Adoption Reunion: The Gift/Card Quagmire

This Mother’s Day I was truly blessed. My first daughter, Megan, whom I surrendered at birth, sent me a beautiful plant – actually four beautiful plants all together in a basket. My youngest daughter, Julie, sent me wonderful treats and flowers. I had brunch with my two middle daughters, Amy and Lucy, and two grandchildren who gave me charming cards. I am thrilled with everything! More important than the gifts and cards, though, was being recognized and remembered.

From Megan

 

Our calendar is filled with gift-giving/card-sending days --- Mother's Day, Christmas, birthdays, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Cinco de Mayo, many others--promoted by purveyors of candy, flowers, jewelry, clothing, cards, gadgets, nagging us to do what we want to do, remember those we love. These occasions can send those of us separated by adoption into a tailspin.

From Julie

I spent hours shopping for a birthday present for Megan the first birthday we spent together after our reunion, finally settling on a blazer she could wear to her new job. I’ve been to many support groups where birth parents agonize about what to send or whether to send anything. If the adoptee has children, there’s another gift or non-gift to fret over. We know the gift or card needs to be sensitive to our children’s feelings, but what do they feel? The last thing we and our children share is our feelings. We’re navigating the reunion journey without a map.

And, like adoptees who send birth mother cards, we may stumble. A. M. Homes described a birthday card her birth mother sent her as “a putrid pale—pink with roses, the color of femininity, of a box of sanitary napkins.” Betty Jean Lifton suspended her relationship with her birth mother when her birth mother sent her a commercial Mother’s Day card: “She should have known there were no Hallmark Cards for a relationship such as ours.”

I have to believe, though, that these negative reactions stemmed more from anger at the original abandonment than the content of the cards.

The truth is that there is no card or gift or gift that works for every situation. It really is the thought that counts.

(Patrick McMahon, an adoptee, has developed an excellent line of adoption specific cards. He has also recently published a memoir, Becoming Patrick.)
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Lorraine here: My day was quiet but fine. Without a daughter to ignore me (see profile if you wonder why), I couldn't be hurt, now could I? When a man on the street at a shop offered a Happy Mother's Day, I smiled and said: Have a good day too, and went on my way. Cards arrived on Saturday from my step-son, my alternate universe daughter, Jennifer, and her son.

With all the restaurants jammed for the holiday, Tony and I thought we'd have a burger at the somewhat new and somewhat upscale burger joint in town we haven't tried yet. But it was wall-to-wall families with active children and a loud music  background. No thanks, we said, and moved onto a deli and got a wrap and two iced teas to go. We ate it peacefully at the water side on a picnic table, watched three young girls wade in the water (which must have been cold), and sauntered on home before going round to visit friends who gave us some of the left-over food from their Greek party the night before. Last night we watched the end of The Amazing Race--no one was adopted, or a birth mother, or trying to kill her birth mother, or otherwise involved. Hallelujah!

But adoption on television is a topic coming soon. It seems to be everywhere.