The Modern Adoptive Mummy

Friday 6th March 2020 was my last 'working day' (or rather, not working as I have been signed off with stress and anxiety since before Christmas- so at this point just over 2 months) in mainstream school. In 2004 I rook redundancy from a call centre manager job, I did this as I knew I was to be training as a teacher later that year. I chose to change my career and plunge us into debt by training on an unqualified wage many thousand less than I was on in call centre management. Overall, I still feel this was the best decision and certainly gave me career more rewarding that sorting peoples' bills out-though at least I left all that at the door and only ever worked the hours I was paid for. For many years I was relatively happy teaching English in a secondary school, I especially loved teaching A level Language. I  worked hard for a pastoral promotion and eventually got one but further promotions were not forthcoming and I became frustrated. I loved my pastoral role, helpin...

I have been thinking about this for a while and littlun's actions last night have prompted me to put pen to paper so to speak. He came to me in the middle of the night for no apparent reason other than to cuddle, a really tight cuddle. When you adopt a child, you long to hear them call you mummy or daddy and say 'I love you'. For the most part, they do. We had 'mummy/daddy' from the moment they met us (age 2 and 3). We re not sure they had much of a concept of what a daddy was and we were the homogeneous 'mummydaddy' for a couple of weeks. Next comes 'I love you'. We said it often and still do, we said it until we felt it and continue to this day, several times a day along with the 'you are safe' mantra that they need to hear. As adoptive parents, it will take a while for the love to grow. none of you know each other, no one loves each other from day one- in love with the idea of loving them, in love with the actuality of having each othe...

Adoption is full of heartbreak. Yours, my darling child and mine. We come together not through pure joy (that fleets in and out of our lives) but through heartbreak. We are all filled with fear. Your fear is most likely about being abandoned, not fitting in, not belonging and not being able to even pinpoint what exactly you feel. You were far too young to make sense of it all (can you ever really make sense of what has happened to you?). I think you may feel you are not loved and never will be, I think that you show me this and will continue to share this fear, even if unspoken, in your behaviour for the rest of our lives together. I try to piece together your fear and not project it on to you but I read the thoughts of adoptees and birth parents and I try to arm myself to support you in future years. I fear I cannot be good enough to help you with this fear. I fear that you will blame me for all the past trauma that I couldn’t stop or help. I fear that you will reject me as ...