“Mom, isn’t it weird that you are my mom and I am your daughter and we don’t look alike?”
There was a pause in my breath as I glanced at my nine-year-old daughter in the rearview mirror. Her big brown eyes, deep in thought, meeting mine. She politely smiled. Her upturned mouth uncertain if the expression was genuine or there to make me feel okay.
I wanted to say so many things. To tell her
“Of course you are my daughter.”
“We don’t need to look alike to be family.”
“It is not weird that I am your mom and you are my daughter. Every family is different.”
And while none of those statements are bad or harmful, as a transracial adoptive mom I’ve been listening to the voices of transracial adult adoptees, and I am learning that none of those statements are helpful either.
As I continued to catch glances of my daughter in the rear view mirror, her chestnut brown skin and black curly hair in stark contrast to my light olive tone and straight brown hair, I was reminded she was right. We don’t look alike. Not at all. And it doesn’t matter that I’ve been her mom for all but five months of her life. It doesn’t matter that I was the one who watched her take her first steps, eat her first foods, say her first words. If you placed us in a room with strangers, no one would guess that we belonged to one another.
Staring at her I knew, as a mother who never had biological children, I no longer felt the need to see my eyes, nose, cheekbones, lips in the faces of my children. The fact remains, I see those characteristics in the faces of my own parents, my siblings and even in some of my nieces and nephews. A connection to who I am, where I came from. But my daughter, with no attachment to a single person who shares her same genetic makeup, walks around a world in which she lacks the connection of resemblance. She is alone in that regard. A fact which remains heavy and burdensome.
Rather than throw out some thoughts that may not be helpful I looked at my daughter and asked, “Do you want to talk about how that makes you feel?”
To which she so bravely and clearly shared, “Sometimes I feel so different. Like I am the only person in the family who is like me. Sometimes it makes me feel left out.”
Crushed, I reached my hand back and grabbed hers. I know this reality cannot be changed, fixed, or bypassed. It just is. I also know it’s not personal and to center myself in this conversation would in the long term be damaging to my daughter. So I said the only thing I could think to say, “Honey, I am so sorry. And I want you to know, it is okay to feel that way. Your feelings about your place in our family are so important and I hope you know you can always share them with me if you want to.” She squeezed my hand and we drove home.
Dear daughter of mine,
As a person raised in the family of my birth I will never know the full extent of the heaviness of the brokenness you experience as an adoptee. And as a white mom raising a daughter with brown skin, I will never understand the weight of this reality for you. And for that I am so very sorry. But please know, I will always try my very best and I promise you this:
As much as my eyes will allow me to, I will see you!
As much as my mind will allow me to, I will try to understand you!
And as much as my soul will allow me to, I will hold it all with you.
Because dear, brave, powerful daughter of mine, I adore you and I am learning from you.
Xoxo,
Mom