Anniversary of a Reluctant Mother

Some women crave motherhood, others have it thrust upon them. My truth falls somewhere in between, a tentative journey into a profession for which I was at once over-educated and ill-prepared to face the challenges. My journey has been a blind leap of faith with my eyes wide open, pushing through partially opened windows while closing doors behind me, an experiment resulting in both dismal failures and small successes.  

To say I never wanted to be a mother is probably too strong of a statement, but I must admit to an ambivalence toward maternity that began in junior high. My childhood was happy, I loved the fact that I had lots of cousins, begged for more siblings (I was the baby of the family) and dreamed of a day that I would have four children of my own, two boys and two girls. This was all based on a belief that you decided how many children you wanted to have, whether you wanted boys or girls or some of each, and what their hair and eye color should be….and then you told God. I saw this as a huge challenge, this monumental decision making regarding the family structure, and couldn’t conceive of a process where you decided as you went along—you needed to decide this shortly after meeting your mate, and then should not waver from the pursuit of your decision. 

But in junior high, I read a book called “I Rebecca Take Thee, The Lawrences”, about  an older child in foster care, and I was intrigued. Shopping with my own mother, I remember asking her if you HAD to have children. I wasn’t just making small talk—this question was such a departure from my understanding of what was the natural order, that to this day, I can recall where we were when I asked. We had just parked our car and were walking through the lot to Venture (a now defunct discount store that was, at the time, Kmart’s main competition). Knowing what I know now about her passion for being a grandmother, I have to applaud her calm response, “Of course not. Not everyone SHOULD be a mother.” 

But love happens, and once I entered the phase of life where you select a mate and plan a family, I assumed I would join the ranks of women with toddlers in tow. I looked for reasons to delay what seemed inevitable, and placed conditions on motherhood. I was reluctant to start the process until we were financially stable enough that I could stay home with a child—I was adamant that I was NOT going to have a baby and pass it off to be raised by someone else.

The next ten years involved swings between marriage and divorce, town and country, metropolitan suburbs and small town living, no children, step-children and foster parenting. My second husband and I couldn’t seem to get on the same page at the same time about a number of issues, and a round of counseling convinced me that motherhood was not an option, nor should it be. I was committed to the concept that foster parents are important to a child for a certain period of time, and I found comfort in the lack of permanence this presented. My role of foster parent was a temporary one, and that was fine with me. You see, if you have difficulty making decisions, you find comfort in impermanence. 

Then love happens again. This time it is at the kitchen table, struggling to find a taste of something  that an undernourished three year old foster child will tolerate, a texture that won’t make him gag, a liquid that won’t simply flow out of the corners of his mouth. You are feeling panicked, because nothing in your years of teaching early childhood education have prepared you for this. The occupational therapist has warned that if this child doesn’t learn to eat table food soon, the window of opportunity may close and he may have an eating disorder for life, but you’re terrified that if you push too hard, he WILL develop an eating disorder. Your insides are churning as you try to appear outwardly calm, and you rest your face in your hands for a brief moment, feeling like an absolute failure. You sigh, take a deep breath and look up. The morning sun is streaming in the south window, reflecting off a tousled head of curls beneath which lies two large eyes wreathed in the longest lashes ever gifted to a boy, a small nose with a flat bridge, and a shallow philtrum above pursed lips…which suddenly part into a shy smile.

And it hits you. You realize you don’t want to be a mother. You want to be HIS mother. But he isn’t yours to have, he is on loan, for a period of time that will be important to him, because your role at this time in his life, is to provide therapy, and to ease the transition from the foster home he’s known since birth to his new adoptive home. You hear a sound in your head similar to screeching brakes, a warning for your head and heart to steer clear of these thoughts. You clear the table, removing morsels that failed to entice and wiping up the milk that has dribbled to the floor. You hand him a wet cloth for his face, remove the damp bib, and carefully lift him down from his perch. You still the noises in your head, muffle them until the sounds of impending disaster have become more like the sound of rushing water, taking you somewhere you did not intend to go. You make it through the day, through his nap, and then start the process of returning him that afternoon to his foster mother.

You decide to leave early enough to stop by McDonald’s and get the one thing he seems to enjoy…french fries.  A quick stop, just a run through the drive through, but you find yourself pulling into a parking space and going inside, where you run into his caseworker. You sit down at a table to check in with each other, see how it’s going. You know the day is approaching that he will leave, so you ask the question you don’t want to ask because you don’t want to know the answer, but knowing is better than not knowing.

“How is the adoption coming along?”

The caseworker’s face falls. She is disappointed. The family has declined to pursue the adoption as they are concerned that his needs are more than they can handle right now. There is a reason you don’t play poker, because one look at your face and she pounces.

“Why do you ask?”

Again with the screeching brakes. You haven’t even brought it up at home. Last word was you were fine with not being a mother. And you’re still fine with it. Except you’re not, because although you don’t want to be a mother, you want to be HIS mother. And then with a promise to get back to her, you take him back to his foster home, and find that is it now hard to let him go because somewhere among the dancing sunbeams at the kitchen table, you became his mother.

Looking back produces the luxury of a certainty that I’m not sure I felt then. Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to have wanted to be a mother, anyone’s mother, and for his arrival to be the joyful culmination of a long held desire. It all felt so backwards then, and filling out the paperwork for the adoption was somewhat disconcerting, slightly reminiscent of how I used to write papers in upper elementary school. I knew I was supposed to put together an outline, do my research, take notes and write a paper, but I would do it backwards….I knew what I wanted to say, so I wrote my paper, took notes from my paper and then wrote my outline. Throughout the home study, there were many wide open questions for which I had very narrow answers.  “What kind of child will you accept?” This one. “What kind of child can you not accept?” Anyone that isn’t this one. “How long have you been trying?” I haven’t. “What made you want to consider adoption?” Him. “Why do you want to be a mother?” I don’t. “You what?” I don’t want to be a mother. I want to be HIS mother.

Twenty-five years ago, a court hearing produced a piece of paper that told the world what I already knew.