Her Real Mother

My daughter will be two this month.
Being a parent is hard.

I started transition before my daughters first birthday, and for all practical purposes she's only ever known me as one of her mums.
I think when you become a parent. you're generally aware that at some point you'll o something to mess your kid up.  No matter what, circumstance will conspire against you to ensure that your child has just as many problems as everyone else.  The best you can hope for is that the things you do right will be enough.
When I finally realized that living my old life was no longer a tenable option, only for the briefest of moments was I worried that this was the moment when I learned how I was about to screw up my child.
Aside from the fact that she was going to be too young to remember me any other way than I am, other people's bigotry, should she have to encounter it, is their problem, not hers or mine.
I expect my daughter to be vocal in her opposition of hatred and ignorance in the world, even if she'd have to learn to do so very young.
By contrast, when I realized that my marriage was failing, that was when the bottom fell out.
Even though it was obvious in hindsight, the abrupt end of what had been an almost ten year relationship caught both my ex and I by surprise.
That was the first time I knew what one of the ways I would mess up my kids life would be.
I had simply no idea what my future life was going to look like, and while I'm fine with that for myself, I still don't really have a replacement for the vision of what my daughter's life with her two mums was going to look like.
Part of that is because I feel like a fake.
If the role of fathers is undervalued the role of "not the birth mother" isn't even listed.
I can't even imagine being my daughters father.  Maybe if I was a butch cis lesbian, my gender identity inviable, I could embrace that title with an ironic FU to society, but that isn't me.
After I came out to my ex wife, there was some discussion of what our daughter would call me.
It went like this.

"You can't be called mother"
"That's fine (it wasn't) she can just call me Rowan"

Over the months that followed, my ex unpacked her feelings on how the idea of me being our daughters mother too made her feel unnecessary and disposable.  Being our daughters mother was central to her sense of identity self worth and if it wasn't unique, then what meaning did it have?
I understood where she was coming from and how awful those insecurities are because I understood, that even with that title, I would always be secondary and disposable in that role.
Eventually, after we began settling into our new rhythm she came to me and said, that yes, I could be mother too.
For me though, I'm not sure that insecurity will ever go away.
Perhaps it's just self indulgent fantasy to assume that had I been the one who was pregnant I wouldn't feel like my role as mother could be taken away from me by anyone who is privy to my past life (after all, it wasn't enough for my ex) but being as I wasn't pregnant and didn't give birth it hardly matters.
I am inherently suspect in my role as parent, if not to others, then too myself - it's impossible not to internalize that shit.
After the separation I think things got easy for my ex and harder for me.
I only have my daughter for one or two days a week.
I'm a part time parent, the one who has it "easy".
By contrast she's the real single mum.

Last night my daughter was throwing food in the laundry, running around drunk from exhaustion, fussing and making the sort of mess that toddlers excel at.  I got to eat less than half my dinner (already cold) before I just gave up.
I spent the next three hours trying to get her to settle for bed and I have never felt quite so alone.
When she finally did pass out it was that full body collapse that brings a two year old's cranium into sudden contact with some part of your face and all I could do was lie there with a bloody lip and cry.
For me, being my daughters mother is something conditional, not something intrinsic to me, and it feels as if it can be taken away.
Society takes a pretty dim view of my "choice" and my value as a parent and a woman will always be contingent upon my successes at both.
Failures count double.
I had to wait patiently to be given the title of "honorary other mother" and it feels so fragile.
Asking for help is hard enough.  When I only spend a couple of days a week with my daughter, how can I ask for support or sympathy?
No one cares that the baby sitter had a hard time.

Now I know that the way I feel isn't a reflection of reality, it's my internal state of mind not how others see and judge me, but honestly, in many ways that's worse.
Self affirmation is a very hard thing to do, in fact, I'm not even sure it's possible.
I think that's what being a social animal is.
We cannot truly self validate, we can make do with more or less external validation depending on our temperament, but I don't know that anyone is entirely self sufficient in that regard.
Some experiences though are so universal that clear and specific external confirmation is not needed. Society as a whole has woven these experiences into it's fabric.
One of the hardest things about being trans is that we do not have any broad social acceptance of our experiences so we have no cultural well to draw our own affirmation from.
I know a lot of amazing women who are just incredible parents and there is little enough validation for them as it is.  No one however, would deny that they are indeed mothers.