The Longing for Another Mother

An examination of adoptee narratives through the lens of a mother

Outline drawing of mother and child. Vecteezy.com

A while back, I went through a period where I binged-listened to six adoptee memoirs on Audible — back to back, in a matter of weeks. It was….intense.

A Disclaimer on Perspective: I am not an adoptee. I am a mother of loss to adoption. I do not presume to speak for adoptees. I am attempting to talk about what I experienced, perceived, or felt as a first mother while listening to these books. I welcome feedback, especially from adoptees, as I navigate these thoughts.

A Dual Longing

Over and over again I heard adoptees express a curiosity, a longing — perhaps an obsession? — with knowing, or at least knowing something about, their natural mother.

Over and over again though, I also heard adoptees express a longing, a yearning for the love of, and in some cases a true sense of home with, their adoptive mother.

I found this disconcerting and uncomfortable.

That longing caught me off guard. I expected to resonate with their desire to know their origins. But their simultaneous longing for their adoptive mothers created a discomfort I hadn’t anticipated.

Misery Loves Company?

Since I began deconstructing my beliefs around adoption, I’ve found tremendous comfort in being around adopted people who hate adoption. I think I’m ‘happiest’ when I’m with adopted people who are estranged from their adopters and/or who recognize the coercion that the natural family endures prior to relinquishing. The ones who see clearly how predatory the entire industry is.

It makes sense that I would feel that way, as a relinquishing mother. I would guess people often gravitate towards those who can validate or have compassion for their experience.

I do try to consistently make space for adoptee voices. And I listen when those voices blame the mother who abandoned them. I grieve for their loss. I grieve that they have been so wounded by THE ONE who was supposed to keep them…..safe.

And I grieve for the wounds I have heaped upon my own son.

But it’s harder to face that grief and pain head on. Anger is easier. And anger comes easily for me these days.

I LOVE to be angry in groups. I find solace in the rumble and thunder of a group of like-minded and angry people.

I have found my people online — the ones who, like me, expose the lies and corruption of an industry that thrives on severed families. My unspoken desire is for my son to stand beside me in this fight, to be enraged with me about the shame and deception that led to our separation.

An Uncomfortable Truth

I want him back!

That’s the raw, unfiltered truth. I want him to be mine again. And I can hear how selfish that is. How possessive. How it devalues his personhood and individuality.

But the feeling is ravenous inside me, like a hungry, angry roar that might, if I’m not careful, devour me.

This isn’t who I want to be.

There’s an ongoing battle within me. I tell myself that as long as I’m fighting the adoption industry, my motives don’t matter. But perhaps they do. If my drive for change centers me, my vision will always be incomplete. I have said I want child-centered solutions — solutions that prioritize what is best for the adoptee. And that means confronting some hard truths.

Reconciling Two Mothers

How I felt, hearing that longing for the other mother, wasn’t wrong. Feelings aren’t wrong. But feelings reveal deeper truths — about entitlements, wounds and hopes.

If I hadn’t paid attention to the discomfort that kept pricking at me memoir after memoir, I might have dismissed or softened the painful realities adoptees were sharing. I might have distorted their truths to fit my own.

Now, I must sit with a truth I have long resisted.

There is another mother. The one he calls Mom. The only mother he has ever known. The one who lives in the house he calls home.

My selfishness wants to erase her. To remove her from our story entirely. But who I say I want to be matters — especially now. My son’s needs are different from mine. Because of a desperate, uninformed decision I made over two decades ago, he now needs both of us.

I don’t yet know what this means for me, for us. But I do know that I am grateful for these memoirs, for the adoptees who shared their intimate truths, and for the painful yet necessary introspection they have provoked.

I am listening.

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The books I listened to are listed here in alphabetical order by author last name: Surviving the White Gaze, by Rebecca Carroll; The Girl I am, Was, and Never Will Be, by Shannon Gibney; You Don’t Look Adopted, by Anne Heffron; I Would Meet You Anywhere, by Susan Kiyo Ito; Invisible Boy, by Harrison Mooney; and You Should Be Grateful, by Angela Tucker.

**This post was originally published on Medium.
https://medium.com/adoptere/the-longing-for-another-mother-0736420a3bd7