Family Visits

Jane is struggling since we were at Ken's house for a pre-Thanksgiving meal a few days ago. She is clearly distracted and sad. She says to me that she wants to be alone, doesn't want Kate or James to bother her, that she just wants me to hold her all day and read books to her.

During one of our holding sessions today she cried about a whole range of things. It started with Ken and the toys at his house and went to her cousin, Gabby. Then on to missing her birth mother and all the stuffed animals and her Minnie Mouse bed.

Objects figure hugely into Jane's world. She is very much like her grandmother, who absolutely must bring gifts to every visit. No matter how raggedy or cheap it is she has a deep compulsion to give gifts to show her love (she once brought me an entire grocery bag of worn out teen-sized shoes reeking of smoke that she said her friend had 'pulled out of the back of the closet'. They went straight to the trash). And Jane is thrilled every time. The receiving of the object, the moment of being given something, the examination of the new thing, the endless talk repeating, "you bought this for me?!?" There's something deep in both girls that responds to something being purchased for them. When I pull out a shirt for them to wear it's just a shirt to me but very often they will retell the story of where I purchased it, or how I presented it to them.

So, Jane cried about her stuffed animals left behind at Leah's house as much as she cried about Leah. There are layers and layers to her grief. When she asks me if she can go back and get the "stuffies" as she calls them, I say no firmly and without regret. I feel that, actually, she may be testing me to see if I mean it when I say that she lives here forever now and will never go back to that place. There was something a bit 'crocodile tears' about her interaction with me today--a bit more interested in my reaction than experiencing her own. So I made it clear each time she asked that she was completely leaving behind that old life.

Then, she suddenly switched back to missing Leah. Okay, I just gotta say, this is so hard for me to hear. Selfishly, I don't want to comfort a girl I see as "my" daughter through an episode of mourning for her "real" mother. It's hard. Especially when on another day she's telling me how much she loves me and wants to live here forever.

I'm reading a book called, The A-Z of Therapeutic Parenting by Sarah Naish and just today there was a vignette where an adult adoptee recounted how angry it made her when people reassured her that her mother loved her. She said that, as a child, remembering the awful things her mother did to her, but then hearing well-meaning adults say that her mother loved her was deeply confusing. First, it made her feel they didn't trust her and her version of events. Second, it confused her about what 'love' was. Third, it destroyed her trust in adults who wanted to gloss over the truth.

So, with all that in my mind, suddenly Jane sits up from where she's just been buried in my arms crying over her stuffies and looks me in the eye and says, "Does she love me?"

Oh my god. What can I say? Can I look at a 4 yr old girl and say, 'no, your mother didn't love you'? It feels so wrong.

Instead I say, "Do you think she did?"

Jane says, emphatically and automatically, "Yes."

So then I respond, "then, yes, she does love you."

And this seems to satisfy Jane and I'm relieved I gave the right answer. But, ugh, it's like I'm walking in a mine field with horrific mistakes only inches away that I'm barely skirting all the time. I rethink these interactions for hours afterwards.

So, tonight, with kids in bed I'm again rethinking whether we should've gone to Ken's house 3 days ago. Is all this angst worth it?

And, you know, it's not only worth it, it's important. It's important for reasons I hadn't ever thought about until she was talking about his house to me. (Note: separate place from Leah's house) It's important because now I know what she's talking about. Now I can picture that dumpy old trailer piled high with junk and a massive TV screen blaring nonstop. The tiny play area with the mound of cheap toys (when we got home Jane told me she doesn't want our play kitchen but instead she wants a new kitchen that is, "plastic and sparkly like Gabby's". Yep, throw out our high-quality wooden toy kitchen for the cheap, new, plastic, sparkly, disposable toys she craves.).

I can picture Ken zoned out in front of his TV while the girls ran around and did whatever they wanted like the wild child she was when she came to us. Kate with one Koolaid bottle after another plugged in to keep her quiet, and so obese she could barely move. I can picture why Jane didn't know how to sit at a table and eat a family meal. And so much more.

I can see why a world that is full of stuff and objects instead of meaningful human interaction kept her distracted from her sadness. And why she can cry over a mother and a stuffed toy with equal sadness.

I truly hate the aftermath of family visits but I do need to remember how important it is that I peek into these windows into her past. So that I can understand the greater context her childish eyes missed. Because someday she'll be a teen or adult and ready for a fully honest conversation about where she came from and why she couldn't stay there; who these people were and their limited capacity to care for a child in need. I'm glad that I won't have to guess when I describe some things to her. I think my words will carry more weight if I stood in that space myself.

But I really, really hate the journey.