Oddly enough, despite the fact that I am completely white without an ounce of tan in the middle of summer with white/blonde hair and my daughter is extremely tan, with dark curly hair, we constantly get asked if we are going to tell our daughter she is adopted. Really?!!
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| Super adorable!! But COME ON! Use your eyes...all 3 are my children 2 from growing in my tummy and 1 grew in my heart...I did not just "step out" on Reed lol. |
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This questions makes me laugh most of the time, for obvious reasons, but sometimes it makes me a little sad. Of course I am going to tell her! I am already telling her! It makes me sad to think that society still thinks it is acceptable to lie to your adopted child for their whole life by using a huge conspiracry theory type of cover up for one of the most happy events in our life.
Of course I am not an expert, but when I am dealing with the most important people in my life I tend to research A LOT. Everything I have read has stressed how important it is that neither the adopted child or the siblings ever have a moment in their life where they are sat down to be told the news that they are adopted or their sibling was adopted. It is just one of those things that child should use to describe themselves, such as, "I have brown curly hair, I have brown eyes, I am allergic to strawberries, I am adopted, I am 5 years old..." This is important because it is what makes you "you!" Keeping adoption a secret makes it seem like a bad or dirty thing. The child is obviously going to wonder "why did they not tell me I was adopted? Was there some other secret about this adoption they are not telling me?" It is important for Max and Jerry to know the Abilene is adopted because it is a part of their life story as well.
All children like to know where they come from, or how as Max puts it "how'd I get here?" So we have built on this and when we have story time we tell fun little stories about how everyone got here. Max is obsessed with it, but he gets it and it is a fun story that everyone likes to hear. Even though Abilene can't understand or even listen to her whole story we still tell her, partly so we get in the habit and so Max and Jerry can hear the story.
I do want to point out that I would happily talk to anyone who is considering adoption or anyone who is just interested in it. I do not have an issue with people asking questions. My issue is in the fact that you are asking highly personal questions in front of my children or people are asking while I am standing in line at Target and I DON'T KNOW YOU! What if I hadn't told my child she was adopted or what if Max and Jerry didn't know? Seems really rude to me. It also is important to me that it is not constantly pointed out that Abilene is different. In our heads she isn't different, we don't even see it half the time, but we are constantly reminded and so are my children that she is "like adopted." If you have questions please keep them in your head and ask them when my children are busy playing, I would be happy to answer in short or long version. I also realize that I can't control the world and i am lucky enough to live in a small enough town that these questions will soon stop and everyone will just see adoption as our family story.
Wow, that was a lot longer than I expected. Maybe I will write about other misconceptions later :)
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| Abilene is yelling "Adopted." Just kidding, but it probably will be one of her first words :) |
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