I'm His Mother But He's Not My Son by Gonyo Barbara

Author:Gonyo, Barbara [Gonyo, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Barbara Gonyo
Published: 2011-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

BECOMING ME

I n the years of our relationship, my life grew busier with taking over Truth Seekers and learning the tricks of the trade. I learned about the searching tools and great networking system within the adoption reform movement.

I met hundreds of adoptees, birth parents, adoptive parents and professionals in the field of adoption through conferences and mostly, over my own telephone, where TSIA’s office now operates for 22 years.

I found so much injustices in the adoption system and knew I’d have to stay on to help any way I could.

I began to know myself for the first time. I knew what I liked and what I did well. I was finding that I was a very good counselor. People were calling for advice and leaning on me and depending on me. I was becoming a mother to hundreds of adoptees. They would say, “I wish you were my birth mother, or that she’ll be like you, that would make it so easy.” How funny that everyone, but my son, wanted me to be their mother.

I found that I didn’t enjoy the searching part much. I did like preparing them psychologically pre and post reunion. I went to a neighborhood college determined to sign up for my GED and go on to college to get my degree to become a therapist or a social worker. Counseling had become my forte. I knew adoption backwards and forwards - why not? I’d lived it and heard hundreds of others that proved there was a real common thread weaving through adoptees and birth parents and adoptive parents.

After receiving my GED, I signed up for a psychology course. This was tough because it was one day a week, so a whole week’s course was crammed into a Saturday morning. My life went on the same as usual home, grandchildren, phones, TSIA reunions, and studying became difficult.

I got through the course with a few make-up tests because our two- week vacation also came at class time.

I passed, but it was not easy.

The thought of going back to school looked impossible, unless I’d turn TSIA over to others and I wasn’t ready to do that. I was getting an education from people and life, that was invaluable and although it was a volunteer job, my pay was experience and the love I was getting from all the reunions. TSIA was a part of me.

Sue Martin, our vice president, and I worked very well together. She shared responsibilities of our daily work. We were a team. I could count on her. Now we were both overworked.

In these years of growth at TSIA from small house meetings to a large hall in a hospital auditorium, which holds 200 people, we improved and grew.

I grew into a business head, a PR person and a therapist of sorts. I became an independent person who liked myself for the first time. My search for Mitch had taught me so much. The main thing was self-control. I learned to like myself and take care of myself without the cost being too great.

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