What is NORMAL?

First of all I would like to thank those of you who have written me e-mails and made positive comments on my blog. I have found so many negative blogs (about adoption) and have been reading so much negative material I was beginning to doubt my abilities as a mother, but my strength is now renewed! Thank you for turning my eyes and heart back to the positive!

As I have been reading the book “The Primal Wound, Understanding the Adopted Child” there are several things that I agree with, and then there are several things that make me question whether the actions of my children are the direct result of being adopted or just normal actions of children growing up and finding out who they are. I tend to side with the latter. I took the book (The Primal Wound) back to the library yesterday, I couldn’t read anymore right now – the following is the last quote I typed from the book:

“Adoption, considered by many as merely a concept, is, in fact, a traumatic experience for the adoptee. It begins with the separation from his biological mother and ends with his living with strangers. Most of his life he may have denied or repressed his feelings about his experience, having had no sense that they would be acknowledged or validated. He may, instead, have been made to feel as if he should be grateful for this monumental manipulation of his destiny. Somewhere within him however, he does have feelings about this traumatic experience, and having these feelings does not mean that he is abnormal, sick, or crazy. It means that he is wounded as a result of having suffered a devastating loss and that his feelings about this are legitimate and need to be acknowledged, rather than ignore or challenged.”

Bryan is my oldest son. He was originally placed with our family when he was 2 ½ years old, a few months later his birth mother wanted to parent him so he went back to be with his mother and grandmother and then returned to our family 14 months later when he was almost four.

I don’t know everything about Bryan during his first four years of life but I know that his mother and grandmother took very good care of him. He is the oldest grandchild so I know he was given a lot of attention and love.

Bryan has always been exceptional… exceptionally smart, exceptionally obedient, and an all around exceptionally successful person. Bryan has a phenomenal memory and amazing recall of past events. He is always willing to help me, usually without being asked. (Is this because he is so depressed and deprived from being adopted, as the author of the Primal Wound would have me believe?) I don't think so!

Bryan receiving his Eagle Scout Award last year.

I often wonder, is Bryan's behavior “normal” or is he an exceptional over achiever due to some "unseen wound" that lies within him due to being adopted? Bryan knows he is adopted; we talk about it openly whenever he has a question. He can e-mail his birth mother at any time, call her on the phone, or talk to her on Facebook, if he chooses to do so. A few years ago when Ruth moved he even came with me and helped Ruth move into her new apartment.

When I asked Bryan what he thought about me keeping my blog “open” he responded that he wanted to keep it open. He said talking about adoption with his friends gives him an opportunity to meet new people and share his beliefs. He was very adamant about keeping my blog available for anyone to read.

(Thus it is still open right now).

I just got back from an awards assembly at his junior high school. Bryan was given the “Soaring Eagle” award (his school mascot is the Eagle) – and he had to be nominated by a teacher, I would like to share what his teacher wrote on his nomination form (the words in CAPS were like that on the nomination) – Bryan gave me his permission to share on my blog:

Camille (me) with Bryan holding his awards

“Bryan is an amazing student. It is not easy to skip a grade, but he did. He was too advanced in 7th grade so he became a 9th grader this year when he should have been in 8th grade normally. I LOVE having him in my computer tech class because he desires to learn all he can from me. I ALWAYS have his full attention when I teach – his eyes are always on me and he listens intently, soaking in all the information.

I LOVE the fact that he wants to learn all he can. He chose to sit front and center in the classroom. Whenever I am teaching and his classmates start talking, he is the first one to speak up and tell them to be quiet. Like I said, he wants to learn all he can, not to be held back by his classmates.

Bryan is a top notch student. The sky is the limit with him, nothing holds him back from achieving. He plows through to be a high achiever… can we clone him???

He is kind, helpful, and friendly with his new 9th grade friends, he fits right in with his fellow high value/high achieving students. He does choose his friends wisely. I am so impressed with Bryan.”

My children are as “normal” as any other teenagers I know with similar questions and concerns with regards to growing up. I decided to just keep focusing on the positive – it far outweighs the negative in my life, especially with regards to my children and our family. I believe my children know they are loved; inevitably they will still have questions with regards to their placement with our family, but we will continue to be open and honest as the questions arise.

We have been blessed beyond measure and I acknowledge my Father in Heaven for blessing me so abundantly!

“If she could do that, what about you?”

I haven’t written for the past week because I have been trying to sort out my own feelings with regards to open adoption (debating on even continuing this blog) and also dealing with issues with my children as they explore their own feelings and try to make sense of being “adopted.”

“Even if the child recognizes that the adoptive mother is not the abandoning
mother, she certainly could become one. After all, if it happened once, it could
happen again. Frederick Stone points out that the question, whether spoken or
unspoken, “Why did my own mother not keep me?” is always followed by the
unexpressed but equally anxious thought, ‘If she could do that, what about
you.’” (The Primal Wound)

A few years ago my son Cole and I were out on a walk and he asked me a very interesting question, he said “can someone else adopt me?” I wasn’t quite sure what he meant but then he said “can you give me to someone else?” We talked about this for quite some time and I tried to make him understand that there was nothing that would make me give him up. But he asked “if I was given up once by my own mother (Ruth), couldn’t that happen again?”

Then a couple of days ago my boys and I were all in the kitchen together, my two younger sons were arguing and I said “you guys have got to stop arguing and try to get along with each other.” Then my oldest son said “maybe you should just adopt them to someone else.” I was so surprised/stunned by his comment; I didn’t even have an answer. I had to leave the room and try and compose myself before I told him "that wasn’t an option" ~ but sometimes the reality of adoption is hard.

“Substitute Mother”

Tonight was Preston’s night. I bought myself a new cookbook (Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld) for Mother’s Day so Preston and I were off to buy all sorts of new ingredients for the recipes…. After two hours of talking, shopping and running errands we finally made it back home. When we pulled into the garage Cole came out to help us unload the groceries. Preston made the comment, “you are the best mom ever!” to which Cole replied “what do you mean, she is our only mom… well except for our birth mom.” Then Preston said to me “well yeah, Ruth is my birth mom, but you are my mother.”

Cole and Preston dressing up for their Valentine's Dance February 2010

I have been reading a book called book “The Primal Wound, Understanding the Adopted Child” by Nancy Verrier (as suggested by Gloria). Surprisingly there are several points and theories that I agree with, but there are other ideas that I don’t agree with based on my own experiences as an adoptive mother. The following is a quote from the chapter titled “The Connection with the Birth Mother.”

“I don’t believe it is possible to sever the tie with the biological
mother and replace her with another primary caregiver, no matter how warm,
caring, and motivated she may be, without psychological consequences for the
child (and the mother). An infant or child can certainly attach to another
caregiver, but the quality of that attachment may be different from that
with the first mother, and bonding may be difficult, or as many adoptees
have told me, impossible.”

And another quote from the chapter titled “Adoption as an Experience”

“Even if the adoptive mother has established a relationship with the birth
mother and aided in the birth of the baby, the baby will recognize her as an
imposter, a substitute for the mother with whom he spent the first nine months
of his life.”

I am not naïve enough to believe that my children will never have questions about their birth mother or long to be with her and spend time with her, we have dealt with those issues from day one. But I also don’t believe that my children can’t love me as their mother. I don’t believe they see me as a “substitute” mother any more than I see my children as “substitute" children.

I thought of it this way ~ as a mother if you have more than one child you know that you can love all of them. My children are all different with their own personalities, quirks, dreams and ideas, but it doesn’t mean that I love one of them less. It is the same with family members. I have four brothers and five sisters and I love all of them, each one has special meaning to me and my life. It is the same with my friends. I have more than one “best” friend, some friends I can share personal and intimate details of my life with, others I see on a more casual basis, but I love each of them for what they mean to me.

I think it can be the same for my children loving more than one mother. I am not trying to “sever the tie with the biological mother and replace her” – I know that is an impossibility, but I don’t believe that my children see me as a “substitute” – they only see me as their mother.