Dis...mamans par Muriel Douru

Dis ... mamanS (2003)
Author: Muriel DOURU
Publisher: Editions Gaies et Lesbiennes 3 rue Larochelle, 75014 Paris.
Intended age group: 5-8
Price: €7,90

Available in French only.

Another cute book and after this one, I promise to go surfing on a more teenager's wave, ok?

Dis...mamanS is Muriel Douru's first of three books (she also published « A very gay wedding » and « Two mommies and a baby », her own story about becoming a mom through insemination.)

Dis...mamans was published by Editions Gaies et Lesbiennes which was the only editor among several who accepted the idea. The author mentioned in an interview for the French website homoedu in 2005 that she had to struggle to bring her book to the world even among gay/lesbian editors.  Picturing herself as a future mom, she couldn't find any book gay parents would read to their children. She couldn't stand all the clichés about « normal » families and instead wanted to bring positive homoparental visibility. Even when she claims to write « gay litterature » she wishes not to be reduced to it in order to reach more readers.

I like what she says about the absence of difference between love in general and same-sex love and the fact that the difference is created by society's legitimation of heterosexuel love and the condemnation of all other kinds of love.

Last 14^th of october she gave some of her time to Le Nouvel Observateur  to answer to some unmoderated online questions about homoparentality.

Again, she linked acceptance of gay parents with the acceptance of homosexuality itself.

More generally, once society sees men as able to raise and take care of children like women, the whole perception of gay parents should (and hopefully will) change.

Muriel Douru and her partner are now proud moms of a daughter. She's too young to have to deal with narrow-minded schoolmates but what really concerns Muriel is the status of her partner . Even if she takes care of their child on a daily basis, with all the love a parent can give, she still isn't aknowledged as a second parent by the french law.

Officially and sadly, Muriel Douru is a single mom and there's nothing to be discussed. Yet.

Back to our book, starting with the cover who clearly announces it : there is mommy and mommy Lili and their two children. The little boy is waving a rainbow flag.

The story takes place mostly in a classroom and makes me almost regret my last picture, (My pride makes me wish I had saved the idea for this book).

It all starts when Theo's female teacher, complete with glasses and a bun, asks her first graders to draw individual family trees. Theo's includes his two moms, his sister Lea and both sides of grandparents : mami and papi, mami Lili and Papi Lili.

Pauline, his classmate, quickly reacts by saying that such a family is impossible.

Concerned, the teacher hears Pauline explain : « in a family, there's a daddy and a mommy. »

(Theo looks passably annoyed during the improvised lecture)

Fortunalety, the teacher throws herself into an efficient yet unprepared explanation :

«  To bring a child to the world, one's need a man and a woman. But afterwards, there are many ways to compose a family »:

The illustration here is wordless, my word.

The pupils all react positively and everybody has something to say : this one was adopted, the other one lives with only his dad, that one has a step-dad... all kinds of families are suddenly blossoming in the classroom.

Afterschool Théo takes his kid-girlfriend home, he stops to check if it's still allright with her to come even after what Pauline said.

Cut to : appartment : Mom 1 is cooking, Mom 2 is bottle-feeding baby Lea. Theo introduces his friend and they all get to know each other. Camille concludes by saying that Pauline is wrong to laugh at theo's family and that she still loves him.

You can see with the illustrations that the book is designed for very young readers (maybe not as young as Ophelie Texier's album).

However, the author stated that, at the time her book was published, there was so little choice among the subject that people bought her book even for older kids and teenagers.

I had the luck to meet Muriel Douru on Saturday, during the 20th lesbian and feminist film festival Cineffable and gathered my courage to aks her the few questions I had in mind.

She was charming and completely willing to have a little chat. Pillowqueen and I were there together : she first mistook us for a couple and asked us straight away if we wanted to have kids together. Hum. Well. We're just friends, you know.

Anyway, here's what we talked about :

You said you had written « Dis...mamans » as a future lesbian mom.

Now that you've cross the border and your daughter is born (Douru just had her third book published and it's quite autobiographic) do you plan on writing some other children's fiction?

Not really, but I have a project regarding adult fiction and a reflexion about what a family is.

If so, what would be different between 2003 and 2008, do you think it would be easier to publish?

It was hard at the time when Dis..mamans was published. Since then, all main children's books editors have published something on the subject.

After Dis...mamans I was contacted by Editions gais et lesbiennes to publish « Un mariage vraiment gai « (a really gay wedding).

When I had my daughter Danger Public editor asked me to testify on what we went through to become parents.

Me and my partner deliberatly chose to cross Belgium and travel till the Netherlands where lesbian can get a semi-anonymous donnor : it seems crucial to us that our daughter will be able to know her biological father when she reaches 16, if she chooses to.

Do you still have time to write for instance?

Well, It's hard to concile my real job (Muriel Douru works as a textile graphist designer), my writing and the day-to-day parent duty.

Do you ever plan on writing adult fiction?

The answer is yes, (NDLR : I 'll let Pillowqueen deal with the subject)

I read you were concerned about the second parent's status. How do you think things will evolve in that direction in the next couple of years?

The only hope is see nowadays is the shared authority on a child wich concerns all recomposed families, because step dads and step moms don't have anything to do with their kids, even if they provide all the love and caring a parent can do.

CONCLUSION is yet to come.

Comments

[Well Written]

I would like to thank the author for this marvelous efforts .I appreciate your efforts in preparing this post. I really like your blog articles.

[pierre]

Bonsoir,
J'ai trouvé votre blog sur Google par hasard, et j'ai découvert un site Internet très agréable à lire.
Donc je vous dis merci de partager tous ces articles avec les lecteurs.
Continuez comme cela ;)

[Jamie]

hello,

I visit here from "Euro out". Your post here makes my eyes open. Actually, I am a manager in English school ( from Asia) and used to be a high school teacher. It doesn't have so much "gender education" herer although in "Taiwan" homosexual people are free to love each other. When I was learning French, I thought it was a language which only has male (la) and female (le)~definately heterosexual points. Now I undestand there's always something new in different countries.
Thank you for you fantastic sharing. : )