What’s Normal Anyway?

You may remember in my first blog last week I mentioned that my old blogs came under the title “Adopting the Brace Position”. This, as I’m sure all flyers amongst you will know is what the airline stewards explain when they tell you how to react to an emergency aboard the aircraft i.e. when the plane is about to crash land. I’m sure that you, like me, know there is really a cat in Hell’s chance of ever surviving whether or not you “brace, brace” whilst struggling with your oxygen mask, life jacket and Rosary beads all at the same time. I used the expression to name my blog because throughout most of my adult life I seem to be waiting for the next disaster and never being quite in control of living life in the moment. The title is also a pun on words as I am the mother of two lovely adopted children, now aged almost 29 and 26. When my son was about two I joined a local mother and toddler group as you do when you’ve tired of watching “Thomas the Tank Engine” for the 400th time, you’ve run out of ideas for building a tower block, fire station, dockyard out of Duplo and you just feel the need for some adult conversation. There I made friends with numerous other mums, one of whom I’ll call Ellen. After a few weeks of close observation, of which I was blissfully unaware, Ellen sat next to me one day and quietly confided, “You know, you’re quite normal just like the rest of us”. Whilst reassured to hear that I needn’t volunteer as an in-patient for the psychiatric ward just yet, I was however a little bemused. What did she mean exactly? “Well, you know, your child isn’t biologically yours yet you treat him exactly the same way we treat ours!” I laughed and asked how should I treat him – like a little alien or a prisoner on day release? I didn’t want to embarrass poor Ellen any further but it was clear that she didn’t quite know what to say. If you have a capacity to love at all that love is unconditional. It doesn’t matter if you grew children in your womb or like my husband and I had them as seedlings and watched them grow in our nurturing Greenhouse. We were never quite sure how they would turn out, but then who does? I expect Adolf Hitler’s’ mother would have been full of trepidation if she’d suspected that the embryo she carried would have turned into such a monster. It’s true that we all have ambitious plans for our children even if only because our own hopes and dreams have been somewhat thwarted. But like a carefully planted garden, sometimes bugs and weeds from outside get in when you’re not watching and lead your plants astray. You just get the right pesticides, (environmentally friendly ones of course), and keep the enemy at bay until your seedlings are old enough and strong enough to withstand whatever life throws up. The nurturing side you can control but nature has a way of bringing up all sorts of unexpected surprises and you get to see traits in your children that have been replicated from you as well as the more surprising ones they may have in their genes already. Either way, adoption provides a family life full of fun, excitement and the occasional heart stopping shocks and intrigue without which life would be quite dull. The biggest surprise is not how different they are but when your children mature how similar to you are their views and comments on the world around us. I often catch my daughter and 5 year old granddaughter repeating my old hackneyed phrases, you know the ones you heard your mum say and swore you’d never use – ah yes!! First published October 2015