Mother's Day

I never know how to take Mother's Day. It's bothered me since I was a little girl - and why shouldn't it . . . Mother's Day. Whose mother, what mother, and why does this day oftentimes share my birthday????

Something you should know about me . . .I am a mother, I am a daughter, I am a birth-child and I am a step daughter. Confused? Welcome to my world. I was born on Mother's Day back in 1967. I was born to a woman who, at my birth, gave me up for adoption. I went to live in a foster home until I was close to 6 months of age. I was then adopted by a family . . .a husband and wife with a 3 year old son who wanted another child . . . a girl. Children's Home Society fulfilled their order, I mean wish. I lived with this family for 14 years. With the father who wanted to do better by his family than what he had so he worked and drank himself harder than he needed. With the mother, whose only hope of escaping the abuse she suffered at home was to marry and have her own family. Even though this family was never what she wanted or who she wanted to be with and therefore her attention, or lack there of towards this family left each wanting so much more than they ever received or she could ever give. Eventually, as would be foreseen, the family divorced and the father and mother found new spouses. I therefore was now a step-child to my now step-mom. While not in control of any 1 of these 4 circumstances there is still a pattern. I, from birth, was brought into a situation where I was not wanted or planned by the woman that were to mother me.

I was born on Mother's Day . . . I have to share my day with my mom . . . which mom and for that matter, what mom?

We are told, or as an adopted child, you are told a mother is not a woman who gives birth to you. A mother is a woman, or a man for that matter, who loves you - who is there for you. A mother holds your head and your hair (Christine) while you puke your guts out. A mother condemns activities that she fears will sway you (Tracey) from your true potential (even if she doesn't know what in the hell she is talking about). A mother - mothers. I left my mother when I was 15 because she didn't give one hoot about what I did or who I did it with and I went to live 500 miles away with a father I barely knew and a step-mother I didn't know at all (keep in mind this is and was the best thing I ever did in my life - I knew I would amount to nothing staying with my "mom"). This was a horrible combination . . .teenager with attitude and parents that wanted to parent a teenager who had never been parented. Teenager won . . . but had enough sense to keep it in check and eventually, not long after those teenage years were behind her, she, I, realized that step-mom was the first "mom" she, I, ever had.

I don't think it takes very long after high school to gain an appreciation for mom. In my case that was my step-mom and as for my "mom" the resentment started to then fester and as for my birth-mother, well, how would I know unless I found her. Which I did for my 25th birthday and that my readers is a story for another time.

So, Mother's Day . . . I was born on Mother's Day and then I became a mother.

So now what . . .how do I reconcile Mother's Day with mothering, with becoming a mother with my birthday? Well, it doesn't belong to me . . . it belongs to Mother's . . . to Mom's and I don't know how to reconcile that. I can't reconcile it. On the years it falls on my birthday - it's my birthday, nothing more, nothing less. On years it's the second Sunday of May it's a day that makes me feel sad that I cannot share it with my birth-mother (eventual BM story), it's a day that makes me feel angry for being unable to even speak to my mother (another story), a day that makes me feel guilty for not being able to fully embrace my step-mother as my mother and a day that makes me feel incredibly awkward because I have 2 children who want to celebrate me as their mother and all I want is to be left alone.

I was born on Mother's Day . . . how can I be a Mother?

But I am, and have been for 17 years, and each year I have no idea how to accept the day. I feel ashamed, I feel it isn't about me I feel - I want to be left alone. But I realized, or at least I recognize, it is a day that is important to my children and I have to go along with it. At times this has made them feel I didn't care when in fact I didn't know how to accept that I am a mom. How do you explain that? And for that matter, while divorced from my children's father and while making mistakes, I have been their mom. THEIR MOM - a mother they could count on good or bad, a mother that never left them, that always wanted them . . . a mother they could count on. This is something I never had.

I am a mother and I was born on Mother's Day.

And on the flip side . . . what have my 2 children, my son, my daughter given to me? They have given me love . . .unconditional love. They have stuck with me when I was less than a mother and have accepted the over bearing mother. They, my children, tell me they love me, tell me I am pretty, thank me for being their mom on a daily basis. I just may, just may be one of the luckiest mothers ever. I refuse to believe it's anything I did, I have nothing to base it on. I fully credit them for being individuals anyone would be proud to claim or know.

I was born on Mother's Day.

And what I don't know is how I got so lucky to have the children I have. What I do know is that because of my kids I am thankful that Mother's Day isn't necessary given my confusion regarding this day. My kids allow everyday to be Mother's Day and for that I am more grateful than words can ever express. I love you Xan and Audrey more than you will ever know.

Footnote: Happy Mother's Day to all the Mother's I love and respect - TA, Christine, Lora, Bethany, Kim, Erin, Lynn . . . but most importantly, Nita.