Mother's Day is always sweeter to me now that I have children, because for the first 41 years of my life I was childless, and I desperately wanted to be a mom. I just couldn't find the right guy and get things going. I always had a timetable in my mind of when I was going to get married and have children, and publish my first best-selling novel. Of course, as the proverb goes, Man Plans, God Laughs.
I also always had the thought that if I adopted a child I wouldn't get the full 100% experience of being a mom. Yes, I had a bias. I can admit that now, because I realize how foolish I was to think that way.
Apparently I am not the only person to think like that. I was asked just a few years ago, when talking about my son, "What does he call you?" I said "He calls me Mom."
Both kids call me Mom. I also answer to Mama and Mommy. My son usually calls me Mommy now, and that's fine.
Being a mom is so much more than biology.
Most adoptive moms think about their kids' biological moms on this day. If our children were placed at birth, it's likely the bio moms relinquished voluntarily and made a plan for their children. Many adoptions nowadays are Open, meaning everyone knows about everyone else.
In the bad old days, however, adoption was seen as something to be kept secret, or to be ashamed of. This created a lot of emotional problems for adopted children. Imagine being told one day at 10 or 15 or even 35 that the people you've always thought were your biological parents are not biologically related to you at all. That causes massive trust issues and anxiety. I recently made contact with a distant cousin through 23andMe and he was only told when he was 15. His adoptive parents refused to give him any information about his biological parents. He is trying to learn what he can now, many years later.
I fervently believe that everyone on earth deserves to know where they came from, who their biological parents are. I have always told my kids I would help them search if they wanted to search.
Not all kids who search for birth parents will like what they find, of course.
There is some pressure in the adoption community for adoptive moms to honor or include bio moms in Mother's Day celebrations. That's fine, but not all of us can or want to do that.
Another adoptive mom posted an excellent blog about her feelings about her kids' birthmoms. Four out of five of her adopted kids have issues because of the birthmom's alcoholism. She said: "What about when there is information, and it does not allow for creating a fairy tale of a sacrificial birth mom? How about families, like ours, who have had to spend years and years dealing with the emotional wreckage that birth parents caused...the trauma, neglect, anger, and soul deep pain? What do those sweet Mother's Day memes that acknowledge the birth mom and state falsehoods mean when they really do not apply in our own situation?"
As she goes on to explain, all we can do is love our kids and try to help them heal. Those are our best options.
I wish I had been able to adopt both my kids at birth. I couldn't. I got them as soon as I could. I think that's what God calls on us to do: our best.
