I’ve been told that adoption is more of a marriage than a birth. I think that is pretty accurate and the older
the child is at the time of adoption, the more of a marriage it is. At first I thought that because we got D when he was so young, that this wouldn’t really be as true for us, but it is. Think about the differences between a birth
and a marriage. A birth is when a human
life enters the world not ever having known anything else but his mother and
father. I add father because even though
he hasn’t physically touched his father until birth, he is still made up of DNA
and other physical things that came directly from his father—things that
physically touched him. This child has
known no other life besides his own and in some degree, that of his parents. An adopted child has a history before you—family,
friends, DNA, culture, and so many other things—and that’s okay. It’s even good, so embrace it.
As I’ve sat in numerous adoption and foster parent classes, I have been
privy to many, many discussions, some which included me, and some to which I
not-so-subtly eavesdropped. It has been
interesting to hear how many prospective adoptive parents would like to erase
their potential child’s past and “move on”.
Things like drug and alcohol abuse, neglect, mental illness and so many
more issues that have plagued various birth parents lives, become the reasons
for criticism. And keep in mind that
many adoptions happen as the result of very coherent, deliberate choices by
wonderful birth parents to place their children with families because they just
don’t feel that they can give those children good lives. Those choices are made out of a great love
for their child and extreme unselfishness.
But, as one who has adopted out of our local foster care, I can say that
most adoptions aren’t the result of a choice like that. I believe that adoptive parents really need
to face this fact: adoption is not the
same as a biological birth. Accept
it. Mourn the loss of it, if that
bothers you, and get over it. It’s not
the same and it never will be and that’s not a bad thing. It’s just a different thing.
I remember sitting through a wonderful class that was all about how we
need to not cut off all ties from a child’s birth family or the life they had
before adoption. The instructors taught
about how continued visits with biological family long after adoption can be
most beneficial to the child. They
taught us to not throw away clothes or blankets or anything from the child’s
life before adoption because no matter how tattered and dirty those things
might seem to us, they are one of the few connections that child has with their
biological family and with a former life that is becoming more and more distant
in his memory. They talked about not
changing their names (especially in older children) because it may be the only
thing their mother ever gave them. They
talked about the difficulty in still having contact with the biological family,
but that in many cases, that contact was very healing for a child. They discussed how many adoptive parents don’t
want the hassle of more extended family, or regular visits, or dealing with
people that aren’t their own family. They
said often adoptive parents are insecure that a child might perhaps love
someone else more than them, and maybe want to return to live with that family,
but that on the contrary, usually what happens is that the adopted child
realizes this was the better choice for him and is happier to have discovered
that for himself. Ironically, right
after the bulk of this class was taught, I heard an adoptive father turn to
someone else during a break and say “Well, I’m severing those ties as soon as
possible. I know what’s best for my
child and they aren’t it.” I was totally
surprised that he had missed every single principle taught in that class, and I
felt sadness at how his child may feel, not only with his parents’ attitude
towards where he came from, but also without that connection that might have
helped him to heal more quickly and more completely. Adopted children need to sort through all
these things at their own pace, not at a pace that is more convenient for us. A marriage is two people entering in to a
contract, with risks on both sides. Don’t
forget it’s a risk for the child to take you, too, and he never asks for you to
leave your past behind.
Adoption is a wonderful thing.
If you have read any of my blog entries, then you already know how I
feel about it. But it is the marrying of
two worlds. It is two or more people
that aren’t blood-related coming together just like in a marriage. As you willingly step into that union,
remember that you are taking that child to have and to hold from this day
forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in
health, to love and to cherish until…well, I know the traditional vows ends with
“til death do us part”, but I believe in the eternal nature of families, so I
will replace that with “forever and ever”.
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