"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.

Definitely No Resolutions This Year

I never stick to them. In a couple of days I'll be off to Suffolk to see in the New Year, so thought I might as well do a review of the year/look forward to next type thing now. My overall impression of 2011 is that's it's been....twelve months. Not much more to say. My crazy idea was indeed crazy, and I failed to actually write to most of the places I intended to. It's pretty much impossible to exist on paper without picking a binary gender, but i think we knew that anyway. Maybe one day I'll have more spoons and can try again to raise awareness. Until then I'll just keep being female when it matters and maybe start flipping a coin when it doesn't.... My other plans went pretty much nowhere too. I did try the writing thing again but, ugh. Same old problem of not being able to focus and force myself to write something I know isn't good. And lack of plot. Plot is useful for stories. And even blogging fell away as you can probably tell. I suspect I shall largely not be bothering in future. Unless I really can think of something I really want to say and think people might actually want to read. So probably not then. As for the rest of the year...stuff happened. I found out my ex had died. Other people died too, including my SO's grandma. People were born too, and that's much happier to think about. I had a job, for a bit, and my SO jumped through more hoops for the NHS. It's possible I've forgotten some really important event this year, but that's really all I can think of right now. And I'm expecting 2012 to be much the same (although we could do without the deaths and losing of jobs). So - no resolutions. I have no idea when I might update this again, if ever. Hope you all have a good new year and indeed a good future in general.

Return to Vvardenfell

Dragons, schmagons. Silt striders and skooma addicts are where it's at. We've been having computer troubles for some time - our main PC died a sudden death and not having the cold hard cash to buy a new one, we've just been coping without. We have our own laptop/netbooks for internet access, the back-up desktop works just about for that too, and the Wii keeps the Terror occupied gaming-wise. Then 11/11/11 happened and, not being able to move on the internet for reviews, progress blogs and general Skyrim-related chatter, we began to feel a bit left out. At this point my clever other half pointed out that my laptop ought to be able to run Morrowind. It was, actually, one of the reasons I bought such a high-spec laptop when, ostensibly, it was only needed for work: mostly text-editing. So she went ahead and installed WINE, Morrowind and both expansions, and found, to delight all round that it did indeed run. Until you got into combat or tried to load a saved game at which point it crashed. Fortunately, that was easily solved by downloading the latest version of WINE instead of the stable version, and, despite occasional problems with sound, it mostly works fine. Of course, that now means all three of us are fighting over my laptop - because now the boy is old enough to be able to play with only minimal help. He can read and understand most of the dialogue, he has no problems with the controls and when he gets the hang of finding quests for himself he'll be away. Currently he seems to be hung up on creating new characters - he's got four now, different races and classes but all fighters and all barely out of Seyda Neen - but hopefully he'll settle down soon and get deeper into the game. He's been watching me take on a Dwemer ruin with some fascination, so maybe he'll try and head there at some point. Maybe I'll prompt him in that direction. And, gee, but I'd forgotten how much I love this game. Even though I've played it so much in the past that I doubt there's much "new" left for me to do, I keep finding things I'd forgotten all about and just wandering round and doing things in a different order is being fun. And the alien environment of Vvardenfell appeals to me much more than the more Earth-like greenery that was, admittedly, so stunning in Oblivion. I also much prefer the approach to the main storyline - you can and indeed are encouraged to ignore it to start with - something that didn't really feel possible in Oblivion what with the end of the world happening and all that. Not that it's a perfect game by a long shot, but it's currently being enjoyable and the fact that I - hardly an accomplished gamer - have managed to complete it and most of the side-quests I've attempted is definitely a point in its favour. It's feeding our family's craving for Elder Scrolls action for now, and despite the arguments about who's turn it is, it's bringing us together by giving us a common current obsession. All of which means that I'm quite happy to put off buying a new computer until after Christmas, when we should hopefully be able to afford it. And I probably won't be dropping it immediately to rush off and play Skyrim instead. Although the dragons do look very cool....