[crick]

(disclaimer...speaking as myself here and not as a moderator. These are my opinions and are to be responded to as any other member)

Celine –

You’ve asked for people here to put themselves in your shoes and to really listen to your words. Just want to say it’s difficult to do that when your posts have generalized many groups of people as one, called people names, and when you seem to not want to put yourself in their shoes either. Especially for the adoptees posting, as I believe that no one but them can truly offer the insight of what an adoptee feels or would want/not want. True, no one “corners the market”, and every single person’s experience is unique, but I can’t see where anyone has tried to do that. I see people saying “hey, think about this”.

You say you know your son best…and that is probably true for a lot of things, but just in case there is the chance that you don’t know how he’ll feel regarding this issue, I’d think the words coming from other adoptees would be extremely valuable and deserving of your time.

Since you mentioned other adoptive parents and their perspective though, I’ll go ahead and jump in despite my better judgment because I’m getting the feeling from your posts that you seem to have all the answers and everyone else is just wrong for having a different opinion. That said though, here goes.

I understand you have a different situation and one that contains a lot more factors than the “average” infant adoption. I understand too that you wish to spare your son a lot of pain in discussing his background and beginnings. I too, have this challenge. It’s a fine line at times when some of us parents discuss adoption with our kids that do not have birth parents who voluntarily placed or who were less than stellar as people. In general, I don’t think we have a desire to tell our child that they were result of rape, that they were abused or that their bparents simply did not care or whatever the case may be. I think too, we are angry at their bparents at times and resent them for harming our children.

You’ve stated that you don’t want to rob him of his childhood or something to that effect. That it’s better for him to be in a state of bliss now and not force him to accept such grown up issues. Hmmm…well that’s one way to look at it. I’m curious though what bubble your child lives in because I don’t see how kids can be completely sheltered from anything difficult in the course of life. I also think kids handle things a lot better than us parents give them credit for at times. Just my opinion there though.

I look at it this way for my kids anyway… I will not have them thinking that adoption is a stigma or a horrible way to make a family. They have already suffered a lot and I will not add to that by keeping information that is theirs from them. True…some of the information is painful and not yet time to discuss at their young ages. There are indeed details that they are not ready to comprehend and that is okay. Nonetheless…it is THEIR information, history and RIGHT to have. I will not keep this from them when the time comes to discuss because to do so would only add more lies to their life. I believe this would only add more pain because as their parent, I believe I need to raise them to face their challenges head on, to learn to grieve and triumph over that grief. To learn that despite the losses they have had or the rotten things done to them, beneath it all, they are loved, they are worthy, very much wanted and that they can be proud of who they are.

Those are the details though…not the basic information of “yes, you were adopted and I did not carry you in my tummy.” My 6 & 5 year old boys were 3 & 2 when I became their mom. They have no memory of their early beginnings or of their birth parents, at least not that I can see. (removed from bparents at ages 2 &1) But they absolutely do know I did not carry them in their tummy; that they were born to another mom and dad. My youngest son cried when he made the realization that I did not give birth to him. He was sad that he wasn’t in my tummy and he was angry and refused to believe that there was another woman out there who did this. And yet, as I comforted him, he also realized that none of that took my love away from him. That I will always be his mom and I will always be there for him. And in his 4 year old mind (when he made the connection of what we’d been saying all along), he came to the conclusion that I am his mom and that’s that. As he grows, we continue to discuss and it’s more of a relaxed discussion or mention. He’ll say, “You have green eyes and I have brown” and I’ll say, “yes you do and you got those from L”. He’ll say, “I want green eyes like you!” And I say, “Oh, but I love your brown eyes and they are one of my very favorite things about you!” It’s sometimes difficult to teach a young child that there are differences but differences don’t mean “bad”. That some things he has are from other parents and then there are things he gets from his dad or me. And yet…we do it because it’s our hope that our children will celebrate who they are and part of that celebration includes their genetic traits/ birth parents. To deny the pieces of them that are not of us is to deny them pieces of themselves and I can’t do that to them.

In order to do all of this though…I have to start with the simple fact of “You are my child placed in my arms through adoption”…. it’s the celebration of starting their lives with us and of our family. I want to not only acknowledge this but also openly embrace it. Why wouldn’t I want my children to understand that there are all kinds of families and this is how ours came to be? To celebrate our family’s origin? I never want them to be ashamed of it and feel that if I were to hide it, then at the moment I finally decided to tell them, they would wonder “well, if this is such a good thing, why didn’t you tell me before now?” I don’t see how I could convince them that it “was in their best interests that I didn’t tell you”. Kids are smarter than that, in my opinion.

And I also firmly believe that waiting for “the perfect moment” to share this will never come. I don’t believe there is such a thing as the perfect moment. I do believe though that the longer we hold off on things, the harder it is to do it. You obviously have the right to tell him when you feel the time is right though, because you have that control. Just wonder if you can get past what I see as YOUR desire to not discuss it because it bothers YOU in order to give your child what is rightfully his…the pieces of his life.