To Say Mother

The word mother is a slippery concept for me, and one that often leaves me wondering where I fit in. Oh, just call me a mother. Because I was once a first mother, briefly. I was an adoptive mother for 14 years, and I’m the mother of a child I gave birth to and raised to adulthood.

I hold close to my heart first mothers. My mom was 15 when she was pregnant with me, and I was once a pregnant teenager with a baby to raise alone, or place for adoption. I hold close to my heart adoptive mothers because for 14 years I was an adoptive mother to a son, and the only reason I’m not still his mother is because he died. And for seven years I was the mother of a daughter who came to me from foster care at age 10. We adopted her when she was 12, and at age 17 she decided that she did not want to be adopted, and decided to go her own way. She was able to carve out a good life for herself in the adult world, without me, which is why I hold adoptees who have had hard journeys close to my heart. 

They say that the oldest child has the worst of it in most families, suffering from all the mistakes his or her parents don’t have enough experience to avoid. It struck me in later years that my oldest daughter had many rookie mothers to contend with; her first mother, followed with numerous foster mothers and then she had to start out all over again with me for those last seven years. 

While I was busy planning out the kind of life, I hoped we would lead together, she had her own hopes and dreams. This is yet another reason why I wish more adoptive parents would show more respect, more compassion to adoptees who hold strong opinions. Because after all, what if their child grows up and has something he or she wants to voice. Won’t those parents someday want their own adult son or daughter to be spoken to kindly, treated with benevolence? 

When I hear the word mother, I know that even when they are dividing us with a motherhood label to describe us, the one common thread that is embedded in all of us, in first mothers, adoptive mothers, and in all mothers worldwide, is that we want our sons and daughters to be treated with kindness. 

For me, the word mother is an identifier best describing the sacred clan of us who link our own personal identity and have journeyed into the realm of motherhood in one form or another. It is made up of women like me whose children live within our current lives, or are alive within our heart.

First published in Adoption and Fostering Parenting Today.