Navigating Mother’s Day and Father’s Day as a Queer Parent

I have a lot of complex feelings about Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. The mirror they hold up about how deeply our culture clings to a gender binary. The cultural blueprint (and baggage) of not only what it means to be a parent, but what it means to be a “mother” or a “father”. The importance of celebrating parenthood without conflating it with martyrdom.

And being a queer parent means there is an added layer, which can basically be summed up like this: What does my child learn from how I respond to the holiday? About belonging, advocacy, influence and power? About how we relate to systems that resist change - especially when that change is deeply personal, when it’s about our children, our families, our right to be included. And what do our children learn from our response about allowing hope for change to live alongside disappointment, especially when it feels relentless?

We Can’t Change the World All at Once—But We Can Be Intentional in How we Respond to It

Part 1: Advocacy

Part of the complexity, at least for me, is asking two questions:

• What kind of advocacy do I want to role model to my kid? To show them that they are worthy of belonging and advocacy? To show them that hope is worth the effort? That integrity in what matters is worth some discomfort (but not burnout)?

• What role do I want to play in changing my corner of the world?

To showing up, and finding ways to ask for a more inclusive experience for my kid and others - At school, can I ask for “pastries with parents” next year, or “croissants with caregivers?”

What is sustainable? What is at the edge of my comfort zone?

It’s tempting to feel like speaking up won’t matter. To let powerlessness stop you from even trying. And honestly, it’s easy to feel like the impact won’t be worth the emotional or physical effort - and maybe sometimes it isn’t. And it isn’t any one person’s weight to carry alone either.

But maybe there is something at the edge of your comfort zone that you can do, sustainably. And maybe it will matter, in ways you will never see.

Maybe there is something that would make the whole community more inclusive, that is bigger than just my kid too. Because “non-traditional” families are actually the majority in the US at least (even if maybe it doesn’t feel that way day to day).

What matters, and what is sustainable is going to be different for everyone. But for me, it’s important that I keep growing in modeling this: we don’t pre-emptively lower our expectations for inclusion, even in the face of disappointment. We continue to hold people in their possibility—as capable of care, empathy, inclusion, and growth—even when they fall short.

Part 2: Values Alignment & Resilience

Even if you can’t change what the community does this year… what is within your control?

Should you rename it “Parent’s Day” within your family? “Family Day”? How do you celebrate your role? And what are you asking of your child and partner to celebrate and honor the work and role you are playing as a parent?

And when the school offers a tepid version of inclusion, like asking what craft you want your kid to make, do you tell them something for you? Your own mother or father? An aunt or uncle?

And how do you coach your kid to show up to questions from peers? Or respond to their own feelings in the day and those moments?

Because inside these questions are deeper ones:

• What am I teaching them about gender—and gender roles?

  If they make a Father’s Day craft for a beloved uncle, is that a joyful gesture of connection? Or is it reinforcing the idea that they need a male figure to make their family feel “real”?

• What am I teaching them about belonging?

  Am I signaling that we tolerate exclusion in order to stay “polite” by participating at all? What are the other options?

• Do they need to be protected—or do they need to learn how to stand in their truth, even when the world doesn’t offer easy inclusion?

  And what’s the line between shielding them from harm and equipping them with self-worth that can weather moments of erasure and exclusion?

They are real tensions. And how you answer them depends on your own unique values.

I don’t have one right answer. Not even for me or my family right now, but I am going to continue asking the questions. Because I think they hold up important mirrors in places where my values live.

So…isn’t this overthinking it?

Maybe!

But maybe not.

Moments like this don’t just stir feelings—they surface our values.

They reveal where there is incongruence between our values and how we respond, or uncertainty with what our values truly are.

And while that doesn’t mean you need to fight every battle, it is important to feel the impact. To make a conscious decision about whether or not to let it go, let it go for now, or NOT let it go at all.

This is why I created The Alignment Practice Lab for conscious queer parents.

To help ensure that those everyday decisions - big and small - the everyday mirrors that cumulatively add up, lead to a life aligned with your values. The Lab combines a reflective coaching framework and supportive community to help you not just name what matters—but uncover what’s getting in the way, and find creative, sustainable ways to move forward. So that eventually, alignment becomes autopilot.

So you can be present for the tiny, magical moments of parenting—while knowing that how you show up today is building a foundation of belonging and self-worth your child will carry for life.

✨🌈TL;DR

Mother’s Day and Father’s Day aren’t just holidays—they’re cultural mirrors that reflect back our values, assumptions, and hopes. For queer parents, they often highlight where the world still clings to rigid gender binaries and outdated ideas of family. This piece explores how to meet those moments with intention—deciding not just how to respond, but what messages we’re sending to our children about gender, belonging, advocacy, and the kind of world we believe is possible.