Multiple Mother Figures

I’ve spent the last week at home with my parents for Mothers’ Day. My mom had the week off of work so we’ve been able to spend a lot of time together and talk about my childhood and my children. I told her that the doctor thinks the possibility of birthing more children would be a great health risk for me and she reacted like any mother would. She immediately told me that I have enough children and if I want any more than I must adopt. (I’ll save that for another post.)

One thing my mother brought up made me reconsider my views on open adoption. We talked about my aunt who was unable to have children of her own, due to two ectopic pregnancies. My aunt is a natural mother and at times when I was younger I had wished she was my mother. I know that sounds awful but my mother and I are VERY different people. I look like, and act like, my aunt so to my twelve year old brain it seemed like she should have been my mother.

Thankfully my mother is not jealous, or she just needed a break from me, so she let me spend a lot of time with my aunt. My mother doesn’t believe in wearing make-up or doing many “girly” things. (We live on a farm and she is a farmer, complete with rubber boots.) When I wanted someone to braid my hair, go shopping with me, and teach me how to wear mascara, it was my aunt who stepped in. There were several “take your daughter to work” days that I went with my aunt to her work. I would spend the night at her house, we’d ride the bus into town, and then I’d spend the day with her helping her with little tasks in the office. It was a great situation because we filled in the voids in each others lives- she was my womanly role model and I was her surrogate child.

When my aunt moved halfway across the country when I was in junior high I thought my world had come crashing down. I was extremely sad and begged my parents to move to Kansas with them. I even researched how much cheaper it would have been to live there than where we lived. I would go to Kansas every summer and live with them and help out at the restaurant they owned. My mother always was more than willing to send me because she felt it was important that I keep up my relationship with my aunt. It was great that she wasn’t upset with me wanting to spend as much time with my aunt as possible.

This relationship continues even now. I randomly call my aunt just to talk, my daughter calls her Me-Ma (she lives in Mississippi so it’s only appropriate), and I try and find ways to visit her as much as possible. One year when we couldn’t go home to see my parents for Christmas so my mother paid for us to go see my AUNT because it was cheaper, she lived closer, and my mom knew I would love it.

This whole time I’ve been terrified about sharing my adopted children with their birth parents because I thought they’d love them more. I know that sounds selfish, immature, and down right silly. There were times that I enjoyed the company of my aunt more than my mother but that doesn’t mean that I stopped loving my mom. We had our rough patches, but I’m sitting in her house now typing this so things worked out in the end. It was great to have a mother who would take me horseback riding and teach me to be strong and assertive. But I feel I am a better person because my aunt helped to make me well rounded and have a more feminine side.

Instead of worrying and being jealous I think I should embrace as many people who are willing to love my children and allow them to be a part of our family. Slowly, slowly my heart is being warmed to the idea of an open adoption.

Photo credit- Photo of my aunt and me, taken by my husband while we were in Mississippi visiting my aunt and uncle one Spring Break.

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.