Within transracial adoptive family dynamics, impactful dyads are formed between adoptive parents and adoptees, and sometimes involve biological parents, too. Of these foundational relationships to the transracial adoptee, the role of adoptive mother plays a salient connection, bonding and mirroring of the birth mother in an attempt to repair ruptures inherent to the adoptive primal wound, a term coined by Nancy Verrier (2003), which comprehensively constructs an adoption-informed lens for understanding adopt-related attachment rupture and repair process, and attachment research. Biological mother attachment ruptures affect transnational adoptees’ in innumerable ways, including and especially bonding, trust, development and growth within relationships.

One objective of adoption-informed counseling may include the commitment to the discovery of creative ways to increase supporting reparative interactions within dyadic adoptee adoptive familial alliances, such as between adoptive mothers and adoptee daughters. Specifically, working to strengthen the resolve to develop relationship closeness cultivating environments and interactions to promote understanding and awareness with adoptive mothers of their unique, powerful role in the process of uplifting the ongoing, emerging salience of the primal attachment wounding rupture/repair process of transracial adoptee daughters, especially during the vulnerable seasons of their lives, such as adolescence.

The natural entry-point for fostering relational connectivity among adoptive mother and transracial adoptee daughters may not be much further from the timeframe of menarche, a female adoptee daughter’s first menstruation cycle. Being ushered into womanhood effectively relies on elder guidance around sexual health, developing sexual identity, body consciousness, positive reclamation of the female body, and to dispel fear and body shame.

Studying the “Reproductive Health Communication Between Mother and Adolescent Daughters in Bangladesh”, Zakaria, Karim, & Cheng (2019) found that mothers are the primary source of information about puberty, menstruation and becoming a woman for their young daughters, with variations of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) communication topics, frequency, and type of interaction. Effective, sensitive reproductive health communication surrounding menarche and puberty between adoptive mother and transracial adoptee daughter may also incorporate aspects of adoption informed reframing and ritual reclamation of the female body, something that may be largely lost through relinquishment trauma. Adoptive mother broaching of menses synchronization is an opportunity for biological differences recognition and a timely remembrance of birth mother, who gave life and gave the ability to give life. Cultivating relationship closeness through somatic recognition contributes to integrative, adoption-informed counseling practices that elevate and support transracial adoptees’ experience.

Verrier, Nancy N. (2003). The Primal Wound. Lafayette, CA.

Zakaria, Xu, J., Karim, F., & Cheng, F. (2019). Reproductive health communication between mother and adolescent daughter in Bangladesh: a cross-sectional study. Reproductive Health, 16(1), 114–114. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12978-019-0778-6