The question parents dread most
When parents mention the dreaded question, most people think about the birds and the bees. I know that I used to think that the biggest, most awkward question my kids would ask me as they grew up would be “Where do babies come from?” I now know that for some blended families, and even more so foster or adoptive families, the question we parents dread is not the issue of where babies come from so much as “Where do I come from?”
Baby bump obsession
My 4-year-old daughter Marie is currently obsessed with pregnancy. Every drawing she produces has at least one ‘m
ommy with a baby in her tummy’, a quick look at her dolls will reveal that most of them have a noticeable ‘baby bump’, and her favorite pictures are those of me when I was pregnant with her. Why is this concept so fascinating to her? I’m not sure.
It all started about a year or so ago. She had seen photos of me when I was pregnant with her, so she knew that babies grew in tummies. Her aunt was pregnant, and Marie was fascinated to watch the baby bump grow over time and eventually become a little baby girl. Ever since then, we have had a pregnancy epidemic in our home.
This in itself isn’t a big problem. She is only 4, after all, and she hasn’t wondered yet how that baby gets into the tummy to start with. The actual problem reared its ugly head last night when once again Facebook blessed me with a 4 years ago today picture showing a very pregnant side profile of me. Marie saw it and as usual got very excited, which attracted her brother Michael over to have a look. She very proudly informed him, “That’s me in Mommy’s tummy!”
What about me?
That is when the fun began. Michael had never been overly interested in the whole baby-growing idea, but he was aware of it and so the baby-in-the-tummy concept wasn’t new to him. This time however, he broached the dreaded topic.
“Was I in your tummy too?”
“No,” I answered nervously, “You weren’t in my tummy sweetheart.”
“Was I in Mom’s tummy?”
“No, hunny. You weren’t in Mom’s tummy either.”
“I was in Grandma’s tummy!” he announced proudly.
We all laughed. “No, you weren’t in Grandma’s tummy.”
“Whose tummy was I in?”
I sighed and looked over at my partner. Before I had to come up with some kind of answer, something happened to distract Michael from this line of questions. I don’t remember what it was, but I couldn’t have been more grateful.
No simple answer
Our family is not just blended, it’s puréed. My partner and I together have a total of 7 children. 3 of them are genetically mine, and those 3 share one father who lives on the other side of the world. When we came together 4 years ago, my partner had 2 children – a grown son who is the biological offspring of her ex-wife, and a teenage daughter adopted through a family-foster placement. The 2 newest additions to our clan are young brothers, also family-foster placements, who are soon to be legally adopted. Between the 7 children, there are 4 different biological mothers (myself included) and 5 biological fathers (2 of which are unknown). Understandably, the question of parental heritage is a touchy one for us.
We aren’t planning to deceive the kids or trying to tell them that we are (both?) their biological mothers. We believe in openness and honesty. In this situation, however, we believe that the boys are still too young to hear the truth of this one (that is the meat for another post, another day).
We dodged the bullet this time. We have no idea when the next shot will come. Will we be ready? Probably not.