Identity

My Identity as Mother

The landscape of motherhood reveals itself not through biological necessity, but through the intricate tapestry of love, choice, and unexpected grace. My journey began by watching my mother—the quintessential 1960s woman who embodied every traditional feminine role, from sorority girl to homemaker—and unconsciously both emulating and challenging her path. When infertility interrupted my anticipated trajectory, what initially felt like a profound loss became an unexpected liberation, propelling me through a 28-year teaching career and ultimately leading me to motherhood through adoption. At 37, I became an instant mother to three children from Burundi—a transformation that was anything but conventional, marked by a complex blend of joy, uncertainty, and profound cultural navigation. Walking through Santa Barbara with three Black children as a white mother, I felt simultaneously visible and invisible, acutely aware of the stares and whispered assumptions, wrestling with an identity that didn't conform to traditional motherhood narratives. The well-meaning yet deeply insensitive comments—like the friend who pitied my inability to experience biological motherhood or strangers questioning my children's "real" mother—only served to crystallize my understanding that motherhood transcends biological connection. As my children grew, our similarities became undeniable: Abel's love for nature mirroring my own, Ciza's stubborn spirit reflecting my rebellious heart, Nizi's independence echoing my own journey. Each shared trait, each moment of connection, became a testament to a motherhood defined not by birth, but by intentional, boundless love. My mother's generation might have understood motherhood through a narrow lens of domesticity and biological reproduction, but my experience revealed a far more expansive definition—one where love creates family, where chosen connection trumps biological accident, and where identity is not inherited, but carefully, beautifully constructed through daily acts of commitment, understanding, and profound emotional investment.