Real Parents, Real Children, Real Families

I first read this post in the blog of a friend. I cried the first time I read it, and still do. She gave me permission to include it in my own blog. I think it is important for any one who comes in contact with adoptive parents and their families to understand that certain comments, though well-intentioned, can be very painful for our families. The portion from my friends' blog is in italics.

My Own Child

I Did not plant you, True.
But when the season is done,
When the alternate Prayers for sun
And for rain are counted,
When the pain of Weeding
And the Pride of Watching are through,
I will hold you high.
A shining sheaf
Above the thousand
Seeds grown wild
Not my planting,
But by Heaven my harvest
My Own Child.
-Author Unknown

We’ve become sensitive, it seems. Certain phrases uttered by the news media in light of recent celebrity adoptions, or even phrases mentioned by our family and friends can make us cringe so easily.It wasn’t always that way. Before we pursued adoption we didn’t realize that many of the things we’ve said in the past may not only be offensive to adoptive parents, but may hurt their kids as well. We bring you this post not to make you feel badly if you are one of the friends or family who’ve said these things to us or other adoptive families, but so that maybe you’ll understand the weight of what you might say to future adoptive families you encounter.

Don’t assume that couples who have faced infertility want to become pregnant after adopting. Telling countless stories of a friend of a friend who got pregnant right after adopting belittles the choice to adopt. And, while everyone seems to have one of those stories, the statistics say it happens in less than 5% of previously infertile couples. Furthermore, don’t assume that everyone who adopts isn’t able to become pregnant. Unless you like to peep in other folks’ medicine cabinets, how do you know that we aren’t counting on our birth control pills to keep us from having biological children?

Please don’t ask us for details about our children’s birth families. We are the guardians of their stories. Our children are told their adoption stories a little at a time, and when they are old enough they will have all the details to share as they choose. It’s not that we are hiding some juicy secret, it is their story to tell, not ours.

Please don’t tell us that it doesn’t matter what race our children are, that love is color blind, and that our small towns are “getting better” in regards to diversity. Last I checked, my hometown school district had something like 1% or less Asian student population. I’ll consider it getting better when it’s closer to 10, 25, or 50 percent, or hey, how about our kids in the majority for once? Race does and will matter for our kids. It will matter to them that they don’t look like anyone else in their family. It will matter to them when their family and friends who love them minimize their experience of racism. Racism continues to exist and it’s a cold hard fact that our kids have and will face it. I have to comment on this because I have heard comments people make to us about myself and my children. Their comments are not always overtly racist but they make us, and especially my children, feel uncomfortable.

Don’t tell our kids how lucky they are that we adopted them. We’re not martyrs or saints. Our children shouldn’t have to grow up feeling indebted to us for adopting them. Their fate, had we not adopted them, was not necessarily a life of destitution. All children should have the right, not luck, to a have a loving family. We are the lucky ones for having the opportunity to parent them.

Don’t introduce our children as “Mira and James, who were adopted from South Korea” or “their adopted children.” Yes, we did adopt. Obviously. But adoption is not the only part of our children’s identities. How we came to be family is only part of who we are. I’m amazed that perfect strangers think it’s OK to ask what happend to our kids' "real" parents or if we are able to have children “of our own.” Imagine how a preschool aged child feels when they repeatedly overhear Mom and Dad being asked about their “real” parents, or overhearing comments that assume they are not children of our own. We are a real family. These children are our own. When James wakes eight times in the night and looks to us for comfort, he is our own. When Mira throws a tantrum in the grocery store and we are left to deal with it, she is our own. When we walk through the door and they have smiles for us, they are our own. When they laugh together like all siblings do, they are our own.

I think as an adoptive parent, we find it important that people understand that we are a real family and that these children are our real children. As I've talked with other adoptive moms, it is also important that we comment on the importance of our childrens first moms, birthmoms, moms in Korea. We are not their only family. Our children have mothers, fathers, maybe siblings in another country. When I think of my boys moms, I am so overwhelmed. These women are amazing people. They are just as important in my childrens' life as I am. These women created these children, they carried them, delivered them, and then made what was likely the most difficult decision of their lives... to let someone else raise them. Maybe these women knew during pregnancy that they wouldn't be able to parent them...maybe they tried to be a parent and discovered how difficult it was. Either way, like in the US, they had opportunities to terminate their pregnancy and did not. They chose to give life to these babies. Imagine how difficult it would be to look at the face of your newly born baby and know that you would not be parenting them. That you would not see their first steps, hear their first words, rock them to sleep, or comfort them when they were sick. Only a mother could love their child so much that they could make the choice to let someone else parent and have those experiences. Maybe these women have other children, and maybe they don't. Regardless, they became mothers when their child was born, and they remain mothers to this day...a real mother. They have earned the right to be called 'mother,' and I will gladly share that title and role with them in my sons' lives. These women (and the foster families which is a whole other blog) are as much a part of our family as any other family member. They gave us our children. What an incredible gift! They made a choice that is unimaginable to me... and they did it out of love. Out of love for their child...because they are a mom, and they always will be.

When I think of the boys' moms, I'm always reminded of the story in 1 Kings 3:16-27. It is about two mothers who each had a child. One baby died, and in the night its' mother took the baby from the other mother. They went to King Solomon both claiming to be the mother of the living child. He asked for a sword and said to solve the problem he would cut the child in two and each woman could have a half. The real mother cried out to give the baby to the other woman so it wouldn't die. King Solomon said, 'Give the baby to the woman who wants him to live, for she is the mother!' Granted, my children likely wouldn't have died if they had stayed with their first moms. But these moms were willing to let someone else raise their children so they could have the life they thought they should have.

“A mother’s love for her child is like nothing else in the world…it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.” Agatha Christie