[GenXJeff]

How do you tell him? I think the worst possible thing you could do is sit him down and say "Well son, now that you're four, I want to try to explain the subtleties of adoption, and your origins. I think that to try and involve religion in it could make it that much more difficult for the little guy to understand.

My parents brought me home from the hospital at 4 days old, and took plenty of pictures, not just of me, but also of the people who were close to them, whom they wanted to meet me. Later, they took pictures at a shower my mother's friends gave for her, and me. They also took pictures when they went before the judge for the final step in their adoption of me shortly after I was one. Whether they intended for the pictures to have signifance for me, or not, they did... They were photos of smiling friends and family holding me and caring about me.

As I think all children do, I loved to get out the family albums and snapshots, and when I did, I always had plenty of questions about me: the baby and small boy in the picture. My parents always seemed to use this time as an opportunity to express to me how important and loved I was, not just by them, but all the other people in the pictures. As I grew, my parents never tried to hide the fact that I was adopted, but did not advertise it either. If it was a relevant topic amongs their friends, it was discussed, and if it wasn't relevant, it didn't come up, because why should it?

As I aged and became more self-aware, my questions about my origins and birth became more in-depth, and the answers my parents gave me became more in-depth; in this way, I wasn't flooded with incomprehisible facts, but was allowed to explore the meanings and issues as I became mentally capable of understanding them.

It's just my opinion, but I don't think it could have been presented to me in a more successful way.

One last thing, and this is just my opinion... Feel free to agree or disagree:

I wish that well-intentioned aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends, well-wishers, and sometimes even adoptive-parents would stop telling adoptive children: "You know, adopted children are more special because they were chosen."

I appreciate that my parents adopted me, that they had love to give to a child, and that I was that child.

However, that whole "more special because they were chosen" statement seems to imply that I had better consider myself awfully lucky that my parents picked me out of all the other abandoned puppies down at the animal shelter... Or that they might have bought a new car that day, or new carpet, or a nice chuck-roast, but aren't I lucky that they adopted me instead? I think the statement is demeaning to both the adopted child, and the adopted parent. It rather harshly dismisses the child's identity as their own person, as well as discounts the blood, sweat and tears that the adoptive parents experience in deciding to adopt, and then during the wait for a child.