by Joanne Bagshaw, PhD, LCPC
The last time I spoke with my adoptive mother was on my birthday five years ago. Surprised to see her number on my phone, I cautiously yet hopefully answered. After a brief “Hello” and “Happy Birthday,” I felt the steady support of my feet on the ground as my mother launched into her usual tirade of how terrible I am and how I ruined her life. “Mom, this isn’t right, how you’re treating me on my birthday.” She continued anyway. Years of therapy helped me stay in my body as the call ended with “I still love you, despite what you did to me.” What I allegedly did is ruin her life, although she’s never articulated how I did so.
Mother is a complicated word for adoptees. Many of us carry a mother wound and relinquishment trauma stemming from early loss and separation. Many adoptees can’t see themselves reflected in their mothers’ faces. Some of us experience divided loyalties about which mother we should identify with. Society tells us to believe our adoptive mothers are our real mothers because they took over the role of mothering from our first mothers who couldn’t. We’re told adoptive mothers are selfless for raising another woman’s child, and we shouldn’t use the signifier “adoptive” before the word “mother” because it’s demeaning.
Gender-essentialist beliefs divide adoptive and first mothers into categories of good and bad. The “good” adoptive mother is saintly, has maternal instincts, resources, and is stable. The “bad” first mother, due to her own flaws, lacks the maternal instincts to make responsible decisions that would have helped her raise her child. How could I, as an adopted child, make sense of the message that my abusive adoptive mother is “good”? Children internalize their parents’ split-off parts as I did when I internalized my mother’s shame.
Over time, I accepted that I wasn’t going to receive the kind of mothering I needed from my adoptive mother. Unconsciously, I spent years searching for a mother figure—friends’ moms, my boyfriend’s mom, employers, and colleagues older than me. My expectation that others would fill a role they didn’t consent to only led to more disappointment. Plus, what did I even know about mothering to recognize it in someone else? It turned out I knew more than I had thought.
When I became a mother, I dedicated myself to being the best “good-enough” mother I could be. I didn’t want to be an image of a perfect mother; instead, I focused on building and maintaining a strong relationship with my daughter. After all, I learned from adoption that it’s a privilege to have and raise my daughter, a privilege I take seriously.
I learned to be the kind of mother to my daughter that I needed as a child, which meant not forcing her to adapt to my needs. Instead, I changed my ideas about how I would parent her and adjusted to her needs. Through my attunement with her, I saw all the ways I didn’t receive mothering from my adoptive mother, and I came to understand that the only person who could and should reliably mother me as an adult is me.
At first, mothering myself looked like hyperindependence. If all I have is myself, why bother trusting anyone else? At the time, it seemed obvious it was better to do everything on my own, overwork, never ask for help, and not let anyone get too close. Well, that didn’t work out well. Especially when I was a single mom. It’s no surprise I burned out. My body tried to tell me, through chronic colds, exhaustion, and physical pain, that I needed to live differently. I had to treat myself with the love and care I deserved.
Learning to mother myself was messy. Weekly phone sessions with my therapist had me curled up on my therapy couch between sessions with my clients, ugly crying during inner child work where I learned to love the parts of myself who thought two mothers had abandoned her. Holding my younger self with love and care was just a start, though. Next, I had to show up for my inner child and my adult self by taking action. I had to ask for help.
Asking for help was a slow, painful process. I didn’t know what an appropriate ask was or how to ask it. “Um, would you mind, if it’s not too much, do you think it’s possible, if you have time and remember, could you pick up an item for me at the store you’re already going to? Thankfully, it got easier, and I got better at it. Today I delegate like a queen.
Yoga, Pilates, or going for a walk became standing appointments on my calendar, as I focused on lowering my stress. And yes, I stopped getting frequent colds. I prioritized my health in other ways, too. I distanced myself from people who drained me and created space for mutually supportive relationships. Relocating to another state for a new job was an act of self-mothering because it created structure. This move created a secure environment for my daughter and me and provided benefits, including a pension and access to a resource-rich community.
For adoptees, the idea of mothering ourselves can trigger trauma and leave us feeling stuck and boxed in, constrained by our own experiences. I had to step outside the box and broaden the lens of what “mothering” means. In the anthology “Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines,” editors Alexis Pauline Gumbs, China Martens, and Mai’a Williams describe mothering as a practice of creating, nurturing, and supporting life. I like this way of thinking about mothering; it’s genderless, so anyone can mother, and it’s a practice, so we have to keep working at it.
There are many ways we can care for ourselves as adoptees. Finding the right therapist who understands adoption can change your life, like mine did when my therapist guided me in inner child work, despite my reluctance. We can support ourselves by connecting with other adoptees, especially in person if possible. Self-mothering happens when we remember that as adoptees, we all share a piece of the same broken mirror, and titrate our participation in the adoptee community as needed.
Adoptees’ lives are complex, and what feels like mothering to one person may not be right for another. We can honor this complexity through acceptance and compassion. The most impactful self-mothering choice I made was not to call my adoptive mother again.
After the phone call with her five years ago, I decided, “I can love myself better than you ever could.” This phone call was not the worst thing my adoptive mother had done, but it was the last. I decided the most loving and mothering thing I could do for myself was not to engage with her again. I didn’t block her or tell her not to call me. I simply haven’t called. To date, I haven’t heard from her and likely won’t again.
Reference: Gumbs, A. P., Martens, C., & Williams, M. (Eds.). Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines. PM Press, 2016.
About the Author: Joanne Bagshaw, PhD, LCPC, is the author of The Feminist Handbook and an AASECT-certified sex therapist with a group practice in Maryland. She writes the popular feminist blog, The Third Wave, for Psychology Today. An award-winning professor in psychology and women’s studies, Joanne has recently retired from Montgomery College. She’s a same-race domestic adoptee from The Baby Scoop Era, in reunion. Follow her on Substack for more writing on Adoption.https://substack.com/@outsideradoptee
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