Labels are for Campbell's Soup

So much of adoption is a bitch contest. I am a woman and I have no illusions about our sex: we are territorial. Not so much over things - someone do the dishes, please - but rather over people. My husband. My friends. My kids. In adoption, where emotions have been rubbed raw and dressed with a lemon wedge, well, MY kids becomes more of a threat than anything endearing. I have read blogs and forums where perfectly rational and sane adults de-evolve into high school bitches tearing off their tops in a cat fight over who gets to wear the sash of "real mother." First mothers claim that they own the title and have the stretch marks and episiotomy scars to prove it: "their blood runs through my veins." While adoptive mothers slap back that 9 months of eating snicker doodles by the gallon does not make one a mother. After all, adoptive moms are the ones who near insanity from crying, wiping pee from the walls, making 300 cookies for the school bakesale with 20 minutes notice and taking the heat when they say no way in hell are you going out wearing those fuck-me boots. But who threw down the gauntlet in the first place? Who is challenging our motherhood? Does it devalue your motherhood to recognize another mother? Mothers give birth. Mothers raise. First and adoptive mothers are 2 halfs of the whole with equally important roles. I've always said: "if it walks like a duck and loves like a duck..."