You know when you should really spend a great deal of time studying
up on a topic, finding great quotes to include, supporting your thoughts
with research, so on and so forth? I should be doing all of that. But
instead I'm thinking that I've got a moment or two so I need to just
get it out there. Hope that it makes some kind of sense. Hope someone
out there gets it and doesn't misread.
One of the
reasons blogging has gone on the back burner has been the amount of
reading I've been doing from the view point of the adult adoptee.
Powerful stuff. Lots of thoughts, lots of truth, lots of, well, back to
thoughts. Yeah, lots of thoughts.
It's important to
realize that this post is not a whine. It's not a complaint. It's an
opinion, and one that I have to get out there or I fear I will remain
stuck.
Truth is, I started my blog at the beginning of
our beginnings of making our family. We were a bit lost at the time,
and I needed an outlet. We went from a focus on infertility to a focus
on adoption to a focus on international adoption to a focus on Ethiopia
to a focus on motherhood. My eyes went from being shut to being wide
open to the point where I eventually froze. Afraid of saying the wrong
thing. Afraid of offending someone. Afraid of everyone out there hating me. Afraid of ruining my son's life.
I
have read so many books out there. Books on adoption. Attachment.
Ethiopia. Children. Transracial adoption. Being Black in America.
Being African in America. Obviously I'm a reader. It's one of the ways
I gather information and make decisions in my life. With that in mind,
and with my interest in blogging, I began searching the Land of Blog
for viewpoints from the adult adoptee. Although I have my own history
with adoption, I knew that I needed more. Information from people who
were placed immediately after birth. As toddlers. Into families whose
skin color and culture and history and background were different from
their own.
It didn't take long to find that many, many
people out there are unhappy. Abused. Lied to. Hidden. Angry. And
while I was able to find some stories in which people had some joy to
spread about their lives, those were minimal.
As a new
mother who had started out on this journey with the plans of forming my
family with love, love, and more love? All those questions, all those
anxieties, all those wonderings I had as we waited to meet our son, as I
walked the streets of Ethiopia, as I glanced at the stares in the
airport, as I watched movies and television shows, as I watched my son
glob onto my husband but push away from me.... I quickly became aware of
the thought that had been settling deep within me: I was an imposter
mother. This blog said it. That blog said it. The stares said it.
The attachment struggle said it.
Imposter.
It
can make you freeze. It doesn't diminish your love for your child, it
doesn't necessarily mean you're lying in your bed with the sheets
wrapped around you for days on end- it just meant, to me anyway, that I
began to doubt myself in a way I had never doubted myself before. And I
still couldn't write about it because I certainly didn't want to come
off as someone complaining. As someone who couldn't know what it was
like to be adopted as an infant, so who in the hell was I anyway.
I'm tired of apologizing to the Land of Blog for being an adoptive mother.
I
am a mother. I am providing love, a home, warmth, comfort, security
(the list can go on) for my son in the best ways I know how. No, I'm
not perfect. I screw up a lot. But this continued thinking that I'm an
imposter mother for my son is doing nothing but harm for him. For me.
For my family. For our lives- both present and future.
I'm tired of hiding.
I am a mother. And I'm not sorry for it. Not in the least.
