What Are The Issues?
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These stories come from seven women living in various parts of London, with children aged 16 months to four years.

"One of our children had made some little thing at nursery and had written 'for Mummy' on it. And the staff had written below it 'for Mummy and Daddy'! They have sometimes referred to [the partner who less often collects the child] as her nanny."

"Our son used to go to a parent-run nursery where they knew us really well. But one day they made Diwali cards and they wrote on them 'to Mummy and Daddy'. I was really upset because they knew my child had two mums. I spoke to the staff member and her response was 'Do you want a sticker to cover it over?'"

"I remember as a kid having to write 'Mummy and Daddy' [on cards]. Because I lived in care saying, 'Why am I doing this? I don't want to do it.' So it's been going on for years."

"For ages the nursery seemed to be reading one book called 'My Dad'. I didn't really feel in a good position to complain as there isn't anything really good I can offer them as an alternative."

"Sometimes when they ask me questions I can tell they've been talking about it for weeks and one of them has been nominated to ask me. Once the question was, what does our son call my partner? which I was pleased they asked, but they looked so frightened. I was glad they talked to me about it, but sorry it was clearly so hard for them."

"Our nursery's policy document used to have lesbian and gay parents mentioned specifically, but the head teacher took it out because he thought we were 'past all that'!"

"I work in primary schools and have found that teachers deal with homophobic language really badly. The response to the use of 'gay' as an insult tends to be either to tell children not to use the word or to tell them that 'gay means happy.' When I've talked about raising it with the children, some teachers have said they're afraid of upsetting religious parents.

School staff need training. We ourselves have to practise how to deal with tricky questions in the street, so how are straight teachers supposed to do it? I'd like to see training for teachers involving role play, giving them the opportunity to practice responding to, and dealing with the issues."

And on a lighter note, from our days as aunties to our siblings' children:

"One day my sister's partner went upstairs to check on his daughter, who was six, and her friend. She said, 'We're playing lesbians.' Slightly alarmed, he asked what they were doing. They'd made a den out of a blanket: 'We've got our own house and we're wearing big earrings and no make-up.'"