Reunion – The Whole Family
I attended Adoption Mosaic’s first ever Reunion Panel this past weekend. The panel was split into two portions. In the morning we heard from adoptees who were in the early stages of their reunion journey. The afternoon was reserved for adoptees and their birth parents who had been reunited for ten years or more.
It was a profound experience listening to their stories, and I learned so much about the emotional investment and process that is involved in beginning, and sustaining a reunion for over 20 years. One of the things that most impressed me was seeing these families who had been in reunion for so long, and how they had all reached normalcy in their concept of family and kinship.
Reunion has two very different subjective connotations. On one hand it’s seen as a connection of separated (birth) families. On another hand it can be seen as destroying the connections of existing (adoptive) families. My question is why are these concepts mutually exclusive?
Adoptive families, more so than the mainstream population, know that families are not only made, they are created. Kinship systems are defined by blood, but they are also defined by love (and, well, laws). If adoptive families are more able to use out-of-the-box-thinking when it comes to the concept of family, isnt it then just a small step further to conceive of a greater family system that includes not only the adoptive family, but the birth family as well?
Not to say that any of this is simple. Connecting different families, in the case of reunion or in the case of open adoptions that occur on the outset of adoption, can be complicated, emotional and even messy. But honestly, aren’t most families, in general, complicated, emotional and messy?
I am so grateful to have been able to see first-hand, on the Reunion Panel, adoptive and birth families who are making it work, and who even love and appreciate each other. I left hopeful and inspired.
We blend our families through marriage all the time. We don’t always love or understand “the in-laws” but we don’t question their right to be considered a part of our family. Shouldn’t it be the same for birth families?
Here is another blogger’s take on the Reunion Panel
