Judge and Jury??

Image credit: prajendran.com

I’ve been hearing a lot lately of other birthmoms getting judged.  Not by people outside the adoption community, but by other birthmoms!

Topics range from their opinions about proper grieving time to legislation surrounding adoption.  I’ve personally been judged because I didn’t agree with a birthmom on her opinion surrounding some legislation.  There are groups of birthmoms on Facebook that will be cruel to another birthmom because of a disagreement, or if that birthmom doesn’t agree with everything the group agrees with.  I’ve heard of birthmoms judging other birthmoms because they felt like they got past their grieving time too quickly, and others judged because the judger thought they were grieving too slowly.  As far as I’m concerned, when a mother places her child with an adoptive family instead of raising that child, they start a lifetime grieving process.  That grief never actually goes away.  Certainly as a birthmother you want to continue with your life, to honor that choice you made by not wallowing in your sadness.  But I’m a firm believer that you never stop grieving.

As birthmoms, we all have the fact that we’re birthmoms in common.  Yes, there are differences in our circumstances.  We’re all human and all have differing opinions, so we’re all bound to disagree on one thing or another.  I think we especially have the potential to disagree when such high emotions are involved in such a life-changing choice as becoming a birthmom in the first place.   Thoughts can be taken out of context very easily when emotions are involved.

I think that such an emotional commonality should help us judge each other less, and not more.  Even if you don’t agree with someone, the realization that their situation is very different from your own (even if your kids were placed under similar circumstances, you’re still different people) should help us judge less.  I don’t have a problem with birthmothers in general stating that they disagree with something another birthmom feels.  I’ve done the very same thing.  But I’m not going to ostracize someone because their thoughts don’t exactly match my own.

I’ll end with this: I urge us all to remember that we’re all living without our kids. We all have to deal with that grief on a daily basis. We don’t need to deal with judgment from someone who at their core is dealing with the exact same thing we are.  For more on judging, Lani’s post, To Judge or Not to Judge also deals with this subject.