The Adoption Triad: The Adoptee part 1

Disclaimer:  I was not adopted, and I don't claim to know all of the feelings a person might have, but this is my view on things.  Remember if you disagree, please feel free to enlighten me, respectfully.  Thanks.

It's been seven months since I wrote my last installment of the Adoption Triad series.   I haven't forgotten that I have a very key and crucial piece to this puzzle to write.  In fact, I think about it several times a week as I sit down to type my daily blog posts.  I wonder, "Is today the day I write this post?"

Perhaps today is the day I write it and publish it, but at least today is the day I'm starting to write my feelings.  It was a little over a year ago that I realized that I really needed to start researching more about adoption.  I finally checked out a book -- the only book our library had -- on adoption:  Raising Adopted Children: A Manual for Adoptive Parents.  It's a somewhat outdated and very generalized book that gave an overview of adoption.  It never really went into much detail about any one type of adoption.  Despite that, I still remember learning something very important.

I remember that the author mentioned that at some point in an adopted child's life he/she will probably make statements and ask questions along the lines of "Why was I placed for adoption?  Why didn't my first parents want me?" or in the midst of frustration declare, "I wish I had never been adopted.  I want to go live with my birth mother/father!"  Many adoptive parents may feel challenged and threatened by these statements.

I don't want to try to remember what the author's actual words were because I don't want to misrepresent her, but I will tell you how I felt about this.  How many of us when we were kids or teenagers told our parents that we wished they weren't our parents, that "Sally's mom doesn't do that."  Or "If I lived with the Smiths, their mom wouldn't ever say that to me!" OR "I'm running away; I hate it here.  I wish you weren't my mom!"  Some of us could have been six, seven, or eight when we said these things, or we could have been thirteen or seventeen.  Depending on our age, it makes a difference the depth of those statements, and yet it still got me thinking. . .

Children will always question their parents.  It's in our natures to need to decide for ourselves.  God made us that way.  Children will be disappointed, resentful, hurt, questioning, curious, and longing for answers.  That is just the way it is.  Whether a child is adopted or not, a child will wonder "what if?".  The difference is that adoption adds another dimension, another depth.  As adoptive parents, it's our duty, our responsibility to not be threatened.  Sure, we'll want to take a step back and ask ourselves why our children may be asking these questions, but this does not mean that they do not love us!

The questions I had to ask myself were, "How would I handle this situation?  How do I want to be able to handle this situation? Does this scare me?"    After a lot of thought and self-searching, I realized that "No, this doesn't scare me because it's natural for a child to feel this way and to ask these questions.  I just need to know that this will happen, and that it's okay."

In complete honesty, I would love to be able to say to my child, "Would you like to call your birth mom or birth dad to talk about this?"  Or if my child runs out the door and says, "I'm going to live at my birth mom's/birth dad's," then I wouldn't have any problem calling up the birth parents and explaining the situation and talking it over together.  I want that relationship to be completely open, honest, and natural among us.  Yes, I'm probably speaking in ideal terms, but is it possible?  I believe so.

In talking to a friend over the last week, I reaffirmed my desire that I would love an adoption that isn't awkward at all.   Yes, those things take time because adoption is filled with resentment, hurt, pain, heartache, and awkwardness; but I would love a relationship with the birth parents where they are like family in my home where they can drop by any time, that we are friends.  If I see one of them in the store, it's not awkward, it's like seeing my good friend there and stopping and chatting and visiting.  We could pick up the phone and talk about anything, and it would be okay.  If one of us is hurting over adoption, we can talk about it.  Is this a fantasized idea?  Perhaps.  Do I think it's possible?  Yes. I do.  The key would to not push the relationship, but to have it develop naturally, but just like in any relationship, it takes work and time and patience and immense amounts of love and wanting it to work.  Yes, I think it's possible.

Now, I have gone off on a bit of a tangent, but I feel like I needed to introduce some of these ideas first.  I have much more to write about the adoptee and natural feelings that come and a difficult conversation I had with someone who was adopted.  It's been several months since we had our crucial conversation, and it's not that I haven't wanted to write what she told me, but I needed process it, digest it, and come to terms with what I really believe about adoption.

So, this post isn't "that post" that I wrote about in my first paragraph, but this is the beginning, the lead-in to that very personal post.