The second essay I’m working on (in fits and starts) is about how parenting Madison in this adoption taught me about parenting Noah, too. Right now I’m using her third birthday party juxtaposed against Noah’s third birthday to describe this but I’m not sure it’s working. Well, I know it’s not working yet but I’m not sure if using that to hang it all on is going to work or not.
I’m going to write it out some here.
See, with Noah I was much more clingy and I wanted everything to be just right. He also seemed more fragile than Madison does to me. I think this is a combination of him being my first but also of his high-need emotions and then he was very small for his age (and very bald) for a long time. (And his slanty-up blue eyes, which made him look sort of elfin and lost.) Anyway I first started to get a sense of my inability to do it all perfectly when I realized I was infertile. A huge part of resolving my infertility was giving up this need I had to give him a sibling in what I believed was perfect time. I wanted him to have a specific big brother experience and once I realized that I couldn’t give him that, I understood that he also didn’t need it. That it was ok that I couldn’t make his life perfect. (I’m not sure if that’ll be in the essay — it is, in fact, another essay but I haven’t been able to finish that one because originally it was about accepting his only child status and I don’t know how to explain how accepting his only child status was part of getting to adoption in a way that makes sense for the reader.)
Ok, back to Madison.
By the time Madison came along, I was no longer parenting for the future. Not that I don’t worry about getting them to adulthood and beyond (oh the teen years! how they haunt me!) but when I do worry about it, I know that I’m being self-indulgent and a little silly.
In a very profound way, which is what I’m trying to describe in this essay, I feel very much that I am holding Madison, in part, for Jessica. Not that I feel like a babysitter or “unreal” or any of that ridiculousness but that her birth family is part of her future and just like I’m parenting Noah for his future, I’m parenting Madison for hers, which means I’m parenting Madison for her birth family, too. Not for them to come and take her or for her to go away with them (unless she wants to and it would make sense) but for her to embrace them or not, to join them or not, but to make sense of them for herself. And I feel like I’m holding her and helping her until she can do it for herself so all of this open adoption eventually won’t have anything to do with me. And just like the first time Noah climbed into some other parent’s car for his first mom-free playdate, when I felt both weepy and proud, I anticipate feeling weepy and proud when Madison climbs into Jessica’s car and goes on her own way.
But I see now in a way I hadn’t before that good parenting is letting other people be important to your child. Madison (and Jessica) taught me that.
Writing it out here didn’t actually help all that much so I’m going back to a pressing work assignment instead of thinking on this.
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10 Responses to “Holding Madison”
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About Me
I have two kids and a delightfully odd husband, Brett. My children are Noah (born to us in 1997) and Madison (born to her first mom, Pennie, in 2004 and brought to our family through a domestic, open adoption). They are my inspiration and also the reason I don't get more done around here.
I'm a writer and sometimes I get published, which is a nice thing. I write for joy, I write for money and when I'm very lucky, both things happen at the same time. My work appears in national publications including Yoga Journal, Disney's Family.com, Utne, Wondertime, Brain Child and Salon. Currently I am working on a book about my daughter's adoption and seeking representation for the proposal. I also own Smart Cookie Communications with my husband.
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B
April 29th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
That was crystal-clear to me, Dawn. Lots of important insight that I haven’t seen/heard expressed elsewhere or by anyone else. I’m not a parent yet, so, obviously, I can only look at parenting theoretically. I often feel as though there’s an expectation in our society that parenting is some kind of unchanging progression that the same or similar for everyone. Being a mom for the first time looks like X, having a second child looks like Y, if you’re infertile you’ll feel like this, if you get pregnant unexpectedly you’ll feel like that. I think your experiences with parenting really show that to be false and your writing about it helps me to understand the importance of honouring our individual experiences and emotions. To remember not to try to force myself or others into some pre-determined mold. I was thinking yesterday about how you said you experienced “mothershock” with Madison but not Noah, and how interesting and important that observation is.
Just a little thing–my parents didn’t let me develop relationships with other adults. They were very suspicious about that and got angry if I wanted to spend time at a neighbor’s or with a friend’s parents. I had no adult mentors in my life and I feel it was a big loss. Your second-to-last paragraph really hit home for me because of that. I’m so glad for Madison and Noah that you recognize that need.
HeatherS
April 29th, 2007 at 6:45 pm
I really relate to what you said about your role in the open adoption being to help Madison until she can do it on her own (hope I paraphrased that accurately). Realizing that was a real “a-ha” moment for me in the past year. I’m doing the foundational work now so that my son and his first family will have their own relationship apart from me one day. Only they will determine what that relationship will look like–not me. I can have hopes about his future relationship with his birth family, but in reality I have to step back and witness it unfolding on its own at a certain point. I know that wasn’t your central point, but I wanted to comment on it because it has been such a big paradigm shift for me in our adoption.
PhoenixRising
April 29th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
I often feel exactly like that. Not that I’m not a parent, not that I’m a babysitter or guardian, but that I’m preparing my kid for a full, rich emotional life. That life will inherently include the issues around her adoption.
My wife refers to this as ‘carrying the suitcase for her, until she’s big and strong enough to carry it herself’.
Lisa V
April 29th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
You have come to this so much earlier than I did. I started thinking about this when Mallory was school age. But it really hit me that I had to get out of the way of their (first family and Mallory) when she was 12 or 13. I was never in the way in terms of prohibiting anything. I just had a tendency to want to job in and fill the empty spaces with conversation- sometimes speaking for them instead of listening to them. Mallory and Noelle aren’t as outgoing as I am, so it was easy for me to let them do it.
I have come to realize my role simply may be to help Mallory be open and comfortable with whatever she chooses in her life and help her realize she has choices and lots of them.
DS-L
April 29th, 2007 at 10:54 pm
I also think much of the idea that there is one mother, children only need one mother, and a mother should be and can be everything that her child needs, is deeply cultural. In many cultures, where children really are raised by a village, or at least in kinship networks, by grandparents and others, and children naturally develop deep and strong ties with adults other than their biological parents, the idea that a child attaching to another adult somehow interferes in the mother-child bond would be viewed as what it is . . . ridiculous. When I first went back to work full time, I was “warned” to make sure my children did not get too close with our nanny. What? My then 11 month old son spent 10 hours a day with this woman — I WANTED him to love her wholly and her to love him. And she became part of our family in the broad sense. Still is. Anyway, just my two cents that it is a white American concept that makes mother overly involved, overly posessive etc etc.
DS-L
hingly
April 29th, 2007 at 11:00 pm
Reading this I thought, “What if what Madison wants is not to go off with her first family, but to connect with people you can’t predict in ways you don’t expect?” It makes much more sense to me that you would be holding her for her to be whatever type of person she becomes, rather than holding her for this particular path.
Angela
April 29th, 2007 at 11:34 pm
Glad you posted this…I’ve always felt this way but when I tried to express it in the past, everyone (hubby eventually got it) thought I was “not claiming” her or that maybe I wasn’t as bonded…not to say that it was easy for me to process this…it wasn’t.
I was (and am) a jealous person so I had to work through this first. And then I had to work through the fact that I felt like I “owned” her (this has nothing to do w/ adoption for me…I would have felt the same about a child that came from my body…it has more to do w/ the way I parent) and I had to let go and surrender this need to control and understand that she is, and will always be, her own little person; one that will grow up to have her own life independent of me that will include both us and her birth parents (hopefully) so yes…I too am “holding” her for birth mom, and us, and herself until she can fly solo and my hope is that when she does fly solo she will be able to navigate between all of us with freedom and purpose w/out feeling awkward and sad and divided.
Just a few days ago we talked (she is 8 now!) about how she should never have to feel “divided” or like a “traitor” if in the future she thought of or called her first mom “mom” - had I felt like I “owned” her simply because she was “my” kid I would have never been able to free her to be herself and love us both and this would, I’m sure, come back to bite me in the ass in the future as she would have, inevitably, have felt resentful.
Anyway…I’ve been trying to stay away from commenting but this one reallly hit home so I couldn’t resist!LOL (had I kept my blog I wouldn’t have to hijack comment boxes now!)
hugs
David
April 30th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Wow. I love hearing this discussion. The ways of thinking that you more mature adults have so much for me to learn from, now that I’m just beginning my own adulthood!
lol, and btw, by “more mature”, please don’t read that as “you folks are OLD”!
*laughs* I know sometimes people look back and think “my goodness.. I’m so old!”. But then again, I thought that way when I turned two decades old.. can you believe that? lol, and I didn’t understand when other adults (mainly gay men, actually!) were telling me “hon, you’re just a young’un and you’re just starting your life!”. But I’m starting to understand what they meant now.. .
Oop, sorry for this such self-indulgent comment, Dawn!
trixieintransit
April 30th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Your summary statement said it all: “letting other people be important to your child.”
Growing up my parents were fairly free with the adults that their children “brought home” but when it came to positioning other children/best friends as more important that blood kin…my folks were fairly rigid. They could share us with adults but had very specific opinions about how we should embrace other young people. I remember many discussions where my parents refused to acknowledge how important these friends were to me.
A funny thing happened though. My sister showed her true colors much to the disappointment of my parents who had been living in denial. Then my friends showed their amazing compassion and love for my family. Just recently when I announced that we had received a multi-racial referral, my sister was cold and distant but my best friend of almost 20 years was joyful. My sister couldn’t be bothered to host us while we waited on Interstate Compact to clear - but my Best Friend moved heaven and earth for that priviledge. The BM ultimately changed her mind but this event led my mother to say:
“You always knew your own heart. Since you were a child, you knew who and what you were and could see the truth in people. Your father and I found that frightening. It’s no surprise to me that (best friend’s name) would do this for you as she is in all ways the sister that you don’t have biologically. You’ve known that about her since forever. I just didn’t want to accept it because it meant that somehow we failed your sister.”
I was shocked. It was reaffirming to hear. I think my mother feels better for saying it too.
Our extended family isn’t all blood kin anymore. It’s friends, birthfamilies, foster kids… My parents had a struggle learning all of this but that they are there now. We only need a birthfamily to complete the picture.
Margie
May 1st, 2007 at 8:39 pm
“In a very profound way, which is what I’m trying to describe in this essay, I feel very much that I am holding Madison, in part, for Jessica.”
That took my breath away.
And don’t fear the teens - teens rock!