Growing up hoping from home to home
and being exposed to many “mother figures” was hard. For me on that day I
didn’t have anything to do that day. I watched the commercials, the songs, and
listened to the other kids in my class talk about their mom. About how they
couldn’t wait to give their mom a card they made in class. Although my little
brother who I have taken responsibility for since I was 7 years old. Who never
knew my biological mom so, on this day where he was to honor a mother he never
had. He would come home and give me papers about mother’s day but it would have
the mother crossed out and sister in its place. Of course he would do this when
we had a foster mom. We could sense the frustration that seemed too radiated
off of them. We knew that they wanted some flowers or a card.
But with our biological parents
still whispering into our ear of hopes and dreams of being a family again. It
makes it hard for us to give our foster mom something. Why? Because we felt like
we were betraying our mom. The lady that gave birth to us…because that what
mothers are right? Well that’s what the commercials say, the songs, and the
kids in my class say. It is not till now that instead of the commercials and
such making me mad because my mom is not the one tucking me in bed each night.
Or the one making me dinner or helping me with homework. She’s not the one
arguing with me about staying up to late on a school night, or taking care of
my brother when I should be daydreaming about boys. Not thinking about if he is
making friends and doing okay in school.
Now the advertising on mother’s day
frustrates me not because of those things but because they don’t know what a
real mom is. The women I call mom did not give birth to me. She did not watch
me grow up my whole life and we do not look alike. However she is MY mom and
she is the one my little brother gives papers from school to, she gets the
flowers and chocolate. Why? Because to us she is the mother who gave birth to
every single one of us. She is the one who shaped us into the person we are
today in the matter of 3 years. My mom is not the one in the commercials but
she is the mom that I want to be when I have my own kids who will call HER
grandma.
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