Immaculate Conception
I saw a really lovely documentary today, the world premiere of Immaculate Conceptions: Inside A Lesbian Baby Boom. It’s a 40-minute documentary
by Irish/Canadian novelist (and my neighbour) Emma Donoghue. (In unrelated news,Emma will also be the guest editor of BEST LESBIAN EROTICA 2007, Cleis Press. I like that juxtaposition since it confirms that being a parent, or worse yet, a mother, doesn’t mean giving up on sex.) The blurb for the
show goes like this: " This eye-opening account of queer family-making in Ontario during the rapid legal reform and social change of the last six years features frank and funny interviews with 16 parents or would-be parents from London and Toronto, including Professors Arja Vainio-Mattila of Huron University College
and Chris Roulston of French and Women’s Studies (UWO)." For me, it raised lots of very interesting questions about gender and parenting which I am still mulling over in my mind. I don’t want to spoil too much but I loved the scene in which a self-identified butch/femme couple grappled with the infertility of the femme partner and considered whether a butch could be a biological mother. What would that make her femme partner, they mused. Some of the couples had a dyke variant of gendered parenting in which one person did most of the parenting and stayed home, while the other person worked. Other couples were happy to embrace the roles of co-mother. "We’re both her mothers." As someone who has resisted many of the associations of "mother," it was interesting for me to see other people grapple with the term. My partner and I both say we’re parents. We talk about co-parenting. We use the phrase ODP–On Duty Parent–to talk about whose shift it is to bear the main responsibility of the children. (As in, said to friends, I can’t go out tonight because I’m ODP.) But for us, as man and woman, we appear to fit into other peoples’ schema of roles and a decision for us to correct others about how we do things is always a choice. The lesbian mothers in this movie, by and large, don’t have the choice to blend. That said, I was amused to hear many say that when in parks with kids people just assume they are two women out with their children, who’ve left the men at home. I also liked the lesbian mum who co-parents with a gay man, the biological father of her child, whose grandparents keep asking when they’ll get married. The lens through which she’s seen is that of the single mother, with a different set of prejudices and problems. The documentary also provided lots think about in terms of sperm donation, parental rights, and the shapes and sizes of alternative families. I’m planning to see it again at our local lesbian film festival later this month. But for now I’m off to another wine and cheese celebratory do related to my official role at this fine institution of higher learning. (Bring on end of term, NOW!) Sigh.
