Putting It Out There
No in regards to this blog and our adoption story I do not appear to be a private person, but in all other areas of my life I very much am. I don’t really share personal details about myself unless I know someone very well and I trust them. I don’t necessarily care if I tell someone something and they tell someone else. What I care about are the intentions of the listener. Does this person actually care, are they bored, or worse are they silently thinking if I was doing blah blah better or differently I wouldn't be in this situation? Well since I don’t live inside other people’s heads it’s hard to know most of the time, and therefore I keep my cards pretty close to my flat chest. In a nutshell, I’m emotionally unavailable with an avoidant attachment style. Is my husband a lucky guy or what?
I’ve had many mother’s (with and without adopted children) say to me this year…. “you’re so honest and I can completely relate”. I was wondering to myself as I walked my dog today why it is I have been able to be so open and transparent this year in regards to the adoption of our daughter? It’s not usually in my character, but I have to admit it hasn’t been difficult at all for me to do so, what gives?
Then I had a thought…. if Richa had been my biological child and we were having these same types of relational highs and lows would I write about it and if so would I do so this freely without the fear of what others might think. Honestly…. probably not.
I’ve kind of been given a pass in a way. Because of our situation and the age of my daughter’s adoption no one expects this first year (or the next five or ten) to be picture perfect. As long as I’m not writing about how she tries to kill us in our sleep every night and as long as I don’t go completely mad and run away the general consensus is we're doing great. I mean...even if she was trying to stab me on a weekly basis I doubt many people would blame me or my husband. “India mom must have been a serial killer”. That’s very freeing as a writer and as a parent.
It seems like many parents experience the same exacts thoughts, struggles, and emotions with their teenage children as I do, but feel ashamed to share it with others. If I have a biological child that treats me with disdain, is struggling, or is rebelling in some way than it’s probably my fault, right? That’s what we think to ourselves anyway. Biological parents have nature and nurture on their side so there’s no excuse for anything less than complete and utter parental bliss from infancy to adulthood. Logically we know this is a silly statement, but for most women there is a great deal of shame when our children reject us…. especially our daughters. Even if we know in our hearts that we’ve done our best and we think we might possibly just be innocent victims of our child’s behavior, someone else might not agree and the pain of that potential truth would feel palpable.
How much of our relationship with our children is really about us? How much is as a result of other factors like the influence of peers, successes and failures that occur in their little worlds, or just behaviors/attitudes that creep up as a result of our culture? There’s so many reasons why our children act the way they do. I do blame my dad for the size of my pores and my mother for my inability to add but most of my attitude towards them at different times of my life was a result of trying to develop my own independence while discovering who I was as a young woman. They could have been June and Ward Cleaver and I still would have woken up most mornings in middle school feeling awkward, inadequate, and insecure. Having a mother who believed the wrinkles in my jeans would miraculously “fall out” by third period (they never did) didn’t help things either.
Yes, there are times that I will need to reevaluate how I parent my daughter, and it's always good to stay aware of areas I can improve upon, but like my dad said the other day…. “Legan, sometimes good kids just act like turds." Ladies and gentlemen I'd like to introduce to you my new mantra, and put in print that my dad might be a genius.