Friday, May 08, 2009

Happy Fricken Mother's Day

Claudia has a great post. She wrote from the perspective of the kids adopted from foster care. I think she captures beatifully why Mother's Day is so painful for our kids, even when every other day is fine.

Money quote:

I know it's Mother's Day. I know I'm supposed to be nice to you because you
chose me -- because you have given me a home and because you love me. But today
I'm not thinking about you. So not only do I have to feel bad because the mom
that gave me life didn't want me, I have to feel bad for ruining your day
too.

--
Note: I think that a lot of the mothers who lost their kids to foster care did want their kids. Wanting them though wasn't enough. What happened was ever so much more complex than that. The kids, however, experience as simple. In their minds their mothers made a choice and it wasn't them.

3 comments:

  1. Something's wrong with the link to Claudia's site.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Alison. I fixed it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I just started following your blog and am catching up on some old posts! :) As a social worker I can say (with very little actual authority) that most birth parents DO want their children. In fact, I have never met a birth parent that didn't love their child, in their own (often very simplistic and unrealistic) way. I think helping foster children to understand this is a key to helping them heal. I keept meaning to blog about it, but its so complicated! I'll get to it eventually though!

    ReplyDelete

Comments will be open for a little while, then I will be shutting them off. The blog will stay, but I do not want either to moderate comments or leave the blog available to spammers.