Keywords:
biological mother, unsupportive school, teen moms, lesbian moms, homophobia, lack of support, queer parents, school services
biological mother, unsupportive school, teen moms, lesbian moms, homophobia, lack of support, queer parents, school services
Transcript
Evan: I know that for sure when my oldest daughter was growing up and uh, I was with her mom at the time, we ran into nothing but problems, I mean so this is sort of you know, like 1999 and onward.
Tara: Right.
Evan: I, and, you know, they wouldn’t let my partner sign any forms, they were always referring to me as the biological mother. Um, and I, I feel like that continued through her entire schooling experience, and um, and with her schooling we always had to fight, we were trying to fight to get learning disability assessments and stuff done and it was always that we were terrible parents, and I wonder how much of that had to do with, well we were young, we were both teen moms, but also that we were lesbian moms, and back then, I mean we didn’t really know other queer people with kids or very few, so it wasn’t so much the norm as it is now, in many ways, and yah, so we weren’t able to access services for her, I mean she dropped out by grade eight, um…
Tara: Wow.
Evan: um, because of any lack of support, and I think that a lot of that had to do with our sexuality.
Evan: I think that if we had been able to get adequate services, I mean, the difference between the services that she received or that we were fighting for her to receive, versus what our son receives were night and day. Um, I think, you know it was just always chalked up to our parenting, even though I mean we were always able to clearly lay out all of these other issues that were going on and it just, it always just sort of got boiled back down, and I think that, you know, there was just so much homophobia, I mean even in terms of working with guidance counsellors in schools who would only talk to me, and like, it was constant, right? So we could never get over this, like, hump of like being queer parents, to actually get the services and access.
Evan: I know that for sure when my oldest daughter was growing up and uh, I was with her mom at the time, we ran into nothing but problems, I mean so this is sort of you know, like 1999 and onward.
Tara: Right.
Evan: I, and, you know, they wouldn’t let my partner sign any forms, they were always referring to me as the biological mother. Um, and I, I feel like that continued through her entire schooling experience, and um, and with her schooling we always had to fight, we were trying to fight to get learning disability assessments and stuff done and it was always that we were terrible parents, and I wonder how much of that had to do with, well we were young, we were both teen moms, but also that we were lesbian moms, and back then, I mean we didn’t really know other queer people with kids or very few, so it wasn’t so much the norm as it is now, in many ways, and yah, so we weren’t able to access services for her, I mean she dropped out by grade eight, um…
Tara: Wow.
Evan: um, because of any lack of support, and I think that a lot of that had to do with our sexuality.
Evan: I think that if we had been able to get adequate services, I mean, the difference between the services that she received or that we were fighting for her to receive, versus what our son receives were night and day. Um, I think, you know it was just always chalked up to our parenting, even though I mean we were always able to clearly lay out all of these other issues that were going on and it just, it always just sort of got boiled back down, and I think that, you know, there was just so much homophobia, I mean even in terms of working with guidance counsellors in schools who would only talk to me, and like, it was constant, right? So we could never get over this, like, hump of like being queer parents, to actually get the services and access.