Let me ask you a question:
If your mother died, and your father remarried, would you not still miss your mother no matter how much you might come to love and care about your father's new wife?
Would the fact that your father remarried somehow erase the fact that you had a mother before? You wouldn't be expected to forget your own mother, or to not grieve for her, or to not miss her, would you? Of course not. No matter how wonderful this new wife may be, how much you may come to love her and care about her, people would always expect that you'd still love and remember and miss the mom you lost.
But somehow, if you lost your mom through adoption, you ARE expected to forget her, to not miss her, to not grieve for her and to never want to know about her or any of the family you came from. Your "new" mother is your "only" mother and you are not allowed to have any feelings for the mom you lost.
How effed up is that?
Poetry, women, and elections
2 weeks ago
6 wisecracks:
That is a great analogy. I have never thought of it that way but it makes perfect sense. Very well put, I am totally stealing that next time someone gives me stick about missing my mother. Thanks.
It's as effed up as adoption
But there are always those who will say:
"You were just a baby. She didn't even raise you. You can't know what you have missed because you were too little to remember it."
Sadly, I have yet to find a way to counter the "she didn't even raise you" argument.
Ah but we knew her, ML, people forget that we bonded with her for 9 whole months, the closest bond any two humans can share.
I have given birth to two children and have seen first hand the way my babies sought me out moments after birth, the way they recognized my voice, how they were comforted by me and only me.
Perhaps our mothers didn't "raise" us but we knew our mothers; we shared a very real and intimate bond with her, and that bond can not be so simply cast aside. Sure, adopters will try to dismiss it quite lightly, but being a mother myself, a mother through BIRTH, I know the truth.
Thank you for this post Lillie.
It doesn't matter whether I was raised by her or not. Whether I spent nine months in utero or one week after birth or 2 years after birth. She is my mother.
I somehow doubt that for all the women that died during childbirth that their status of mother was erased immediately.
I just found your blog and LOVE it! I'm an n mother myself (it's been 2 years and hell - my parents pressured me and then 1 day after the papers were signed I asked the a parents for her back and they said NO) and I appreciate hearing an adoptee's point of view, in preparation for meeting my baby again one day. It hurts me to read about how your own n mother has treated you - if you were mine you would never once doubt my commitment and love for you. She might be scared that you'll back out of the relationship or something. I'm practically counting the seconds, hours, minutes until my daughter is old enough or wants to meet me. I keep asking the a parents for a visit but they keep saying no. Anyway, I wanted to thank you for sharing your experience. Hugs!
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