The L Word Lied to Us About What Lesbian Parenthood Looks Like
- Gay Moms Club
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
But we still rewatch it every two years and we're not apologizing.
There is a specific kind of nostalgia that hits when you pull up The L Word (OG) on a Wednesday night after your kid is finally asleep. Your partner is on the couch with their sleepy-time gummy tea, and you both just need to go somewhere that isn't here.
You know it's messy television. You know Bette Porter would be insufferable in real life. You watch it anyway.
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I came out in 2008, which means The L Word was basically my queer curriculum. I watched it on a borrowed library DVD with my first girlfriend convinced this was exactly what my adult life would look like. (Shoutout to the Vail Public Library for stocking the complete box set, truly doing the Lord's work.) The drama. The abs.
I did not think I would end up Googling "how to get slime off a couch that is definitely not machine washable" while a six-year-old explains why dinosaurs cannot be pets but he wants one anyway.
The show gave me something I genuinely needed: lesbians as fully formed people with full, complicated, slightly unhinged lives. I'll always be grateful for that. Not every detail in the show aged well, and that girlfriend didn't make the cut, but it shaped what I believed adulthood could look like, and that mattered more than I knew at the time.
Anyway, in the spirit of love and gentle grievance:
The Lies, Itemized
1. That the baby would make the relationship drama more cinematic
On the show, there is always something to fight about in an interesting way. Somebody wants something the other person can't give. There are ultimatums. Meaningful silences. We still have things to fight about. We just don’t have the energy to do it well. Most of our conflicts end not because we worked through them but because one of us fell asleep or forgot we were even in a fight.
2. That queer parents live in a gorgeous interconnected found-family commune
Our community is two other queer families we see semi-regularly and a group chat that is mostly logistics and the occasional genuine cry for help. We don’t actually share daily life. We live in different suburbs, with different schedules, so there’s no dreamy commune energy or spontaneous dinner parties. And that’s fine. It works. But it is not an award–winning drama.
3. That having two moms would make parenting feel more enlightened
Queerness is not a personality upgrade that makes you calmer or more emotionally intelligent or instills a perfectly regulated nervous system. We are still two tired adults making dinner decisions at 6:50 p.m. We still forget things. We still miscommunicate. We still fight about the dishes. We have always fought about the dishes.
4. That you would feel hot and interesting while doing this
Everyone on that show, even crying, looks camera-ready. Meanwhile, I am currently parenting in the same hoodie I slept in and wore yesterday, and possibly the day before that. I would like to say I feel glamorous in this chapter of life, but mostly I feel practical. My son has opinions about it. I told him he’s not in charge of my hoodie.
5. That the non-biological mom question would eventually feel resolved
The show gestures at this and wraps it up in an episode arc. Real life resurfaces it at the pediatrician, at school events, at playground introductions, every time a stranger asks, "which one of you is his mom?" You learn to choose your response based on how much energy you have that day. Sometimes you educate. Sometimes you smile and move on. It doesn't get resolved. You just get better at carrying it.
What It Actually Got Right
It got the longing right. The way these women fought for things they almost couldn't let themselves want… families, futures that felt fully theirs. That landed differently once I was on the other side of it. My son is going to grow up never having needed that the way I needed it. He’ll think it was always like this. I hope he never fully understands what a gift that is.
JOIN GAY MOMS CLUB
Gay Moms Club is a welcoming online community for LGBTQ+ moms who want real connection, honest conversations, and friendships that fit into real life.
You shouldn’t have to explain your family before you can make a friend.
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