Michelle's Family

My son continues to struggle with the fact that he lives here and with feelings of sadness and grief over his loss of his birth parents.  He told Sarah that he missed his "other" mama the other day.  I usually try to be extra cuddly when he tells one of the other kids this (he never tells me directly) but I've never just out right dealt with it till the other day...well, since the adoption was final I hadn't dealt with it directly anyhow.  Sometimes I would deal with it indirectly but never directly. 

So a couple of days ago, he mentions that he misses his other mom.  This time when I found out about it, I had him come sit in my lap and I told him that I heard that he misses his mama.  I told him that I thought this was very normal and reminded him that he can ALWAYS come talk to me about these feelings.  So I decided to discuss several things with him at that moment.  I reminded him that it's okay to love 2 mommies.  I reminded him that he would NEVER hurt my feelings by loving her, talking about her, or missing her.  I also told him that I wish I knew where she was at, and that if I did I would let her write to him and I'd let him write to her.  I didn't bother mentioning the fact that I would only let him read what I deemed appropriate...but that's another story.  I'm not about to let her give him yet another guilt trip. We continued to talk about her, and I reminded him that I love his mama too.  I acknowledged the fact that while adopting him was such a HAPPY time for us...I knew that it was kind of sad for him because that meant that he didn't get go home to live with his mama anymore. 

Then the big moment happened.  He asked me "Why" he didn't get to go home with his family.  I don't know if you remember it, but I'd told had told him before that I knew he had questions and when he was ready to know why he didn't get to go home, he could come ask me and we'd talk.  How do you explain drugs to a six year old?  I asked him if he knew what drugs were and he said no.  So I explained that medicines are good drugs that help our body but sometimes people take bad drugs.  His mama had a problem with bad drugs.  Joshua asked, "Why are they bad?"  How do you explain this to a six year old?  How do you explain what getting "high" is?  So I told him they made people go crazy for a little while and when they go crazy, sometimes they do bad things that they wouldn't have done if they weren't taking the drugs.  He asked, "Like what?"  So I told him like running over other people when driving their car, or hurting their kids.  Again, he wanted to know how people hurt their kids while on drugs.  I told him in different ways...sometimes they didn't feed their kids when doing drugs....sometimes they'd kill their kids while doing drugs.  I know all of this seems very graphic to be talking about with a six year old...but again, I've always taken the approach with kids that when they were old enough to ask questions, they were old enough to know and need the answers.  I felt the answers to the questions would be vital to how happy he allowed himself to be here.  If I had glossed over this fact, then he would have felt that maybe he should still be living with his mama...and therefore, he shouldn't be happy here because he "belongs" there.  He needs to understand that his birth home was NOT a safe place and he needs to understand that his birthmom had a chance to get off of her drugs (I told him that DFCS tried to help her by sending her to a special kind of hospital that helps people quit taking drugs...but it didn't work).  I reiterated to him that I think his mom loved him and she tried to quit taking the drugs but she couldn't.  So the judge thought he needed to live in a home that was safe.  I told him that Daddy and me had to pee in a cup.  He thought that was funny and gross at the same time.  I told him that because drugs will come out in people's pee after they take them, they can test our pee to see if we've been doing drugs.  I asked him if he thought that they found drugs in our pee...and he guessed right.  He wanted to know about his "story" and how he came to live with us.  Since this happened last year, you'd think that he'd remember that.  But I told him about how he stayed with us just a few days when he first quit living with his other parents...but DFCS told us that they had another family that they were going to live with.  So they moved....but that family got a divorce (followed by an explanation on what a "divorce" is). Then he moved in with another family....and THEY got a divorce.  Then they moved in with yet another family...and yes, they too got a divorce.  So when DFCS called us, the first thing they asked us was, "How's your marriage...are you going to get a divorce?"  He thought this was funny.  I told him how I assured DFCS that "Daddy and I are very happily married and we don't want a divorce." 

He asked about talking to her on the phone and I told him truthfully that I don't have her phone number.  He said we could just start dialing 13795682, etc. till we found her number.  Funny but sad.  I told him no, that wouldn't work....we'd be here from till we died if we tried to do that because there are so many different numbers.

The last thing that we talked about was his feelings.  I acknowledged that I knew he was sad sometimes and that's normal.  I told him that feeling sad sometimes is normal and missing his other parents was normal.  But I reminded him that if started feeling sad or angry alot of the time...or missing her alot of the time, then he needed to come tell me about it because that would mean that we need to see a doctor who can help him feel better.  I asked him if he missed her all the time or just some of the time....he said just some of the time.  And I asked if was sad or angry alot of the time or just some of the time, and again, he said just some of the time. 

He's been extra loving since then with lots of extra hugs and kisses and climbing in my lap for me to hold him.  But then he told his sister that a picture she'd drawn on the ground at soccer (which Ronnie thinks that he thought was me) was NOT her mama...her mama was someplace else.  Sigh.  Another blog.