She's Just a Mother - Not Mother Teresa

Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, author of "Hiroshima in the Morning" and "Why She Left Us"  says she has been reviled for living apart from her kids after her marriage ended.

Although she lived down the street, seeing her boys often, going to PTA, games, helping with homework, she received death threats and was called "garbage" and "worse than Hitler." It seems that for many people, it is not OK for a mother not to be the full-time custodian of her children - not for any reason including self-preservation or just for having the maturity and honesty to recognize it is the children's best interest.

Rhana says, "They were not interested in learning that there might be any middle ground between "good mother" and "human garbage" or a positive outcome. They would rather claim that I didn't love my children, that I was a narcissist or that I had simply decided parenting was no longer fun."

See more  of her story at http://goo.gl/tGwvA

In our many years of working with birth mothers considering and/or choosing adoption for their children, we have seen this dynamic at work again and again. It takes a particularly mature and clear-headed mother to stand up to the expectations and often uninformed beliefs of her peers or family and conclude that someone else can better parent her child at a particular time. But does that make her either "garbage" or  "Mother Theresa?"

My wife and co-coach, Ann, is both a birthmother and, with me, an adoptive parent. On both counts she has been called courageous and "special."  "I could never do that," has come with both positive and negative connotations. Translations: "What kind of horrible mother could 'give away' her own child?"  "I could not face the pain of loss and criticism, even if it thought it was a better choice."  "How could you adopt someone else's child and love her like your 'own' child you already have?"

It is our observation that adoptive parents often have a harder than average time dealing with these visceral conflicting societal beliefs. Though they have taken the adoptive parents training courses and truly try to understand the birth mother perspective, for the most part they just can't. Their strong desire to be parents, maybe after years of infertility, medical interventions, thousands of dollars spent and discouraging prospects for adopting, create a mental and emotional atmosphere in which they many times literally say, "I could never do that." Even in an open adoption, where they have met the birth mother, love her and are so grateful for her choice, they still can't put themselves in her shoes. Understandable. Even as a "sensitive male" there is no way I can really understand what it is to give birth

So this Mothers Day, even if we can't really understand all mothers, can we suspend our judgments and honour the "unmothers" who have made extremely difficult and unselfish decisions, and still live with daily pain and ambivalence as a result? Isn't it OK that they are somewhere far from either extreme of "garbage" or "Mother Teresa?"

If you or someone you know might benefit from life coaching conversations around these or other adoption issues, we can help no matter where in the world you live. Email us at waverockcoaching@gmail.com and we will respond.

Lorne