I wasn’t into it,” she says, “I thought maybe it was because the guy wasn’t cute. So I dumped him and started dating a cute guy.” Relieved, Leila put her months of infatuation down to a phase. It had been a one-off crush, with one woman. Do lesbian mums make the best parents? According to research released earlier this year, children raised by two mothers do better academically, have higher self-esteem and are less likely to have behavioural problems than peers who have been brought up in a family with two heterosexual parents. In 2016, her husband found out about these conversations and her marriage broke down. He vowed to keep her sexuality a secret from the wider community for the sake of their children. ASHLING: The one issue people tend to bring up is the concept of the absent father figure and the effect that will have on the children, especially Kai. We've made a conscious decision to ensure there are strong male role models around.

But she needn’t have worried. Leila didn’t lose her friendship. The two agreed to draw a line under the embarrassing episode.One of the inevitable parts about being a lesbian mom is that you’re going to get a lot of ridiculous questions ‒ some will make you giggle, and others will make you fume. NATALIE: I definitely wanted children all along. The relationship wasn't going any further if Laura didn't want them – it was a deal breaker for us. I think about being in the hospital,” I whispered to the ceiling. “I think how great it would be to break both my legs because then someone else would have to care for Hope and no one would blame me.” I held my breath, waiting for the earth to engulf me for exposing this terrible secret. It largely relies on internet shorthand, obscure symbols used by lesbians around the world. Nella would send these images and emoticons to other women. Those in the know would respond. Lara, 41, and Ruth, 45, have been together for 10 years. They have seven-year-old twins, Bell and Isaac, and Ross, who is three and a half, and they live in north London

It’s hard to describe how exactly gay people meet each other in Africa,” says Leila. “You don’t have a lesbian hotspot that you can Google - a known place we can meet up. If you need cheat notes, head here for an overview of 79 scholarly articles that all agree that queer parenting does not harm children in any way. Not only that, children of LGBTQIA+ parents appear to do better in school.)

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Nella’s husband didn’t know about her sexual identity. It wasn’t a happy marriage. The couple barely communicated and she dreaded intimacy. One of the episodes his mother and Aunt Ellen talked about most often as an example of how unreasonable Grandmother was concerned one Sunday during the war when his mother and Aunt Ellen had spent all day making paper-cuttings. It was one of the stories he had heard told the most and they told it in exactly the same way. It was about how they had been cutting all day until the tips of their fingers were red and sore. Then they had put all their fine paper-cuttings onto a string and joined them together in an intricate pattern to make a mobile. They hung the mobile up above the dining table, only for the two brothers who had yet to leave home to get the idea of using it as a target. His mother and Aunt Ellen tried to get Grandmother to make them stop, but all she did was sit with her coffee cup raised to her mouth and giggle. She says she was forced into marriage, but wonders if “forced” is the right word. “Can you even force someone who has no rights to begin with?” she asks.