Special Guest Writer: Elisabeth O’Toole is a mother of three children through adoption and a speaker and writer on adoption topics. She is also the author of  "In On It: What Adoptive Parents Would Like You To Know About Adoption. A Guide for Relatives and Friends" (FIG Press, 2011). For more information and to read an excerpt from In On It, please visit www.InOnAdoption.com.


When my children find themselves in need of that particular kind of female attention that only an aunt can provide, the three of them are lucky to have a large pool of doting women from which to draw.  My sister, my sisters-in-law, my best friends, and my own aunts are smart, fun-loving, and supremely attentive to them – as skilled in the art of sneaking a child an extra slice as they are at making each niece or nephew sure they are an aunt’s true favorite.

When my husband and I began the process to adopt our first child, these women were our most immediate and staunchest supporters. Adoption was new to both my husband and I, as well as to our families. As an expectant mother through adoption, I was very aware that I was not having the traditional expectancy I had long observed in others and had expected for myself. “Mother” was going to be a new enough role; “adoptive mother” was utterly unfamiliar to me.

I now recognize that the aunts were The Great Normalizers of my path to parenthood. Looking back, I see how these women took on the very essential tasks of cheering for me; of believing in me; and of normalizing it all for me.

My closest girlfriends held a baby shower for me. My sisters-in-law asked how the nursery preparations were going and confirmed that we were frequenting enough fancy restaurants before a child arrived. My own aunt presented me with a baby blanket she’d knit years before. She’d created it in anticipation of the child that I would one day have, before we ever knew that this child would be adopted. To me, this gift represented my aunt’s faith in both the rightness of my path to motherhood and in me as a mother – faith I was still trying to acquire myself.

At the end of a long and exciting process, my husband and I returned home with our son. There at the airport was my family, eagerly awaiting the arrival of their newest member. My sister approached, arms out, and after briefly embracing me, plucked my son neatly from my arms and strolled away. Chatting and cooing, she held him close, and with an air of confidence and entitlement that I, as his brand-new mother, had yet to acquire.  Though I was still in the process of claiming my new role of mother, my sister was immediately and utterly his aunt, no period of adjustment or getting-to-know-you required.

A few years later, my sister read the manuscript for the book I was working on, one about relatives and friends and adoption.  As she handed it back to me, she said, “You know, it’s funny. I never think of myself as an adoptive aunt. I’m just their aunt.” And she didn’t look very interested in adding another adjective to that title.  I am always my children’s mother but I am also their adoptive mother; I will be the mother who raised them but never the mother who gave birth to them. But to my sister – and many other important women in our lives –they are simply and fully their aunts, no other qualifiers needed.


Published: November 1, 2011
Updated Photo: Rido81