Hello my Blogville friends. Welcome back and thank you for joining me with a cup of tea, today is a Chai Tea for me. I have to warn you, this one is hurting me to write. I’m not sure how it will feel to read it. (Trigger warning: grief and loss.) Mother’s Day has always been a bit hard for me, but now, as the second one without my mom approaches, it feels even harder. Then, I happened upon a Facebook page that was reminding folks that National Birth Mother’s Day in the United States is on the Saturday before Mother’s Day, and has been recognized since 1990. I could only find this day recognized as a National Day in the United States (perhaps other countries note it as well, but I could not find anything). I’ll admit I struggled with the concept of a National day celebrating birth mothers of adoptees.


As I continued scrolling on Facebook I noticed that one of my birth sisters had posted some pictures from what would have been her parents’ wedding anniversary (if her mother was still living). My birth mother and her husband would have been married 64 years this year according to the post. On their anniversary date I will be exactly 65 years, 7 months, and 8 days old. I don’t know why this hit me, but it did, maybe it was related to reading about National Birth Mother’s Day. When my birth mother got married, I had been with my adoptive parents for 10 of my 19 months of life. I was one year, seven months, and eight days old on her wedding day. Her first child, my maternal half sister, was four years, seven months, and sixteen days old on our birth mother’s wedding day. I cannot help but wonder if my half-sister and I were present in her mind on that date? Our birth mother looks content in the posted pictures but I could not help but wonder if any thoughts or memories of us walked down that aisle with her?


The pictures of my birth mother and her new husband made me think about things. It made me happy that it looked like she found peace in her decision to have let us go. I find some peace in the knowledge that letting us go had eventually led to a long and happy marriage with four beautiful daughters born to her and her husband. I know it may sound weird but there is a part of me that is very happy that she had a good life while there is a part of me that wonders about my role in her life. I had a role after all, I was born to her. She chose life for me, even if she did not include herself in my life, or try to plan for a future together. I hope that she imagined a ‘happily every after’ adoption story for me when she thought of me, that is, if she ever thought of me. I wondered if she thought of my half-sister and I when she looked into the face of her first newborn daughter. The first one that she could keep and raise, that is.


Mother’s Day also makes me think about the fact that my birth half-sister and I had our fair share of mothers, or mother figures, while we awaited adoption planning, and even once we were adopted. Though I do not remember them, I know that the ‘mothering’ I received from the nursing staff at the home for unwed mothers was positive as I demonstrated imprinting when I was hospitalized months later. I was cared for by those nurses for many weeks before a worker was free to travel and discharge me from their care. My file reveals less positive caring with my initial foster care placements, but that all changed once I was placed with my final foster parents. As you know, I have written a blog about searching for, and finally meeting that foster mother and how special that meeting was, not only for me, but for her as well. From the bottom of my heart, I wish Lena a Happy Mother’s Day from her “Marie”.


At this point in my thoughts, I would like to offer a little shout out to foster mothers. Taking in and caring for children who have suffered is truly a calling. My professional work with foster parents repeatedly demonstrated a selflessness that is unique to foster mothers. I want foster parents to know that it is not a ‘thankless job’, we are grateful you were/are there for us and on behalf of myself, and all others who needed or still need you I say, “Thank You!” Especially on Mother’s Day.


My paternal half-siblings are very lucky to still have their mother, and they enjoy a positive relationship with her. My birth father did not know about me or my birth until he was no longer in a relationship with their mother so she and I have no real connection. However, I can say that she raised very caring, considerate and successful children who were very accepting of me from the moment they found out I existed. I sincerely wish her a happy Mother’s Day. As well, my maternal half-sisters have a step-mother who has been very welcoming and kind to me whenever I have visited with she and her husband at their home. I wish her a very Happy Mother’s Day. 

​Now, to my own role as a mother. As you may or may not know, I have four adult children who were born to, and raised by, my husband and I. Being a mother to them has been my greatest role in my life. I think back to all the fears and insecurities I had when I became a mother, and now recognize that I did some things right and some things wrong but my motivation was always pure, and in my children’s best interest. One example of a parental learning curve was that I had read that babies will usually say “Dada” first before “Mama”. There are a few theories about why that is, such as that babies don’t identify their mothers as separate from themselves so they say Dada first, while other theories speculate that it is simply because the ‘d’ sound is easier to say than the ‘m’ sound.  As a result, with our firstborn, I preferred it if people referred to my husband as Daddy and to me as Mama. I mean it kind of worked, my oldest daughter did say Mama first but the downside was that it then took forever for her to say Dada. Needless to say, I later dropped that ‘don’t say Dada’ rule so naturally, all the other children said Dada first.


I think I did ok as a mom. I know that many times I wondered if some of my parenting errors, were due to having been adopted. I was unable to consult with my mom about stuff because she would remind me that she never had a newborn. I think she may have even been grateful for that fact on the day I asked her to clip and remove my cesarean surgery stitches for me because they were driving me over the edge. I’m just kidding, my mom would have put up with anything to have given birth to a baby. The fact that she repeatedly reminded me of this did make me a little sad, often feeling like a consolation prize instead of first prize. She did not mean it that way, but it was certainly the underlying message I received. 


So, I could not really consult her on baby, toddler stuff, but I could talk to her about other parenting insecurities that I think all new mothers feel. Luckily, I could talk with my mother-in-law about much of the other baby-care and developmental type stuff. Only my children can really speak for how I did as a mom but, like most children, I think they mostly remember when I said, “No” or when I failed them in some way. I read somewhere that when the negative memories stand out it is because they are an anomaly among so many more positive memories. I’m going to go with that theory because it is in my favour. Plus I have evidence of good parenting in photos and videos.


When I became a grandmother, suddenly I was the mother of a mother! Now that was overwhelming. There is something about your daughter becoming a mother that makes one reflect on their own role in life. When I met my first grandchild (actually they were twin boys so I met my second grandchild only minutes later) I cannot truly express how overwhelmed I was when I thought about my birth mother’s own mother. Though I understood the ‘times’ and the ‘shame’ of my birth mother finding herself pregnant but I could not for the life of me understand how she could turn her back on her grandchild, her own flesh and blood. How could a grandmother behave as if that grandchild was never born? How could she make her daughter behave like that too? When I looked at my two grandchildren in their little hospital cots I felt a great sense of loss on behalf of the babies my birth half-sister and I had been, and how we could not be our birth mother’s children, nor our birth grandmother’s grandchildren. We were nobody’s babies.


As a grandmother, I hope that I modelled good parenting. I also hope that my grandchildren like me and enjoy spending time with me. I am truly grateful that I live in a world where the mothers of ‘unmarried’ mothers can help and support their daughters to become mothers and are no longer forced to support society’s historically dim view of single parenting. So, I wish a Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers, foster mothers, birth mothers, adoptive mothers, kinship mothers, Customary Care mothers, grandmothers, and any other mother roles I may have neglected to mention!


Thank you for stopping by! Remember, I love reading your comments whether you comment here publicly or reach out to me via my email [email protected]. I hope to see you in two weeks in Blogville with your cup of tea in hand. 

Hello and welcome back my Blogville friends. I have selected a Berry Berry Blast ‘Relaxing Tea’ for our visit today. Probably due to the onset of spring cleaning, my thoughts have turned to our possessions, and how we love to hang on to them. While I write this blog I am enjoying my tea, procrastinating on my spring cleaning, and having a little fun on the topic. I thought I might share some of my experiences with you from what I call ‘The NO PARTING ZONE’ (cue the 1959 Twilight Zone theme music here).

I have always wondered if it is because I was adopted that I have such a hard time throwing things out. Then I met my husband. He was not adopted but he has an even harder time throwing things out than I do. He jokingly says that is why we are still
married after 44 years. Hmmmm . . .

Do you have that drawer too? The one where you have 100 or so twist ties and at least as many elastic bands? I mean, you never know when you might need them right? Oh, and do you remember bread tags with the “best before” date on them? Why would we keep those, and if you reused them, how did you know the true expiration date? I mean seriously, throw out the bread tags and use some of your 100 twist ties!

I have to say that keeping all the greeting cards I have ever received can actually be an advantage. Say, for example that one of my kids forgets to send or give me a card for Mother’s Day one year. While other mothers might have to resort to sending their kids a little guilt message, we who live in the NO PARTING ZONE do not.  Instead, I can simply select a card from my Mother’s Day Card collection, being careful to select one that was signed by that very same child, and put it on display for friends and family who may happen by. I call that ‘emotional recycling’, especially if I had to read through all the cards in my collection to choose the correct, but not most recent, one. Friends or relatives that happen to drop by might notice the absence of a card, but they likely won’t notice that the card on display was actually ‘recycled’.

Recently I was looking for something in my underwear drawer and an old film canister fell open, spilling its treasured contents. I won’t say what these tiny little white things were but my kids got money for them. Also inside the canister was a tiny piece of paper identifying the matching child (I do have four kids after all). Why do I still have these?? I once asked one of the kids if they wanted them and they looked at me like I had lost my mind. Hmmm, now that I’m thinking of it, I’ll have to ask her if she still has her kids’ little ‘pearls’ saved somewhere.

Another fun thing I come across occasionally (more often than I probably should) are those little works of art that were once found crumpled in the bottom of my children’s back packs. Remember, my kids are now in their 30s and 40s. Years ago those works of art were carefully flattened out to the best of my ability and proudly tacked up on the fridge or the bulletin board. I mean, how do you now throw those out? What if one of them asks me about that cow picture they drew in Grade 2? (Hmmm I always thought it was a moose!) What do I say. “I threw it out.”???

Once our children aged out of post-secondary education we set them free to find and create new lives out in the adult world. Apparently though, we are keeping their toys, textbooks, DVDs, CDs, VHS tapes, and so on in case they come back for them. In the NO PARTING ZONE every souvenir t-shirt, hoodie, and hat or cap, whether it fits them or not, should be kept. After all, if those souvenir items are given away or discarded, how will our children be expected to remember that family vacation? For them, and for us, those ‘touristy’ items hold their family vacation memories like a time capsule. After all, we likely never spent the money developing their camera films from the trip because it would have been too expensive to develop photos of their thumbs, feet, or bottom of their backpack.

On the topic of pictures, keeping all their school photos stacked year to year behind each other in special individual school photo frames has special significance. It means that our children are perpetually immortalized in those frames exactly as they looked in grade 12, the last picture placed lovingly in their respective frame. If my grandchildren are interested, they will be able to see their parents photos from Junior Kindergarten to the last grade of high school pressed tightly together one single picture frame. My grandchildren can literally watch the years of fashion, the progression from baby to adult teeth (sometimes including braces), no glasses to fashionably framed glasses, and the remarkable hairstyles, of their parents. Of course there are post-secondary framed pictures as well, but they were too big to fit in those old frames. 

Maybe with all the recycling programs and things like electronic picture frames where you can simply upload digital pictures, people will no longer need a NO PARTING ZONE. I remember years ago, before I had even really heard about recycling, we visited my husband’s brother in his very progressively green community in Southern Ontario. My brother-in-law showed us a divided waste disposal system in his kitchen and gave us a quick tour of the plastics, paper, and glass sections of this divided can in which to place our recyclables. Then, adding even more confusion, he showed us a compost container for food waste. To this day I wonder if my brother-in-law and his wife ever suspected why my husband and I carried multiple plastic bags TO the local mall. Did they ever wonder why there was no extra recycling despite having two house guests? Luckily, once their children were old enough, we could ask the boys which waste item went where, as if we were testing their knowledge, not ours. Also when visiting in future, we started bringing an extra suitcase for the ‘un-sortable’ garbage that we could never figure out what went where. Then, we simply brought that stuff home and threw it out. 

By the way, you know the multiple sets of car tires that are piled up in the garage from all the vehicles you have purchased during your marriage, no worries, in the NO PARTING ZONE you can use them in your yard as planters, sandboxes, or maybe even hang a tire swing somewhere on your property. Of note, old vehicle tires also make a wonderful senior citizen’s obstacle course right there in the garage or in your back porch, or both. Oh, and if you are really lucky, once your children move out and purchase their own vehicles and new tires, you get to store their off season tires for them too!

I feel a little bad for what my kids will face once we are gone. If things don’t get spring cleaned out of here before we die, they will have three generations worth of stuff to go through and decide its fate. There are things from my husband’s parents that he kept when they passed, and things I have kept from my parents. Then there are the things we kept from our four children and now from our grandchildren. There are probably 20 or more photo albums (those are big books we used to put printed pictures in, instead of storing them on on our phones) that they will need to go through and figure out what to do with. We all place different value on different things so what we have kept may be easy for them to get rid of and they may keep things we think they will throw away when we are no longer here. Either way, I don’t envy them the task.

I do have to make a pro-NO PARTING ZONE note here as well. As you may or may not know, in a previous blog I talked about meeting one my foster parents when I was in my 60s. It was a quest I had been on for over 40 years and when I met her, she gave me photographs of the youngest me I had ever seen. She had saved them in the hopes we would find each other again one day. I love her for that gift. In a cedar chest belonging to my parents was the tiny little outfit I wore when my adoption worker dropped me off to my parents in June of 1959. My mom had kept that outfit and all the ‘Congratulations You Are Adopting’ greeting cards my parents received from family and friends when I joined the family. I love my mom for that. 

Again, I am not sure if my adoptee status has influenced my need to keep little treasures of the past in my NO PARTING ZONE but all I can say is, ‘sorry kids’ be sure to think fondly of me when you go through these things. Maybe you can finally throw out your ‘works of art’. I know I cannot.
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Thanks for reading this little fun blog, I hope you enjoyed it. If you have any comments, and I LOVE your comments, please share them with me as it gives me the motivation to go on writing these little blogs. If you prefer to comment privately, please email me at [email protected]. I look forward to hearing from you. 

Hello Blogville friends! Welcome back, it is so nice to see you. This morning I am drinking a green passionfruit tea that I have never tried before and it is very refreshing. Almost as refreshing as visit that I just had with a dear friend. Let’s talk about that for a bit.


So, just to illustrate the circumstances of this visit I have to bring you in to the start of it. My friend and I had been planning this visit for a while now, finally landing on the best dates that worked for both of us. Also, my friend usually stops and spends the night with another friend she has in a town just about half-way between my friend’s city and mine. This also serves as a break in the long journey’s drive as we are no longer ‘spring chickens’. At first I was worried about her driving during the eclipse day but realized she would be safely ensconced in her friend’s home by the time of the big event. 


So, one morning last week I had decided to take a walk on a different route than I usually do because the weather was spectacular for April in Northern Ontario. As I’m plodding along, listening to my tunes and enjoying the sunshine I get a text message from said friend. The text read, “Just leaving North Bay. Long hauling it.” I read, then re-read the text message, then checked the date (nope it isn’t April 8th, otherwise known as ‘eclipse day’) and so I text clarified, “On your way here?” My heart fluttering as I stood on the sidewalk watching the replying text bubbles. The bubbles disappeared as her one word message popped up, “Yes”


It is amazing how just one word can strike such panic in a person. I’m standing on some sidewalk on an unfamiliar block because today, TODAY, I decided to be adventurous! I have no idea how long it will take me to walk this route home but I do have an idea of what I need to do when I get there. I need to put fresh sheets on the bed in the guest room, clean the guest bathroom, and finish the dusting I had started last week , abruptly stopping when my family suddenly arrived early for dinner and I had never got back to finishing. 


Oh, wait! I’ll call one of my daughters for a ride I thought, phew! So I text her, she who is usually around, she who is not working today, she who is available. Yep you guessed it . . . not available to come and get her mother. All the times I dropped everything to go get that kid, you think she would be more grateful and drop everything to return the favour. “Ok, ok”, I started calming down as I remembered that North Bay is still a four hour drive from here. 


If only I knew how long it would take me to find my way out of this maze of a subdivision and get home. Surely it won’t take four hours. I pick up the pace. About half way home there is a road closed sign as the city workers repair yet another mine-shaft sized pot hole. Going around would take me an extra block of distance and time. Wait, the sign does not say ‘sidewalk closed’, and suddenly I see a fellow with a cane coming toward me on said sidewalk. Off I sprint before any workers can tell me not to use the sidewalk, and by ‘sprint’ I mean walk really fast. Made it!


So I enter my house, assess the cleaning priorities, and get moving. Well, moving as fast as a person can after walking twice as far as usual. I managed to get the bulk of the tasks done just before my friend drove into the driveway. “Is it the 8th already?” I asked. Laughingly she said her plans had changed. I would have been completely mortified if she were anyone else but as she is one of the most non-judgemental people I know, (and she was a week early after all) I was only a tad mortified. Phew!


Finally, her car is unpacked, suitcases safely in her room, the tour of towels, closet space and hangers, extra soap and such is over, so we go into the living room to relax and catch up. Suddenly, as we are sitting there talking, my attention is caught by a dust bunny behind the chair she was sitting in and a fine line of dust (that I had obviously missed in my surface cleaning frenzy) on the side of the organ just about a foot from her head.Mortification loomed again so that’s when I opened the wine.


I don’t know about you but visiting with a friend you knew ‘way back when’ but whom you do not see often is like being in a time machine. I met my friend when I went to live with my grandmother for a ‘victory lap’ of grade 12. I was temporarily living in a new community and going to a new high school in grade 12. Grade 12 is a year where friendships are long established and relationships are often at the ‘future planning’ stage. I just wanted to get in, get my three lost credits, and get out. Then I met my friend and her boyfriend. Spending those few days with my ‘way back when friend’ brought me right back to our teenage angst, to our being groupies for her boyfriend’s band, and to the fond memories of just having fun. We talked about students we knew then and where they are today.  We updated each other on our adult children and our grandchildren of course but we mostly enjoyed walking down memory lane. 


I don’t have a great memory but my friend seems to have an almost eidetic one, so she was able to refresh my recall of the many experiences we shared during my ‘victory lap’. We also talked about living with our grandmothers, I temporarily and she, permanently. I guess I had never really thought about it before but realized that she had been raised in a kinship scenario, abandoned by her birth parents just like I had been. That’s when we knew we also have trauma in common. We talked about the impact this probably had on us when we were teenagers and how that rejection maybe explained some of our risk-taking behaviour. We both agreed that our feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem were probably products of that parental rejection. It was definitely an ‘ah hah’ moment for both of us. For the rest of her visit we would sometimes look at each other  during a story or memory and say, ‘See? That feeling of rejection was actually trauma.” Or, “OMG, now I can see why I was so insecure and never felt I was good enough.”


While she was here there was an extremely heavy snowfall. She had gone out to get something from her car but seemed to be taking a very long time so I looked out the window to check on her. There she was, a woman in her mid 60s, building a snowman. She was very focused on the task at hand. She had even used a scarf from her car to tie around its midsection. I brought her out a hat and some mitts, (but did not offer to help). As she progressed, and it became obvious that she wasn’t going to quit, I brought her out some grapes for eyes and a carrot for the nose. I took pictures out my window and a short video. I poured myself a cup of tea, stood in the window, and watched my friend’s inner child playing in the snow. It made me smile. 


The next day we went for a walk to enjoy the beauty of the post-storm snowfall. As we were passing a heavily snowed in driveway there was a man, probably in his eighties, making his way slowly down towards the half frozen pile of sand/snow blocking his driveway, left there by the city snowplow. Without even looking at each other my friend asked him to hand her his shovel simultaneously with my asking him if he had another shovel. He apologetically offered me a slightly broken shovel. My friend and I worked together to move enough snow for this elderly couple to get out of their driveway and off to their appointment. I know my friend was paying it forward with a nod to her grandmother being there for her. Without consulting one another we just stepped up to help, I believe that our kinship and adoption histories leave us with the innate need to give back whenever we can. 


Later that day, we chatted about her leaving time the next morning and she indicated she was in no rush, so she was thinking around 9 a.m. but she didn’t want breakfast as she was going to gas up, grab a Timmies, and be on her way. Yep, you guessed it. I heard her up and about around 6:30 the next morning so I hit the shower, dressed and headed downstairs where I found her suitcases all packed and resting at the top of the stairs. I looked her in in the eye and said, “Hmm it looks like your 9:00 am departure turned into your April 8th arrival!” She laughed and said she was awake early and so thought she may as well get ready and head out on her long drive. 


I helped her load up her car, and as we passed the melted snowman remnants on the ground, the grape ‘eyes’ the carrot ‘nose’ and various twig limbs and hands, we giggled at the memory of her out in the snow storm building it. We hugged and said our goodbyes as she got in her car. As I was walking back up the driveway I noticed a twig, so I picked it up and returned to her car. I gestured for her to open the window and when she did, I handed her the twig saying, “Here, in case you need a hand.” Then, both of us smiling, me with a tear in my eye, she drove out of our driveway and off onto another adventure. Until next time my friend . . .


Thank you so much for visiting with me (and my friend) today. I so enjoy your company and I hope you enjoy my stories. As always, feel free to comment here or send me an e-mail at [email protected]. See you next time. 

Hello my Blogville friends! Thank you so much for coming back to visit. This blog looks at the impact society has on adopted people of all ages. I am sipping on an herbal tea as I try to express why I think some adopted children and youth spontaneously act out, and how society’s use of the word ‘adoption’ may contribute by triggering trauma responses! As an adoptee, I often find that society regularly reminds us of our adoptee status in innocent but painful ways. Some examples? 
​

Just the other day I was completing a newspaper crossword puzzle (yes, they still exist) and the 5 letter clue was, “Take home from the pound.” You guessed it, “ADOPT” was the correct answer. Ironically the ‘A’ from the word ADOPT formed part of the word across, “FLASHINTHEPAN” (in case you are interested, the clue for that answer was “*brief success”). These are the sudden reminders of what happened to me being equated with the rescue of animals from the pound, and in this case, the other answer might well describe the relationship between my birth parents I suppose. Adoptive parents, talk with your children about how these crossword clues and ‘definitions’ make them feel? I know I wanted to tear up the paper to express my ongoing distaste for being equated with an animal. Instead, I decided to blog about it as others out there might be feeling these things too (not that many people do crosswords anymore lol). 


The humane society does wonderful work and demonstrates a true dedication to the safety of animals. However, their ‘pet adoption’ confuses me about my value as a person compared to that of a kitten or a puppy. They even use the same terminology as some people use regarding children, such as; “waiting for adoption”, “waiting for their forever home”. They have “foster homes” for animals and complete an adoption application process prior to releasing an animal to a prospective owner. Our local news has a segment with the local SPCA Animal Centre and the whole purpose is to recruit people willing to adopt the animals they showcase. Depending on where my self esteem is when this segment comes on, I often have to leave the room. I continually wonder if a child or youth in care is watching this segment too, and if so, what their thoughts are about whether a family will be found for them, or if a prospective adoptive family might choose a kitten or puppy instead. When you notice your adopted child watching a humane society public service announcement, talk to them about the word ‘adoption’, what it means to you, and what the word means to them. Whether you are a foster, kinship, or adoptive family, talk to the children and youth in your home about how society sees and uses the term adoption very lightly, but then be sure to follow up by taking the time to explain that ‘adoption’ is a really big word in your family, with a very big meaning.


Speaking of adoption promotional campaigns, I do not believe that anyone can truly promise ‘forever’ (as in ‘forever families’ or ‘forever home’) to children and/or youth, simply because life happens and we all know life is unpredictable. Just think of  the impact of separation and divorce on families, or the accidental or sudden death of otherwise healthy parents. Even birth children cannot be promised a ‘forever home’ or ‘forever family’, not even by the very people that brought them into this world. Frankly, instead of ‘waiting for their forever family’, I would prefer that adoption promotions regarding children and youth simply say, “waiting for a family”. It is noteworthy to mention that there are some posters out in society, many of them associated with the Dave Thomas Foundation For Adoption, that have more positive messaging such as: “May I have a few years of your time?”; “You may not have seen my first steps, but you will see me walk down the aisle.”; and “Never too old for family” (referring to youth adoptions).


“Adopt a Highway” signs are another emotional challenge for me as an adoptee. “Adopt a Highway” is a program in Canada and the United States wherein some provinces and states encourage individuals or community groups to clean up the sides of a specific section of the highway by removing litter and garbage. Often, much to my dismay, they even refer to the volunteers belonging to these groups as ‘adopters’ in their promotional descriptions. Yikes! I mean they certainly CAN use it, but my brain takes it to so many different levels, such as ‘adopters’ taking care of something (sides of a highway) that does not technically belong to them. We won’t even get into the fact that “adopters” are picking up trash or litter left on the side of the road by other people.


Though I have spoken about the “Adopt-A-Highway”program before in terms of the reactions I feel every time I drive past one of these signs, I think it warrants repeating. The sign’s message to me is that my own province sees fit to reduce my value as an adoptee to that of a neglected highway; a strip of tarmac that needs its garbage removed by volunteers. It also reduces ‘adopters’ to people who pick up and appropriately dispose of trash. So please, talk with your  children about those signs. Explain how the program is meant to find people that want to help take care of important things, or about how people can work together to make a great thing happen just like birth parents, adoption workers, and adoptive families work together to plan for adoptions. Please do not just drive by those signs and let your child feel what I still feel when I see them, instead, ask them how that sign makes them feel. 


Remember in school when you did not raise your hand in class unless you were pretty sure you knew the correct answer? Remember how it felt when the teacher called on you even when your hand was not raised? Remember how unprepared you felt and how you did not want to stand out in the class? Often, adoptees feel like that just by living in our society, and they too simply do not want to stand out. Every day an adopted person somewhere is faced with the laissez-faire attitude of society toward the use of the word ‘adoption’. Politicians adopt policies, scientists adopt positions, companies adopt practices, and so on. Families adopt children. Adopted children and youth will hear and/or see the word ‘adoption’ both in context, and out of context everywhere. Your job, as adoptive family members and workers is to prepare them for this exposure so they do not feel reduced to the same status as neglected or unwanted animals, strips of highway, experiments, policies and procedures, etc. Adoptees face enough rejection at the mere fact they were freed for adoption, they do not need to feel more through society’s use of a word that to them means, “Family.” Encourage your child to talk to you about these events, preparing them for ‘raising their hands’ if you will. Help your children and youth be prepared for posters and signs that are out there, talk about people using the same adoption terminology when referring to rescuing animals, as well as preparing them for managing *inappropriate questions about them, their birth parents, and/or their adoptive parents (*more about this in an upcoming blog). An “ounce of prevention” will help your child or youth, and yourself, be ready to handle these emotional roller coasters!


I’m glad you visited today, thank you for stopping by, and I look forward to ‘seeing’ you every second Tuesday of each month. Follow me on Goodreads for my blogs to come to you via email. As ever my Blogville friends, I welcome and look forward to your comments here or by email at [email protected] 

Hello my Blogville friends! Thank you for joining me for some Raspberry tea and a read of my thoughts. It is so lovely when you visit. I hope you find our tea time worthwhile.
This blog is a real hodgepodge of thoughts around adoption trauma and its impact on my parenting and even grand-parenting. Again, these are my thoughts and feelings alone, I would never attempt to speak for other adoptees. I share my thoughts and feelings because I strongly believe that recognizing adoption trauma for what it is will promote healing, mine for certain, but maybe for others too.

Recently, my husband and I had the privilege of visiting our son and his family for a couple of weeks and we enjoyed the luxury of spending time with our toddler grandchild. Spending time with my adult children and my grandchildren is often mind-boggling to me. I belong to an Adoptee Group on Facebook and recently I read a new grandmother’s post that said something to the effect that she had just spent some time with her first grandchild (newborn) and was feeling validated that she must have done something right as a parent. I believe that she says this in deference to her own start in life as an unplanned pregnancy and then to her experience with adoption trauma. I could relate to her post. So many of us live in fear that our adoption trauma will impact on our ability to be good parents, or even grandparents. 

As I have mentioned before, I was often terrified during my first pregnancy. Remember, I had no real information about my birth parents except the little that my parents were told, and a lot of that was inaccurate as it turns out. I certainly did not know any medical history.  I did not know if my baby might be born with features more associated with other cultures, nor did I know if there might be a family history of medical concerns relating to my child’s birth, or afterwards. My husband was so understanding and he seemed honestly unconcerned. His only hope was for a healthy baby. What should have been a time of excited anticipation was actually terrifying for me. It turned out that together, we had created a healthy baby girl.

My mom came to spend time with us when our first child was born. I had so many questions! I could often hear a sadness in my mother’s voice when she would reply to my multiple questions with things like “I’m not sure, I never had a newborn.” or, “I don’t know Lynn, I only know about babies after they are nine months old.” I started feeling too guilty to ask her things anymore. Mom felt that her role in spending this post-natal time with us was to clean the apartment, cook our meals, and to keep me company. My mom even sewed cloth diapers when the doctor recommended them for the baby; who can make homemade diapers? 

In reality, mom’s ‘baby experience’ was not fully accurate. My mom was the oldest of a family that had five children. She often talked about helping her own mother with her baby siblings, rocking them, changing them, and feeding toddlers. She knew a great deal about taking care of babies. Sadly, her inability to have biological children seemed to have impacted on her confidence as a grandmother. I believe that these feelings eventually wore off because she was a wonderful and confident grandmother to my children and my niece, but it must have been such an emotional struggle for her.

Speaking of emotional struggles, I don’t think I will ever feel confident that I was a good parent myself. To be fair I’m not sure any parent feels completely confident even without having been an adoptee. Any time my children had questions for biology-related or family tree type of school projects I would panic. I always felt that their projects would be inadequate because of my adoptee status and the resulting lack of information. I always felt my children would be impacted by some weird adoption domino effect. In these moments, I would remind myself that our children have a great dad, a dad was raised by his birth parents together with his little sister who is 3 years younger than him, and a baby brother who was born when my husband was in his mid-teens. He gave me the confidence to believe that together, we could raise great kids (despite me having been adopted)!

I was always on the look out for ways that my being an adoptee might negatively impact on my parenting. I think (hope) that my children would say I did ok as a mom, that they felt loved and secure in their family and in themselves. But I know inside that when things were not going well I would think, well, my own birth mother didn’t think I was worth keeping, so why should my kids respect me? I would ‘depersonalize’ my parenting through behaviour reward systems and charts. That way, the children could be upset with the chart’s consequences and not me. Please don’t get me wrong, using appropriate and reasonable behaviour charts/reward systems is a very positive parenting practice that I have had great professional and personal success with, the problem specifically for me was my motivation. I did not think that I could parent well, so I resorted to using programming instead of building my own confidence. When my children were upset with me I would feel that it was another rejection, however, with a behaviour modification program, I could believe they were rejecting the program and not me. Again, I think I did ok as my children grew up well and they are all kind and responsible adults. The ones who are parents themselves are pretty in tune with, and respond well, to the needs of their children as far as I can see. (Phew!)

I am in true awe of my grandchildren. Since each of them were born, I have found myself studying them, their little faces, their statures, their personalities, always in search of myself. I know that my children had two parents and that I am only biologically related to them by half, and that my grandchildren have two parents and that I am only biologically related to them by one quarter, but still, I look for myself in them. When her paternal grandmother says how much my granddaughter looks like me, I literally get butterflies in my stomach, I want so badly for this to be true. I think this need was created in me when, all my life, people who knew I was adopted would try to placate me by saying how much I looked like my mom, or like my dad, or even that I looked so much like my mother’s mother. None of this was fully true. My own biological children don’t really look like me so I think that family resemblance is a lot to ask of the adoption process, don’t you? I think better comments (if you feel the need to comment at all) to say to adoptees are things like, ‘you have the same sense of humour as your dad’, or ‘I can see how much you like drawing, like your mom did when she was younger’. Identify something they have in common with their parents and/or extended family members (like sports, or music, or whatever) and talk about that. Looking like our adoptive parents doesn’t make us any less adopted, however, enjoying activities and learning new things together helps us grow and identify as a family.

Even at my age (a senior citizen), I can still feel insecure. I believe that when your birth family does not want you, it leaves a mark. So when my children became adults I became afraid of their abandonment of me too. What if I do or say something wrong and they stop visiting? What if they stop loving me? I see my friends whose children call every day, or spend game nights with their parents, or text each other all the time. I see people who continue to do everything with their now adult children and their partners and cannot help but compare myself with them. 

I think because my own birthday was always a day of mourning for me, I have never been good at celebrating my children’s birthdays. I mean we did the parties when they were little and of course I acknowledge their birthdays but I am really not good at it, certainly not like I see on my friends’ FB posts. I regret this a great deal and I hope they know every day how grateful and proud I am that they are my children.

Once I found my maternal and paternal birth half-siblings, I learned about the close relationships they had as they were growing up with each of my birth parents. A closeness maintained even into adulthood for many of them. I felt they were lucky to have known them, and to have been raised by them. I often wonder if not knowing my birth parents impacted on my confidence as a parent. I never felt confident enough as a parent to believe that my adult children want to spend time with me, so when they do, I am simply, grateful. Just like people telling me I should be grateful that I was adopted.

When some of my adult children moved away from our community, the adoptee in me secretly knew it was to escape from me. Therefore I felt responsible for my husband’s loss as well. Would things be different between him and his children if he had married someone who was not an adoptee? Irrationally, I sometimes fear that my adult children might like their partners’ parents better than they like me and that they prefer to live closer to them than me. When you were not meant to exist, relationships become very fragile. It is hard for the unwanted to feel wanted. This is adoption trauma.

Adoptees and adoptive parents, please know that my feelings stemmed from unresolved trauma. Just like some physical injuries, the wound takes longer to heal for some people than for others. Again, I strongly believe that recognizing adoption trauma for what it is will promote healing. Some healing will even require the intervention of professionals. Get that help if it is needed. There is enough shame in the adoption process without feeling shame about getting help! 

My parents, my brother and I were a family built through adoption. My husband and I became a family through marriage. Having birth children expanded our family through biology and genetics. Our children have expanded our family even further through marriage and having children of their own. My children and their children, my grandchildren, are my biological family. Without the unconditional love and acceptance of my parents, none of this would have been possible. Accepting that domino effect, is a huge part of my healing journey from adoption trauma. 

Thank you for joining me today my Blogville friends. As ever, I am open to hearing from you and invite your comments here or more privately via my email at [email protected] Choose to smile, it looks good on you!