"She's my dad"

I still haven't seen it, and may not get round to watching it, but yesterday My Dad Is A Woman was shown on ITV1. I hardly expect it to a paragon of non-sensational, sensitive documentary making, especially due to the misgendering in the programme description, but all that aside, it did lead to me thinking about my own son's attitude and growing understanding of my partner's gender.

She is still "Dad". We deliberately told him that she would always be his daddy as long as he wanted her to, as we felt it important that he understood that the relationship wasn't going to change. He wasn't (and isn't) "losing" his dad, and we certainly weren't going to insist on him calling her "mum". We did try and persuade him to call her by her first name in public, and tried to explain why - having a person in a skirt being called loudly "dad" can draw unwanted attention and lead to embarrassment - but, frankly, it hasn't stuck (although he does often call her by name, and that's something I'm trying to do more of too). I try and counter this slightly by responding to him whether he calls "Dad!" in public, as it's usually the case he just wants someone to respond rather than specifically my partner, and that doesn't immediately "out" her to any passers-by. But for all that she is still "Dad", she is also "she" and "a girl" and he's fine with that.

There have been times when he's stated he doesn't want to be the only boy, or he doesn't want to have two mums, or (when he's in a particularly bad mood) that "you can't be a girl because you have a willy". But then he also states categorically that he hates school, or he doesn't want a scooter any more, or that he's going to his room and never coming down again because we're "being mean". He's eight. He says things that he doesn't really mean, and while they might demonstrate underlying anxieties, they can also just be from sheer perversity. Sometimes they can be hurtful, or worrying, because they're about "big" issues like bullying or his father's transition, and sometimes they're just plain silly like whether we have three moons or the time he told me the headteacher threw a boy into a tree because he was being naughty. Learning to tell when he's being serious and when something is just a passing whim is an art I haven't yet mastered, but as he happily refers to J using female pronouns now, I'm not that worried about it. And his understanding of gender (and gender stereotypes) is an ongoing process. A few years ago he would insist, despite much evidence to the contrary, that only girls had ponytails and only boys could wear trousers. Now, he's only just starting to accept that girls can like Star Wars too. (School, and society as a whole have a lot to answer for!)

Recently, with mother's day approaching and all the cards being in the shops, he suddenly suggested that maybe he should get J a card for mother's day too as she was a girl, but then quickly countered with "but she's not my mum, she's my dad". I said it was up to him, and we could discuss it later, the middle of a crowded card shop not being the best place to have that conversation. After all, what's the difference between being a mum and being a dad? It certainly can't be entirely down which set of genes you contributed, as no-one would deny adoptive parents or step-parents the right to those titles. Sure, there might be some traditional assumptions about behaviour and roles within the family, but every family is different and with more gender equality and more sharing of care is certainly isn't fair to assume that "mum" is the "primary" caregiver (however you may wish to define that). So it really does seem to be just a question of gender. Female parents are called "mum". Male parents are called "dad". That's that.

Heavens only knows what you're supposed to call a non-binary gendered parent.

And I think that's where I start objecting to this neat classification. "Mum" and "dad" are just nicknames we've adopted to describe ourselves and our relationship to our son. Sure, I think if we had another child now, we'd do things differently, as you just can't get away from the fact that "dad" implies a man. But there's that rebellious part of me that thinks that just because society expects a "dad" to be male, that doesn't have to be the case. Ultimately, like all nicknames, it's an agreed term between two people: the person who uses it and the person to whom it refers. Currently, J and the boy are in agreement that he can call her "dad". If it ever becomes a problem for either of them, then they'll have to re-negotiate, but until such a time, everyone else will just have to cope.