At the beginning of my search, for a father for my child, I didn’t even realize that I would be living co-parenting later. It was always important to me that my child knows where his roots are and has a dad who cares for the child and also supports me in educational matters and personally.
Through Google, I then became aware of Familyship and, as far as I know, I was one of the first members. At the beginning I was looking in the area from Flensburg to Hannover and from Bremen to Berlin, but I quickly decided to look for a father in and around Hamburg. I wrote to Rüdiger more than 5 years ago and got an answer from him one day later. The funny thing is that he was about to write me too, but I beat him to it. At first we only had e-mail contact for a few weeks before we met for the first time to see if we liked each other in person.
To outsiders, a perfectly normal married couple
We went to breakfast together at the first meeting and were immediately mistaken for husband and wife. This was then decisive for us that he/she is the right person to have a child together. We then took three years to get to know each other, went on vacation together, got to know friends and family and talked a lot about how we imagined having a child, raising children, living arrangements and so on and what wishes and worries we would also have as a gay dad and lesbian mom. But we quickly realized that we need not have such worries, as we are perceived by the rest of society as “normal” parents. From time to time it bothers us, but we leave it at people we don’t know (e.g. the waiter in the restaurant). However, in the daycare center that our daughter has been attending for three months now, we are gradually clearing it up with the parents and educators.
Parental leave together
Then, during pregnancy, we talked about how we envisioned it after maternity leave. Before, all this was only dreams of the future, but now it is reality that we will soon become parents. Since I started a new job after maternity leave and wanted to work for a few hours, we decided to go on parental leave together. At the time, the new law with ElterngeldPLUS had just come out and we thought that was exactly what we wanted. So I was able to start my new job quickly and Rüdiger could enjoy the first months with his daughter, despite his work. In the beginning we had one day off a week, which we used together as a “family”. We did something, but also had time and space to talk about everyday problems with child. They were able to reflect on situations in their new daily lives and discuss their fears and wishes. After we went back to work full time, we agreed that we would have breakfast together every Sunday, so that we could find time here, in the sometimes stressful daily routine, to share ideas.
So we agreed in one of the talks that our daughter would sleep with Rüdiger twice a week and then, starting in the summer, she would be with him every other weekend. It is important to us that our daughter perceives us as parents, even though we currently do not have a partner. We go on vacation together, clarify problems together with the daycare center, but also always have room to function as our own family (Rüdiger with his daughter/ me with my daughter).
