Mothers

T. doesn't give Christmas presents and he doesn't receive them very well either. He's an insulting pain on other people's birthdays. And when I told him that it's polite take a gift when invited to someone else's house, he scoffed at me. But he LOVES Mother's Day. Besides his own birthday, which he regards as a national event, Mother's Day is the only other holiday he even acknowledges.

Last year I was touched and taken aback by his gravity about the holiday. This year, I found myself dawdling about my morning routine, waiting for him to wake up, half-hoping for a repeat performance. I didn't exactly expect one - just thought it might be nice.

And again! A big hug, a solemn "happy Mother's Day", and then he rushed Tim off to the store to make preparations and instructed me to "get ready for our day." We're going to the Korean spa to get salt scrubs after whatever else he has planned.

Who wouldda thunk? In my old age, I think the thing that will make me most happy is knowing that T loved and trusted me enough to think of me on Mother's Day. I'm also humbled to share it with his other mothers and touched by his respect and forgiveness for the women who have mothered him along his way. I've said to him more than a few times "You can never have too many mothers in your life," and I appreciate his even-handedness with all of us mothers. On Mother's Day, besides thanking me, he always calls his birth mom and his cousin who raised him for a few years. Each of those relationships was fraught with its own tragedy. But it's in his nature not to bear grudges, lament what he can't change or pine for the past, and his Mother's Day messages to each of us are sweet and to-the-point, surprisingly uncomplicated and uncompromised.

In celebration of mothers and other mothers, I got inspired to make a quick list. These are a few of the things I've realized about being a mother this year.

1. Mothering is very messy. The bond between me and T is full of veins and guts, not sugar and spice. It isn't nice or neat. There is nobody else who pays as much attention to him as I do and my scrutiny is both satisfying and annoying to him, both gratifying and exhausting to me. In the day to day, I experience the practice of mothering him as a very sloppy, intrusive process of getting in someone else's business, taking shots in the dark, snatching opportunities to connect on the fly. It's intense.

2. Kids really need moms and they're never too old to fill that need. I see through T's eyes that the absence of a mother in one's life is a deep tragedy. Early on, I overheard him on the phone once saying quietly to a friend who was complaining about her mom, "You don't know what you have. You should be grateful to your mom." He doesn't care that we're a mismatched set, nor that I arrived late in his life. I play a role he assigned me, driven by a keen awareness of his own need to have one person who puts him first above everything else in the world.

3. A mom can act a mom no matter what. When I was just home from the hospital after my surgery, I was dizzy, hoarse and in some amount of pain such that it was hard to hold my head up or sit up straight. But as soon as I saw T, I was myself. I had the sense that I could be missing half my limbs and still reach out to pick the pillow lint out of his hair. It comes from a place beyond me.

Happy Mother's Day to the mothers and other mothers out there.

Some Good Weekend Reading

I read an excellent article by Heather Forbes titled "Issues Facing Adoptive Mothers of Children with Special Needs." I nodded so hard my neck got sore.

If you have time, I highly recommend reading it.

Here are a few tidbits from their survey of adoptive mothers of special needs kids that really resonated for me:

- Traumatized children may first perceive the adoptive parents’ love, not as a reward, but
rather as coercive and frightening. The child then works to attain safety through avoidance of the relationship the parents are working to develop.

- Of the mothers who were married, 100 percent of them agreed, and most strongly agreed, that their child targeted them more than he or she did the father.

- Adoptive parents were often dissatisfied with the (post-adoption) services available and used their own resources and experiences to educate the professionals who were supposed to be helping them.

- Many Americans still consider adoption as a second best to having children by birth. This prevailing mindset continues to leave adoptive parents to experience social stigmatization in their everyday lives.

- Several of the mothers identified their social service agency that placed the child as one of the most prevalent sources of adoption stress. One mother stated that social services ‘made it as hard as possible’. Another mother stated that it took almost two years to uncover the history of her child.

- In the area of grief and loss, an overwhelming percentage [of adoptive mothers] (79%) felt sad for not being able to protect and nurture their child before the adoption, indicating
that the mothers do experience the pain of not being available to their children prior to being adopted.

- Eighty-six percent stated that they have become better persons since the adoption of their child.

- ...[I]ndividual and family counseling services for special needs adoptions were less than adequate...possibly due to the fact that families who seek these services often experience difficult behavioral problems not easily remedied by any kind of intervention.

A great and thorough piece of writing on a little-understood topic that should be of great concern to anyone looking to support permanency for older children needing parents.

Mother's Day

I had a most unexpected Mother's Day surprise. T. stumbled in to the living room early this morning with his hands hidden behind his back, then held out a card and mumbled "Happy Mother's Day." The ornate pink card included a simple handwritten note that said, "Thanks for everything. With love." Then he ordered me to go back to bed while he and Tim prepared pancakes. He brought the pancakes in and sat at the foot of my bed while we had breakfast and lounged around reading gossip magazines.

Since he's my first kid, I've never had a Mother's Day card before. Since he's been through 16 previous homes before landing with us, I didn't expect Mother's Day to fit into his realm of norm. And since this time last year I didn't even know him, I hardly thought he'd be serving me brunch in bed already. It's been a tough week, so it was a particularly sweet moment. (I find that parenting him often feels like a cupcake of struggle with a layer of delectable love frosting on top, and that's what this week turned out to be.)

He also picked out cards for his birth mom and for the cousin who raised him for several years before he was taken away from her. Even though his birth mom isn't speaking to him, he called and read the card to her answering machine, and did the same for his cousin.

I'm honored to share Mother's Day with his other mothers. It's kind of like being part of a relay race, with T. as the precious baton. It's confusing and difficult sometimes to figure out where we fit in relation to his birth family and previous caregivers, but it's sweet and humbling too. His connection to each of them is part of the equation that explains why he's been able to attach to us as strongly as he has.

Happy Mother's Day to all of you "other mothers" out there who coax, compell, urge, tug, propell, carry, drive and persuade traumatized kids forward toward the finish line of childhood and beyond.