I think this is another topic that I plan on expanding for the birth/first parent blog. I was prompted in thought this afternoon by a post on BlogHer that contained a book review for Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters. It kind of smacked me in the face and I had to sit back and think about some topics that I don’t frequent all that often.
Starting in high school, I struggled, often heavily, with bulimia. This lasted through most of college until I was hospitalized during the summer between my junior and senior years. I wasn’t magically cured by that hospital stay, of course, but I do count that as the beginning of my road to recovery. The whole stay in the ICU was very eye-opening, even if my eyes were mostly closed during that time. I was also battling some underlying depression and what we didn’t know but has since been diagnosed as anxiety.
Reading the review and comments about how mothers can unknowingly influence their daughters into thinking such negative things about themselves and causing them, purposefully or inadvertently, to develop awful habits left my mind reeling. I don’t want that kind of life for Munchkin, obviously, because I can’t think of a sane mother who would want her child to end up in the ICU. (Oh, the horrors that I now know that I caused my OWN mother.) However, I’m lost as to what nature and nurture do under this kind of circumstance. Will it be engrained in her mind that she’s not perfect anyway because I placed her for adoption? Will that be a further catalyst to a bigger problem? Would it be solely my fault? Even if I constantly reaffirm her beauty, no matter her size? What real effect do I have over her psyche as a first mother involved in a fully open adoption? Will simply hearing about my eating disorder cause her to doubt her own beauty since she is from my own genetic makeup? Should it be kept secret until she is safely past the infamous teen years and college years, knowing full well that eating disorders aren’t just for the youth of our country?
I’m quite tempted (as in it’s on my wish list for further clicking and purchasing) to buy the book. However, my unique questions aren’t going to be answered by those pages, are they? No one writes a book for birth parents that dictates how they should go about discussing the hard issues with their children beacuse no one expects us to (or wants us to) have that kind of access to our childrens’ formative years and minds. It’s another thing that I’m just going to have to flub through on my own, I suppose.
