This past weekend, on a last-second trip up to the lake with my in-laws, our four-year-old son informed his grandmother that he has two mommies. From what I remember about how the exchange started, Grandma made some reference to when Mommy would be getting home with dinner, and Kevin replied, “Which mommy?”

“Well,” she answered sensibly, “how many mommies do you have?”

“I have two mommies!”

Upon further inquiry, Kevin enlightened her: “When I was in H’s tummy, she was my mommy, and then Mommy became my mommy!”

Sounds a little dizzying, but in a four-year-old’s world, maybe it’s not such a wacky idea to let it stay that simple for a while. My first instinct was to try to get across to him that H’s role in his life and our family didn’t necessarily end when he was born, but a four-year-old barely grasps the concept of being born. I’d venture to say he’s in fairly good shape at this point. And H hasn’t vanished; he sees and talks about pictures on a regular basis, and future visits are always possible. (The details from that point are not for sharing. It has been a complex situation.)

But back to the lake, and Kevin’s two mommies.

That night, as I was tucking him in, I asked him to tell me about his two mommies, like he told Grandma. After he had essentially repeated his explanation to me, I asked him if he was okay with this Two Mommies story.

“No,” he said. And it sounded like he was a little scared to say so.

“Why not?”

“I want you for my Mommy.”

“You’ve got me. Forever and ever. Every day.”

So there, as they say, was the rub. Kevin worries that I’ll stop being his mom at some point. Or, it would be more accurate to say that this is what Kevin worries right now — because there will be other, more intricate worries and questions as we go along, I am certain.

As we waited for J.D. to be born, we told Kevin that we were waiting for a baby who needed a family. When J.D. was born, we explained to Kevin that J.D. grew in another mommy’s tummy, and this mommy had asked us to be his family — just like when Kevin was born. And if seeing and knowing this about his brother kicked up a few questions in his head, good. Questions are good. Questions mean he’s thinking, and questions start conversations.

Right this second, it’s most important for Kevin to know that Mommy and Daddy are here forever. A four-year-old needs to know that above all else.  He knows he has another kind of mommy since before he was born, and he knows that she picked us to be his family.  Additional aspects and layers of the story will come as he is ready for them and/or asks for them.

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I found myself far less comfortable discussing my own mother with Kevin, as he recently found occasion to ask me where my mommy was.  In mentally assembling the family tree, he seems to have realized that there’s somebody missing.  Again, with a four-year-old, any parent will tell you that the keys are simplicity and repetition.  But boiling the story of my own mother down to its simplest form still isn’t fit for Sesame Street.  As I’ve mentioned, my mom was an abusive alcoholic, who eventually left our family and only pops up every several years, usually when someone dies.

“Well, Kev, my mom wasn’t a very nice person, and she moved away.”

“Where?”

“Someplace pretty far.  I don’t know exactly where.”

“Was she mean?”

“Sort of, yes.  But I’m okay.  It’s okay, sweetie.”

“Did she say mean things?”

There was no easy escape hatch from this conversation — another thing any parent of a four-year-old will recognize.  I kept things as simple as possible, and repeated the key ideas: my mother wasn’t very nice, and she moved far away.  At some point, his cousins who have contact with my mother will come into the conversation somehow, or his questions will grow even more pointed, and I’ll handle that when the time comes.

Questions about my own mother make me WAY more uncomfortable than questions about adoption.  Maybe it’s that adoption is a road we’re all on together.  It’s not something that happened, and is over.  It’s part of our family and our lives forever, and we’ll talk about it and figure it out as we go along — all of us.  The ordeals of my family and the circumstances of my mother’s departure are very, very hard to discuss, and even harder to simplify.  But I’m not going to shut down my son’s questions just because it’s a subject that makes me feel icky.  What am I teaching him if I do that?  I want Kevin to know he can ask me anything, always.  It’s part of my job.

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At J.D.’s two-month pediatrician appointment yesterday, his doctor asked when we’ll tell him about his adoption.

“We’ve already told him,” I said, only half-joking, because we have already told him.  I went on to tell the doc which adoption-centric children’s books I like, and how we’ve evolved the story for Kevin to understand as he has gotten older.

“Well, that’s a relief,” said the doctor.  “I have a parent whose nine-year-old still has no idea, and my staff has to dance around any health questions and issues involving heredity, among other things.  We all have to play along.  It’s creepy, and it’s gonna be a nightmare for this kid.”

“Nine?!”  I was incredulous.  “That’s old enough to open a file drawer –”

“Or surf the internet,” the doc interrupted, taking the next phrase right out of my head.

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

What are this nine-year-old’s parents afraid of?  What don’t they want to have to say?  What questions do they dread answering?  Did they think that as parents — ANY kind of parents — that they could somehow sidestep awkward conversations altogether?  (I knew THAT one was impossible after the first time Kevin asked me what I thought his poop looked like.  Ah, sons.)

I can’t begin to imagine what this girl will experience when she tries all at once to process her life story and the edited version thereof that she’s been given so far.  I can’t fathom the discomfort (to put it mildly and optimistically) and the questions she’ll have then.  I have no idea why parents would set a child up for that.

For all the awkwardness and uncertainty, for all the fumbling and complexity, I’ll take questions and conversations over silence and hiding — every single time.

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