ON ADOPTION

GIVEN UP, GIVEN A CHANCE

As an adoptee, one thought that I really want to convey on the topic of adoption is this: I believe adoptive parents should try and maintain a balance between being too protective of their adoptive child, and accepting the reality that an adoptive child feels differently about themselves than do children of natural parents. It is a delicate balance to maintain, to be sure, and not an easy balance to achieve.

No matter how much love is shown to the adoptive child, or how much the parents try to show their adoptees that they belong in their family, the reality is, there is no getting around this feeling, (however slight), in the back of the adoptee's mind that that they just don't quite fit in. (By the way, not all adoptive parents choose to let their adoptive children know they were adopted, but I've known I was adopted for as long as I can remember).

Because of this feeling of not quite fitting in, some adoptive parents try to overcompensate for the fact that they didn't actually give birth to the child by holding on too tight to them. For example, my mother always told me how special I was because she "chose" me. She was always very overprotective of me. I rarely was permitted to sleepover at friends' houses, until I was a teenager, and then it was rare. Once I began dating or going out with friends, my curfew was 10 p.m. As I became older, it was moved up to 11 p.m., but it remained 11 p.m. until I left home. She worried about us all of the time. I was never allowed to attend a church camp, and my brother only went once. She was very reluctant to let either of us grow up and give us wings.

My thinking is that she felt that it had been so hard for her to be able to have two children to raise, that she didn't want to risk losing us, so she kept us on a short leash, so to speak. So, adoptive parents should realize that it is natural for an adoptee to occasionally experience feelings of inadequacies, a sense of not belonging, or moments of wondering, "what if (I hadn't been adopted by this couple)," but parents should not foster the feelings by babying the child or smothering them with affection.

Just one example of an instance where feelings of not fitting in could occur is in the area of Science classes at school. I recall several school years in which we would have a unit of study on "Hereditary traits." The study of these units can be very uncomfortable, and even a nightmare for some adopted children. Imagine a homework assignment in which you are to research the history of brown eyes within your family tree. The next morning, when you're called upon to share your findings, you either report no findings, or you just share the history of your adoptive parents, and pretend like you are just like every other student, while deep down, you feel as though you're keeping a secret from rest of the class.

Parents should just accept that these feelings are present, and do their best to help the child assimilate into their environment without feeling as though they have to convince the child that they are somehow "better" (for lack of a better term) than their peers, simply because they were chosen by their adoptive parents. What I'm trying to say is, resist the urge to treat them differently, even though, in reality, the child may feel as though they are somehow different. When the child is treated differently by the parents, it serves only to reinforce these feelings.

Family gatherings are also potential occasions for feelings of not belonging, especially if there are a lot of cousins in the mix. When I was a child, we would all gather at my grandparents' house for Christmas. My adoptive father has four brothers, and two sisters. From those families, I have (9) cousins, none of which were adopted. They all knew that my brother and I were adopted, and although the other children very rarely treated us any differently, there were times when I would question, "Are they thinking, 'You're not REALLY my cousin,'" or "Are they whispering about me behind my back?" (or other such nonsense). When you get older, these feelings seem to subside, but during childhood, they can seem like mountains. Perhaps if I had felt comfortable enough to talk these feelings over with my parents, they wouldn't have seemed so insurmountable. But I never discussed them, for fear that my parents wouldn't understand. I was afraid that they would feel as though they were failing, somehow.

This is why adoptive parenting is NOT for the faint-hearted. It should be entered into after much prayer, fasting, and seeking God. I feel it is far better for Christians to adopt than non-believers, because Christians better understand the dynamics of the relationship between our Heavenly Father and us, his "adoptees." (Ephesians 1:5)