I chuckled to myself recently. An email came in from one of our Adoption Reading Challenge participants. She had landed on the challenge, found it interesting, read the posts about it and decided to join. As I didn’t mention my spot in the triad and she saw (cute!) pictures of my boys on the sidebar, she automatically assumed I was an adoptive parent.
I chuckled again. Just now.
I was not offended. I even understood the confusion — kind of. Truth is that even as a birth mother, I could — theoretically — have pictures of my (relinquished) daughter on my sidebar. As my flickr widget shows the four most recent pictures that are public on my photostream, any number of things could be over there. Right now? It’s birds. And a photo of my boys from last night that made it into my Project 365 Favorites set. After a visit with the Munchkin and family, I usually make one or two photos public. So, yes, she could have been over there on the sidebar, smiling at you.
The exchange, polite and not at all offensive to me, got me to thinking about blogging as a birth parent.
First and foremost, I have always asked Dee what I can and cannot share. Back before the days of Super Serious Blogging, I obtained permission to share her photos online with my friends and family. This was pre-Facebook era, so I was sharing on Photobucket and LiveJournal. Eventually I moved onto sharing via Flickr and my public blogs. Now I throw up some photos from visits on Facebook as well.
When it comes to the actual sharing of words, the meat and potatoes of our relationship, I make sure to ask now. I made a mistake a time or two in over-sharing, though never with malice or in outright anger. The one time I was dealing with some heavy stuff on my end and forgot to share my story, not hers. We talked about it and life went on, not unlike when bloggers share too much about their mother-in-law and realize, the hard way, that she is actually reading.
But I do write about our relationship, the cute things the Munchkin says and, yes, I do share pictures. There are certain subjects on which I no longer write for various reasons. What I feel comfortable sharing changes from time to time; the ebb and flow of open adoption changes the tides of my comfort level here and there. I try to make sure the focus of whatever I’m sharing about our relationship is on me, my interaction with Dee or the Munchkin and my take away from the exchange. I don’t want to put words into Dee’s mouth — or the Munchkin’s for that matter. I’m careful, but I’m also honest.
This whole thing made me remember how I was not welcome in the Mommy Blogging niche when I first started this particular blog. Part of it was because I made people uncomfortable; I still do. Part of it was because people are so darn defensive with the title of mother. I’ve watched groups gang up on stepmom bloggers as well, treating them in much the same way I was treated when this blog started to gain recognition back in 2006. I’ve watched other alternative types of families be hassled and heckled for sharing things in their own ways, and I just don’t understand. Or, I do understand, but it seems quite ridiculous that certain groups of people can’t allow for the open sharing of information, emotions and experiences.
Over the years, I’ve come to be okay with being shunned by the traditional mommy blogging circuit when it comes to this particular blog. I know that I push envelopes and many people don’t want to be forced to reconsider long-held beliefs while they’re sipping their coffee and rushing through early morning blog reading. Some of my posts — especially some written just last month — are difficult reads. Honestly, they’re difficult to write as well. As open and honest as I am, it’s not always easy — or fun — to put myself out on the line. When I take into consideration the verbal bashing I get from time to time from people who don’t, can’t or won’t attempt to understand (open) adoption from a birth mother’s point of view, there are days when I simply can’t open up here — in my own safe space.
But I do it because it’s part of me, part of my family’s day-to-day life. We may not discuss adoption to death on a daily basis, but it is always a shadow lurker in our life. She is, by and large, not here in the physical sense, but she is always with us: in our prayers at night, in a discussion about what girls like to play with, at the missing table setting when we sit down to eat. Some people understand it, want to know more. Other people don’t. And who can blame them?
I’ve never been one who fits in with the popular crowd. I wasn’t disliked in high school; I got along with most everyone except for two very different (from one another) girls who chose to bully me for reasons I still don’t quite understand. I had friends, but wasn’t often included in the things The Cool Kids did. Maybe that’s why it doesn’t bother me too much that The Cool Kids don’t really accept me now. They don’t heckle me, but they sure don’t get involved in what I’m doing, saying or sharing. Perhaps I’ve always been a trailblazer, content to do what I’m doing whether or not it is Socially Acceptable or not. It’s not that I don’t long for people to recognize that, hey, birth parents aren’t the scary people society has painted them to be. Or that my presence in my daughter’s life is real, valid and important. Or that adoptees deserve access to their Original Birth Certificates. Or that the state of adoption within our country is in desperate need of ethical reform. I do; I want people to know those things as much as they know that two parents who give birth to a child are parents and two people who adopt a child are parents and that children — all children — deserve safe, loving, permanent homes.
But I’m okay with mostly being an outsider.
I know I’m less possessive of terminology and titles as I once was; I have settled into a confidence in the Who I Am To My Daughter discussion. I don’t know society to acknowledge my mothering; I know what I have done, what I do. I now know that the hatred and anger spewed at me when I discuss certain topics — especially related to titles in adoption — is not about me and what I share; it’s about the responder and what they’re dealing with. I take it in stride.
Blogging adoption as a birth mother has not always been easy, but I keep at it because it helps me process. When I write out my thoughts and feelings and see them on the screen, I understand where I’m coming from; the type making it real in my eyes and in my mind.
And so, no, new readers, I’m not an adoptive mom. I know many of those who write their own blogs who happen to be fantastic, and if you need some suggestions, please let me know. I’m a birth mother (who sometimes uses the term first mother). And a mom. And a wife. And a writer. And an editor. And a photographer. And so many things. I don’t have just one title. I don’t quite fit in anywhere.
And, really, it’s okay.