La casa delle mamme

The alignment of lesbian mothers with parental responsibility has been investigated in international sociological literature since the emergence of same-sex family studies in the late 1970s. Empirical research on the matter has elaborated different frameworks that challenge feminist understandings of women’s subordination within and outside the family. Nevertheless, such analyses are marginalised in mainstream research on motherhood and mothering, which tends to leave its heteronormative assumptions unquestioned. This article examines processes of devaluation of lesbian motherhood and claims to maternal responsibility through qualitative interviews with two different groups of lesbian mothers living in Italy, a country where their trajectories have recently gained some sociological attention. Results show how lesbian mothers with children from heterosexual relationships and non-birth mothers in planned lesbian families are differentially exposed to delegitimisation and invisibilisation of their maternal status. At the same time, they shed light on different strategies of aligning with maternal responsibility in order to achieve recognition and safeguard family connections.