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adoption raising someone else's child

What if I’m Raising Someone Else’s Children?

Feeling Like an Imposter

On a spring day many years ago, Crystal was about to leave the hospital after giving birth the day before. We’d recently met through an adoption agency, and we’d suddenly bonded when she went into labor two days prior. She spent the morning teaching me how to change a teeny-tiny diaper as her four year-old son looked on. I was full of excitement and self-doubt. Tessa, this precious newborn, was clearly Crystal’s baby — you could see it in the bow of her lips, the shape of her eyes. I was about to leave the hospital with another woman’s baby (with her permission and blessing, of course).

adoption raising someone else's child

Two years later on another spring day, Michele placed her baby boy, whom she was not in a position to care for at that time, into my arms during an Entrustment Ceremony in the conference room of the adoption agency that we’d both consulted. His tuft of fine blond hair, the same color as hers, emphasized the fact that Reed was hers. Would forever be.

Those early days of gaining my footing in the mom-arena were a challenge. I felt like an imposter. In the moments when I was overwhelmed by the new responsibilities of motherhood, first to one child and then to two, I wondered if there had been a giant mistake. What divine entity thought it was a good idea for me to raise somebody else’s children? (Oddly, it must have been the same divine entity that I bowed to in gratitude on a daily basis.)

The Real Mom Dilemma

I was stuck in an Either/Or mindset. Either they were the mothers of these children or I was. Either they had a real connection or I did. Either they were legitimate or I was. Because the influence of Crystal and Michele on my children was so evident, I feared for a time that I wasn’t bona fide, that I wasn’t a real mom.

But in listening to others in the adoption constellation — birth parents, adult adoptees, other adoptive parents and tuned-in adoption professionals — I was able to make a profound shift, which I’ve documented here on my blog for nearly 10 years.

You might expect that eventually I came to accept that I had replaced their first mothers as “Mom.” And you would be partly right.

I did move fully into the role of Mom. Developing a 20-deep repertoire of lullabies and singing each one every night will do that to you, as will changing countless diapers, becoming a spatterground for body fluids from every orifice,  and later being both the tooth-brushing and homework-doing Nazi. Tessa and Reed, now teens, are most definitely mine. I fully claim them and they fully claim me.

Hyper Extended

But there was no replacing. As Crystal and I share in our book, The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption, which is on recommended reading lists of adoption agencies around the country —  instead of operating from that Either/Or mindset, we shifted to a BothAnd heartset. Crystal claims Tessa and Tessa claims Crystal. Michele claims Reed and Reed claims Michele. My children are claimed by and able to claim both their clans — those by biology and those by biography. Not just by their birth mothers but also by their birth fathers, birth siblings, birth grandparents and birth aunts-and-uncles. You are as likely to see my children’s birth parents cheering from the sideline at a sporting or school event as you are to see my own mom and dad. You might call us a hyper-extended family.

So yes, I am raising someone else’s children. And that’s okay because at the same time, I am also raising children of my own.

Lori Holden's book cover

Lori Holden, mom of a young adult daughter and a young adult son, writes from Denver. She was honored as an Angel in Adoption® by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute.

Her first book, The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption: Helping Your Child Grow Up Whole, makes a thoughtful anytime gift for the adoptive families in your life. Her second book, Standing Room Only: How to Be THAT Yoga Teacher is now available in paperback, and her third book, Adoption Unfiltered, is now available through your favorite bookseller!

Find Lori’s books on her Amazon Author page and catch episodes of Adoption: The Long View wherever you get your podcasts.

3 Responses

  1. Very true. Yes, they will always be somebody else’s children too, and as long as you give them room and permission to embrace that, you’re less likely to encounter conflicts with divided loyalties and what to call their blood parents. (That’s the term I use – having been adopted years after birth, i don’t feel comfortable with the “birth” terminology.) Even those of us with “kept” children know we have to share them with others: siblings, extended family, friends, relationships they choose, eventually their spouse and in-laws. The statement is twofold. One, they are someone else’s children, and two, you’re raising them. You’re shaping their view of family, of trust and loyalty, of relationships. The day will come when they become adults and you won’t be able to control or limit the contact they have with their blood family. As long as you’ve raised them to love and accept both sides of their family, the transition should be easier.

  2. Love this. Especially, “So yes, I am raising someone else’s children. And that’s okay because at the same time, I am also raising children of my own.” That’s the thing that I try to explain about adoption — that my child will have multiple parents, even if there is just one set who is parent-ing. It’s hard to explain to people who are so used to the idea of closed adoption, who think that this dual relationship, this hyper-extended family, is somehow threatening our parenthood or confusing our (so far hypothetical) children. Personally I hope for the kind of relationship you have with Crystal, for everyone’s sakes, but I am not naive to think that I won’t have those moments of imposterhood, especially since it seems like having a baby entrusted to us is such a foreign, faraway concept at this point…

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