On Raising "Adopted Bobby".

A few months ago, the topic at our agency's monthly support group for adopting parents was "Talking to Your Children About Adoption".  In open adoption, the fact that a child is adopted is no secret.  It's not something that is ignored or swept under the rug.  It is just a fact of life.  If you do open adoption "right", there should never come a point where you have to sit your child down and "break the news" that he or she is adopted.  Adoption should just be an underlying theme in the child's life, something that they know about themselves, the way they might know they are Irish, or Jewish, or have two moms, even.  It doesn't make them better.  It doesn't make them worse.  It is just a part of who they are.

Identity--how you define the core of "who you are"--is important.  Who you think you are and the groups to which you count yourself a member define not only how you see the world, but also how the world sees you.
Throughout my life, I've identified--to varying degrees--in a number of different ways.  Hippie.  Femme.  Lesbian.  Nurse.  Nerd.  Cheerleader. Only Child.  To this day, all of those labels still represent pieces of who I am.  (Well, maybe not so much the cheerleader, anymore.  But I can still do some mean "spirit fingers", watch out!)

Part of our child's identity will be "Adopted Child" or "Adoptee" or "Child Who Is Adopted", depending upon how technical and/or political you want to get with semantics (I'm still learning...).  To us, of course, he or she will just be "our child" (not "our adopted child").  The extent to which adoption plays a role in our child's identity formation will be, for the most part, up to our child.  We have a few friends who are adopted, and adoption doesn't seem to play a big role in their personal identities. However, I've read enough on the blogosphere to know that for some people, adoption is the central core of their identity and the very fiber of their being.  For many others, adoption is probably something that ebbs and flows in importance on the "identity meter" over time.  Sometimes being adopted will be very important, and at others, it will probably take a backseat to some other aspect of self.  Our role as parents comes, I believe, in ensuring that whatever part adoption ultimately plays in our child's sense of self, it is a positive one.

I think one of the biggest concerns that adoptive parents and birth parents alike have is that the child will feel abandoned, given up, or thrown away.  People outside and on the periphery of open adoptions tend to worry that children will feel "confused".  They worry that awareness of the birth family will make a child question who his or her "real" parents are.  But those of us who understand open adoption, who are in the middle of it, and aren't confused by it ourselves, tend to have faith that the child will understand.  We just worry that they won't understand it on a deep enough level.

As parents, one of the most important things we can do is help our child to understand, develop, respect, and love who he or she is.  A healthy sense of self-esteem is the gift that keeps on giving!  Believing in yourself--all the various aspects of yourself--will carry you far in life, and we hope, more than anything, that we can foster in our child a sense of comfort and pride in him or herself.  Two AM feedings?  Diaper changes? Potty training?  Teaching them to try new foods and tie their shoes? Those are no small tasks, of course, but they pale in comparison to the life-long effort that goes into raising a happy, self-confident child.

So, Amber and I are planning to do things right from the start to help our child's concept of adoption and his or her life story to be accurate, positive, and realistic.  We are reserving a special place on the nursery wall for a framed picture of our child's birth parents.  I can already see myself holding our child on my hip, pointing to the picture of them standing with Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and saying "That's Kelsey, your birth mom.  You grew in her tummy.  And she picked Mommy and I to be your parents, because she loves you very much."  We'll look forward to reading bedtime stories like "Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born" and "The Best for You" that tell positive adoption stories in terms young children can understand.  We plan to keep in touch with our "adoption friends" and are excited to attend IAC events like holiday parties and picnics where our child will get to play with other kids and see other families who were formed just like ours.

But, we'll also look forward to pointing out Grandma, Grandpa, and Nonna in pictures of our own extended families, to reading "Good Night Moon" and "Pat the Bunny,"  and to having play dates with the many many non-adoptive families that we count among our closest friends.  It's not going to be "all adoption, all the time" in our house.

We want our child to understand adoption, to view his or her life story positively, and to know that Kelsey's difficult decision was made out of love.  We think this is best for our child, and we know Kelsey agrees.  But, we also know that it is our responsibility to make sure sure our child truly understands.  She is giving us the gift of parenthood.  It's a gift we accept with great gratitude, and it's a responsibility that we take very seriously.

We want to be mindful parents.  Parents who think before they act, and consider the message that small ears and young brains take in when grown up issues are discussed.  But, we don't want our child to be so steeped in the politics, philosophy and theory of adoption that they pickle in it.  Our child may love baseball or ballet.  He may yearn to be a veterinarian or a writer.  She may have a knack for music or a passion for history.  Whatever it is that makes our child who he or she is, we want to celebrate it.  We don't want our child--or our family--to be defined only by adoption.

We want to be thinking parents, not overthinking parents.  We want to remember that all children experience separation anxiety, and that if our kid cries being dropped off for the first day of kindergarten, it's not because of some deep seated adoption-related abandonment issues.  It's because kindergarten is scary, period.  We want to remember that if (okay...when) our thirteen-year-old someday screams "You"ll never understand me!!!", it's not because of some non-biological disconnect in our family.  It's because thirteen-year-olds are sometimes aliens from another planet who speak a different language than adults.

Adoption will always be part of who our child is.  But we don't want to raise our child to feel like "Adopted Bobby*", to feel like adoption is all of who he or she is, or all of who we are as a family.  I'd much rather we raise "Jock-Dancer-Musical-Adopted-History Buff-Author-Animal Lover Bobby."  Or better yet, just raise "Bobby", and let Bobby decide the rest for him or herself.

x's&o's,

Michelle

With a few of our favorite "Non-Adopted Bobbies"

*Not his/her real name.  Not even close.  We just haven't settled on a name.  And when we do, we probably aren't telling the whole internet anyhow.  Sry.