anyone playing armchair psychiatrist, who knows a few key events that occurred in my life prior to the unplanned conception of The Kiddo, could point a finger at me and say "low self esteem much?"
one of the main reasons why i chose adoption was trying to do the proverbial right thing. raised in a middle class, wasp-y environment, i tried very hard to "be a good girl and do the right thing". i mean, my mother was all for adoption, so it couldn't be wrong. right?
at 25 when the Kiddo was born, i had no real sense of self, of my capabilities. so add a little unplanned pregnancy onto an already shaky self worth/esteem base, with very little "you CAN parent - it's okay to be freaked out" support and a whole lot of "this is what you need to do" pointing toward adoption...here we are.
i remember the first few years, post-placement, thinking that i'd never have low self esteem again because for once, in the biggest event in my life, i'd made the right decision. i was The Good Girl. finally.
obviously that feeling didn't last. in hindsight, i could have parented. i could have bucked my family. i could have struggled as a single parent. women do it all the time. and thinking back on it today, i have to wonder how the people in my life at that time really saw me, those who were encouraging me to place. was i that lousy of a person? would i have been a crap mom? of course not. i used to say that The Kiddo deserved "someone better than me". and that's truly appalling to me now. i would never utter such a thing at this stage in my life.
it's never ending, the low self esteem. it merely ebbs & flows like the tide.
9 comments:
Some of this is just now how they saw you. Some of this is how we are conditioned to think about motherhood and adoption. Married women make good mothers, single women aren't ready to be mothers.
I think you could rock anything you set your mind to, including motherhood.
I agree with LisaV. You could so do anything you set your coffee addled mind to.
Truth, Barb...truth.
Nothing addled about your brain Barb. : )
I remember saying things like that too, she deserved someone better than me. How awful is that.
And the other thing I remember is how negative people were when I came home from the hospital and was exited that she'd been born. That made me really doubt myself as a mother.
In all honesty I think I would have not been a good mother because of how low my self esteem was and because I was still very tied to my family. Had there been just a little bit more of self belief, then sure but there wasn't.
I recently told my family that I don't want contact from then anymore. Some of that is adoption related and a lot of it is that it's a healthy choice to take distance.
We had inner strength when we were pregnant but I believe it was channeled in the wrong direction.
Plus to be honest, don't you think if his parents hadn't shut you out that you would find this less painful? I will never know but having the adoption closed (it was never really open anyway) completely really made it hard.
Don't give up hope, I have a good relationship with my daughter now, reunion doesn't fix things but it's so much better than the silence and darkness of when you can't see them or talk to them.
I can't speak for open adoption but i know for me closed adoption was horribly painful.
I'm grateful not to be there anymore.
I wish for you that one day he will be an active part of your life. Sending you lots of love Barb.
Don't kid yourself, sweetie; whether you relinquished or not, you're still her mother. As such, you've got to take care of and nurture that woman for her daughter's sake, if not your own.
I am a female adoptee, currently age 45 [egad almost 46] ISO my bMother. I struggle every single day of my life with low self-esteem and depression & anxiety. Life [or god or fate] has led me down a very difficult road: death claimed my adoptive mother and brother, a 2nd wife and bio daughters claimed my adoptive father. In general, my life sucks at the moment. The one bright spot I can/will have hope in is finding a birth mother [soon, lord, soon] who has her stuff together enough to pull me out of the pit I find myself wallowing in.
I'm serious about this. You've got to live a life that your daughter will someday admire, and that you can admire every day.
The only thing holding you back is your thinking. I will step in and be your substitute daughter, parent, deity, whatever, and...
I hereby give you permission to live your best life. Furthermore, let it be known by all who read this proclamation, that you have the ability to do it. So
JUST DO IT.
Want some authoritative lit on the subject? Go to the childwelfare.gov site and look up adoption search. Here's a link to the pdf about birth parents: http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/f_impact/f_impact.pdf
Your fellow so-journer in this thing called life,
Lisa Kay
PS - Sorry, I shouldn't have child was male or female. [Just projecting on you. Sorry 'bout that.]
PPS - I have kids of my own now, ages 8 & 11. At least once a week, I think they deserve a better mother than the one they got.
Hang in there, hon!
Single woman can raise children just as well as married woman(proof positive here, including the welfare thing and going to college while raising a baby). Screw conventional upbringings.
Birth mother? I hate that term. It makes woman seem like breeders. You are the biological mother, not a "birth" mother.
There is something so unnatural to the core of your being when you are the one particpating in the relinquishing of your child. I've spent a long time just hating myself for not being strong or smart enough to fight.
I've been thinking of you Barb and wondering how you're doing. I'm glad to see you posted. I can truly relate to the difficult questions, realizations, and ahh haas! you are grappling with, as you so desire to be a parent, at this point in your life. Maybe writing what you and others of us birthmoms write will someday impact the adoption world. But most importantly for now, we need to validate the internal screams and anguish we, at times, face, and remind ourselves, despite the pain of being without "our first-born" (or any child relinquished)...yes! we would have been damn good parents...eventually...lol!! I didn't say perfect...just valuable, loved as mommy, and (eventually) damn good parents!! In the meantime...I keep myself sane by pouring my love into those who will receive it...a young family with three little ones under four...oh! and I recently took to "mothering" a kitty. Anything to hushhh the "internal scream"!
Excellent post... I think probably a lot of us can relate to it on some level.
((Hugs))
What Kim said rings true to me: "We had inner strength when we were pregnant but I believe it was channeled in the wrong direction."
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