Birthmother's day was yesterday and Mother's day was today, so as you can guess I have been thinking a lot about moms and the different roles we play and the labels we receive. I follow a couple different online community pages about adoption (way more religiously before we added our fifth child and I started school again) and I remember this one post that made me feel really annoyed with labels. On this particular post a birthmother was venting about how she did not like when the other members of the board used the anagram "BM" for mothers like her because it could stand for bowel movement. This poster was slammed pretty hard for stating her opinion and it turned quite nasty and was completely unnecessary. Was her post an over-reaction, yes, but did all the adoptive mothers and fathers need to jump down her throat, no. I felt bad for her because all those ladies and men were basically saying her feelings were less important than their time to actually type out the word. It was ridiculous, but it taught me a lesson that day. It taught me that labels are dumb and who cares what we call each other. I know I am supposed to prickle when I hear people ask things like, "are you his REAL mother?", but I don't see the point, because 1. I know they don't understand the terminology and 2. it really doesn't matter that much to me that I did not birth him because I know he is mine and so does he.
I think of my role in our boy's life as a pinch hitter of sorts. His birth mom hit the home run but was unable to run the bases so I stepped in to help finish the job. Both jobs are important and dependent on the other. I am not against our birthmother I am on her team and we are in this together. So if someone tells me birth moms don't like to be called something I am not going to call them that simply because I think their role is so important and I care about their feelings. We're all just moms and we're trying to do what is best for our kids. Let's work together!
It also helps that my 5 year old son thinks having two mamas is stinkin' awesome!
