Since she was born, the child had been living with a foster family. She was taken in by a family who has been lovingly and patiently raising her.
A video that went viral shows a little girl recognizing her mother at a school concert. In the TikTok video, Amaris Traversy, who is 2 years old, is on a stage with her preschool friends. Amaris can’t seem to pay attention to anything but her mother, Genevieve Traversy, who is in the audience at a Thanksgiving party. All the children are wearing paper crowns and singing a song led by their teacher. Traversy made the video in 2019, but she posted it on TikTok this year. She wrote in the caption that she took this picture soon after “adopting my baby girl,” who is now 5 years old.
In the video, you can hear her say, “my mommy.” Traversy said in the caption, “Instead of singing, she kept pointing at me and saying, ‘My Mommy’.” She told TODAY, “I felt like that was the moment she realized I wasn’t going anywhere. I’m going to cry just thinking about it.”
When Amaris was born, she was sent to live with a foster family. When she was 18 months old, she moved in with Traversy, her husband Shawn, and their four kids. When she first got to their house, she was nervous and scared of people. If someone tried to get close to her, she would “flinch.” Her mom told her, “She’d never drank out of a cup before and she had a lot of fears — like she was terrified of taking baths and she didn’t like to be touched. She liked to bite.”
She added, “We had to pour a lot, a lot of love into her. There was quite a bit of crying — not just from her, but from all of us. It was hard.” Traversy is proud of how her daughter has grown, “She’s a big kid now — she’s starting to read.” She added, “If you saw her now, you wouldn’t know she was the same little girl that came to us.” She is funny and loves gymnastics.
Traversy grew up in a foster home, just like Amaris. She lived in 15 different places before she turned 18 and left the system. She got pregnant when she was 16, but no matter how hard things got, she never gave up on life. She has three degrees, one of which is in psychology. She now works as a recruiter for foster care and as a life coach. She is also writing a book about how to help yourself.
Traversy thinks that by talking about what she has learned, she will inspire other people to foster and adopt. She told me, “Trauma does not define a child. Underneath that trauma is a beautiful person just waiting to flourish. No child should be considered a lost cause.”
People who saw this beautiful video on TikTok were moved by it. One user wrote, “Made me cry she’s admiring you and happy your there! I’m going through this process and some days are so difficult but I got to remember we got.” Another said, “She is so happy to have a mom she wants everyone to know.” Another user commented, “She is so happy to have a mom she wants everyone to know,” to which Traversy replied, “She has been growing and thriving beautifully.”