Mo on the Korea Adoption blog brings up a sore point with adoptive parents: the terrible "You're not my real mother" power play that simply has to happen sometime.

She has some good thoughts about arming in advance; preparation being about the only course a mom can take in this case. Knowing the confrontation is out there in the future somewhere allows us to gird our loins, so to speak, and practice deflecting the pain, all the better to deal with the real issue at hand.

The issue at hand is most likely to be something pretty petty: an overnight stay at a friend's house on a school night, a new pair of shoes with a silly price tag, a disappointing report card, perhaps.

Or, a debate over the merits of diapers at naptime.

My older son, Jaren, biologically produced by me and now thirty-five, was three-years old when he got the hang of hurting Mom with words. My fault, really ... he had the weapon, but I gave him the ammunition.

With his dad and I separated and on the verge of divorcing, a ball was suddenly dropped into his little court. Guilt ran with the red corpuscles in my veins, and every event, every exchange, was examined for the potential of damaging after-effects. Certain that the breakup of my marriage would cause irreparable harm, I bent over backwards to reassure, to comfort, to rock no more boats than were already bobbing unsteadily in my children's tiny harbor.

One afternoon, the diaper debate raged. A nap was in order and a diaper was the uniform, end of story.

Or so I thought.

"I hate you and I wish I was with my dad!"

I was shattered. I grabbed my little darling to me, hugged him, kissed him and explained carefully that I was taking care of him, detailed how much I loved him and told him how deeply it hurt my feelings to hear him say what he'd said.

The following day brought naptime again, the argument, and, "I hate you and I wish I was with my dad."

I was ready for it this time, but didn't need to get out the big guns. He pulled the plug on his power all by himself when he added with a suspiciously gleeful grin, "That hurt your feelings, didn't it!"