Celebrating the Many Hands and Hearts That Hold Us: Part One – Honoring Motherhood in its Many Forms

By April Dinwoodie

This spring, we're offering a two-part series:
Celebrating the Many Hands and Hearts That Hold Us — an exploration of what it means to honor family expansively through the lens of adoption.

As an adopted person — and someone in deep community with others who share this experience — I know firsthand that Mother’s Day and Father’s Day can be powerful, complicated, and deeply emotional.

Some years, Mother’s Day filled me with joy and gratitude. Other years, there was a quiet ache — a wondering about the woman who gave me life and the life I might have had. Even as I loved the mother who raised me, there was still a part of me reaching for something... or someone... just out of reach. That layered experience is not unique to me. It's woven into the lives of so many adopted persons. No matter how we may feel, the reminders of the day will come through messages from advertisers and people in the world.

In this first part of our series, we focus on Mothers’ Day — the emotions it carries, the opportunities it presents, and how adoptive parents can hold space for the many hands and hearts that are part of a child’s life.

Honoring your mother as an adoptee

Mothers’ Love — And More Than One

For many humans, the word "mother" is layered. Those layers multiply when adoption is part of the reality. There may be a mother of origin whose love and/or loss shaped the beginning of life. There may be a mother who raises and nurtures day by day. There may be foster mothers, grandmothers, mentors, aunties — so many figures who mother in ways both large and small.

Parenting a child through adoption means embracing the truth of multiple mothering experiences. It means making space for children to hold both love and grief, gratitude and longing, knowns and unknowns — often at the same time.

Mother’s Day can be joyful and confusing. It can be a time of celebration and sadness.

When adoptive parents acknowledge these truths openly — and work toward an authentic, expansive relationship to family — they give their children the greatest gift:
permission to be whole.

Moving Beyond the Traditional

Mother’s Day traditions often promote a narrow, idealized image of family: one mother, one perfect bond. But real life — especially in adoption — is wider, deeper, and more complex.

Not every child feels only happiness on Mother’s Day. Not every parent feels fully secure. And not every family is mother-led. Some families have two dads, one dad, or caregivers whose parenting journeys don't fit traditional categories.

All families — your family — deserve celebration, visibility, and support.

One important element to remember: even if your family has expanded your view of "mother," schools, religious institutions, and the broader world may not have.
It’s important to talk with professionals connected to your child's life — teachers, coaches, mentors — so they understand your family’s structure and values heading into this season.

Takeaways for Mothers’ Day in Adoption

Here are some ways you can expand and deepen your celebration:

1. Honor All Mother Figures

  • Name and honor mothers of origin, foster mothers, grandmothers, aunties — anyone who has poured love or care into your child's life.
  • Acknowledge them aloud, even if your child is young or doesn’t yet have words for their feelings.
  • Even if your family doesn’t include a mother-figure at home, you can still honor those who have mothered along the way.

Example: “I wonder if the mother who was part of your life at the beginning liked flowers too…”

2. Reflect on Your Own Parenting Journey and Feelings About Mothering

  • Spend time before the holiday exploring your own feelings about mothering and being mothered — or, if you identify as a dad or another caregiver, how you relate to mothering energy.
  • Ask yourself: What parts of caregiving feel expansive for me? Where do I still need to grow?

Tip: Even a few minutes of reflection or journaling can help you show up more grounded and open.

3. Create a Space for Mixed Emotions

  • Let children know it’s okay to feel happy, sad, confused, or even angry around Mothers’ Day.
  • Normalize that missing, wondering about, or even mourning a mother-figure doesn't diminish their love for you.

Example: “It’s okay to love me and miss someone else at the same time. That’s part of our lives.”

4. Build Bridges, Not Barriers

  • Find ways to stay connected to family of origin — even symbolically. Remember: they are part of your family too.
  • If direct contact isn’t possible, honor their existence through storytelling, memory-making, or simple rituals.

Example: Light a candle or plant a flower in honor of all the people who are part of your child’s existence.

Becoming the Bridge

As adoptive parents, you are not meant to erase what came before — you are meant to build a bridge to it. You are entrusted with the sacred responsibility of helping the child entrusted to you weave a whole and honest holding of family.

This Mothers’ Day, celebrate expansively. Hold space for the complexity.
Honor the many hands and hearts that shape your child’s life — including your own.

Traditional celebrations may not always fit your family’s ethos perfectly — and that’s okay. With preparation, conversation, and a growth mindset, your family can face the world with pride, connection, and resilience.

When we do this, deeper roots and stronger bonds are formed.

Listen to the Calendar Conversations podcast to hear more about naming and claiming in Adoption.  And follow April on social media @JuneinApril and on YouTube @April Dinwoodie

Posts Related to Motherhood and Transracial Adoption

This post is from our May 2025 newsletter. If you would like to get our newsletter in your inbox each month, as well as information about our annual TRJ Family Camp and our monthly Zoom call providing support for our transracial adoption parents, please subscribe.


Mother’s Day: Family Titles, Roles, and Relationships

As a country we have been celebrating Mother’s Day since the 19th century, honoring women who play a pivotal role in the lives of children of any age. For some, Mother’s Day can bring feelings of both celebration and complexity. In adoption, mothers of origin or birth/first mothers play a vital role in the lives of children they are born to and separated from. It’s important that you have open and loving conversations about different ways mothers and mother figures play a vital role in a child’s life.

June-in-April Calendar Conversation Cards

Transracial Journeys invites your family to experience the calendar in a whole new way. With the help of the June-in-April Calendar Conversation Cards, each month your family is invited to use the cards as a tool for more regular and intentional conversations about identity, family relationships, and differences of race and culture.

Each month has four cards with conversation starters. The prompts and questions are designed to spark reflection and ongoing dialogue within your family as well as with extended family and friends. There is no prescriptive way to use the cards, sometimes parents or grown-ups can take the lead and ask the questions and other times, children can go first.

Here is a suggested weekly breakdown for using each set of monthly cards:

Week 1: Parent/caregiver preparation and reflection

• Review the month’s theme and conversation prompts
• Check-in with any emotions that come up and discuss with a partner, friend, or loved one
• Put time on the calendar for the family to engage with the conversation cards

Week 2: Read/discuss card 1
Week 3: Read/discuss card 2
Week 4: Read/discuss card 3 and close out the month with any insights, challenges and new ideas for the next month

Mothers Day

May Pro-Tip for Parents: Be sure to build in time for you and your child to process all of the feelings that may come about surrounding Mothers’ Day. Resist the urge to expect gifts and instead give yourself something special to honor yourself as a mother or mother figure. Be prepared to help your child hold the both/and of this holiday.

CARD ONE: IDENTITY
• What does Mothers' Day mean to you?
• What are some feelings you have about Mothers’ Day?

CARD TWO: RELATIONSHIPS
• How do we honor Mother’s Day in our family?
• Can we acknowledge and celebrate more than one mother?

CARD THREE: EMBRACING AND FACING DIFFERENCES OF RACE AND CULTURE
• Do different cultures celebrate Mother’s Day?
• Are there different ways mothers are honored around the world?

This post is from our May, 2025, email newsletter. If you would like to get our newsletter in your inbox each month, please subscribe.  You will get invitations to our monthly Parent Meet-Ups, a virtual meeting to act as a transracial adoption support group - sharing issues, ideas and strategies for creating a culture of communication and curiosity in your home, as well as monthly card prompt to keep the conversations about race, adoption, family, love and relationships front and center all year long.  And lastly, you'll always be made aware of important dates for Transracial Journeys Family Camp - registration is open now!


Mother, May I?

 - authored by April Dinwoodie,
Part-time Executive Director of Transracial Journeys

As a Black/Bi-racial transracially adopted person, do I need permission to love more than one mother? This May, I am once again faced with the “mother” of all holidays. It is a big one that warrants attention because of the complicated emotions that come up for so many adopted persons and members of the extended family of adoption. On top of the emotions that may already be present, there are the marketing messages that flood in from brands reminding us to celebrate the women in our lives that care for us.

As a kid, Mother's Day, was about my mom Sandi, the only mom I really knew. I was usually caught up in creating the PERFECT gift for her -- something to honor her, make her feel special and something I thought she’d really love. At some point though during the time leading up to Mother's Day, or on the actual day itself, thoughts of my biological mother crept in. I did not have the language to articulate them, so they came and went, or so I thought. What happened in reality is that my pain, grief, and loss, stayed present and unaccounted for, creating deep emotional confusion that would take years to unravel.

Honoring your mother as an adoptee

While I knew that I was adopted and there was another woman that I was connected to, there was no open door for me to consider or have a conversation about what that all actually meant and how I was to hold that information factually or emotionally. No one around me at the time had two mothers. It made sense for me to have only one, Sandi was a great mother, did I really need another one? Did I need another one that did not keep me? To be clear, my mom did not ever try to deny there was another woman that I was born to but she never encouraged me to think about her and we never really talked about her until I was a young adult and started to search.

Helping Adoptees on Mothers' Day

Throughout my search I never thought about being mothered by anyone else but my mom, Sandi. I was not looking to replace my mom but I did have a deep desire to know and create some kind of connection to the woman who gave birth to me. At one point, early in my search, someone close to me asked me if my searching for my birth mom was weird for my adoptive mom and would I then have two mothers? While I was not looking for the two women to co-mother me, I did immediately wonder why having two moms under any circumstances would be a problem. At this point in my life, I had many examples of two families where two women were caretaking children so why is it that in adoption, there is often the either or versus the both/and?

After years of personal healing work, running a research institute for adoption and foster care, working in schools, and being part of a community where I am connected to thousands of members of the extended family of adoption, I have come up with a few things for adoptive parents to consider and actions to take when navigating the both/and of Mothers’ Day.

● As a starting place, think about how you hold Mothers’ Day and how you were mothered. For some, these are not easy reflections to have. For others, there is only joy and beautiful feelings. And likely for many, there is both love and joy, and complexity and pain. If these mix of emotions around mothers can be true for you it stands to reason that a mix of emotions can be present for the child you parent through adoption. Start with you and investigate how you truly hold this most sacred relationship.

● Once you have a sense of how you feel about your connections to mother, think about your holding of your child’s mother of origin. Are you in touch? Do you know her name, birthday, what she is good at? Do you know about her medical history? Do you know if she held your child? These are all things for you to think about and act where you can to gather up some of this information. You don’t have to jump in and do the most, but even taking a few minutes out over the next week or so to have some quiet time to reflect could go a long way. And remember to even mark your calendar to give yourself time to think about your emotions connected to this throughout the year. Make sure you are not tucking your thoughts, feelings, and emotions away. Demonstrate that you can be open with all that comes with adoption and understand this can be a gateway to important healing.

● With some of your emotions in check, you can work to be in even better conversation and connection with your child centered on the topic of mothers. Too often I hear parents transactionally asking their child “do you think about your birth mom? Do you ever want to try to meet her?”. Those big questions can be too much to negotiate with some children and youth. I love it when parents that have grounded themselves and have a sense of how they feel. They can open up a healthy conversation with the child they are parenting by first sharing their thoughts and feelings. Something like…”Today I thought about XX/your birth mom, I wondered how she was and I was sad that we don’t know more about her. Do you ever wonder about her too? Do you want to sit down and talk with me about that?” Remember, you know your child better than anyone so use your personal style to communicate, just don’t miss an opportunity to communicate and keep a door open.

● As you create the conditions at home for open and healthy dialogue and connection to mothers of origin and extended birth family, remember outside of the home your child can be challenged by having more than one mom to consider. This is the time of year when school projects in celebration of Mother’s Day are happening. If you’ve had the conversations about your child’s birth mother and they wanted to create art for them too, teachers and caregivers need to know that your child may need some extra time. If you are not there yet and your child does not want to share their family structure for a school project, you can create something together at home. Even if you are not in touch with the birth mom, you can create something special for the time you might have a connection. There are usually complex circumstances at the root of adoption. There will be a lot of work that will go into creating and keeping connections to family of origin but it does not mean you can’t keep an open conversation especially when the world around us is reminding us of the special people of our lives.

Who says we can’t have more than one mom? Why can’t we have love for two significant women in our lives and be connected to them in different ways? Do we have to ask for permission to love the people we care about? As mothers and as parents today entrusted with children through adoption, you have the amazing opportunity to actively expand your hearts to the people connected to your child. Even when it’s highly complex, there are ways to have open and caring conversations about and real connections to extended family.

For this Mothers’ Day, I wish for a celebration of all the moms connected to adoption seen and unseen. A special wish for all of the TRJ moms I know and love, thank you for being brave, for doing the work, and for the love you show me as a member of your extended families.

Don’t forget to use May’s conversation cards if you have them. The prompts will help you as you explore this month.


Mothers’ Day: Claiming Family Realities

As a country we have been celebrating Mothers’ Day since the 19th century, honoring women who play a pivotal role in the lives of children of any age. For some, Mothers’ Day can bring the feelings of both celebration and complexity in very poignant ways. We can both celebrate the mothers/mother figures that are active in our lives and we can also wonder, and have emotions surrounding, the mother that is not in our life as much, or at all.

May Pro-Tip to Foster Conversations About Transracial Adoptions

At Transracial Journeys we send our families conversation cues each month, from our Transracial Journeys card deck. The card deck contains three cards for each month, designed for the children to ask their parents. Below are the questions for May. Before letting your child get started, prepare by reading the parent pro-tip, from the Parent Guide, each month.

May Pro-Tip for Parents: : Be sure to build in time for you and your child to process all of the feelings that may come about surrounding Mothers’ Day. Resist the urge to expect gifts and instead give yourself something special to honor yourself as a mother or mother figure. Be prepared to help your child hold the both/and of this holiday.

CARD ONE: IDENTITY
• How do you identify with Mothers’ Day?
• What are the feelings you have about Mothers’ Day?

CARD TWO: RELATIONSHIPS
• How would you describe your relationship with your mother/mothers/mother figures?

CARD THREE: EMBRACING AND FACING DIFFERENCES OF RACE AND CULTURE
• What are some things that mothers of different races might have in common and what are some things that may be different?

This post is from our May, 2023, e-newsletter. If you would like to get our newsletter in your inbox each month, please subscribe.  You will get invitations to our Parent Meet-Up each month, a virtual meeting to act as a transracial adoption support group - sharing issues, ideas and strategies for creating a culture of communication and curiosity in your home, as well as monthly card prompt to keep the conversations about race, adoption, family, love and relationships front and center all year long.  And lastly, you'll always be made aware of important dates for Transracial Journeys Family Camp - registration is open now!


‘Mother Wit’

It’s May! Our nurseries are bustling with customers searching for that “ just right“ plant to gift that special someone on Mothers’ Day*. Yours truly has also been searching for some “just right” inspiration for this month’s newsletter. Serendipitously, I came across this quote from Maya Angelou:

“I’m grateful to intelligent people. That doesn’t mean educated. That doesn’t mean intellectual. I mean really intelligent. What black old people used to call ‘mother wit’... intelligence that you had in your mother’s womb. That’s what you rely on. You know what’s right to do.”

Transracial Adoption

What is Mother Wit?

What is Mother Wit I ask, as I sit with April’s cards for the month of May spread before me? Why is this concept reverberating with me? Could Mother Wit help me embrace or face differences of race or culture? I ask myself, “what intelligence or wisdom do I draw from to be a loving, supportive and woke mother to my children?” This is a deep dig for me as much of my mothering journey had been traveled without any peers until I found my community in you, Dear Reader.

In the Encyclopedia of Motherhood, Mother Wit is “... the wisdom women develop based on their lived experiences. It is a type of knowledge that is informed by women's common sense, relationships, informal interactions, and life lessons…In addition, it signals the intelligence and astuteness that women can have, even if they are not formally educated.” Mother wit has been a tool much relied upon to dispense “protective advice and help them [our children] avoid harm and/or learn how to care for themselves.”

In her article, “Black Women: Holding Families Down for Generations with Chewing Gum and Mother Wit,” Desiree Cooper proposes the ancestral wisdom of women in her family and community is Mother Wit. Dr. Camille Wilson writes that Mother Wit is a form of “wisdom especially revered by African American slaves because it guided, informed and inspired oppressed African American families and communities to persevere amidst the grueling physical, social and political conditions imposed by slaveholders.”

Bitter Sweetness of Mothers' Day for Some

Mothers’ Day is a bittersweet day for me. It’s not grueling and I’m not oppressed, but I do experience sadness on this particular holiday of cheery flowers and breakfasts in bed. It’s a day that’s supposed to be bold and beautiful and celebratory, and yes, it is because I love being my children’s mother. However, throughout the day (and surrounding days), I sit in the shadow of another woman’s loss and I wonder, “how is she getting through the day?” Last year, I wrote about our children and the themes of love and joy and motherhood and how they contradict a, perhaps unspoken, awareness or concern of and for their biological mother. This day could very well be oppressive or grueling for our children!

Mother Wit is an old, folkloric concept related to maternal wisdom. What does yours look like on Mothers’ Day? I don’t write about Mother Wit to appropriate it. I write to shine a light on an important part of our children’s culture and in turn, ask you to take stock of your own motherly wisdom.

I have come to rely upon the relationship and community I’ve forged with other adoptive mothers and fathers …. People like you! I look to you for back-up and moral support. I look to you when things get really tense in the world or in my family. I look to you to see reflections and resemblances of my own family. Seeing that reflection makes me breathe a little easier. I need the wisdom, community and support of you.  You are how I experience and build my own Mother Wit, and I’m holding you all in my heart this Mothers’ Day.


Citation: O'Reilly, Andrea. “Mother Wit.” Encyclopedia of Motherhood, SAGE, 2010, pp. 873–874.

This post is from our May, 2022, newsletter. If you would like to get our newsletter in your inbox each month, as well as information about our annual Transracial Journeys Family Camp and our monthly Zoom call to provide support for our transracial adoption parents please subscribe.