How important is acknowledging Mother’s Day (or “Birthmother’s Day”) or really any traditional holiday?
I ask because I come from a family that has never made a big deal about most holidays. Birthdays celebrations and gifts are for children only. And even for children it tends to be small gatherings and a very small number of inexpensive gifts. On Mother’s Day I may remember at the last minute to call my mother. But then again, I may not. Even Christmas is pretty low-key. And gifts are only for the children in the family.
I do not personally receive a Mother’s Day card from anyone and do we do not do anything to celebrate it. Nor do I expect or want it.
My extended family is very close and we all get along very well with one another. We just have never bought into the commercial side of expressing our love and relationship. It dates back to a time when my parents were struggling financially and they just didn’t have the money for such things. Even once my father’s career took off, they still didn’t expand on the gift-giving and occasions. It’s more important to spend time together on a daily basis (or as often as possible for those who live away) than spend money on gifts a few times a year.
But I’ve been reading on various forums about all the things adoptive parents are doing to acknowledge their children’s birth mother and I wonder if we should be doing something.
How important are these things?
I’ve never discussed it specifically with my children’s birth mother, but in passing conversation we have talked about the things we do with our families at various times and milestones (she about her family and I about mine). So she does know we don’t make a deal out of the majority of holidays & celebrations that other honor. And she has never said that she wanted it, but now I’m wondering if we should do something. Although I frankly haven’t a clue what we could do that wouldn’t seem odd or forced. Especially as we’ve never done anything in the past.
Am I worrying about this needlessly? Or should we do something?
Related posts:
- Can I give gifts just to my son or do I need to include his parents other kids?
- What should I get my child's first parent for the holidays?
- How do others balance all the family at the holidays?
- How to handle too many gifts from first family?
- Any adoption related kids books written from the natural mothers perspective?
I think it’s good that you’re worrying about these things — it shows your compassion and thoughtfulness. In lots of ways open adoptions are like having a new set of inlaw’s because it’s about figuring out how you will each honor the other family’s culture so there’s no right answer for every family. That said, I think I’d check with her about it and share what you’ve shared here. You guys can maybe talk it out? You might find a comfortable medium or make a more formal arrangement or if she understands that you are not slighting HER then she will be fine with it. But if her expectations are otherwise, she might be hurt. You can’t really know unless you ask her.
I agree that talking about it with her would be best….but it can never hurt to send a card! I would feel extremely awkward NOT honoring Ava’s other mother on mother’s day (I’m not into “birthmother’s day” cause she’s her REAL MOTHER too, kwim?)….but Mother’s Day also falls near our daughter’s bday (we actually spent the night of Mother’s Day in the hospital while BirthMom was in labor and she was born the next day) so we usually make a photo book and then get a little something else and color a card for her.
Other holidays we celebrate with them like we’d celebrate with anyone. I’d say that if you have a precedent already, you can go with that. The only way I’d say change is if she buys for you and you don’t buy for her, obviously.
But talking it out, that would be easiest!
I should probably add something. I’m not certain where I would send a card right now? Would it be appropriate to send an e-card?
She moves a lot. Since our daughter was placed with us 6 months ago, she has lived in 4 different states. (She is also the birth mother of our son, who was placed with us in 2008, so we have known her for a few years.) I could send it to her mother, although she and her mother are not always on speaking terms. Or to the agency, but we hear from her more than they do. We haven’t heard from her in a couple of months, which isn’t that unusual and we know she’ll get back in touch with us eventually.
Her life is pretty chaotic and she struggles with mental illness and drug abuse. Sometimes she is “out of touch” with pretty much everyone in her life. We are Facebook Friends and she isn’t even posting anything there right now. Then her life calms down a bit and she is back in touch and she acts as if she was there all along. If you ask her where she was, she avoids answering. When her life is calmer, we hear from her quite a bit.
So I’m also seeing the card as a way of saying “we value you in our lives and want you to stay,” but it is just so complicated that I don’t want it to backfire and cause her stay away longer or even indefinitely.
I think an e-card would be appropriate. Even if you just sent her an email reminding her how important she is to you and how much you love her. We celebrate birthmother’s day at our house. Two of our birthmoms will be coming over this year (the third is out of state.) We just hang out, eat pizza, do a craft or something, go to the park–whatever. It usually falls on fishing opener and my hubby is gone so it has been a “girls” only kind of thing too. I’ve made homemade cards in the past since there aren’t really any birthmom day cards that I have liked. We also have asked them if they even like the thought of birthmom’s day. We still honor them on mother’s day, but use birthmom’s day to celebrate their uniqueness as a birthmom and because it is the reason they are now a part of our family (otherwise we would have never known each other). Something as simple as a photo in a cute frame means so much. We have found inspirational ornaments at gift shops too. This year. . . we are getting these:
http://pixiepixeldesigns.blogspot.com/2010/04/glass-tile-pendants-are-now-available.html
Cute, simple, meaningful, and in the budget. I think that any acknowledgment of your love and honor for them would be greatly appreciated.
Honestly, it depends. I am kind of with you on the hoildays and such not being as big a deal as it is for some folks(who have more money to throw around)
Mothers Day in my family has kind of been a big deal only because the church I grew up in always made it a big deal to ‘honor your parents’ really I was more ‘honor your mother’.
My moms birthday is really close to Mothers Day and growing up my siblings and I always recieved a bit of our flyer delivery money for the purpose of getting my mom a gift for Mothers Day. This was not something we asked to do, it was something we were *told* to do. Believe it or not.
The Mothers Day after I gave birth my mom gave me a very sweet little card with a heart-felt hand-written message inside. It was something that made me feel really great because my mom is not one for displays of affection.
Since my dad died(03/28/01) my sisters and I have gone out to eat somewhere. In the past four or five years, my sisters have been ‘too busy’ and it has just been my mom and I, but that’s what we do for Mothers Day.
Going back to what I first said about it depending. I mean, I care alot about if my mom recognizes that I am a mom too. I don’t really care if my sons adoptive mom gives me anything, really I don’t. That’s only because *I* sent her a card, and she send me a message saying to please not send her anything, to only send things for our son. It hurt my feelings a little but I got over that.
I honestly never expected her to send me anything like a Mothers Day card or birthday gift or anything. Like you, gifts are for kids, growns up like us have enough and don’t really need anything more.
Although I do like cards, real ones. Internet ones make my computer crash. I have a thing for paper and words and pretty pictures of flowers and such.
If my son’s adoptive mom wanted to send me something, it would make me happier, yes.
If I don’t get anything, no problem, I was never really expecting anything anyways.
I just have to add that ‘Birthmothers Day’ is a day that I just try and ‘get through’ hoping noone who knows I am a first mom will say anything to me about it. I generally dislike when people in my circle of influence think that I have to tell them about how I feel about things that are sort of about me. I share when I am the one starting the discussion, and only then.
Also, the church I currently attend sponsors a Pregnancy Care Centre and usually the people who run that place come and ‘talk’ about birthmoms and such and it makes me feel crazy because they are usually so off the mark with most of what they say. Well, from my POV.
I send an e-card (through Smilebox) for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and for their birthdays. They are the cost of a card, use pictures of the child we share, and I always personalize it to their favorite kinds of music. They love them and watch them over and over, and have told me that they get so excited to see that a Smilebox came that I sometimes make them ones just as a surprise.
http://www.smilebox.com/
I think an e-card is completely appropriate and, as a bonus, it can be enjoyed over and over. I sound like a commercial for them, don’t I?! LOL!!
Yeah, e-card are ok if they work. Unfortunatly my computer sees them as a virus and shuts down if I open an email with one in it.
Or else they just don’t ‘work’ for me. For those that they work for, do it.
I personally just more about the things you can actually touch and carry with you and display in your home to remind you that someone cares.
That’s a way of enjoying a real physical card made of paper and ink again and again for me.
To see an e-card I would have to turn on my computer, wait for it to connect, log-in to my email. Find the email with the e-card, wait 5-10 for the attachment to ‘down-load’, if it does at all…phew…too much work!!
I suppose you could print out an ‘e-card’ that has been sent to you though…
I suppose though if you can’t send a real card because you don’t know where a person is, an e-card is good that way.
Just wanted to follow up.
As I wasn’t certain where she was, I sent her an e-mail this morning wishing her a Happy Mother’s Day and thanking her for being in our lives. Hopefully I will hear back at some stage!
Thank you to everyone for their responses.
And Happy Mother’s Day to ALL Mothers!