Behind the Curtain: Honest Conversations about Foster Care and Adoption
Each episode will feature a conversation between host Rebecca Harvin and foster/adoptive caregivers or members of the community who support foster care and adoption.
Behind the Curtain: Honest Conversations about Foster Care and Adoption
Rebecca Unedited: Motherhood Unfiltered
Welcome back to season two where we dive into the complicated reality of Mother's Day for foster and adoptive moms, exploring how joy and grief often coexist in our parenting journey. I share my personal struggles with balancing celebration, complicated emotions, and the mantra that helps me navigate it all: "two things can be true."
• Mother's Day feels different when you share it with your children's first mothers
• Parenting feels drastically different when attachment comes naturally versus when it doesn't
• Breaking dysfunctional cycles adds another layer of complexity to motherhood
• Finding peace amidst chaos becomes a daily practice when raising children from trauma
• Even when we struggle with attachment, we still show up and try every single day
• We get to choose how we respond, even when circumstances feel overwhelming
• Acknowledging both the beautiful and difficult parts of motherhood helps us find balance
If nobody has told you today, you are doing a good job. It's okay to fail—you can repair. It's okay to struggle—your muscles are getting stronger. Be exactly where you are in the process, doing the best you can with the information and skills you have today.
Hey guys, rebecca here. I am so excited to kick off season two with you and to be back here, back behind the microphone, back in this community of people and just sharing things that are real and true and honest about this world that we are living in, in foster care and adoption. And when we took a break through March, I wasn't really expecting to also take a break through April. But, based off of our schedule here in the office and in life in general and some things that come up, that ended up being what it was, and I love to kind of match things up with the calendar. You'll notice, season one um was we opened on election day because that was a big thing happening. And so, looking at the calendar, I was like, oh, um, I want to kick season off on, uh, mother's day. Let's, let's line this up for Mother's Day. So if you're listening to this in real time, that is what we're doing. Where it's a Tuesday before Mother's Day, and I was, like you know, instead of just one episode, like let's do the month of May. And when I'm in like excited idea mode, it feels real good. And then now, as I'm sitting here behind the mic, aside from the fact that I'm very excited to be coming back to you guys. I am feeling like not the smartest person in the world, because it is just you and me and a microphone and some really honest thoughts about motherhood and Mother's Day, and I am questioning the sanity of my choices. But what's new? I question the sanity of my choices often. It's a real fun part of my life. So, with that said, like I said, if you guys are listening to this in real time, then this coming Sunday is mother's day. It's May 11th, um, which happens to also be my birthday, and, um, the day after my birthday is my husband's birthday, and this year it's his 50th birthday. So real big weekend coming up.
Speaker 1:And what that means, though, for me is that Mother's Day as a holiday is a day that I have shared all of my life, even before I was a mom. Right, my mom had to share her day with me the first couple years of our well, no, we had kids, actually, like right off the bat, so, within a year of marriage, I was sharing Mother's Day with the act of being a mom, and then also my birthday. Still, sometimes my husband's birthday is on Mother's Day, and then, when the shift happened to where I was also a mom on Mother's Day, but it's also those years where it's also my birthday. It's like I had to split the difference between my identity as a human and my identity as a mother, which are not exactly the same thing, like even though I wasn't sharing the day with another person on any particular on any of those years. It's also like, wait, I'm more than just a mom. Are you celebrating me or are you celebrating my role as a mother?
Speaker 1:And then there's this like year that I remember I mean, I so distinctly remember it and maybe you're listening to this and you have your own moment where this happened, where it's Zoe it's right before she turns two, she's like 21 months old and I spent that day exactly like I spent every other day that year, which is to say, chasing after a toddler, cleaning up messes, wiping butts, laughing until my sides hurt and making food, and I thought what the crap is this? Nobody told me that I have to be a parent on Mother's Day too. So it's been complicated, is what I'm saying. And to further complicate matters now in a way that most of you listening to this episode can relate with, I now silently share this day with another mom, a mom who loves four of my children with every single fiber of her being, and a mom that two of my kids wish that they still had. Two of my kids wish that they still had, and that is really just to say. Two of my kids that can talk and use that language can tell me that they wish that they still had this mom. I'm sure that the other two will wrestle with this through their years. So you know, Mother's Day is a day, and, just like any other day in my life, it feels extremely complicated to me. It's a day that the overwhelming message given to us by society is like this is a beautiful day and it's winsome, and it's this delightful picture of the ideals of motherhood, ideals that should be celebrated. It's the beauty of a mom's role in her family, and not just her family but also in society, and again, that should be celebrated. It's you know what? Maybe it is, maybe there's people that experience it just like this.
Speaker 1:I love that, I love that for them, I love that for you. If you're a person that gets that, I love that you will get to wake up and you will get to just delight in your life and you'll just delight in those little feet or maybe they're big feet right now like plodding down the hallway. Or you know my youngest still. He's still the age where he runs everywhere that he's going, so I always know when it's him coming through the house, right, and they'll crawl into bed with you and they'll give you their little like tokens of love, handmade, like handprints that you turn into a bouquet, or little rocks that they painted. And because these gifts and these crafts come from them, they will hold such a special place in your heart. I love it. I love that for them and I love that for you. But that is not what it's going to look like in my house this Sunday and I'm willing to bet that for a significant number of you listening, it's not what it looks like in yours. I'm willing to bet that mixed into the day is a little bit of both, and it's harder to reconcile when there's sorrow laced into a day that is again supposed to be end air quotes. Lovely when it's not just lovely, right Like there's this phrase that I say every day to myself.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I say it as a question, sometimes I state it as a fact. Two things can be true. And when I say it as a question. I'm like two things can be true, right, like this, this and this can, they can coexist, and it's and it feels very like questioning and searching and like, okay, this, two things can be true. I'm like I'm reminding myself, but sometimes I say it as a fact, sometimes I'm like no, two things can be true. Joy and sorrow can exist at the same time, love and apathy can exist at the same time, and maybe even more than that can exist at the same time.
Speaker 1:More than two things can be true. Right, we're complex humans, complex adults. Maybe we can experience gratitude for the little heartbeats in our family that call us mom. Maybe we can look at our family and go God, I am so thankful for this family and I would make this choice a thousand times over. We can experience, maybe, a difference in how our hearts beat in sync with each other. Maybe some hearts in our family be a little bit more in sync with ours, if you know what I mean. And some are just discordant. When I was thinking about this episode and I was thinking like that word just kept coming up to the surface like discordant, discordant, and I kept am I thinking of the right word? I am. It's what it feels like when things don't go together easily, when things are out of sync Asynchronous is a synonym for that word, and, man, I can experience that inside of my house.
Speaker 1:If two things can be true right, then. Can we soak in the beautiful parts of the job that we're doing, the part where we're raising our kids, and we are doing it exactly like we thought we would be doing it? We're showing up and we're like, yeah, look at me, look, you're like standing and you're looking in the mirror and you're like I am doing it. I am doing it. I'm showing up exactly like the mom I wanted to be. And can we hold the parts where it doesn't look like we thought that it would? Can we hold the pieces of our motherhood that we swore we would never do or never be? Can we hold those moments right alongside where we go A plus those moments when we give ourselves an F and say, like man, you really messed that one up.
Speaker 1:If two things can be true on Mother's Day, can we embrace the chaos of our daily lives? We embrace the chaos of our daily lives, chaos that doesn't even the word chaos itself doesn't even scratch the surface of what I'm really talking about Chaos that I am forever at a loss of words to describe to the real world. Gosh, I could just tell you. I could tell you story after story after story, but I honestly can't tell you story after story, because my kids are involved and I want to protect them. I was texting a friend about some stuff that we're going through in our house and she was like what, what happened? Why did this happen? And I was like cause it was a Saturday because the child woke up. I don't know, there's no reason. There was no precursor to this event, an event that had me seeing red in a way that I've not seen red in a long time.
Speaker 1:If two things can be true, can I hold those moments and accept those moments and say that this is chaotic, my life is chaotic, and can I be honest that I crave peace with every fiber of my soul? If two things can be true, can I accept this chaos and be honest that I crave peace with every fiber of my soul? I said it twice on purpose. Some days I crave peace so much that I would go back and I would make a thousand different choices if it held the promise of a peaceful existence. Now, obviously, that's a fairy tale in my brain, right, like I can't go back and make any different choices. And I'm not just talking about the obvious choices here, I'm talking about literally a thousand different choices, and it's a fairy tale. So we do accept the chaos, but, like, the craving for peace still exists. If healing isn't linear, then can we acknowledge the parts of us that feel strong and capable, healthy and whole, and can we hold softly the parts of us that break wide open.
Speaker 1:If you're like me, one of your roles in motherhood is to break dysfunctional cycles. One of your roles in motherhood is to break dysfunctional cycles. I've met more people like me than um, then I would honestly want to and that's not to say that I wouldn't want to meet you. If your story is similar to mine, it's just more to say man, I'm sorry that that, that we have to break dysfunctional cycles because on a day that is intended to celebrate the beauty of motherhood, the beauty of a mother, some wounds are just a little bit more tender and a lot more exposed if our childhood resembles even an ounce, and a lot more exposed. If our childhood resembles even an ounce of what our kids have experienced, then you know, it takes time and practice for us to hold our own childhoods honestly, that we could see the good and the bad, and we wrestle through that on our own journey, and Mother's Day just kind of breaks that open, doesn't it? If you don't have a mom that you can text on Mother's Day because she's not here anymore, because that door has closed. Sunday is not. Sunday is complicated, complicated, doesn't even scratch the surface. We're here, you know. We're starting this journey of motherhood and I think one of my life mottos is you go first, I will go first, I will, I will.
Speaker 1:Um, for better or worse, sometimes I really hate, uh, that this is that this is the way that I tend to live my life, but I couldn't, I couldn't start a session on motherhood without going first and without saying this is an area that I struggle with and and I don't know sometimes how to show up, I don't. I know how I do show up, but I don't. I struggle with like, is that the right way to show up? Am I doing this right? Honestly, I wish I knew. I don't know. All I know is that I show up every day and I try.
Speaker 1:When I was, I was working on this podcast. Even though these sessions are unedited, the ones with just me I sit down ahead of time and I kind of put my thoughts on paper and get an idea of where it's going to go. This is better for you and me both, honestly, and I was working on this and the song by I think it's Coldplay. If it's not, well then you just know that I don't know music to save my life sometimes. But I want to say that it's Coldplay and these lyrics, they made me laugh so hard because it's like this line is nobody said it was easy, nobody said it would be so hard.
Speaker 1:I'm going back to the start. I don't know, like I don't know actually, what the whole song is about. I know I've heard it before. I'm pretty sure Delilah plays it, but I was like oh, that's this, that's this. Nobody said it was easy. Nobody gets into motherhood thinking that it's going to be easy, but nobody said it was this hard man. And maybe that's it Like. Maybe it's that we accept that this isn't easy, we forgive the naive parts of our hearts that believe that it could be easy. Maybe we go back to the start and we choose love again. I don't know.
Speaker 1:I wish that I didn't struggle in my role as a mom. I wish that so much that I can barely say it without falling apart here, without falling apart here, but the most honest thing that I could tell you is that I struggle with it every single day. There's not a single day and Mother's Day won't be any different that my heart feels truly at peace in this season. That's not to say that when you see me with my kids, if you see me with my kids, that you would ever be able to see that on my face. In fact, I think, if I'm doing a good job, a lot of times you won't be able to see that on my face that when I look at my kids, my kids deserve to see a mom who looks at them and smiles and delights in them, and so it's what I try to do with my eyes and my smile, and I don't do it all of the time. So maybe you would see it on me. You would see, in those moments when I don't think my kid is looking at me, you would see just the exhaustion that I feel. I'm only sharing this with you because maybe you feel the same way and if you do, I think it's really important for you to know that you're not alone.
Speaker 1:There are more of us out here than you can imagine. Moms who wake up every single day and try. Moms that try to connect with children that they didn't give birth to. Moms who long so desperately and deeply long for it to feel real when they say that they love their kids. Moms who, when it's hard, when attachment doesn't come easy, those moms feel like a failure. I sent a text to my friends one day that said I just wish I wish that one negative encounter with this one child was covered by attachment, just one, because it's so different. It's so different when I'm parenting the kids that I feel attachment to, versus when I'm parenting the kids that I don't feel attachment to and nobody talks about that. Nobody talks about how that feels as a mom, how like our job is to do this one thing and you can't do the thing. And you can't even talk to people about how you can't do the thing, because everybody either A assumes that you are doing the thing or B thinks you're a horrible mom or a horrible person. And so you know.
Speaker 1:I guess I kind of just want to say, like I'm here, I'll go first. I don't know how I'm going to show up on the 11th. I know how I do show up every day. I remind myself that I am safe. I plant my feet on the safe. I plant my feet on the ground, I feel my feet. I look around and I remind myself that I am safe, that there is no lion that's going to attack me, that feelings are feelings, they have information. I do all of these things. I take my deep breaths. I remind myself that, at the end of the day, I'm the only one that gets to choose how I show up. I'm the only one I can choose Like we get choices here that I can think of three things that I'm grateful for about every single one of my kids.
Speaker 1:I can think about three things that I'm grateful for in my life, every single day, and on days where it's hard and it's complicated. Two things can be true, and I say it like it's a fact. Two things can be true. I can miss am sometimes and I can give myself grace. Two things can be true. And so this Mother's Day and if you're not listening to this in real time, whatever day it is for you today, two things can be true, and let's choose how we want to show up in this world around us. We get a choice. Let's make it count.
Speaker 1:I want to close this episode by saying if nobody has told you, let me be the one that says you are doing a good job. You are doing a worthwhile job. It's okay to fail you can repair. It's okay to struggle your muscles are getting stronger. It's okay to be exactly how you are, where you are in the process, doing the best job that you can with the information and the skills that you have today. I'm proud of you, I'm thankful of you, I'm thankful for you. You're doing a great job and you're a good mom.