If we go with the legal age of 18 as being an adult, then I have quite a few adult children: Miriam 18, Joey 18, Edgar 20, Sonny 20, Daniel 21, Monica 23, Joe 23, Jesse 24, Sergi 25, Carolina 26, Marcela 26, Yolie 27, Gina 29, Saray 28, Cristy 30, Deysi 30, and Sarah 33. I’ve survived seventeen rocky forays into independence.

We could quibble on the number somewhat since some of my very young adults are still struggling to learn and relearn their place in our family. It IS different when one no longer lives with mom, no longer has to report to her, nor have Mama cooking and cleaning for one anymore.

Some of my adult children have broken my heart over and over, feeling free as adults to pour out their resentment on the one woman who truly does love them, who has remained with them through thick and thin, and who was not the one who abandoned, abused and neglected them.

So as everyone turns 18 we see stark terror in their eyes. What will happen to me now? Is it over already? What if she doesn’t love me anymore?

First off let me say, I am no less bossy after they turn 18 than before, I am still overly opinionated and I freely, and annoyingly, share these unsolicited thoughts. The kids don’t wonder how I feel, they are fairly certain of my response to everything, except to themselves because they still struggle with their innate feelings of worthlessness. If my own mother didn’t love me, why should she?

It’s not that their “own” mother didn’t love them, often their birth mothers were simply ill-equipped to parent, likely they too had grown up in foster care, this often proven by the lack of next generation kinship care available due to generational dysfunction.

Only a couple of my adult children didn’t put me through the wringer. One went off to college properly, earned a science degree, thus impressing all of us, but quickly seeming to negate its value by some terribly poor choices later in life. Now she’s struggling to pull herself out of the mess. Daniel grew up quietly and appropriately, he’s always thought of himself as my birth child, so strongly so that even some of his baseball team’s parents thought so as well. Sarah, the birth child, left home at age 18, we both cried that 18 years flew by, but there was no drama; years later she lives on the same dirt road as do I. Sonny has stayed close undramatically as well; Jesse and Sergi joined the Navy properly and did awesome jobs.

Some others moved out abruptly and remained estranged for months, some moved out and spread vicious lies about me, some spewed resentment, some saved it for later, but everyone eventually apologized, relationships were rebuilt on different foundations as I also became abuelita (grandma) instead of just mama. With their adulthood, our relationships improved a great deal, and I simply continued to prove that I was still there, that I’d always forgive and that I wouldn’t ever stop loving them even if they chose jail, or a homeless shelter, a shack-up situation or any other life choice. I may not approve of what they did or do, but that didn’t affect my feelings for them.

I say all this to encourage those adoptive parents who are in tough places now, wondering if all they did was for nothing, I’d like to reassure them that the tide will change, the kids will come back around and it’ll be stronger where it once seemed so broken.