Confessions from a “trauma momma”

We first met our daughter when she was 3 months old – a tiny, bald, screaming-at-the-top-of-her-lungs little baby. She was scared, she didn’t recognize the voices she was hearing or the new smells of someone else’s home, or this other Momma’s arms she was in. As excited as we were to meet her, to get to cuddle and dress her, the day we met our daughter was essentially the worst day of her life. Because no matter how unhealthy, unsafe or unreliable her home life was, when she was brought to our home and to our arms she was ripped away from her very first primary attachment in her “first Mom.”

The loss of her primary attachment figure is a wound, the abuse and neglect she experienced in her first three months is a wound, and the secondary trauma she experienced in utero is a wound. As parents, we want so badly to protect our children from deep hurts and wounds, but we could not protect our daughter from these wounds. Trauma, especially early trauma, literally rewires the brain so that the flight, fight or freeze response that many of us feel when we are in danger becomes a baseline for our kids.

The truth is our daughter was hurt by a relationship, and her healing will come through a relationship. We have read books, taken classes, and attended therapies with our daughter to gain the tools needed to be that healing place for her. It is a privilege to be her healing place, and sometimes it’s a terrifying responsibility. With my biological kids, I have a strong Momma’s intuition, I feel mostly confident in our parenting of them. However, with our daughter I question everything, fearing that what I do or don’t do might “mess her up” more.

It is also exhausting to attempt to make our every interaction with our girl be a healing one. We have had to learn to parent her much differently than our biological children. We must parent from her need not our expectation. And we must constantly remind ourselves that our beautiful, precious daughter exists under all those survival strategies we so often see.

It is lonely being a Trauma Momma, so few people understand what your child is going through, and what your family is going through as you help this child heal. Friends don’t ask what it’s really like because they don’t know how to ask or what to ask, so they just avoid it all together. As a Trauma Momma, I have to pick and choose what I can do away from the family because too many caregivers and too many changes triggers that fear response in our daughter.

Charonne Ganiere Licensed foster parent Children's Wisconsin

Children’s Wisconsin plays a big part in finding foster homes and adoptive families for kids in Wisconsin. At any given time, 7,000 children are in foster care in Wisconsin. We offer a team approach, working together to support the best interest of children and their families.