Later…
Last weekend I did sound for a mother-son conference…
The speaker had an adopted son. At one point, she alluded to (without going into details) the challenges of being a “white woman with an African-American son.” I can only imagine that that boy must have some heavy identity issues, even above and beyond the normal challenges of being adopted and (possibly) not knowing your real family or where you “come from.” So I’m not so sure I’m on board with this cross cultural adoption thing.
Is that so?
Yes.
Really.
Oh… shut up, you.
So I started thinking about the connections. What is it that binds two people together? Mother to son, family, friends, lovers…
My answer: nothing at all. In my experience, there is no bond that time will not undo.
Awhile ago my church group was talking about the “Five Love Languages.” Which I do not want to get into a long explanation of if you are not familiar. Essentially, people show and expect to receive love in one of five ways (according to some author) and if they do not receive in “their” language then they do not feel loved, even if they get one or more of the others in abundance. I had never heard of this before, so when put on the spot, I claimed the one that went something like “spending time together” as mine. Which I think is pretty accurate, because there is a large part of me that in general seems to feel that I’ve done my part by just showing up. (There’s another part of me that thinks that is a cop-out, but let’s not get into that.)
Regardless, if indeed I show that I care by spending time with people, what sort of message am I sending when I sit alone in my house all day, every day?
you love you and you don’t like us?
seriously. Dinner. I am a decent cook. REALLY. It’s been WAY too long…besides there is great joy to be found in looking into the eyes of a newborn..
Hey, have you seen the cute pictures of your new cousin? (first cousin, once removed?) Ask your sis to show you… Meanwhile, we hope to handle all those cultural/identity things well, but I expect it will be a challenge. But, after all, she’ll be growing up in a “weird” household anyway – two lesbians and untold numbers of pets – why not make it multi-cultural to boot?
Love, Julie
Interesting to know.