Mo asks "WHY do I have two mommies?"

IMO, this is one of those things that you slowly spoon-feed to him. You may not think you nailed it but I think you did.

He's going to ask that same question over and over again for the next 15+ years and as time goes on and he understands more and more of how the world works aorund him you can add deeper explainations.

If you get stuck try turning it around a little bit and ask him what part he doesn't understand. His answer will give you insight into just how much more you need to give him to satisfy his mind for the time being.

I told little Jane that her biological Mom was sick and couldn't care
for her. I also told her that other Mothers don't have a choice, they have to take what comes along (mind you it was kiddie talk) but she (Jane) was chosen and that makes her all the more special. Everyone can have ONE
Mom but to have one giving birth to her and another one who chose to be her Mom is pretty extraordinary.

And she has felt special ever since

I explain to kids that their bio mother/parents were not ready and grown up enough to look after him properly...and that they loved him enough to understand this, and gave him to you (in this case) to care for because they knew this and wanted him to have a really good life. In your case, they knew you, and knew you loved him and that you would be the best parents he could have. That this happened not just to him, but to other kids...if he will comprehend, you can talk a bit about how much skill and wisdom parents need, and his parents just did not have the amount he deserved yet.

You and he will be dealing with this question for the rest of your lives together.


It is a deep wound for many kids.

I think you have to be really clear they could not look after him, but you can make this as positive as possible by continuing to look at how they knew this somehow and cared enough to give him to you....which is damn true on some level.


He will be able to comprehend more as he grows up.




(((((((((((((Hugs))))))))))))))))

I think you did well too...... And that you will keep doing well. (I know, not helpful).

Is it too simplistic to say "Because you are a very, very lucky little boy?" "Because we all love you so much."

I also think you handled it well...

My advice is to let Mo tell you what he is ready to hear.

I found the policy of answering my son's questions on sticky issues precisely (i.e. a complete and correct answer with no elaboration) worked well. If he is comfortable with that answer, fine. If he is ready to understand more, he will ask for more.

If you let Mo control the process of dealing with issue that may be uncomfortable he will help you know what he needs.

He needs to know he can be confident in your love and you gave him that.

You are listening to him and you are being sensitive to his needs. I don't see how you can do any better.

Hiya fishin'. Nice to see you again.

Thanks for the vote of "nail it" confidence but as the words tumbled out of my mouth I immediately started seeing the holes in my explaination.

That "turn it around" bit is goo-od. I can do that.

I think he's just beginning to understand that our family is somehow different - probably because the adoption is nearly final and I have estatically been spreading the word. He had a lot of questions about "adoption" and "Mr. C" (our attorney) and what Mr. C had to do with things.

Oh, CJane! I love that about having someone chose to be your mom. I can work that into our story "I didn't even know I wanted to be a mom until I met you" or some such thing.

Yeah, baby, I can make that work.

dlowan, bless you, darlin', you know me better than I do. Or - you know this situation much, much better than I do. It is easy for me to think I'm operating in a vaccuum and while it is sad to know that I'm not, it's comforting to know that I can benefit from other's experience.

I can be so hard to dumb-down such a complicated story so that a five year old can understand it. Bio-mom's continued erratic presence makes it both harder, and easier, if that makes any sense at all.

I get chilled to the bone thinking of the day that the half-sister twins enter into these conversation re: bio-mom.

"They loved him enough to know....." that is the pivot that everything really needs to turn on, I think.

I think you did a good job too, Boomerang. I have a friend with an adopted son a little older than Mo. He's been asking a lot of questions for the past couple of years. He's been told his bioMom was really young and unmarried when she had him and knew she wasn't ready to be a Mom but loved him enough (and was brave enough) to find the right family for him. I agree with fishin that your answers can become more comprehensive as Mo gets older and for now you can keep it simple. I haven't been around long enough to know the whole background to your situation but maybe he just needs to be reassured that he wasn't given up because of anything he did or IS.

I don't have anything better to offer. And I don't know all the history of your adoption, other than Mo is starting kindergarten and his birth mother & family live nearby and are very involved in Mo's life. What I can offer is the perspective of a tossed-around kid who is all growed-up now, FWIW:

It always amazed me the verbal contortions that adults went through when I asked the straightforward but sticky questions. They lied, they stretched or glossed over the truth, they made up fairy-tales. Little-me knew when it wasn't the total truth (just as I knew when someone said something that sounded nice but was actually hurtful). Most times I would let those half-truths slide, because I didn't like the anxiety it was causing the adult (and an anxious adult might mean a new home again) or I needed to synthesize something in their answer.

Sometimes I would feel devilish (and secure) and I would ask the questions just to see if they squirmed. Sometimes I asked so that I could gauge the quality of their love through their answers. Fairy-tales did not make me feel loved. They are too easy, and I suspected that they were being used to buy time, to shut me up, to lull me. I'd rather have an answer like "I'm sorry but you're are not old enough to understand. I will tell you when you are 8 (or 12 or 16 or whatever)." But, if I was old enough to ask, I was old enough to need something real.

I think kids understand the emotional complexity of human relations, if not the mechanics. Especially if it concerns themselves. I'm a big fan of truth. Anything else has the danger of festering and coming back to bite you or the child in later life.

Back to the problem at hand: Mo is probably trying to figure out his place in the cosmos. And he needs a fail-proof line for all the people, kids & adults, that he's about to meet as he joins the school, people who ask him exactly what he asked you. I guarantee that the question will recur, and enlarged upon. The rate of recurrence will depend on how satisfactory your answers are. If you say "They loved him enough to know....." will it jive with his reality? If not, then it's a time bomb. Perhaps think of how you would answer him if he asked this question at 21 years of age, and work backward.

Well I am "highly recommended" as a parent, after all, littlek! Thank you for another vote of confidence but..... I dunno..... it just didn't feel quite right.

I don't know if that is too simplistic or not, Swimpy, but it might be worth a try!

I just forsee a day when Mo thinks that having one mom is a big pain in the ass - having another lurking around out there might just send him around the bend.

Hi ebrown. I haven't seen you around much lately. Thanks for responding.

Kids are so damn tricky, aren't they? Despite all of my efforts, Mo is not entirely confident that I will love him no matter what and that is what makes this so hard. When I get angry with him over some knucle-headed thing he is convinced that I don't love him.

It can take a LONG time to get things calmed down and get him reassured. And I'm talking about things like him falling apart when he decides to slip out the front door and wander over to his friend's house. He is almost always allowed to walk over to his friend's house as long as he asks first. Leaving the house without permission makes me angry and he knows it. It is AGAINST THE RULES!!!!!

But sometimes he does it and I get mad and he falls apart and is convinced that I don't love him. He will ask me "Do you still love me?" and he will declare his love for me.

And he will simper and cling.

And then he will become violent.

Mo is a complicated little feller.

I know I heard this somewhere about explaining adoption to a young child and I might not have it quite right, but here goes:

It is possible for a child to have two mommies(*) because there are tummy mommies and heart mommies. A tummy mommy gives the gift of life to the child and the heart mommy gives the gift of a home. Both love the child but each could only give one of these gifts, so the child had to have two mommies.

(*) or is it "mommys"

nothing new to add, the advice so far seems pretty good

just a post to say hang in there, from all i've gathered about the situation over the last few years mo couldn't be in better hands

why questions of this nature are not too important as long as the child knows they are loved.

I adopted our youngest daughter Kylie when she was a baby. I'm the only father she's ever known.

The couple of times it came up I merely told her that her brothers and sisters were my biological chgildren and even if I didn't want to be their dad I would be but I CHOSE to be her father and that makes her extra special. That satisified her and it's not come up anymore.

Hi Tai and Tico.

The whole story is a LOOOOONG story. Mo is only five but the story began about 12 years ago, when I met his pre-teen bio-mom-to-be.

I really do wish Mo's bio-parents had realized right off that they were not going to be able to raise him. It certainly would have benefitted Mo if they had.

You make a really excellent point, Tai. I think a lot of kids grow up thinking that they did something that caused X to happen; X being divorce or adoption or whatever. I have really tried to make sure Mo knows that he is blameless and loved (by all sides). I think this will certainly become more comlicated as he grows older.

Tico, wow. Thank you for sharing that.

A "tossed around kid". Even those words make me ache.

Even when it has been awkward and painful, I have always tried to tell Mo the truth. What I have learned is that not all truths are the same.

Mo's bio-mom does love him, in the only way that she understands love.

The way she understands love is.... well, rather unpleasant. This is not her fault.

When she finally admitted that she could not raise Mo it was a HUGE and LOVING thing that she did for him. It is most likely what she wishes that her parent's had done for her, instead of the horrid things they did do to her. She was brave enough to try but smart enough to know that her history made her..... incomplete?

This IS the truth.

But at 5, I don't think Mo needs to know this kind of truth; the truth about how cruel some parents can be.

I would love to hear more of your story when, or if, you are ever ready to tell it. I think I could learn a lot from it.

I can understand that! You have to remember that what you understand and what he understands are two very different things though. You see the holes but it was (apparently) enough to satisfy him for now and he dropped it shortly afterwards and went about doing something else.

He'll ask again (and again..) and you can slowly fill in the holes.

Right now it's probably more important that he know that he can ask questions than to have complete answers.

Wonderful post Tico...

yeah, I always knew when the grownups were making something up.

Made me feel stupid in that "they think I'm going to believe THAT" when it was some cutsey fairy tale.

I think kids understand a lot more than we give them credit for.

A reassuring ritual for him, I'd imagine -- every time, the answer is "Yes." And everytime, the answer to "Are there boundaries in this family?" is also "Yes." (This is a good thing.)

I think it was Noddy who observed once that he bypassed the typical boundary-testing twos because his boundaries were so fluid at the time (where did he live, who was in charge, what was his future), and that there are ripples that are encroaching on his fives -- but consistency of response ("Yes, I love you." "Yes, there are boundaries, and this is what they are") will get you where you want to be.

Looks like you've gotten some excellent advice here, I almost jumped in immediately after reading fishin's first response with how it's all there, but I'm glad I didn't because a lot of what came after it is great, too.

Especially, give simple + truthful answers, and then follow his lead. Does he ask more questions? Answer them. Does he let it drop? Let it drop... for now.

Thank you both boomerang & Chai, I was a little nervous saying that -- and I must take care that my own experiences don't make me think that I'm any kind of expert on subjects like these.

Boomerang ~ I think it's important, based on what you said, that you do convey to Mo that his mother loves him, and even that it is "tarnished" (can't think of a better word) but that it is real. The rejection thing is so toxic.

Again falling into the quagmire of my own history: Even though my mother never wanted to be a mother (her own words), even though she was a bad mother, even though there was never any love between us, in my scared little girl secret heart, I am always the only child of her five that she gave away. If I had ever had any proof that she did things from love, I think that secret heart would not have been so scared.

About the grandparents: Mo's 5, the extended bio-family is around and includes him in their gatherings -- he will have heard whispers already, probably. In a couple of years, he'll start paying attention and linking things. I'm not sure at what age you should start the damage control (eg. less than your wholehearted approval of grandparents).

Boomerang -- you have a hell of a tightrope to walk, girl.

(now I'll shut up. Excellent post from sozobe.)

That's a really interesting question -- I've been thinking about that too, and don't know what I'll end up doing. My own parents were vociferous in their dislike of various aspects of my grandparents (their parents) from when I was very young. This was hard for my kid self -- if I liked my grandparents, was I being disloyal to my parents? I remember trying to strike this balance of being polite and cordial to the grandparents while telegraphing sympathy to my parents. Visits to grandparents were always fraught and stressful for me, and I didn't have much of a relationship with any of them until adulthood.

I have plenty of issues with my parents but am trying to keep that away from my kid for now. The issues I have are not necessarily ones they are repeating with her -- I'll step in if I see that I think. I want her to have a good relationship with them, and she does. She loves to see them.

On the other hand (hmm, that's three by now isn't it), my mom decided when she and my dad divorced when I was 13 that she wouldn't bad-mouth my dad at all. Overall I think that was a really mature and good decision for her to make. At the same time, I went through a good 5 years of struggles with him on my own -- epic struggles, crazy-making struggles -- where it would have been nice to know that it was him, not me.

Sorry if this is too much of a tangent, definitely interesting.