Dr. Dixie van de Flier Davis
Mothers and Daughters
A Lesson from Diane and Michelle
It seems like adoptive moms bear the brunt of their daughters’ emotionally conflicted attachments. Over and over again our staff at The Adoption Exchange hears from daughters that their dads are heroes.
Talking about their moms is more complicated.
Psychologically girls have complex attachment/separation process with their mothers. Add the layers of multiple mothers to the emotional landscape, and it gets pretty complicated.
The journey to individuation is filled with fears of rejection and suffocation. The emotional push and pull is heart breaking for mothers. And it’s incredibly painful and confusing for their daughters.
I’m waiting for someone to take Nancy Friday’s theories and observations (My Mother My Self, Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1977) to the next level to help guide adoptive moms and daughters through these waters. I think it would be reassuring to know that the challenges are predictably more complex than in the usual mother-daughter relationship. And it would be even more helpful to have them examined and explained.
Until then mothers and daughters find their ways – sometimes with the help of psychotherapy, and sometimes alone.
Several years ago I heard Diane sing at a baby shower for the first born of her adopted daughter, Michelle. With unabashed love in her face, Diane’s voice caressed us in the first lullaby to her grandson.
Over the years Diane shared stories with me, knowing that I’d repeat them to inspire others along their own paths. She fiercely loved all of her children and her grandchildren. And now — a few days before her death – she spoke again about the emotional growth of mothers and daughters through the journey of adoption.
Chatting with her husband, Tim, Diane commented on what a challenge it is for children from foster care to find their way to emotional individuation.
That Tuesday afternoon they described their daughter’s solitary search and subsequent reunion with her birth family and her recent return home with her children. Diane was pleased that she could give Michelle a chance to bring some closure to a conflict ridden mother-lost-new-mother-discovered-first-mother-found-again relationship.
Friday says, “Spontaneous and honest love admits errors, hesitations, and human failings; it can be tested and repaired.” Now Michelle was about to lose her second mother to cancer and the two needed – and had – a good talk. A chance to voice apologies and to hear “I love you” one more time.
At Diane’s wake Michelle stood before a church filled with friends, colleagues and family to say, “My mom did stuff that drove me crazy sometimes. And I did stuff that drove her crazy. I learned a lot from her. Like being organized….I tell people, ‘I learned that from my mom.’ I love her.”
The next day Diane’s choral group, Safonia, sang You’ve Got To Walk That Lonesome Journey with a candle standing in Diane’s vacated place among them.
I remembered Diane’s comments just days before, “Now there is another story for you.”
Diane and Tim Carabello helped start The Adoption Exchange, each serving terms on our Board of Directors. Diane was a life long colleague; she was mentor to our early development staff and continued to be a reliable volunteer and valued supporter throughout her life. Tim currently serves on the Long Range Planning and Implementation Committee.
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Tags: adopt, adopted daughters, Adopting, Adoption Exchange, adoptive mother, Children who wait, Diane Carabello, Dixie van de Flier, Mothers and Daughters, Nancy Friday, Safonia, The Adoption Exchange
January 6th, 2010 at 6:03 pm
Thank you so much for this post.
My husband and I have been actively on our adoption search shortly after our third son was born, we expected it to take a while…why not get the home study ready?
Our intent is to adopt a girl….I would love more then anything to parent a girl.
Reading your post reminded of the complexities in my own relationship with my mother. After 15 years on no contact…. I decided to contact her and establish the relationship, again. There was a lot of fear, anger and resentment on both sides. I can say that the time away was useful for us both…but, sad in the time that is lost.
I will always love her, even though there was so much rejection and suffocation….I have lived what you are describing.
Though I am not adopted, I feel I can truly understand a lot of the adoption loss issues written regarding the adoptee.
I feel that my own loss has played a part in my search to adopt.
Time and time again…we have not been chosen to adopt a child, specifically female children due to the specific challenges and abuse ( often sexual ) we would not make the best healthy match for this gender.
It upsets me, knowing that the system has so many children and not enough loving homes, and yet here we are four years later and no match…. our case worker tells us we are not alone….it will happen when the time is right.
However, after reading your post…I have been wondering if searching for a child based on a particular gender (race does not matter) has dampened our success….and perhaps maybe I am looking for too much from an adoptive daughter.
I have tried to set my personal feelings aside and focus on my life experiences as an added strength of understanding into the loss of the adopted child, particularly female.
If statistically I would bear the brunt of my adoptive daughters loss, I would be hurt and yet compassionate…I wonder if I could deal with the reverse situation of my own? Raising sons has been delightful….Maybe I will make a better mother-in- law to my son’s wives??
I am going to pick up Nancy’s book.
I agree with you…someone should write about the complexities of mother/daughter relationship in adoptions.
Thank you so much for the post : )
January 7th, 2010 at 4:53 pm
You may find an article by Heather Forbes, LCSW, cofounder and owner of the Beyond Consequences Institute called Issues Facing Adoptive Parents of Special Needs Children of interest. In it she says: “If a mother experienced an unhealthy and hurtful relationship with her own mother, often times this pattern resurfaces and is replicated with the adoptive (sic) child. Authors Main and Hesse proposed that frightened parental behavior occurs impulsively and is triggered from within, stemming from the parent’s internal dialogue or from events associated with the parent’s own traumatic experiences. Although the same family of origin issues can potentially occur with biological children or children who have not been traumatized, it is typical for the adopted child’s issues to be so prevalent and so intense that they serve as powerful and unavoidable triggers for the adoptive parents. It is the intensity, duration, and frequency of these stressors that differs for adoptive families of children with special needs as compared to that of other families.” She goes on to describe behaviors and outcomes that are stressful for both the child and the parents. All is not lost, however, as Forbes then talks about “hope for these families” with extended discussion about successful interventions and outcomes.
Both as an adoption professional and an adoptive parent of several children (now adults), I have found myself frustrated many many times with the inflexibility of caseworkers who reject prospective adoptive parents because he or she sees a “red flag” rather than a potential resource for a child who otherwise might not have a home. Instead of engaging and educating a family about possible challenges, the worker does not consider them capable of learning, changing, and growing into a safe haven for a waiting child … in your case, a girl who needs a mother (and father). Adopting a daughter would offer both of you the opportunity to heal your mother/daughter wounds and create a solid foundation for her to be a healthy, loving mother to future daughters of her own.
Sometimes it’s hard to tell if the roadblocks we experience on our journey of adoption are valid or the result of an uninformed and/or inexperienced custodian. I encourage you to be steadfast in your efforts to adopt a child, whether it be a daughter or a son. Stay connected with an adoptive parent support group; all of the members have walked in your shoes one way or another.