Cedric has two moms

“The most common question we heard was what he was going to call us,” Melissa Hormann said when asked how people reacted when she and her partner, Stephanie Lingsch, decided to have a baby together. “We had to think about it, since it seemed to be the main thing people wanted to know. We decided to let him choose, to let it happen naturally.”

Hormann and Lingsch sat together on a swing in their yard while their now 3-year-old son, Cedric, oversaw a major excavation project a few yards away, shifting dirt around the garden with a large toy tractor named “Scoop.”

Hormann told me the names he chose—she’s Ma Melissa and Stephanie is Mom most of the time, but Cedric also likes to call her by the pet name he picked up from Hormann—“Sweetie Peaches.”

Construction was abandoned as Cedric perked up at the name. “Sweetie Peaches!” he yelled with glee as he ran to join his moms on the swing. The family dog, a mixed-breed named Henry, watched attentively, and the family cat lay nearby, sunning herself in the perfectly manicured lawn of the home they all share.

It’s the American Dream in action circa 2012, a banner year when even the President of the United States can openly voice his opinion that same-sex couples are entitled to the same privileges as all Americans, including marriage. Though Hormann and Lingsch are not yet married, they regard Obama’s announcement as an evolutionary step.

“I love that he was influenced by his daughters, who said that treating people differently just doesn’t make any sense,” Hormann said. “For an adult to be affected by a child’s innocence, that view of how people should treat each other, is great.”

Cedric is a perfect example of this child-like enlight-enment: bright, not too shy, talkative and perfectly well adjusted. He loves Bob the Builder, trains, books, his moms and his dad—Hormann’s brother Fred, who is also gay.

The decision to raise a child is complicated for anyone and involves a multitude of peripheral issues—medical, paternity, age of the parents, level of commitment, even legal questions. These problems are often compounded the further you step outside the “traditional” model of a married man and woman having a child the old-fashioned way, highlighting the irony of the “What’s he going to call you?” question.

Hormann and Lingsch recounted the details of their relationship from the beginning to shed some light on some of the deeper issues. Friends who got to know each other better at the local dog park, they began dating roughly a year after Lingsch ended a long-term relationship. Hormann had long wanted a child and tried, unsuccessfully, to have one. She put that aside to focus on the new relationship, and after two years they decided to try together.

“Our first date was Mother’s Day, May 13, 2007, so it’s kind of serendipitous,” Hormann said. “I knew that, whatever happened in the future with our relationship, that Steph was a kind, moral, loving and fair person, and our child’s best interest would always come first.”

Hormann asked her brother to donate his sperm, and Lingsch got pregnant, at home and without the aid of doctors, on the second attempt. Both women say they were very fortunate everything went so smoothly. As Hormann’s brother is the biological father, both women have a genetic link to the child.

Cedric knows his father well and calls him “Dad.” Fred Hormann lives in Oakland, speaks to Cedric weekly on the phone and visits once a month.

“In many ways I think he’s fortunate, having three parents,” Lingsch said. “He loves his dad and I imagine will want to spend more time with him in the future, and that’s great.”

The women said Fred is actively included in decisions about Cedric, and no conflicts have arisen. “We’re all pretty much on the same page, and my brother is my best friend,” Hormann said.

This family support extends to Cedric’s grandparents. Hormann says she is blessed with “poster P-Flag parents,” referring to the support group Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, and Lingsch’s mother lives in Paradise and sees Cedric and helps with child care. Lingsch also has a gay sibling, a sister who is raising a 12-year-old boy with her partner.

“It’s nice that his cousin can be kind of a role model for him as he grows up and faces anything, because he has two moms, too,” Lingsch said.

“My mom jokes that her straight kids didn’t do anything for her as far as having a grandchild, but it was her gay kids that came through,” Hormann said.

As for issues of prejudice or homophobia, the women said they haven’t experienced much first-hand, but they chalk this up to a large and accepting circle of friends and Chico’s inherent progressiveness.

“It’s not like we plan on enrolling [Cedric] in a right-wing Christian school or anything where we might face that type of opposition, so we just figure we’ll cross the bridges as we come to them,” Lingsch said.

“If I ever do sense that from people, they tend to just clam up and not say anything rather than open hostility,” she added.

Hormann wasn’t as lucky growing up in northern Wisconsin, where she didn’t even know what a lesbian was until a friend came out to her and explained it when she was 18. “I had internalized homophobia, and after that I would sleep out on the deck when I stayed with them, I was afraid to sleep in their house. But everything started to make sense more and more, and I was able to realize who I was. Then I moved to Chico in 1983, and my whole world changed.

“But now, even [in Wisconsin], people are more accepting,” she continued. “I went to my high school reunion and everyone was perfectly wonderful. Things have to move in that direction; it’s evolution.

“My grandma graduated from grade school, my mom from high school, and I graduated from college. Everything’s moving along. It seems really slow sometimes, but that’s progress. Things are already so different than when I was 18, and I’m confident they’ll be even better for Cedric.”