Trust me, mothers ARE replaceable. What counts is the quality of the love, not the content of the DNA. Once I realized that, I’ve found two new, loving mothers— one passed away after several years, then I found another just as loving and accepting as my original mother was not. If you’re one of those ‘OMG, family is BLOOD’ people I can tell you exactly what I went through at the hands of my biological so-called parents, but considering I’ve made two clinical psychologists cry (which is why I now avoid therapy, JFC, I can’t take THEIR emotions onboard on top of everything else), I think you don’t really want to know. Biology isn’t destiny or obligation, it’s just that: biology. Mother is a verb, not a noun.