From Guest Blogger Shelise Gieseke, click here>> for more information on Adoption Mosaic Bloggers. Shelise’s thoughts on this post were inspired by the post What to Tell — And Whenon the blog Research-China.org
Talking about adoption with your children is a delicate balance – one that parents have to learn because it is not necessarily an intuitive skill. If parents have to learn how to talk about adoption, whether it is about birth families, orphanages, or abandonment, then adopted youth definitely need to learn how to talk about adoption, and how to navigate the complexities that come with it. If parents are not modeling how the conversation about adoption goes, then how will their kids learn the tools to talk with their parents, or others, about adoption?
I think one issue is the absence of challenging education adoptive parents receive prior to adopting, and the lack of quality resources in general. Talking about adoption can be tricky and conversations may trigger intense feelings not only for the child, but for the parent too. It’s important for the parent to be prepared for this eventuality.
Conversations with your adopted child about adoption don’t always have to be about you and your kid(s). Sometimes, especially for emotionally loaded topics, it is easier to talk about the topic one step removed. As many parents know, movies and books can be powerful tools. Watching an adoption-related movie and talking about the characters, or reading a book and then talking through it are different ways to approach the subject. It is often surprising what comes up when you are in the safety of perceived objectivity.
It should never be the responsibility of the young adoptee to initiate a conversation about such a significant topic with their parents. Should adoptees be EMPOWERED to speak about adoption with their parents? Absolutely. Should kids be the sole guide for their parents? Never. Note: There is a difference between knowing your child and how to talk with them, knowing when they don’t want to talk, or knowing what is appropriate for them as opposed to making them be the initiator. Silence or saying “I don’t want to talk” may mean “I don’t know how”.
Adoptive parenting can be a fine line to walk with many important feelings to balance. Parents will wobble and have to redistribute to maintain the balance, but it is the parents who need to: do the work, set the example and lead their kids to a place of power in their own adoption experience.
From Guest BloggerMelissa Konomosvisit her atYoon’s Blur, and click here>> for more information on Adoption Mosaic Bloggers.
After reuniting with my biological parents last year, my husband asked me whether my need to conceive biological children had diminished at all.
(Just for clarity’s sake, we both want to have children, so he was not asking because he was hoping to escape the simultaneous joys and horrors of raising children. But rather he was asking a very valid question based on previous conversations, in which I had expressed a desire, almost a longing need, to conceive a biological child.)
Clearly, as an adoptee, I have never known what it is to share a biological connection with someone else. Earlier in our relationship, as my husband and I would discuss whether we wanted to conceive a child, time and time again, my answer was an emphatic, almost desperate, “Yes.”
There was never a doubt as to why I answered, Yes. Having a biological child seemed the only way that I could somehow know and connect with my biological mother and father. It seemed the only way that I might be able to gain insight into what my biological mother experienced as she carried me for nine months and subsequently relinquished me. It also seemed the only way that I would be able to understand what it means to share a biological connection with another human being.
But now, that I have met my biological mother and father, along with uncles, aunts, and cousins, and hence now have opportunity to build relationships with those who share my biology, it would seem plausible that my “need” to have biological children would diminish or at least change as a result.
As of now, surprisingly so, meeting my biological family has actually seemed to have the opposite effect of what would be predicted—it seems to have increased my desire to want biological children.
I can identify several contributing factors.
The first factor I’ll mention is simply that reunion does not “fix it.” There can be a well intentioned but false assumption that once an adoptee reunites with his or her biological family, it fixes everything—all the questions find answers, all the loss and pain find healing, and so forth.
This is not true for more reasons than I have space to elucidate here. But in short, reunion cannot magically redeem all the years, often decades, that have been lost. Although reunion has given me some answers, in many ways it has served to also give me more questions. Although reunion has brought some healing, it has also awakened old pain while stirring new pain. Although reunion has allowed me to meet my biological family, it cannot compensate for the 35 years that have been lost between us.
Even though I now have the hope of building a relationship with my biological mother, she and I will never share the moments when I took my first steps or spoke my first words. She and I will never know the thrill of when I first learned to ride a bike or when I won a soccer game. She and I will never know the tender moments when my first love broke my heart or conversely when my husband and I fell in love and eventually married.
She was not there and will never be able to be there for those crucial moments of my development growing from child to woman. She has missed the first 35 years of my life, and nothing we do can ever retrieve or restore all those moments of growing up that have been lost between us—except in some symbolic, metaphorical way—that is, through conceiving a biological child.
Hence, secondly, having a biological child, at least for me, lures me in as an opportunity for redemption for all of us. My Omma and I could share in the moments of raising my child, her grandchild. She could be there for her grandchild in the way that she could not be there for me, while I could give to my child what I never had—a relationship with a family that is both biological and relational. My Appa would also have, in a way, a second chance to do things differently.
A third reason that I can identify for wanting biological children even more so now that I have met my biological mother and father is that I fear losing them all over again. Some day, I know that they will die. So, I tell myself that if I have a biological child, the trauma of losing them a second time will perhaps be minimized if I can look at my biological child and see them in him or her. Without a child through whom I can maintain a biological connection to the parents that I lost 35 years ago and will lose again some day, I fear that the connection I now have will be lost and severed again, forever, when they die.
So, you see, at least for me, meeting my biological mother and father has not abated my desire to have biological children. Rather it has intensified and amplified it.
Now, of course, I share all this knowing that having a child for these reasons is a dangerous thing. I don’t want to bring a child into this world assigning him or her with the job of redeeming the lost hopes and dreams of his or her mother and grandparents. (Alanis Morissette wrote a very affecting song years ago about parents who do just this entitled, “Perfect.”) If I do ever have a biological child, I am going to have to be hyper aware of my own issues to ensure that I don’t project them onto my child—the aforementioned being only a few of the many issues.
I am simply sharing all of this in an attempt to explain, with sincerity and a somewhat uncomfortable honesty, what goes on in my mind and heart as an adoptee regarding the question that titles this post, “Did meeting my biological family diminish my desire to conceive biological children?”
I am not purporting that my answers to this question are right or wrong—they just are. As adoptees, we face complex psychological issues surrounding identity and relationships and just about everything else in life. The issue of biological children is no different.
I realize the emotional baggage I carry, and the potential that exists that I may strap that baggage onto my children. This is all the more reason for me to be aware of it and to make it apparent to others—not simply for my children’s sake, but for the sake of others who also occupy this vast and complex world of the adoption experience.
This video is from Kevin Hofmann who blogs at My Mind On Paper. Kevin has recently made the leap to video blogging, these are his thoughts on Sandra Bullock’s recent adoption:
From Guest BloggerMelissa Konomosvisit her atYoon’s Blur, and click here>> for more information on Adoption Mosaic Bloggers.
I am a Korean-American adoptee who met my biological parents for the first time (last year in June of 2009) since my relinquishment in 1975. Since then, I have officially entered into what is often referred to as “post-reunion.”
Post reunion often receives less attention, I think, in part, because it is less glamorous and less emotionally climactic than the process of search and reunion. Hearing the story of how I searched for seven long years and the details of the first moments of coming face to face with my Omma and my Appa are much more enthralling and riveting. It is this phase of the adoption experience that brings simultaneous tears to our eyes and smiles to our mouths. But the actual reunion is only the beginning of a long, and often arduous and daunting, process. I find it unfortunate that post-reunion is so grossly neglected, because it can often be the stage in the process that can last the longest, can be the most fragile and complicated, and requires long-term support that is often lacking or underdeveloped. Read the rest of this entry »
The adoption world was shocked and horrified when news of Torry-Ann Hanson’s adoption disruption broke earlier this month. Along with her mother, Nancy Hanson, Torry placed 7 year old Russian adoptee, Artyom Savelyev, on a plane to Russia, accompanied by nothing but a note.
I’m hesitant to draw firm conclusions about this situation until more information surfaces. However, for those of you who are following this case, or have just heard about it here. Following are several links with more information. Read the rest of this entry »
I was puzzled by the debate over adoption on the census. I couldn’t figure out why some people felt that checking off “adopted child” was demeaning to their child and why they equated this with adoptees being considered “less than.” And then I asked myself this question:
What if the debate over having to check “biological child” or “adopted child” were reversed? What if people were upset about having to check off “biological child” because they thought their biological child might feel differentiated and less than? Read the rest of this entry »
From Guest Blogger Kevin D. Hofmann. Visit him at mymindonpaper.wordpress.com and click here>> for more information on Adoption Mosaic Bloggers
“She couldn’t take care of him, so she gave him up for adoption.”
This was always the reply my older brother would give. It was in response to the question, “What happened to his real mom?”
Like the synchronicity of an expensive Swiss watch, this scenario always played out the same right after meeting someone new when I was an adolescent. The inconsistency of skin colors between my family and me was a dead give away. I was adopted, no question about it.
When I was introduced as their son or brother, there was an artificial acceptance by the children. Then once the adults left my new friends would begin the volley of questions.
“He’s your brother?” They would ask, as if my darker skin had the power to make me invisible or deaf.
“Yep.” My brother would respond.
“How?” The curious and uninhibited kids would ask.
“He’s adopted.” My brother would quickly say. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve been thinking a lot about minorities and power and privilege lately. My thoughts come out of my experiences as a white adoptee.
Adoptees are in the minority in this culture. Most people are not relinquished, and get raised by at least one biological relation. Being part of this minority has enabled me to experience what it’s like to feel silenced and, oftentimes, what it’s like to be an outsider looking in at a culture that is based on blood relations, and a culture that asks me to behave as if I’ve grown up with blood relations.
Being white has enabled me to have the experience of being an insider. Though I still have far to go (and the journey will never actually be over), I’ve traveled from less to more understanding of what people of color go through in this culture. Reflecting on what I’ve learned from that particular journey so far, I realized something completely unexpected: I do understand the resistance of some non-adopted folks and adoptive parents to really listening to adult adoptees.
When those in any minority speak out and express “negative” feelings or criticism, the responses from the dominant culture and those in positions of power/privilege can often range from various forms of not listening/caring to outright attacks and attempts to silence those in the minority by casting them as “angry,” “troubled,” or “troublemakers,” etc.
Other responses by those in the dominant culture can range from feeling attacked, becoming fearful that they’re going to say or do something wrong, and/or finding subtle (and not so subtle ways) to not engage, or be an ally. If you’re in a dominant culture, it can be quite uncomfortable to have your eyes opened to a different/expanded reality. At a certain point it’s easy for discomfort to equal retreat.
And we can’t forget that people are usually taught to think of disagreement as something that’s automatically antagonistic, and discomfort as something to be avoided. Most of us aren’t taught how to respond to disagreement. Difference itself is often considered uncomfortable, and something to be silenced, ignored, made fun of, or pitied.
We need to talk about all of these “differences” and how they make us uncomfortable.
Let’s stop being afraid of talking about race, about adoption, about sexual orientation, etc. Let’s stop speaking in code, and be up front about how we feel.
Let’s commit to being honest about where we are on our journey as adoptive parents, birth/first parents, and adoptees. Let’s agree to be honest when we’re having our buttons pushed. Let’s commit to staying open and actually listen to one another.
This is an invitation to stick with the discomfort and keep going.
One Tier at a Time: One Adoptive Mother’s Climb to Racial Awareness and Parenting (thoughts originated from postings at Adoptive Families Circle)
I am the mother of a transracial family. I have a five year old black son and a two year old biracial son via donor. I feel like I have reached a new tier in my racial awareness in the last year. I have gone from thinking (about five years ago) something like this; “Oh yeah I get it-because look at my family, I have to get it.” to “WHOA I don’t get it at all. I have so much work to do, where do I begin?” (Actually, I am always going to be in this phase, my reading, connecting, asking questions, reading, connecting phase) to “We have to talk about this, about RACE, about what our children are experiencing all the time.” And I do talk about it all the time. Read the rest of this entry »
A friend of mine let me in on a conversation she had with her husband last week. It was initially in reference to international adoption and went something like this:
A: If we were to adopt would you be upset if the child didn’t call you “daddy.”
B: Well, yes, a bit. I would want them to call me “daddy.”
A: But what if we were to adopt, say, your niece?
B: Well in that case no, I wouldn’t expect them to call me “daddy”
A: Why not?
B: Because they already have a daddy.
Put so simply, it makes you realize how easily and how often birth/first parents are completely erased from the lives of the adoptive family, as if they don’t exist. But the fact is, all adoptive children already have a daddy. They already have a mommy too. Can you imagine how the face of adoption would change if we all kept this reality in the forefront of our consciousness rather than tucking it away out of sight out of mind? What an amazing thing it would be if we could celebrate each of our parents (or children’s parents) without value judgments or guilt, but with openness and love.
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From Guest Blogger Shelise Gieseke, click here>> for more information on Adoption Mosaic Bloggers. Shelise’s thoughts on this post were inspired by the post What to Tell — And When on the blog Research-China.org
A friend of mine let me in on a conversation she had with her husband last week. It was initially in reference to international adoption and went something like this:
