As Mother’s Day approaches, I want to share some thoughts…
I am immensely grateful that my children all have a mom. My own children are mine through adoption.
2 of them were born to addicts who either could not or would not make choices for their child and lost their babies to the child welfare system. That is where we found them. We never knew their birthmoms. Our youngest son has a birth mom who found herself in circumstances that did not allow her to choose to parent when he was born, she would have. She chose adoption and released him to us but she remains in our hearts and lives.
All three of my children were chosen with purpose and intention. The foster care system consistently has over 100,000 children waiting to be adopted. We had been looking for months among them when our boys found their way to us and we chose each of them.
Unfortunately, many of those waiting children do not find homes. Many of them will not celebrate their mom this Mother’s Day. Many of them just wait year after year until they age out alone.
For those children the years of waiting are filled with talk about adoption, appointments to take pictures and videos to present to prospective parents and hope…. Day after day after day of hope just to have someone want them. So these children are keenly aware that no one has chosen them. No one claimed them. They leave care belonging to no one.
Foster and adopted children are not easy. They come with their own baggage and scars and expectations and dreams. Often, they don’t want the parents who chose them. And honestly…. Would you? They want the parents who brought them into the world. That grief and loss is ever present. But they still need a family. They need a mom.
I am so grateful my boys have a mom. They have belonging and acceptance and love forever.
There are over 100,00 children out there who do not.
Many are teens.
And for them the clock is ticking.
May is not only the month we celebrate Mother’s Day it is National Foster Care Awareness month.
Interesting coincidence.
By Tammy Spence LMSW, CCTP Executive Director