02/08/2026
Dear Diary,
I know. I know. Don't even say it.
I never actually address you properly. At this point we're less trusted confidant and more emotional emergency exit....🫣
Most days I arrive at full speed, unload a freight train of thoughts onto the page, then disappear before I've even said hello.
Terribly rude, really.
I should start saying hello before emotionally projectile vomiting all over these pages. It's only polite.....so... Hellllllooooo👋
Right where was I?
Today someone very confidently informed me:
"Your not their Mum, A Mum tucks you in at night. A Mum reminds you to brush your teeth. A Mum takes photos with you. A Mum is a verb, not a noun"
And for a moment, I just stared at it.
Because if that's true then...
What on earth happens when a mother dies?
Does she stop being a mum the moment her heart does?
Does her child suddenly become motherless not because she died, but because she can no longer pack lunches, kiss scraped knees or remind them to put a coat on?
Don't be so ridiculous...
We build memorials to mothers.
We visit their graves on Mother's Day.
We tell the children, "Your mum would be so proud of you"
Not, "She used to be your mum."
Because somewhere, instinctively, we all actually understand that motherhood survives the loss of function.
So why does that understanding disappear when adoption enters the conversation?
When it's about a birth mother
Suddenly motherhood becomes conditional.
Transactional.
Reduced to a checklist.
Did she do the school run? No?....
Then she isn't a mum.
Did she tuck them into bed? No?....
Then she's just a birth mother.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
Absolutely nobody tells a widow she stopped being a wife because her husband died?
Nobody stopped being a daughter because their parents died?
Nobody says a retired firefighter was never a firefighter?
Nobody tells a bereaved mother she stopped being a mother the day her child died?
Yet somehow, when the LA removes a child, people speak as though a court order can rewrite biology, memory, identity and love With a signature.
It can't.
Parenting is something you do.
Motherhood is someone you are.
Notice the difference?
The law can decide who raises a child.
It cannot legislate what my body remembers.
It cannot erase the stretch marks that arrived before their first breath.
It cannot delete the birthdays my nervous system still recognises before my calendar does.
It cannot tell my heart to stop responding to the sound of their names.
People often confuse parenting with motherhood because, for most families, they happen together.
For birth mothers, they're completely torn apart.
That's why it's so difficult to explain.
I lost the privilege of parenting.....
I didn't lose the identity of being their mother.
Thats where people struggle to comprehend the fact...
Because if motherhood isn't just something you do...
Then maybe, just maybe, it isn't something another person can simply declare finished either.
Still here.
Still a mother.
Still using my voice.
Still leaving a trail home.
Anna Diary of a birth mother
