As the Supreme Court deliberates the legality of gay marriage, Paige Burkart-Lima waits to see if her two mothers’ marriage will become legitimized across the United States.

Paige has grown up in an all-female household with her parents Kathy Burkart and Cindy Lima, and her older sister Lindsey. Kathy is called “Mommy,” while Cindy is called “Momma.”
Cindy said that she does not want to let herself get too excited about the possible legalization of gay marriage.
“I am completely out of patience with the whole thing. I don’t think there’s anything left in me to feel excited,” Cindy said. “It’s like you’re walking around and someone has a knife in your side and it really hurts and then they take the knife away – are you excited or are you just like, ‘Okay, finally’?”
The Burkart-Limas know the feeling of disappointment all too well after having their first marriage license revoked a few months after their wedding. In 2004, Kathy and Cindy got married for the first time when former mayor Gavin Newsom decide to issue marriage licenses in San Francisco.
“We saw it on the news the night before and we woke up in the morning – it was Valentine’s Day – and we said, ‘Well, we have to do this!’” Cindy said. “There was a line wrapped around the block, and it was this really exciting moment.”
However, their marriage license was revoked months later.
“We got a letter from City Hall saying that our marriage license was being revoked and did we want our $12 reimbursement or did we want to donate to charity, which felt like a slap in the face,” Cindy said.
However, the ban of gay marriage was taken to court and the ruling successfully got overturned, so gay marriage was again legal in California.
“We got married on our 20th anniversary at Rodeo Beach with the girls and my mom and some family,” Cindy said.  “Even once Prop 8 passed, the people who had been married during that time are still married legally, but not married according to the federal government.”
Kathy and Cindy both said that the passing of the Proposition 8 in 2008 was devastating to them.
“I was so shocked, it was unfathomable to me. To me, it felt like getting hit in the stomach with a baseball bat,” Cindy said.  “They voted to change the Constitution to discriminate against us and our family, and we’re about as average and boring as I can think of.”
But Paige, who began to notice that other kids had a mom and a dad after moving from San Francisco to Marin in third grade, said that many people are intrigued by the fact that she has two moms.
“Usually when I tell people, they’re just really surprised,” Paige said. “I guess people think that I’m going to be really different or I’ll somehow show that I’m the kid of two women.”
Paige said she sometimes worries that new friends won’t understand or accept her family.
“I always worry about meeting a really good friend then introducing them to my parents and them being like, ‘I don’t believe in same-sex marriage,’” Paige said.  “There’s always that awkward feeling.”
Cindy said that she was concerned about the difficulties Paige and Lindsey would face from having gay parents, but she also believes it has made them stronger.
“I think my concerns were that my kids stay away from drugs, and will they drive safely, and will they get a good education. Same concerns anyone else has. And then of course I hope who we are doesn’t make it hard for them, knowing they would face it,” Cindy said. “When you face adversity you get stronger. I think they’re both much stronger for the little things they had to deal with.”
Kathy said that she believes her kids have also benefited from growing up without seeing gender roles in the home.
“One of the benefits I hadn’t even considered is sort of growing up in a non-sexist role household. Everything is shared, everything’s kind of neutral,” Cindy said.
Kathy said that instead of gravitating towards certain jobs in the house based on gender, she and her wife take on duties that work the best for each of them.
“In our household, we kind of gravitate towards the things we do well and or that we can tolerate or don’t mind doing versus anything stereotypical,” Kathy said.
However, Kathy also said she would not label her family as “different” compared to straight parent families.
“The bottom line is our family is just like everybody else – we take out the garbage on Sunday nights or we forget and we have to pack it in twice for the next week. We pay the bills and go to work and take the kids to volleyball,” Kathy said.
Paige said that some of her peers have had a hard time understanding her family’s background.
“Usually they’re just like, ‘Wow, that’s really interesting’ or ‘Wow, how does that work?’ and then I have to explain to them that there is sperm donation,” Paige said. “I’ve had to draw diagrams. They can’t really get it through their head. They’re like, ‘So you had a mom and a dad and they divorced?’ and I’m like, ‘No, I’ve always had two moms.’”
Both Paige and her older sister are biologically related to Lima, and were born from the same sperm donor.
“The plan originally was for my mom to have my sister Lindsey, and then my other mom to have me,” Paige said. “But Kathy couldn’t get pregnant, so Cindy just ended up having both me and my sister with the same sperm donor.”
They also have half–siblings who live with other same-sex families, who they found using a website called donorsiblingregistry.com which allows families to find other children born from the same sperm donor.
Paige said she got to know one of her brothers through instant messaging online, and then the families who used the same sperm donor met up for Christmas one year.
“We compared different characteristics and we were like, ‘Oh, what do your hands look like?’ and we figured out a bunch of things,” Paige said. “We all took off our shoes and put our feet out and everyone had super long toes, everyone had the same nose, so we kind of had an idea of what the sperm donor looked like.”
Paige said that she and her siblings have different perspectives when it comes to meeting their donor.
“All of my siblings have different plans for what they want to do. My brother called him and I think that was kind of it for him, he just wanted to talk to him,” Paige said.  “My sister doesn’t. She’s 18. She could have gotten his information when she turned 18 but she didn’t want to.”
Unlike her sister, Paige said she plans to meet her biological father at age 18, when she is legally allowed to.
“I was always really curious about who he was. Why wouldn’t you want to know? I think it’s weird to feel like I’m related to him but I don’t know him,” Paige said. “I plan to meet him when I’m 18.”