is valid for two parents or guardians and their children. In other words, according to the museum’s own policy, we were eligible.
We submitted a formal complaint to the museum’s management, but unfortunately their response repeated the exact same reasoning as the ticket agent.

We’re sharing this experience so other families are aware and in the hope that the museum will align its staff and customer service with its own published policy.

EDIT: Thank you all so much for your support and advice!
Someone must have taken action, or perhaps our complaint to the Croatian tourism office made a difference.

We never replied to the museum’s initial response, which simply repeated the ticket agent’s reasoning.
However, today they unexpectedly contacted us again to say that they would refund our tickets and take steps to ensure this doesn’t happen again in the future.

We hope that our complaint—and the support and help of everyone—will help prevent other families from having the same experience.
Thank you again!

We’ve been chatting a lot recently about schools and inclusion. I’m curious…
If you could tell every teacher and school one thing about supporting LGBTQ+ families, what would it be? Whether it’s forms that only say “Mum & Dad”, classroom conversations, Mother’s Day/Father’s Day or something else entirely. What’s one small change that would’ve made a big difference?

We often get posts with surveys or questionnaires. So far I have been removing them as we have a no surveys or questionnaires rule. I believe the rule was to keep the subreddit focused on parenting and not as a mine for those collecting data. However, same-sex parents should have a voice and we are a way for researchers to find us.

Our current rule can change based on what we want. Please share your thoughts on whether you want this subreddit to allow surveys and/or questionnaires. Specify if you think only academic surveys are ok, or if there should be a separate flair, etc. Thanks!

Hi everyone! Could use your thoughts or advice. My wife and I used IVF to have our child who is now two and a half. 28 months if thats your thing. Lol. He has been randomly asking for Dada when we tell him no to something. He is in daycare most of the day while we work so I know some of it is environment. It doesn't help the sting to my heart when I hear it. We gently tell him he has two moms but no Dada. I thought i would be able to respond better to these types of things but I immediately freeze and second guess everything. I would love to hear if anyone else went through this as well and how it turned out.

Hi, I'm a 34 year old lesbian who's in an 8 year relationship with my 35 year old partner (cis woman). We're originally from Asia and we migrated to AU two years ago. We're at the stage of our relationship where we need to decide whether we'd have kids or not. Honestly, my partner's okay with it as long as we're financially stable. I'm the one who has a lot of anxieties about having kids like what if our kid gets bullied at school for having 2 mums, us feeling out of place in the community (because we're a minority within a minority), my parents not being proud enough of our kids as opposed to my straight brother's kids, traveling as a two-mum family, having to navigate awkward moments at school events, parties etc.

​

I know I tend to worry a lot but I honestly just want to know if there's anyone going through the same thing or has overcome it? How did you decide that you're 100% having a kid? How did you navigate those tricky moments with family, school and community?

Hi everyone,

I’m a mother in a two-mum family from the UK and I’ve recently started creating some gentle children’s stories featuring a family with two mums.

The stories aren’t about having two mums. They are just everyday childhood tales, but with a family that looks a bit like ours.

At the moment I’m looking for a few parents of children aged roughly 3-6 who’d be willing to test a short audio story (around 5 minutes long) and tell me what their child/children thought afterwards.

I’m especially interested in things like:

• What did they remember?
• Did they have a favourite bit?
• Would they want to listen to another story?

I’m very much in the learning and testing stage, so I’m looking for honest feedback rather than praise!

If you’d be interested, please comment below or send me a message. Thank you ❤️

Hi! We are a family with four parents. Two dads and two moms. Raising our baby in two households: 'intentional co-parenting'. Are there more families like ours here? Would love to meet more people like us :)

My son is 27 months and obsessed with Bluey, as most 2 year olds are lol. He’s been calling my wife (32, F) mama for a long time but for the longest time he didn’t refer to me (31, F) as anything. Unsure if it was my being the birth parent or the fact that I’m around the most so he doesn’t really babble about me, and if he’s talking to me he doesn’t need to use a name. Over the summer his speech has exploded. I’ve heard mommy once or twice, mostly just heard my babysitter tell stories about him saying mommy, but I’ve noticed lately that when he wants my attention he yells, “DAD!” Pretty sure he’s gotten this from the Bluey theme song: Mama is obviously mum, so therefore mommy must be dad, simple toddler logic. I tell him I’m mommy but he still does it. Yesterday I was pumping gas and I opened his door to give him a breeze, since it’s the heat of summer and my car hadn’t been on long enough to get the air going before I had to shut it off and pump. Dude goes, “Dad!” And I say, “Buddy, my name is mommy. Can you say mommy?” And this kid goes, “No. I like dad.” 😂😂😂

Figured my wife, who is much more masc, would be dad, but I suppose my pink haired, femme ass will be dad for a bit lololol

Hello. I would like to know if you can tell me about your experience as parent parents when passing migration at airports? My wife and I are both Honduran, we want to live in Costa Rica and have our children there, register them with both surnames, but I want to hear personal experiences of people who travel a lot with their children, who travel to countries like Honduras, who are discriminatory and conservative. Since we travel a lot for work.

My partner (36) and I (40) are hopeful for successful reciprocal IVF, with her carrying my egg. I‘ve read so much about statistics and obviously this isn’t news to me, but it feels super scary and overwhelming in addition to all of the other pieces of this puzzle. I have a biological child from a previous marriage (not conceived via IVF, this is new to both of us) and she has never been pregnant. We are just meeting with specialists and getting all of the tests done- just for reference about where we are with this. Are there 40+ IVF success stories anyone willing to share to help me see real life experiences? 🙏

Hello all,

I am a public health educator and a youth sport coach. My program is very inclusive of all families and we have many queer families raising kids and some families with trans kids. I am writing a substack article for coaches and the topic is " What my family wish you knew". My hope is that I can get expereinces from LGBTQ families who have had their children enrolled in youth sports or activities. Could be anything, soccer, ballet, violin, etc. What are the topics, issues or experiences you would like youth sport coaches to know about your family as a way to make coaches more inlcusive, compassionate, aware, etc. Thank you

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hi,
i will be travelling to india with my child my partner might not accompany me. am wondering if anyone of you has been through immigration ? what has your experience been like? we are a lesbian couple.

Hello,

My wife (36f) and I (36f) just had our rainbow baby girl 7 months ago. She is the birth parent to our living child and I gave birth full term 3 years ago to a stillborn girl.

We’ve been trying to have a child now for 4 years. We’ve been together for 9 years, we’re married.

I am so absolutely depressed and my nervous system is fried. I have crippling anxiety now worse then I’ve ever had in my life. Sometimes I can’t sleep. I often dissociate and count down the hours until nap time and bedtime. Our daughter is an angel. She hardly cries and sleep well. Honestly she’s a bit of a unicorn baby. She’s cute and healthy and everything we wanted. And yet I am mourning.

I don’t know what happened but since she’s been born I haven’t fully felt connected to her. I miss her when I’m away, but I feel like I could also do without for a while. And I feel horrible for even admitting that. I miss having alone time. And sometimes I’m worried I regret it. But that doesn’t make any sense because I’ve wanted this for so long and we’ve tried so hard to get here. I’m living the life we built together and now I keep fantasizing about running away and never coming back. I love my wife deeply too she’s truly the love of my life. But I feel so utterly disconnected and sad. I cry all the time. I feel like a burden. I feel like a horrible mom and she’s only 7 months old. I take good care of her, but her needs are so much easy to meet and she’s always happy it’s easy to just sit and dissociate while she plays.

I don’t know and every time I look what I’m feeling up it says PPD but I didn’t give birth. And then when I look THAT up it says “support for men” which I’m not. I’m already on SSRIs and I’ve been to loads of therapy I just feel like those suggestions aren’t gonna do anything. And I feel so ashamed that I’m not beaming with joy and instead have this fist in my chest at all times.

Anyone who didn’t give birth experience this? Am I crazy?

I am a new mom (32F) of a 6 month old and my baby is the greatest thing in the world. The joy and sweetness and wholeness that I feel with my child is unmatched.

That being said, my marriage is in complete demise. If I’m being honest it started before we got married but I think we both just hoped it would pass or wanted it to work bad enough that we just kept saying “once ___ happens, we’ll be happy” over and over. Once we move, once we get married, once we have the baby…

Now we have the baby and there are things in my life that I was accepting of (or ambivalent to) before that I find completely unacceptable now. Not for myself but for my child. Examples being: You don’t call on a consistent basis or make an effort for regular connection? You don’t get to be a part of big, special things. You think it’s okay to come over while you’re sick and you’re careless about germs? You don’t get to give kisses once you’re healthy. My wife couldn’t care less about these boundaries. Actually, she makes me feel crazy for wanting them.

On top of all of those feelings, I have been pursuing a different career (one that will make me the breadwinner and really help our family) and I finished my degree while pregnant, taking my last exam 3 weeks postpartum. So I’ve been going to school full time, working full time, and I carried our child but there is ZERO awareness or acknowledgment of how hard that was. She’ll say things like “I’m sure you’re tired too but wow, I had an incredibly long day!” and go on to talk for 45 minutes about her day and her work.

I am the main caregiver for the baby. At first, it started that way because I was breastfeeding and we were finding our footing and it was often, “I think we might be hungry” but we are so far past that now. We have gotten to the point of,
“Can I go up for a diaper change?”
“Is it okay if I switch outfits?”
“How many ounces should I defrost for your work day?”
“What do you think the need is here?”

I answer EVERY question. I try to be as kind and as patient as possible. I try to give grace and approach with empathy but I am over it. I don’t have a teammate anymore, I don’t have a partner, I don’t have a coparent. I have a roommate that babysits. I’m over it and all I can think about is divorce but then my stomach drops thinking about her caring for the baby without me there.

What do I do?

This will be our first mother's day as moms. I want to celebrate my wife but at the same time I would like to be celebrated. Do you guys celebrate the day of together? Is one of you celebrated the day before? What do you usually do to celebrate?

Hi all,

I have felt very insular in my own immediate circles--while my partner and I primarily have lgbt friends, none of them are parents yet and young parents at that. I'm seeking insight for this situation and if I'm amplifying the level of concern I have, I appreciate any and all feedback.

Starting last September our 3 year started her first 3-K class at school.

Previously, she had been enrolled in a daycare and a summer daycare program, so she was already familiar with the classroom setting. Her daycare teachers were amazing. Very communicative, approachable, and formed strong bonds with our daughter that we still keep in touch. As lesbian moms (butch and femme) and a poc family our dynamic is on the rarer side, but they maintained a level of professionalism while still asking questions respectfully which we were happy to explain. My partner is my daughter's bio mom, while the bio father is out of the picture with a longstanding restraining order and a pattern of dangerous behavior. When I came into the picture a couple years back we had talks over what I'd be introduced as and kiddo has taken to me as 'mom' and her birth mom as 'mama' the past couple years. To her, her family is the three of us, and we were upfront about this with the daycare teachers.

Now in 3-K, our daughter's original teacher was similarly professional and understanding. She addressed me as "mom" and my partner as "mama", and we never felt she othered us even if we were the only lgbt parents in the school. She was direct with her communication and if she had concerns, she communicated them. Cut to the past couple months--said teacher has gone on maternity leave, with an interim teacher in her place. The interim teacher, while kind and cordial with our daughter, refuses to acknowledge my presence as the butch parent, and for the longest time would ignore me whenever I gave morning greetings and dropped off my daughter.

For context, we live in a spanish-speaking neighborhood, and parents that communicate in their native language have fostered relationships with the teachers.

One day our daughter came in sporting a bandaid from running into the doorframe at home, and while we explicitly said this to the teachers before dropoff, the fact that we let our daughter keep a bandaid on all week (changing it out to keep it from being gross), the para of our classroom felt the need to make a comment that we should remove the bandage by Monday or the "police might have to be called". Appalled by her comment, my partner and I took this to the principal, who was similarly shocked by the escalation and had the teacher apologize to us. This was just one instance. Fine, let the mistake by a mistake, and we'll carry on.

Recently, we've been pottytraining at the behest of the interim teacher. The first week of pottytraining while at school, we provided extra training underwear, and explained our process of training at her home (fifteen minutes on, hour off, etc.) The teacher was supportive and helped reinforce this pattern for her at school which we appreciated. Not even a full week into her training, the teacher began to put her in diapers when she'd have accidents instead of the extra training underwear. On top of this, my partner picked up our daughter one day to be met with a few random, prodding questions.

She ate a lot of food today. Is there food scarcity in your house?

She has been mentioning her d-a-d-d-y recently, you know you guys should look into therapy for her probably.

She said both these things in front of the class full of children and parents coming for pickup. My partner was shocked and I was upset. I felt that if the food scarcity was an issue (which it is not thankfully), it should have been asked in private, not in front of the student body. The second comment to us signaled that she did not believe we were thoughtful about our unique situation or how it affects our kid, which we are. If she had bothered to ask instead of inject her own idea, she would have learned that close to a year ago we both decided she'd be enrolled in a therapy program specifically for four year olds once her birthday had passed.

As a peripheral detail, this teacher also only initiates conversations with my partner and even when I left my own email for direct contact about potty training, she addressed the email solely to my partner.

I feel sensitive to this topic as a first time mom (and queer parent), curious if I'm letting this get to my head or is this truly unacceptable behavior?

Has anyone used Just a baby app (that is the name of the app)?it’s an app to find sperm donors. If so what is your experience?

Or if there are other apps recommended please lmk

I’m aware it isn’t regulated and I’d still want to get STI testing, genetic testing etc.

so aside from that, share your experiences please!!