Mckenna:
do you ever feel the need to explain your family?
close friends and relatives know how my family was formed and i don't care what strangers think, but sometimes i feel the need to qualify that my kids are adopted to aquaitinces.
for example, i was at a wedding over the weekend of a close childhood friend. a lot of her cousins and aunts and uncles that i knew as a child were there. of course the subject of marriage and kids came up and before i knew it i was explaining that while i am single i have two kids through adoption, so they would not think i am just having kids with different men. why i did it i don't know. how do you handle these situations??? or does it just bother me?
Even though it is no one's business, I can understand the uncomfortableness that comes with meeting up with old friends and I have felt that weird pressure of explaining being a single parent.
I am a single mother. I have been a single mother since I was 21. I have not adopted my children -- yet, for years people here and there asked me if my daughter was adopted because she is native and didn't really look like me. I would just roll my eyes and not answer. And if I did answer (after having a long day) I would simply say, "What difference does it
really make? She is my daughter and I love her."
In the grand scheme of things, IN MY OPINION, all good mothers are extraordinary...whether it be through adoption or having biological children.
while i am single i have two kids through adoption, so they would not think i am just having kids with different men.
IMO, I think having multiple children through adoption or having multiple biological children is irrelevant to those outside my comfortable circle. But that is just me. I have no qualms about being a single mother to three and I have no regrets about having children who have different biological fathers. I have no judgments towards women who are single who adopt multiple children. In the grand scheme of things, it really doesn't make a difference.
**And, in addition, I have found the ones that feel it *does* make a difference (who make issue of it on every occasion) are the ones that have lost
their belief that they are extraordinary beings, and are trying to make me feel shame for something s/he is not comfortable with.**
I think it is great being a single parent, no matter the road you took to get there.
