10 thoughts on conversations about adoption

My wife, Heather, posted the following on her Facebook page yesterday, and I have been given special dispensation to reproduce it here:

 I have three beautiful children through the wonderful gift of adoption.  Over the years I have had many conversations about adoption with well-meaning people.  Many of these people have no idea what it means to adopt, and therefore blunder into some innocent mistakes of etiquette.  Here are a few of my somewhat blunt thoughts on aspects of those conversations.

1. Know that when you ask me about my children’s family, I automatically assume you mean me and my husband.  So when I give you that confused look, I am just processing what you just asked and translating it into what you meant.  What you really meant was my children’s birth family or biological family.  Family of origin is also an acceptable term.

2. Know also that I am not a full time babysitter.  I am a mother.  I did not give birth to my children, but, as a very wise and dear woman told me once, they did not grow under my heart, but in it.

3. Yes, there are many differences between being an adoptive mother and one that had the privilege of carrying her child in her womb for nine months.  I can’t talk to you about pregnancy, labor and delivery, or breastfeeding.  But there still is postpartum depression.  It’s the low after you get off the roller coaster.  I have had two very short “pregnancies”, two very painful “miscarriages” and one fourteen-month “pregnancy”.  Actually, that last one was almost two years if you count it from the time we first heard about him.  I have been up at all hours of the night for feedings, diaper changes, sicknesses, and night terrors.  Just like any other mother.

4. If every person that wanted to have a baby had to go through the paperwork, background checks, and homestudies that border on confessions or intense psychotherapy sessions, then there would be a lot fewer babies out there.

5. Very important!  I have the utmost respect for my children’s birthmothers, and the choice that they all made to give birth, rather than terminate, their pregnancies.  I can’t fathom the difficult decisions they had to make to choose life, and the courage that it took to do so.  They are heroes to me.

6. When you talk about my children’s “real mom” it baffles me.  I am not a fake mom, last I checked.  I feed them, and clothe them, kiss their boo-boos, and comfort them.  I tuck them in at night with a bedtime story, kiss and a hug, prayers and more kisses and hugs.  It doesn’t get more real than that.  Oh, and did I mention changing the diapers and cleaning up the vomit?

7. Nature versus nurture.  No, it doesn’t make it any easier knowing that I have no genetic influence on behavior, aptitude and personality.  It makes it harder because I then blame everything on nurture.

8. I love my children and would do anything for them, wouldn’t you?

9. When you talk about having children of your own, once again, I might give you that slightly confused look.  My children are my own.  They do not belong to someone else.  I have the birth certificates, with our names as parents on them, to prove it.  I also have the memories, both good and bad, to prove it.

10. For those of my Christian friends, understanding and/or appreciating adoption should be somewhat easy.  We are adopted sons and daughters of God, called to be full and real members of the family of God, the Church, with all the rights and graces and privileges of one born to Him. Children who are adopted share fully in the life and love of their adopted parents; their sonship and daughership is real, not merely metaphorical or poetic.

These points might seem a bit negative.  But that is only because the point of this note is to highlight those aspects of conversations that seem a bit odd or off to me, when well intentioned people try to converse with me about a subject that can admittedly be sensitive.  But they do so without realizing how they should be sensitive, and charge ahead, full speed, not realizing the offense they cause.  So maybe this will help someone in the future who may find themselves in a conversation with another adoptive mother.  I, personally, am almost past any shock or hurt feelings.  I’ve literally heard it all before.

To her last point, we've now been adoptive parents for over ten years, and we've heard a lot of encouraging, kind, and lovely comments during that time. But we've also heard some strange and even surreal remarks, oftentimes made directly to us by good people who don't seem to get that saying things such as, "Oh, it must be strange raising chidren who aren't yours...", or, "Will you let them meet their real parents some day?" are, well, hurtful. And, frankly, weird. I'm convinced that there are some folks who cannot, for whatever reason, wrap their heads or hearts around what adoption is and is not. Be that as it may, I think Heather's comments, far from being negative, are both heartfelt and helpful.

Comments

[Ed Peters]

Really, really well done. Thx, guys.

[Brad Fallon]

Great post. I love reading your blog. I admire those people who loves to embrace children as their own through adoption. You will be blessed more for your kindness and love for others.

[annina]

Yes, well done. Thanks!

I'd like to mention that it is very difficult and painful for adopted children to hear similar insensitive comments. As a multiracial child I heard it all! It hurts an adopted child of ANY age. Even as a 22 year old college student I remember being shocked and dismayed when a Professor I respected said it was great that I felt loved by my adopted parents, but that no one could love an adopted child in the same way they could love their own flesh and blood. I did managed to blurt out that I thought my father would die for me. Which was something I had always felt from the earliest age. That my daddy would take any suffering, gladly, to protect his wife and two daughters. The Professor was a little shocked, and I think he felt sorry for me.He really didn't understand that love was a choice not an accident of birth.

I promised by dying father that I would care for my mother when he was very ill and preparing to die. My husband and our children have done just that, for nine years. My mom, 90 now, has been totally bedridden for four years, and thank goodness she doesn't hear some on the stupid, cruel things I've heard. Various health professionals have said, "It's so nice you're willing to do this since she's not even your real mother." This doesn't hurt me now, I am old enough now to just pray for these confused people who just don't understand motherhood, fatherhood, and love.

Enjoy your beautiful family Carl and Heather!

[Teo Matteo]

Thanks Carl and Heather, my wife and I adopted two children from a Central American Country and we appreciated the list you have made. I would add that whenever a person does a horrific act and the press is scrambling to get info on the perpetrator i tend to tense up. I'm afraid that the killer is going to have been adopted and the press will forever refer to the criminal as: the adpoted son ... not fair, not sensible, not good.... Why dont they in the press say: 'the only child of...'?... sorry Carl, i'm just emoting

Thanks again, adoption is love.

[Bob]

My situation wasn't exactly the same, but I think the sentiments are still true. My mother remarried when I was four and my younger brother two. I still, at age 44, bristle when I am asked about my "real father." My real father is the man who took on the responsibility of not only marriage, but the care of two children not biologically his.
I can honestly say that any positive qualities I possess as a man, I "inherited" from the man I proudly call my father.
In this day and age with the high percentage of single mother homes and the lack of a father presence in the lives of many children, anyone who looks at a child and says, "I take you as my own" is a mother and a father in the truest way.
God bless you, Carl, and your wife for being the faces of love to those whom God has placed in your care.

[karen]

Thank you for this post! We adopted two baby girls from China (two separate adoptions). They have lived their whole lives (less 10 months) with us. The question I often get that puts that puzzled look on my face is, "Are they sisters?" I just stare at the person and raise an eyebrow and say, "Of course they're sisters!" They usually restate their question using the phrase "biological sisters". Honestly, I fail to see why that matters.

But it is a funny feeling in my brain when I get that, like being told grass is blue or the sky is green.

[TonyR]

annina,

My wife and I are in the process of foster to adopt an infant boy. He has been with us since he was 3 days old. He is now a little over 6 months old. I can't imagine being able to love a child more then I love "my" little boy and I would die for him.

[Achilles]

You guys are beautiful, thanks for sharing that! I call my parents who raised me "my real parents" because they are. God bless you all!

[Mary L. Berg]

I am a 57 year old "adopted" daughter, who found her birth mother. My birth mother didn't want to be found and had never told her family that they had a 1/2 sister out there. When we met, I was asked what bond did we have??? I said that her blood ran in my veins. I continued to tell her that I was raised in a loving caring family and she didn't seem to care. I had brought photos for her to look at and she had no interest in that either. Our visit ended with her allowing me to give her a hug and to take her picture. When she returned to her vehicle, I told her I would keep her in my thoughts and prayers and she kind of looked at me with questionable eyes, that kind of said why would you do that?? I had little more contact with her for the last 3 years, until she called me and told me that she was in her third bout with cervical cancer. Before we hung up, I told her I loved her. It came from the Holy Spirit, because I don't know where else it could have come from.
About 3 months later, a 1/2 sister called me and told me that she had died. We are planning on meeting and I am very thankful to Our Lord for that.
My adopted mother's reaction to my finding my birth mother was to go ahead and send my letter and that things that happened 50 some years ago where in the past. She also knew that I had wanted to find her from an early age.
I also have had thoughts over the years that I could have been aborted and not even be here. I could also have grown up in a unloving family.
I am very pro adoption and I am in awe of adoptive parents, Praise the Lord there are people like that out there.
I hope that my comments from an "adopted" child will be an inspiration to all adoptive families out there.

[Charlie B]

Carl, great post. Levels of "openness" in adoption plans began to appear in the early 80s. We adopted two children from a Catholic Charities agency in the mid and late 1980s. We agreed to exchange letters and photos but not last names or addresses. Everthing went through the agency. This was a comfortable and workable covenant. Our children have always known how they came to us. Over time, they got to "meet" their birthparents thru letters and pictures. To this day, there have been no "issues" in these relationships. We think the agency's approach to adoption from the beginning is one factor.

25 years later, we recently met one set of birthparents. It was wonderful. Though they have not yet met their/our son, he is open to that some day. They have had some written contact as he neared his 20s. We hope to meet our daughter's birthmother some day, though she lives far far north of us. We suspect we will. She and our daughter are Facebook friends.

I know not every experience of adoption is as wonderful as ours. But I remember one of the early information meetings at the agency, listening to testimonies of adoptees, adoptive couples, and women who had released a child for adoption. I came to the perhaps unorthodox conclusion that adoption could be an 8th sacrament. The Paschal Mystery, for me, is written all over it. It may be oversimplified, but here's how I see it:

A young woman, pregnant with life, endures an "agony in the garden." She ultimately makes a choice to let go of her child. She walks into our life and releases her child to us. We, who's agony in the garden as been the bewilderment of infertility and barrenness, receive this gift unworthily. She walks away with our barrenness, ties her hands, and we are blessed with the fullness of life.
The human race, barren with sin, receives the Son, "pregnant" with Life. Jesus in effect empties this Life, carrying our barrenness to the tomb, and the Father ties his hands. And we, unworthy, are blessed with the gift of Life eternal.

Through adoption, I came to more fully understand Paul's words about being God's adopted children. We've been so blessed. I guess that's why I consider it a sacrament.

[Nick Thomm]

Carl,

Great piece. Congratulate your wife for a candid and informative discussion. I was adopted and my wife and I have an adopted 10-month-old and I know well how the best of intentions can come off so badly. God bless Carl!