Mother’s Day Is Complicated

I hope you enjoyed your Mother’s Day weekend. I spent Sunday with my oldest daughter and her family in Sarasota. This year, our celebration was bittersweet. They’re moving away from the area to start new jobs later this month. With all four of my adult children and their young families living in different areas of the country, figuring out how and where to pull everyone together is the challenge going forward. 

Mother’s Day weekend has always been complicated for me anyway. I suspect it’s complicated for most women. We fill so many roles from daughter, mother, mother-in-law and grandmother to special aunt or significant maternal figure. The occasion is further obfuscated because some of our mother figures are living, some are not, and those that are still alive may not be active, for whatever reason, in our daily existence. Because of my closed adoption, I have a birth mother to add to the list of those to acknowledge on Mother’s Day.

As many of you know from reading my memoir, Twice a Daughter, I connected with my birth mom over a decade ago. Incorporating her into my life was no easy endeavor. First, I had to locate her and then she had to agree to contact. Until my confidential intermediary made the outreach, the fact that my birth mom had placed two daughters for adoption had been a closely held secret. For us to meet and enter reunion, she needed to open up to her spouse. 

And on my end, getting my adoptive mother to accept that my other mother had entered my life, was a significant struggle. Once all that sorted out, establishing how to honor both of my mothers around Mother’s Day became the fresh challenge.

This past Saturday, the day before Mother’s Day, was Birth Mother’s Day. I remember when I first learned of this special occasion.  It was a Saturday afternoon in early May, and I joined twenty or so adults in a conference room at Catholic Charities in downtown Chicago for a post adoption support group meeting.

The social worker opened our session by acknowledging that Mother’s Day was less than a week away. Her bright blue eyes nodded warmly at each of us clustered around the U-shaped conference table.

She stated, “This is a day that brings both joy and heartache, depending on which side of the adoption equation you are on.”

Several women at one end grabbed tissues from the boxes at the center of the table. These ladies were birth mothers. Thus far, they had been unsuccessful in entering reunion with the children they lost to adoption.

The social worker continued, “As we go around the table, please state your name, whether you’re an adoptee, birth parent, or adoptive parent, and then let us know how you plan to celebrate Mother’s Day this year.”

One of the teary-eyed birth moms raised her hand.

She said, “I want to remind everyone that Saturday, the day before Mother’s Day, is National Birth Mother’s Day.”

The social worker nodded at the group. “Thank you. I neglected to mention this in the opening. Birth Mother’s Day was established in 1990 by a group of birth mothers to remember their adopted child, cope with that loss, and educate society about the complexities of the adoption experience. Please go on.”

The birth mother then shared with us about how she hoped to receive a reply to a letter she’d recently written to the birth daughter she placed for adoption thirty years earlier. 

She said, “As delighted as I am to celebrate Mother’s Day with my mother and family, the year I can openly observe Birth Mother’s Day with the daughter I lost to adoption will be one of the happiest moments of my life. Until that happens though, I will honor Birth Mother’s Day in silence.”

Lucky for me, until Covid hit, my twin sister and I enjoyed many years of celebrating with our birth mother in person on or around Birth Mother’s Day. But much like the geography issues I encounter in gathering with my immediate family on Mother’s Day, celebrating with both my mothers is problematic. Both are in good health, so thanks to Facetime, phone calls, cards, and flowers, we are in touch in meaningful ways and remain committed to strengthening our mother-daughter bonds.

The expression goes like this: When the heart is willing it will find a thousand ways, but where it is unwilling it will find a thousand excuses.

And when it comes to relationships with family and friends, both old and new, I’m working on keeping my heart open. How about you?

Follow Me Here

• May 15th, Julie will be interviewed about adoption and her adoption story on the Top of Mind podcast which airs on Sirius XM radio channel 143, YouTube and all the podcast apps. Find Top of Mind on any podcast platform and the website:  https://www.byuradio.org/topofmind 
• June 5-8, Julie will be recording the audio version of her new book, Belonging Matters: Conversations on Adoption, Family & Kinship (Muse Literary, Chicago) which releases on November 1, 2023.
• June 7th, Julie will speak to the Book Club at Daytona Beach Shores FL Community Center.  
• June 12th, Julie will speak to Holly’s Book Club in Dayton, OH.

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