So it basically comes down to this, I'm an infertile stepmom. I raise other people's children...not my own...and that's a difficult thing. I know women who are stepmoms and I know women who are infertile, but I don't know many who are both. Being an infertile stepmom is not for the fainthearted. There are times I wish I was closer to others who belong to my same, rare species of woman so I'd have someone to understand my position better.
Don't get me wrong, my husband, my mom, and some of my best friends (you know who you are) have been wonderfully supportive. In fact, though some of my friends's lives are very different a few of them have been, at times, more supportive of my situation than anyone else. These women have a great amount of empathy.
But even though I do have wonderful support, it's still difficult at times for even those close to me to understand the scope of my day to day life. Most of my infertile friends tend to feel a that I have children to mother. And so do fertile women. I admit my situation from the outside looks like I have a simply wonderful opportunity to care for and love children...which I guess is true. But the awful truth is this...I have never felt like a mother. Not truly. Nor do I find it likely that it will change after 7 years of 'mothering'.
Lyle's children were 6 and 8 when I met them. Old enough that they didn't need constant physical care and young enough that they didn't automatically hate me. I naively thought that I'd step right in and we'd have this wonderful bond and I would become their mother. That never happened. Now another young child has entered my life and I find myself in the same position all over again.
Let me reassure you, the kids and I DO have a bond. We DO love each other. But it's not how I thought I would feel. It took me a while to realize that most likely I'd never have that bond that I was expecting for 2 reasons. Number one, I never carried them in my body. I never anticipated their arrival with excitement. I never held them as babies and counted all their fingers and toes. I never cooed over them as they were adorable, even when they cried and pooped all the time. I never sat up with them when they were sick. I never kissed their boo-boos. When I entered their lives I was already behind. I didn't have those bonds, those memories, those special moments with them. So while we loved each other, there wasn't the SAME bond that sealed us as they had with their true mothers. I assumed that would come. There have been times that I felt a moment or two of a strong bond. There are times I have cried myself sick over them, had a riot laughing and enjoying time with them. And yet, I know that the way I feel about them is not the way their mother feels about them. Which brings me to...
Reason number two. they already have a mother. This is the biggest obstacle that I've found to me truly feeling like a mother. They already have someone who they DO share those moments and bonds with already. They love their mothers. They worry about their mothers. They spend time with their mothers. And their mothers love them and want to spend time with them and have those feelings back for them. They don't need those bonds filled, because they already are filled...with someone else: their mother.
I have had many people criticize me for voicing my feelings on this subject. I know saying it out loud bothers many people. Some people love me and find it hard to relate to my situation, and don't particularly want to hear about it...they assume those bonds have/will/should have formed and think me hard that I tell the truth about my feelings. Others, because they love me, feel sorry for me and don't want me to feel that way so they pretend that I do feel like a mom and don't want to hear otherwise. The mothers of the children I've helped raise have in general been very grateful toward me, have cared for me and wanted to assume that those bonds would form (although they are fearful of that very thing happening as well, understandably) and have never NOT had those bonds, and so can't understand how I can not feel the same way. I find very few people...very few...who have listened to me, put themselves in my shoes, understood that I DO love the kids while still comprehending that it doesn't automatically give me those feelings that a mother gets. Very few who have been the shoulder I've needed to cry on during my very trying days, which have been many.
I think I've done a decent job in trying to lovingly raise the children of other mothers. I can truly say that I've done all I can do at any rate. And I do recognize that I have a mothering role in these children's lives. But being a KIND of mother to them is not the same as being THEIR mother. I take care of these children day in and day out. Making sure they shower, brush their teeth. Show physical affection, listen to their problems, be emotionally supportive, make sure they do their homework, take them to scouts, fix them meals, go to their parent/teacher conferences, and not get upset with them when they get mad at me because I stick to my guns and follow the rules/consequences set in our house. And yet, when something goes really right in these kids's lives, the first thing they say to me is, "I can't wait to tell my mom!" I've done my best to put my fake smile on (some days it's even a real one) and hand them my phone so they can call their mother and rejoice with her while I go on doing all the daily requirements I'm charged with doing, knowing that my approval really isn't that big a deal to them. It IS important to them, just not as important as their mothers. I TRULY don't resent them for this, how can I? I have a mother who I adore and no one could ever take her place. Why should they be any different? I understand that. I don't expect them to feel those feelings for me when they already have a mother to feel those things for. But all the same, it hurts. These are the only children I will ever have, but no matter what I do for them, even if it's things that their own mothers can't (for various circumstances, most of them not in their mother's control), and it's still not good enough.
There have been few things that have hurt me so much as when one of these children have something drastic happen and need motherly love and comfort so I hold them and love them; they cling to me and allow me to pet them and sometimes calm them, and yet sometime during this encounter comes the dreaded words, "I want my mom." I have to sit there calm (I can't fall apart like I want to when they need me to be strong) and apologize to them that I'm not her and that I understand, I assure them of their mother's love and promise to let them contact her as soon as possible. I continue to fill their needs and help them while inside my heart is shattered into a hundred pieces.
I hear every day about their mothers...the things they like, the things they do, their experiences with my kids, their good qualities, their weaknesses. I listen to poems of how much they love their mothers, I listen to the traditions they have with their mothers. I change plans in a heartbeat so their mothers can spend time with them. I drive them to see their mothers, I call them on the phone and talk about the challenges the kids are currently having, with their mothers. When their mothers and I disagree about something, most of the time my opinion goes by the wayside, not because their mothers don't care about my feelings, but because their mothers have more of a right than I do to decide what they need. In a plethora of different ways, I'm reminded every SINGLE day of who their mothers are. And I'm not them.
Infertility has strengthened these feelings. Heavenly Father has buried in my soul an intense desire to be a mother. He has also taken away the physical requirements needed to become one. It's been 6 1/2 years since Lyle and I started trying to have kids and without fail, every single thing I have done to have my own has failed. Every single one. I can't think of many people who have failed as thoroughly as I have. And the feelings of inferiority, of jealousy, of unfairness, of unworthiness, have been compounded by the fact that I raise other people's children, take on their sufferings and sacrifice for them, and yet am regarded as 'less' by the children I care for because I'm not actually their mother. As stated before, I certainly understand their feelings for their mothers and don't fault them for their natural feelings, nor their mothers for their feelings for their children, but truthfully those feelings that are so right and wonderful between the kids and their moms, are a true pain that I feel as a part of my every day life. Isn't it funny, how truly good things can hurt so much?...
Back to the topic. I hope this makes a little more sense to people now. Because frankly, people get angry with me for having a hard time on Mother's Day...after all, I AM a mother, right? I've heard people be short with me for denying that I have the same feelings for the kids that their mothers do. I've had people tell me I'm wrong when I tell them my feelings, my struggles, my longings to have children of my own. After all, why should I need children when I HAVE children, right?
So here it is, I should just say what I DO feel like, shouldn't I? I feel like a FAKE. I'm not a REAL mom, I'm just pretend. No matter how many people try to convince me that their point of view is correct and mine isn't...I still don't feel like a real mom.
It makes me think about Alex the lion in Madagacar 2. He arrives in Africa and finds his family that he's been separated from for years. A problem emerges: he's not the kind of lion that his father is, in fact he's not the same as any of the other lions there at all. Instead of being tough, fighting and killing, he prefers dancing and performing, which he's done for the crowds at the Central Park Zoo for years. In an effort to prove himself to his father, Alex and his friend Marty the zebra, go off the reservation to unclog a dam and restore water on the reserve for the animals. On the way Alex tells Marty of his problem stating that he's doing it, "Because I want to show my dad that I'm a REAL lion." To which Marty replies, "...as opposed to a...CHOCOLATE lion?"
I remember laughing my head off at this line the first time I saw the movie. I mean how ridiculous is Alex being? Of course he's a REAL lion...he's just different from the others. But his talents end up saving both him and his father in the end and his father comes to see him in a different light. So what's the big deal, Alex?
I kind of understand better now. I don't feel like a real mom. So if I'm not a real mom, what does that make me? I guess a chocolate mom. I don't have the same experiences, bonds, ideas or desires for the kids I care for as their mothers do. But, I certainly do mother children. I do the day to day things a mother does. I do understand some of the things that mothers struggle with, even if I have no idea how they feel about the rest.
I'm so confused. I've been trying for years to figure it out.
Here comes the real question (and my feelings for this subject are so deep that I'm actually having difficulty typing this sentence)...Could it be that I AM a real mom...I'm just a different kind of mom...even if it doesn't feel like I am? Not the kind that others are, but something else...a mom for when natural moms can't be around...a mom whose good at loving other people's children...a mom who tries her best to treat the kids she cares for as if they ARE her own (at least the best she can since she doesn't really have any idea how a true mom feels).
I don't know the answer to any of those questions. But I guess I don't really have to.
I just have to keep fake mothering...chocolate mothering...the best I can and hope the Lord will fill in the gaps. And hope that someday I'll be able to have those feelings that all the other mothers do...that I'll one day, even if it's not in this life, have the opportunity to have a child who DOES cry for me, who wants ME and not another woman, who helps me FEEL like I'm a real mom after all. Maybe I'll understand better then than I do now how what I do for the kids I care for now really is mothering after all. Maybe...?
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