Celebrating Mother’s Day with adopted & fostered children

Mother’s Day is a day many families who adopt and foster look forward to for a long time – years of trying to have children or going through approval and awaiting that match. Yet Mother’s Day for adopted and fostered children and the parents they live with can be complicated.

When your first Mother’s Day comes, for every mum, it’s a day of celebration and enjoyment. For Adopters, its no different — we want to be spoilt with breakfast in bed, glitter-shedding hand-made cards and squashed flowers presented in sticky little hands. However there are always other elements to Mother’s Day which we need to consider. Not least is the fact that we are not our children’s only mother. And although we may have happiness on this day, she may have a day of sadness.

The difficulty adopted and fostered children have on this day

But it is the children who experience the biggest conflict of feelings. Not just on this day but any day. However it’s amplified by the pressure, the adverts, the need to show ‘Mum’ how much you love her. Gem at Life with Katie reminds us that it’s a day to think about all kinds of mothers and families. She and her family light a candle for her daughter’s birth mother.

This post on AdoptHelp gives ideas on how to help your adopted child celebrate Mother’s Day. For fostered children, the day presents different challenges — it can be uncomfortable and even sad.

Children who are in foster care or adopted may feel very sad or even dread it coming round as it will remind them of how they are not living at home with their own mothers. For these families it can be seen as a negative occasion.

Fosterline Info

Kate on Thin Ice, who frequently writes about her experiences as an adult who was adopted as a child, asks the important question: What story will you tell this Mother’s Day?

Mother’s Day isn’t perfect. Kids aren’t perfect. Mother’s Day can take a toll on mental health, perhaps in some ways even more poignantly than Christmas or Valentines. There are mothers and not mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, up and down the country and around the world who have their hearts pricked to tenderness at this time of year when a single bent daffodil with a bit of ribbon around it might be given to them at a community event. It can hurt, it hurts me, mother of one, sister of one, daughter of one. No, Mother’s Day isn’t perfect.

Kate on Thin Ice

Who mothers adoptive & foster mothers?

A large part of being a parent, especially a new parent or an adoptive parent, is a need for support. Sometimes that support doesn’t need to be obvious, it can be silent and strong with help and an unspoken acknowledgment, other times open and honest. However support is offered, it’s vital for parents and one of the reasons that the government is being pressured to not just look at the approval process for adoption but also at Post Adoption Support (as offered by social services) to try and reduce the number of adoption placements that disrupt.

Dr Spouse is a regular on the Twitter adoption circuit, being mum to the very cute Baby Spouse (who I have not met but who is so obviously very cute!). She has written about Baby Spouse being unwell and a thousand questions in Intermission. 

Mother’s Day and being in crisis

Mumdrah has written beautifully about being in crisis and what this means for her and CHT. Sezz at Dear Daughter, our adoption has also written very honestly about crisis for herself, how to heal and how to support and what this means. Sarah from the The Puffin Diaries has also blogged about the complexity of parenting that adopted child in It’s like a Rubik cube.

An adoptive dad’s point of view

And finally, the New Pyjamas has a great post on Questions and preparations from her Preparation training. I studied the same thing and want to say thank you for posting this, its helpful to revisit this learning especially now the children are here and re-focus on the importance of child development in adoption/LAC.

Tweet @MaryamLane to join the Twitter Adoption community, we would love to hear from you!

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