Real Mom

Tonight, yet again, during an argument with Blythe, she said, "You're not my real mom."  Her implication was that I don't love her.  While logically I know that Blythe doesn't really understand, and I tell myself not to let that particular sentence bother me, when she says it, it's like a knife to the heart.  It wounds me over and over again, because for Blythe, once is never enough.  She doesn't understand the absolutely horrible situation from which she was plucked by DCFS before she came to our home.  She doesn't understand that her "real" mom can't take care of herself much less Blythe and her "birth family" she talks about all the time.  She doesn't understand how unsafe, unhealthy, and unstable her life would be if she was with Key Bug.  She just doesn't understand and I can't and won't explain it to her because she is too young.  But because we have always been open with the children about being adopted, and always answered Blythe's questions honestly, she knows enough to know that there was another possibility for her life.  So when things are not going as she would like, like when I insist she clean her room, or yell at her (which I shouldn't do) for being a brat (which I shouldn't call her) during family home evening, or when she somehow feels life is unfair, she pulls out and plays the very hurtful "You're not my real mom" card.

How will we work through this?  How will I learn to deal with it better?  Blythe is adopted and we can't change that.  I can't tell her to go live with her birth mom if she thinks it would be so much better.  I can't change who she is or where she came from.  I don't want her to draw pictures of her "birth family," a picture with a mom, two daughters, and a son, and then have to say how much I like her artwork.  I don't want to have to accommodate an addict "mom" stopping by when she's having a sober moment for a play date.  I don't want to have my daughter throw it in my face every time she's unhappy with me that I'm not her "real" mom, especially when the person she thinks that is never has to deal with our difficult and headstrong child.  If I have to suffer and struggle through the constant challenge of raising Blythe, I want to at least get billing as "The Mom."

Several months ago I read a book about an adopted daughter.  She is unhappy with her mother but adores her father.  After she leaves for college, she receives a grant to go do research in India where she was born.  While there, she meets and interviews many women about their life experiences.  She comes to see how good her life has been and how fortunate she was to be adopted.  I thought of my Blythe as I read it.  She has no idea what her life could be like, and I don't want her to know.  But I hope that Blythe will come to see that as a parent, I'm not all bad.  I'm not as evil as she thinks I am.  I love her, I'm here for her all the time, I am her real mom.  And I hope it doesn't take until she's left our home for her to figure it out.  But I should probably accept that it will very likely take that long and prepare to have my heart wounded over and over again.