Stuff like this doesn’t bother me
The most incendiary notion in “Baby Love†may be that, for Ms. Walker, being a stepparent or adoptive parent involves a lesser kind of love than the love for a biological child.
In an interview, Ms. Walker boiled the difference down to knowing for certain that she would die for her biological child, but feeling “not sure I would do that for my nonbiological child.â€Â
from Rebecca Walker - New York Times
I figure, why should she feel sure? How can we know about things we haven’t experienced? Just because I doubt I could love any man as much as I love Brett doesn’t mean I deem all second marriages suspect. I feel sure I would die for Madison.
I had a dream when Brett first got news about his lay off about a flood and losing the kids in it. I had lots of dreams like this around then because I was contemplating going back to work and I was feeling afraid of how these big changes would impact the kids. I started having those dreams about losing them, about coming home and finding them gone — typical parenthood anxiety dreams. But in this one there was a flood and I was holding both the kids and realized I had to let one go. And I let go of Noah because I knew he was older and could swim and I cried to him as the waves swirled around him, “Swim to the shore! Swim to the shore!” And I held on tight to Madison because I knew I was her best bet for survival.
I thought of that dream a couple of weeks later when someone asked me (carefully, hesitantly) if my feelings for Madison were somehow less than my feelings for Noah.
The only time those questions bother me is when I think of how they’ll sound to Madison. But there’s no hiding the fact that some people will doubt my love for her and that she will have to grapple with that. I can only hope that I can reassure her or at least fill her up enough that she won’t have (too many) doubts.
I have no doubts about how much I love all my kids, and I hope they never do. I pray I never have to chose which one needs me most in a life or death situation.
Your dream reminds me of a story I heard from someone who went down to work on Katrina projects. He told of a young man who said during the flooding he and a bunch of his neighbors were clinging to trees with the water rising around them. Many mothers had put their kids in the trees to try to save them. As time went on the children got tired and couldn’t hold on any longer. They started dropping into the flood. This young man had jumped in and swum out to retrieve several kids over and over again until he got too tired to swim. Some of the children drifted away and were lost. This makes me cry again just typing it. Can you imagine being an adult in those trees???
I’m glad you wrote about this- I was going to ask you to! It did bother me, but what you wrote helped me to remember something I have long felt. Biological parents’ feelings that their families are more real than ours (my son is adopted) never bothered me because, frankly, those families feel less real to me. Its just what you know, as you said.
Incidentally, I actually don’t believe its possible that anyone loves their child as much as I do. Rationally I concede the point, but not emotionally. All of this doesn’t get around the feelings/ worries I have that those assumptions of the majority will bother my son, but that’s life.
Thanks for the post-
Cynthia
Really, the critical thing you wrote is that (and you said this about parenthood, remember?), is “never say you’d never do something”, that you’ve never had to make a decision about. Really, we have no idea what we would do if we’re holding on to our children (and our husband) in a rushing river (unless we’ve done it).
Everyone always talks about giving their life for their child, as though it was the ultimate sacrifice. But, in many situations, dying, and leaving your child is condemning them to hell.
I felt that Ayelet Waldman produced the same bit of foolishness when she suggested she’d sacrifice her children for her husband. We hope she’s not doing that in the little ways where one actually could, and in the big ways; well, she’s fortunate enough never to have to make that choice.
Our brains are incapable of answering these hypotheticals based on our previous experience and philosophy. We answer them, in practice, based on variables we have no understanding of until we’re drifting down the river clutching our children.
bj
PS: People who do think they feel that way shouldn’t adopt, though, should they? I think that’s a view you concur with when you’ve heard folks talk about race, as well. I read the article (and have read Walker’s first book), and my general conclusion is that she’s a woman who is writing her memoires too early. She’s trying to sum up her life’s experiences when she’s in the midst of them, and drawing lifelong conclusions from them. In context, this one is supposed to be the discovered “truth” while the last was the lie, but who knows, in five more years, we might well have a new book that “really” tells the truth of her life (and it might be a completely new life).
I too am surprised at the fact that the biological ties to my own children feel important to me (in a way I wouldn’t have guessed before I had them), and that I look back on the experience of having carried them in my body with joy. Those are things I would have said wouldn’t have mattered to me, before they did happen. But, I don’t try to draw universal truths from that immediate experience. I also don’t look back before i had them, and say I would have been unhappy without this experience (while simultaneously feeling joy at having had it).
bj
Actually — there was a study once that concluded most mothers if forced to choose to save a child would choose the youngest — something almost biological about saving the most vulnerable and leaving the ones who might be able to fend for themselves to give it a try. So your dream may have had more to do with Noah and Madison’s relative ages. As far as husbands — I joke all the time with my husband that if there was a fire he better get himself the hell out because I have 3 children to save and no time for him. (Funny how I assume I will have to go in again and again and get those kids — what will he be doing, coughing in the front yard?? :))
DS-L
Well it bothers me quite a bit. People who haven’t experienced such a situation such as adoption should keep their mouths shut about what they would and wouldn’t be able to do. I know, I’m not being charitable, but it is how I feel right now.
It’s a really obnoxious, offensive thing to say but the first thing that occurred to me, was, thank goodness she isn’t an adoptive mom. She comes across as a really egocentric, immature brat.
But I have heard this stuff all my life. I’ve kind of tuned it out. I take it for sad granted that many bio-only families won’t or can’t consider adoption. They do think it is second best. Well, they can just stay out of it then. I don’t deny it’s hurtful, but I just write those people off as sadly ignorant.
I have several friends who are dealing with infertility issues, who want to adopt but whose spouses won’t go there because they feel they couldn’t love a child who was not “their own.” I feel like I could never really like or respect those people. Their limitations make me sad. But the world is full of racism, sexism and yes adoptism. We can fight the good fight but these people with their limited POVs are always going to exist and I can’t exert too much emotional energy on them or my head would just explode.
That comment really rubbed me the wrong way.
Yes, thank goodness she’s not an adoptive parent, but wouldn’t it have been more compassionate towards her stepchild to *keep that sentiment to herself*? If he’s 14 years old, he could easily read the comment in the press! Practically speaking, it doesn’t really matter how she feels in her heart of hearts–chances are the opportunity to die for either her children probably won’t come up. It just seems that she’s more interested in her own narcissistic self-exploration than in safeguarding the emotional well-being of a child she has parented, regardless of whether or not she is still in a relationship with his mother. It sort of makes me wonder whether she was actually trying to get at her ex by making hurtful comments about the child in the press.
Regardless of her intent, though, what a narcissistic jerk.
It seems judgemental to me- like she is speculating on something she knows nothing about- but I guess that is her point-she doesn’t know.
I had a friend whose exhusband said he “could never love an adopted child” and used her infertility as a reason for divorce. I hated that statement and was pretty bitter towards him. But then karma came and bit him in the ass- wife # 2 had no ovaries. He is now the proud parent of two children adopted internationally.
I used to fear that I wouldn’t love another child as much as Mallory. I thought I loved her more because she was adopted, but ultimately I think it was just a first born thing.
You know, it sounds to me as though this woman never really felt truly loved by her own mother growing up, and I get the distinct feeling that, while she’s willing to discuss that, she hasn’t really worked through it in a healthy way. There’s a line in the article indicating that she felt that her mother was ambivalent about her very existence - not just sometimes tired and cranky and distant, but unsure as to whether to be glad that this child was in the world at all. I can’t imagine how corrosive that would be. Not to be all pop-psychology here, but I’m sure there are times she felt that, if her mother weren’t related to her by blood, she would have just been abandoned, or close to that. I agree that she should never adopt…but I think she’s essentially had to build her own loving parent-child relationship from scratch, and I don’t think she’s capable of too much complexity where that’s concerned. If she feels that her experience giving birth to her child is key in her ability to parent that child well, then I can understand why she doesn’t get adoption. Of course, I also think there’s a difference between being a stepparent and being a full-fledged adoptive parent, which I don’t think she’s taken into account.
I really am bothered when I get the sense that people who haven’t adopted think that adoptive parents don’t love their kids as much as biological parents. I envy you the ability to say “nope. I have one of each and I love them both the same!”
Not “the same” WAY because they’re different people, but the same “amount.” or however you quanitfy it.
I can’t say that to people, because frankly I have no way of knowing if it’s true. All I know is that my child is my child is my child and I can’t imagine loving anyone more and yep, I’d die for her. no doubt.
Oh and when she says in the interview (which I just read) that motherhood is the first club she’s unequivocally belonged to…
that stings. Because I don’t think adoptive moms belong unequivocally. Not that I’ve ever been big on belonging to clubs, but it does get tiring sometimes never to quite belong anywhere!
Shannon: I think she feels that motherhood is the first ANYTHING that she’s belonged to. She certainly doesn’t seem to feel that she belonged to her own parents. And I wonder if, subconsciously or consciously, she’s doing her best to prove that, unlike her own mother, she can love and be a good parent to her biological child. She has a blog (click on my name to go to it). Totally up to you, but I think she might benefit from reading your blog. None of your blog readers could ever doubt that you belong to the club of motherhood - in fact, aren’t they nominating you as recording secretary next week?
Has anyone read the book? I’m wondering if she says that she believes that *nobody* can love an adopted child the way they love a bio-child, or if it’s just that *she* doesn’t think she can love an adopted child the way she would her bio-child. If it’s the latter, well…I think back to my grandmother, who just had one child, feeling that she wouldn’t be able to love a second (biological) grandchild. (No worries; she did.) I think some people just develop very rigid structures of child-love in their minds and are terrified at the thought of tearing them down.
I love that you’re aware that Madison may already be listening to these comments. Certainly, Noah is, or is able to.
It’s frustrating to me when people speak of Avery as if he were a Chia pet; with no feelings of his own, and no understanding that what they are saying is HURTFUL.
And too, that in certain instances, my other children are aware of what’s being said, and more importantly, the tone in which it’s said.
Thanks, Marion!
I left a comment over there, but I doubt she’s going to go looking me up!
Am I the only one who was petty enough to be glad that the NYT review of Walker’s book was tepid-to-negative?
Yeah, I probably am.
“Because I don’t think adoptive moms belong unequivocally.”
I never thought that adoptive mothers would love our children less or more than us although would you give them up if you felt it was in their best interests?
I never thought that adoptive mothers don’t belong unequivocally either, a mother is a mother either through creation or through nurture.
I start to wonder if some of the hostility I have at times received from adoptive mothers stems from them having feelings of not being authentic.
I never thought that I would find myself having compassion for and defending adoptive mothers but isn’t it wonderful how we can grow when exposed to the right people.
Shannon, I know it’s unlikely, but let’s hope that she does look you up, if only to have the chance to enjoy *your* writing.
Not to make light of your very serious and valid thoughts, but I find it a little ironic, in light of the Rebecca Walker interview, when you talk about adoptive moms not belonging unequivocally. Because Rebecca was raised by her biological mother, and she’s now apparently making a pseudo-career out of rejecting said biological mother because she never felt wanted…whereas I don’t think Nat will *ever* feel unwanted by either you or Cole. I fully expect to see Nat interviewed in the NYTimes about *her* new book one of these days…but she won’t be talking about her terrible relationship with her parents! If there is a club, at this point you and Cole are much more securely in it than is Alice Walker.
What Liana said. I’m sorry, but it bothers the hell out of me. If she feels like she wouldn’t really know what its like to love an adopted child, then she should just keep her mouth shut. There is so much out there already that’s negative about adoption. No one ever says (or takes as fact in the same way that they do with the reverse) “I don’t think I could love my bio child as much as I love my adopted child” and for her to iterate what so many assume is truth or gospel just adds fuel to the fire. And while it may be obvious to you or to me that they just don’t know what they are missing, I worry that it hurts the kids and that it sends that message over and over again that adopted kids are somehow a second choice. Argh!
I haven’t read the book and don’t know a thing about Rebecca Walker, and therefore don’t know what might bring her to believe what she does. But from the interview it appears that her feelings are the result of painful life experiences.
I’m glad I’m past the point of feeling the need to defend my love for my children. But it makes me sad to know that people like Rebecca Walker are out there who may lead my children to doubt my love for them. I wish she had considered that before she spoke.
I think it is actually quite common for an individual to feel that they could never love a child that was not a bio child. If not, the fertility industry would not be as big as it is.
It takes courage to go down the route of adoption, and once you do it is just as common to hear adoptive mothers say they feel no different than if they had given birth to them.
Odd combination of celebrating motherhood and being estranged from her own mother - so, so publicly.