Hello Blogville friends! It looks like I lost my math skills briefly and published this blog on Jan 7th instead of January 14th (to keep up with my every second Tuesday post schedule). So, in case you haven't read it yet, here is The Market. 

Welcome to 2025, and welcome back, it is so nice to see you. This morning I am drinking a camomile tea, for its stress reducing properties. As an adult adopted person I feel it is important to open up a dialogue about adoption topics (and sometimes other topics too) that impact on so many of us. 


Today might be a tough read. I want to start a dialogue about recruitment of adoptive families for children. At my age, I can still remember a couple of Canadian adoption recruitment strategies from my childhood that stood out to me, even as a young child. If there had been shopping channels back then, a television show called Family Finder would have reminded me of one, except people would have been shopping for children. If I had known the term back then, I think this show made me feel more like a ‘commodity’ than a human being. I vividly remember my brother watching this show and asking our parents to ‘please, please, please’ get him a brother. He would actually pick out boys he saw on this show and suggest my parents call to enquire about adopting him. To this day, I really cannot understand why my parents continued to let us watch that show. I do remember feeling grateful that I was already adopted and that I didn’t have to go on the show to find a family.


There was also a newspaper column (written by Helen Allen) that appeared in the Toronto Telegram and the Toronto Star (1964-1982) and was dedicated to the recruitment of adoptive families for “hard-to-place”children. The column was called, “Today’s Child” and it was initially launched in an effort to reduce the social “stigma” of adopting “non-white” children. I vaguely remember seeing photos of children in a newspaper but I do not imagine I saw these Toronto papers much while growing up in my Northern Ontario community. So I did some research. 


In the Journal of Childhood Studies (Vol. 46 No. 4), Daniella Bento, Taryn Hepburn, and Dale Spencer authored an article called: “Compensating for Stigma: Representations of Hard-to-Adopt Children in “Today’s Child”. They were studying how stigma and values were attached to children featured in the column and the compensatory strategies required to manage the stigma and make adoption in general, and particularly adoption of non-white children, socially acceptable. I would encourage you to read the full article to really get a sense of how this type of advertising adoption of ‘hard-to’adopt’ children devalued them. 


I learned that initially, Children’s Aid Societies worried about the harm of ‘advertising’ children and only four agencies initially participated in this very public recruitment plan. However, when 18 of the first 23 children featured children were adopted, agencies across Ontario began signing up to feature their children. 


But a newspaper picture and article really could not showcase the living and breathing actual child; not like showcasing the children live and in person on television. So, a television program called Family Finder, was created on CFTO. I think it is important to note that where children understood and could consent to being on the show, this was done. For some children, their worker consented on their behalf. It seems like the television show was successful in encouraging people to consider older children, sibling sets, interracial adoptions, and adopting children with special needs. It appears that adoptive parents were more open to considering parenting these children because they had gotten to ‘know’ them through the media.


Was it that prospective adoptive parents could see the child’s personality, rather than focus on their missing limb? Was it showcasing how a large sibling group got along and were determined to stay together? Was it just that television and newspapers were able to reach so many more families than the Children’s Aid Societies could? At any rate, Helen Allen became known as an adoption advocate and the “fairy godmother of adoption”.


Though no longer available in those very public forums due to confidentiality, adoption recruitment strategies continue today. For example, according to their website, the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption hires recruiters; these are adoption professionals whose goals are to recruit families for older children in foster care. The website notes that children are up to three times more likely to find an adoptive family through this program. You may have noticed the donation boxes in Wendy’s Restaurants to support the Foundation’s work. As you may, or may not be aware, Dave Thomas was adopted as an infant, which likely led to his passion to have children moved out of foster care into adoptive families as quickly as possible. 


In Ontario, there is a recruitment strategy called the Adoption Resource Exchange (ARE) where approved adoptive applicants can review photos and profiles of children and youth who are currently available for adoption  in Ontario. There is a semi-annual in-person conference where workers and prospective adoptive parents can meet and discuss children or youth and their potential for a match. This is a private event in terms of attendees being connected with a Children’s Aid Society, or a Private Adoption Practitioner. Keeping up with technology, there is also a platform where prospective adoptive parents can view pictures, profiles, and even videos in some cases, of children available for adoption in Ontario. Again, it is not a public forum, and prospective adoptive parents must be granted access to the confidential website. I feel the need to point out that the approval process for adoptive applicants can best be described as an arduous journey, immediately followed by a difficult selection, or matching, process that frequently ends in disappointment. Simply put, it is not an easy process for anyone.


In my career as an adoption worker, I too, prepared profiles of children and youth to assist in the recruitment of adoptive parents. I even drove a photographer around from foster home to foster home to take ‘candid’ pictures of children and youth for recruitment purposes. I reviewed the profiles of adoptive applicants that were hoping to be chosen for a child, youth, or sibling set. Why? Well, this is how we match children and prospective adoptive parents. I felt that choosing an approved adoptive family for a child, youth or sibling set was a huge responsibility. As long as I live I will wonder how the children I helped to match with their adoptive parents are doing. I am lucky enough to keep in contact with some of the families I helped to match, which allows me to breathe a sigh of relief. As for the others, I hope they know I did my very best with the information I had at the time they were matched with their adoptive family, and that they are happy and healthy. 


When I worked directly with birth parents it allowed me to let them help choose the parents that they wanted to raise their child, when they could not. I felt better about those matches. I felt that it would be helpful when or if birth parent(s) and their child met one day, that the child would know their birth parent(s) chose who would raise them. When birth parents could not be personally involved in the selection process, I tried to fully represent their wishes when matching their child with prospective adoptive families. 


So what have we learned? Well, as an adult adopted person, I learned that recruitment strategies are necessary tools to match children and families.
It was hard to accept that, had all of these recruitment options been available when I was made a Crown Ward and freed for adoption, I might have been on the ‘shopping channel’, or my photo and a profile of who I was might have been showcased in newspapers. Some little kid might have pointed at the television set and asked their parents for a sister. Honestly, I do not really know how I feel about recruitment strategies, except to acknowledge that they are often necessary to match children with adoptive parents. 


In my case, my adoptive parents had simply been ‘next in line’ for a baby girl, and were willing to take a child who needed surgery immediately upon being placed with them. In fact, I recently learned that my foster mother and my adoptive mother had literally raced to see who could get a surgery date for me first. How’s that for a recruitment/placement strategy?


Thank you so much for visiting with me today. I so enjoy your company and I hope you enjoy my stories, or reading my thoughts. As always, feel free to comment here or send me an e-mail at [email protected]. Or you can follow me on Goodreads and be the first to get new blog post notifications. See you next time. 

Hello Blogville friends! Welcome to 2025, and welcome back, it is so nice to see you. This morning I am drinking a camomile tea, for its stress reducing properties. As an adult adopted person I feel it is important to open up a dialogue about adoption topics (and sometimes other topics too) that impact on so many of us. 

Today might be a tough read. I want to start a dialogue about recruitment of adoptive families for children. At my age, I can still remember a couple of Canadian adoption recruitment strategies from my childhood that stood out to me, even as a young child. If there had been shopping channels back then, a television show called Family Finder would have reminded me of one, except people would have been shopping for children. If I had known the term back then, I think this show made me feel more like a ‘commodity’ than a human being. I vividly remember my brother watching this show and asking our parents to ‘please, please, please’ get him a brother. He would actually pick out boys he saw on this show and suggest my parents call to enquire about adopting him. To this day, I really cannot understand why my parents continued to let us watch that show. I do remember feeling grateful that I was already adopted and that I didn’t have to go on the show to find a family.

There was also a newspaper column (written by Helen Allen) that appeared in the Toronto Telegram and the Toronto Star (1964-1982) and was dedicated to the recruitment of adoptive families for “hard-to-place”children. The column was called, “Today’s Child” and it was initially launched in an effort to reduce the social “stigma” of adopting “non-white” children. I vaguely remember seeing photos of children in a newspaper but I do not imagine I saw these Toronto papers much while growing up in my Northern Ontario community. So I did some research. 

In the Journal of Childhood Studies (Vol. 46 No. 4), Daniella Bento, Taryn Hepburn, and Dale Spencer authored an article called: “Compensating for Stigma: Representations of Hard-to-Adopt Children in “Today’s Child”. They were studying how stigma and values were attached to children featured in the column and the compensatory strategies required to manage the stigma and make adoption in general, and particularly adoption of non-white children, socially acceptable. I would encourage you to read the full article to really get a sense of how this type of advertising adoption of ‘hard-to’adopt’ children devalued them. 

I learned that initially, Children’s Aid Societies worried about the harm of ‘advertising’ children and only four agencies initially participated in this very public recruitment plan. However, when 18 of the first 23 children featured children were adopted, agencies across Ontario began signing up to feature their children. 

But a newspaper picture and article really could not showcase the living and breathing actual child; not like showcasing the children live and in person on television. So, a television program called Family Finder, was created on CFTO. I think it is important to note that where children understood and could consent to being on the show, this was done. For some children, their worker consented on their behalf. It seems like the television show was successful in encouraging people to consider older children, sibling sets, interracial adoptions, and adopting children with special needs. It appears that adoptive parents were more open to considering parenting these children because they had gotten to ‘know’ them through the media.

Was it that prospective adoptive parents could see the child’s personality, rather than focus on their missing limb? Was it showcasing how a large sibling group got along and were determined to stay together? Was it just that television and newspapers were able to reach so many more families than the Children’s Aid Societies could? At any rate, Helen Allen became known as an adoption advocate and the “fairy godmother of adoption”.

​Though no longer available in those very public forums due to confidentiality, adoption recruitment strategies continue today. For example, according to their website, the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption hires recruiters; these are adoption professionals whose goals are to recruit families for older children in foster care. The website notes that children are up to three times more likely to find an adoptive family through this program. You may have noticed the donation boxes in Wendy’s Restaurants to support the Foundation’s work. As you may, or may not be aware, Dave Thomas was adopted as an infant, which likely led to his passion to have children moved out of foster care into adoptive families as quickly as possible. 

In Ontario, there is a recruitment strategy called the Adoption Resource Exchange (ARE) where approved adoptive applicants can review photos and profiles of children and youth who are currently available for adoption  in Ontario. There is a semi-annual in-person conference where workers and prospective adoptive parents can meet and discuss children or youth and their potential for a match. This is a private event in terms of attendees being connected with a Children’s Aid Society, or a Private Adoption Practitioner. Keeping up with technology, there is also a platform where prospective adoptive parents can view pictures, profiles, and even videos in some cases, of children available for adoption in Ontario. Again, it is not a public forum, and prospective adoptive parents must be granted access to the confidential website. I feel the need to point out that the approval process for adoptive applicants can best be described as an arduous journey, immediately followed by a difficult selection, or matching, process that frequently ends in disappointment. Simply put, it is not an easy process for anyone.

In my career as an adoption worker, I too, prepared profiles of children and youth to assist in the recruitment of adoptive parents. I even drove a photographer around from foster home to foster home to take ‘candid’ pictures of children and youth for recruitment purposes. I reviewed the profiles of adoptive applicants that were hoping to be chosen for a child, youth, or sibling set. Why? Well, this is how we match children and prospective adoptive parents. I felt that choosing an approved adoptive family for a child, youth or sibling set was a huge responsibility. As long as I live I will wonder how the children I helped to match with their adoptive parents are doing. I am lucky enough to keep in contact with some of the families I helped to match, which allows me to breathe a sigh of relief. As for the others, I hope they know I did my very best with the information I had at the time they were matched with their adoptive family, and that they are happy and healthy. 

When I worked directly with birth parents it allowed me to let them help choose the parents that they wanted to raise their child, when they could not. I felt better about those matches. I felt that it would be helpful when or if birth parent(s) and their child met one day, that the child would know their birth parent(s) chose who would raise them. When birth parents could not be personally involved in the selection process, I tried to fully represent their wishes when matching their child with prospective adoptive families. 

So what have we learned? Well, as an adult adopted person, I learned that recruitment strategies are necessary tools to match children and families.
It was hard to accept that, had all of these recruitment options been available when I was made a Crown Ward and freed for adoption, I might have been on the ‘shopping channel’, or my photo and a profile of who I was might have been showcased in newspapers. Some little kid might have pointed at the television set and asked their parents for a sister. Honestly, I do not really know how I feel about recruitment strategies, except to acknowledge that they are often necessary to match children with adoptive parents. 

In my case, my adoptive parents had simply been ‘next in line’ for a baby girl, and were willing to take a child who needed surgery immediately upon being placed with them. In fact, I recently learned that my foster mother and my adoptive mother had literally raced to see who could get a surgery date for me first. How’s that for a recruitment/placement strategy?

Thank you so much for visiting with me today. I so enjoy your company and I hope you enjoy my stories, or reading my thoughts. As always, feel free to comment here or send me an e-mail at [email protected]. Or you can follow me on Goodreads and be the first to get new blog post notifications. See you next time. 

Hello Blogville friends! Welcome back, it is so nice to see you. This morning I am drinking a green tea with a lemon slice as I write to you. As an adopted person I feel it is important to open up a dialogue about adoption topics (and sometimes other topics too) that impact on so many of us. This, is why I write to you. I thank you for your ongoing support and a special thank you to those who take the time to send me a comment. It helps me to know you are out there.

So, as you know, the holidays are behind us. I sit at my desk, look out the window and wonder. How many kids found out they were adopted over the holidays? How many kids found out their parents are actually their grandparents or aunts and uncles? Ah, the holidays. It is a great time to gather with friends and family who often know more than the children do about their adoption or kinship placements.

When I was young, I can remember hearing, (actually overhearing I suppose), things like: “It is lucky Eddy (my dad) is so tall and slim, she’s built just like him. You’d almost think she was his.”; “It’s so sad that Leona (my mom) couldn’t have children of her own.” Wait, you mean I’m not her kid?; and “Wow, the agency did a good job, you’d never know Eddy and Leona’s kids are adopted.” These are just a few examples of what people should never say when around the very children who might overhear them. Comments like that might just make us feel like strangers in our own families. Also to the parents, I’m pretty sure its offensive when people say the children you are raising are not yours, your children agree!

That being said, I also strongly believe, children should already know that they joined the family through adoption or that they are currently being raised by kin family members. Overhearing others should never be the way they find this very personal information out. People’s opinions seems never ending. I even remember as a grown adult, a parent and grandparent myself, my mom (in her 80s) and a family member standing by my dad’s casket looking down at him. The family member, with her arm around my mom’s shoulders looked at her and quietly asked if my mom had requested an autopsy. My mom looked back at the relative with a rather stunned look on her face. The relative then looked my mom in the eye and said, “Never mind, of course you didn’t, after all, it doesn’t really matter how he died since he has no biological children to have to worry about passing anything on.” Wow, way to compound old grief with new grief. I had to force myself to remain seated until that person walked away before I got up and hugged my grieving mother.

As I got older I remember thinking that it was lucky I already knew I had been adopted because some people really can’t keep a ‘secret’! I was fortunate that within my parents’ circle of friends many of us children had been adopted. As a result, I was used to hearing the word adopted and it did not come as a surprise to me. We even knew that there were public and private adoptions though I don’t think we fully understood the distinction. My brother and I just always knew that this is how we had become our parents’ children. Sure, I wondered about my birth mother and my birth father, but I never once wondered who my parents were. They were the people loving and caring for me, and teaching me how to be a good adult one day.

As an adult adopted person, and later as an adoption and kinship worker, I always advocated, and still do, that children who were adopted, or placed with kin, should hear about it from their parents. Finding out from others that you were not born to your parents/caregivers reminds me of children who learn about the “birds and the bees” from other children. Shocked and dismayed with this new information, they often run home and ask for clarification in the hopes that their parents can tell them what they heard from their friends isn’t true. Hearing from other children, or even adults, that you were not born to the people who are raising you is kind of like that. If some kid, or even their parents, try to say you were adopted, or that your parents are not actually your parents, you are going to run home and ask them so that you can prove that kid, or their parents, wrong. Imagine for a moment, how it feels to find out they are actually right. Discovering that your parents did not actually give birth to you can come as quite a shock. Always knowing it can help prepare children for dealing with other children’s, and even adult’s insensitive adoption comments. 

I am forever grateful to my parents for telling me my ‘origin story’ before some kid could weaponize my reality. I remember, if I made them mad,  other children would throw that at me, “Oh yeah? Well you were adopted.” Like I was supposed to be shocked, or even insulted. In hindsight, my parents’ normalization of the fact my brother and I were adopted probably helped me save face pretty often as a kid. 

Sometimes I feel having been adopted was a bit of a double-edged sword. If there was no shame in being adopted, why was it often kept such a secret? Why did people whisper? Why did people sometimes abruptly stop talking when I came into the room? Plus, if I was the subject of that secret, was there something I should have been ashamed of that I wasn’t aware of? I feel the same way today about adoption and kinship. If their/your (adoptive) parents, their/your birth grandparents, their/your birth aunts and uncles, or members of their/your Indigenous Band are caring for children or youth/you, should they/you be ashamed? Hell no! 

In my experience, children and youth do not typically get to choose to be in need of caregivers, nor choose who exactly will raise them instead of their birth parents. There are some beautiful examples of exceptions to children and youth having a choice, a say in their permanency plan. I have seen some lovely examples of step-parents asking a child or youth if they can become their legal parent. I have seen prospective adoptive parents asking their older children or youth if they are ready to finalize their adoption! It must feel amazing for a child or youth to be part of this decision making process. To choose their family.

Personally I feel that children will only tease other children if they think it will bother them, or if they let them see that it does. In my humble opinion, being adopted, or living with someone other than your birth parents, should not come as a shock to a child. Certainly they should not learn about their adoption or kinship by having it thrown at them by their peers like it’s something they should be ashamed of. I feel there could be nothing worse than confidently telling those teasing kids ‘where to go’ and then going home and finding out they were right about something you should have already known.

Instead, I would love for children to hear that they were adopted, or that they are living with kin, from their parents/caregivers, not by accident from someone out to hurt their feelings. I would love for kids to be able to respond confidently with words like, “Pardon? Is there something wrong with how I joined my family?” Or “Do you understand that it means my family actually chose me to become a member?” Or even, “That’s right, I am their child by choice!” 

There are many tools that can help you start this conversation. Hopefully, your child was provided with a comprehensive non-identifying social and medical history, perhaps a life book, or at least some photos of birth relatives. These tools will help you talk with your child, or even your youth, about their life before you. These are some of the tools that may have even helped you to select them to join your family, and they are the tools for your child to learn the history of their birth family, and even learn about  their time in care of others (i.e. foster care). Why hide these things? In my view, your children should never hear, especially overhear, these details from other family members or friends. They should hear these things from you, so they know they should never be ashamed of how they joined your family. They should know you are never afraid to talk with them about their lives before you, or their birth and birth family history. They should never have to ‘overhear’ these details. Act, so your child and you don’t have to react!
​
Thank you so much for visiting with me today. I so enjoy your company and I hope you enjoy my stories and thoughts. As always, feel free to comment here or send me an e-mail at [email protected]. Or you can follow me on Goodreads and be the first to get new blog post notifications. See you next time. 

Wishing you all the best in 2025!

Season’s Greetings my Blogville friends. I am sipping on a turmeric chai tea for it’s lovely aroma. I hope that you are, or will be, in the company of family and friends this time of year. 


Personally, the Christmas movies about family can make me laugh or cry depending on the feelings they touch at this time of year. I remember my childhood Christmases and they were happy times for the most part. I mean, everyone has that one Christmas that they did not get exactly what they hoped for, or get to do something they may have wanted to do. However, there were two things I remember that I always thought about at this time of year. 


First, I wondered about my first Christmas. I had been in foster care since my birth and would have just turned three months old on my first Christmas. Did I get any presents? Did I have a visit with Santa? Was there a photo of my first Christmas anywhere? My whole childhood prior to being placed with my parents at 9 months old remained a mystery that piqued my interest every year. 


Next, as I got older and understood more about what adoption actually meant, every Christmas I wondered what my birth parents were doing. I wondered if they had other children and if they got them presents. Did my birth parents get the kids that they liked enough to keep everything those kids had asked for? I wondered if they had other kids, did those kids know about me?


I also wondered about that birth ‘brother’ (who turned out to be a sister) that my parents were told my maternal birth grandparents kept (it turned out that this baby boy was actually an uncle born around the same time as my birth sister), but I digress, that was another story for another blog. My point is that I wondered if my birth mother got him a present and if she did, did she sign his tag/card as his sister or as his mother? 


Since my birth mother had relinquished her parental rights to me I was mostly sure she was not getting me a gift, despite my fantasies. But how was little kid me to know that for sure? This led me to wonder how she would sign my card/tag.


For some reason, I was pretty sure that my birth parents were not together but I still wondered if they thought about me at Christmas. I wondered if they too were wondering how my Christmas was, in the same way I was wondering about theirs. Were they wondering what I got for Christmas and if I was happy with my adoptive parents? I wondered why I couldn’t just call them and tell them I was ok. I felt like this was Jesus’ fault. I kept hearing stories of how Jesus was Joseph’s adopted son but Jesus kept talking to “God”. In my young mind, every Christmas, on his birthday, Jesus got to talk to his birth father. So, why couldn’t I talk to mine on my birthday or at Christmas?


I was raised Catholic, so Jesus’ story was very clear in my mind. I am sure you won’t be surprised to learn that I was more focused on his relationship with Joseph, who was not his ‘biological’ dad. I remember thinking how my dad was kind of like Joseph because he was not my ‘biological’ dad either but he sure acted like he was, just like Joseph did with Jesus. So I pretty much took it upon myself to believe that Jesus and I were both adopted. Well, technically his was a step-parent adoption, but still, I had something in common with Jesus.


There were other silly thoughts too when I was little. It didn’t happen often, but if I didn’t get something that I had wanted for Christmas, I would wonder if my birth parents would have bought me that longed-for gift. I would wonder if I lived with my birth parents, would I have to go to Midnight Mass? It feels like Christmas Eve was the only night of the year that I did NOT want to get to stay up late.


The Christmas season always had this tremendous magic. I mean, you could ask Santa for almost anything and he would make your wish come true. I’m sure I traumatized many Santas with my Christmas wish; to meet my birth parents. I am not one hundred percent sure but I feel like I remember the Santas would suddenly list a bunch of alternative ‘girl’ toys that I might like instead. In hindsight, growing up in a small town, half the Santas were probably guys that worked with my dad or were adoptive dads themselves. There were a lot of adoptive dads in my parents’ circle of friends. Leave it to me to make a fun activity extremely uncomfortable for those poor Santas.


Please do not misunderstand, I LOVED my parents. I think it was just that I had options; or thought I did. Christmas magic got into my mind and offered the impossible. Christmas, when all your dreams could come true!
Also, its not that I wanted to leave my parents, I just wanted to know who my birth parents were and if they thought of me too. I was both excited and terrified at the idea of meeting my birth parents, or about them finding out where I lived and coming to get me back. There was the feeling of being accepted by my birth parents, instead of having been abandoned, and being wanted by them, not unwanted, that was always there in a teeny tiny part of my brain and my heart. I guess I figured Santa and the magic of Christmas could sort that out for me.


You cannot put a price on the gift I continued to ask Santa for, information about my birth parents. If there had been a price, my parents would have gladly paid it. What price would you put on the gift of information for your child? My parents understood my curiosity, my wanting to know about my ‘roots’ if you will. My mother shared everything she knew; she simply was not told that much, nor was she given anything in writing. My mother would have gladly put a bow on the truth and shared it with me; such as the fact that I had a birth half-sister, and that the parental rights to her were also relinquished by our birth mother, and that my sister too had been adopted. My parents believed that I deserved to know the answers to the many questions I had, they simply did not know them.


It would have helped me to grow up knowing my ‘story’ as told to the agency by my birth mother. I grew up in a time where you raised adopted children ‘as if born to you’, as if no birth family members existed. But I was not born to my parents; my love for them, and a legal system made me their daughter. We grew in each other’s hearts and became a family through experience, not through blood. But make no mistake, we were a family, with our own story, I was just missing chapter one. 


One thing I would change in my story was the lack of information my parents were given about my birth family, and about my time in foster care before I came to live with them. This lack of information forced my parents to be evasive and for me not to trust that they really didn’t know the answers to my questions. How could a system give you a kid and not tell you anything about where that kid came from? Some of my friends who were adopted privately seemed to know a little bit more about their birth families than I did. It falsely led me to believe that if your adoptive parents ‘paid for you’, they received more information. 


So if I could give every adopted child a Christmas gift, it would be that they would arrive into their new parents’ arms with a full history of their birth families, both maternal and paternal. This would allow their adoptive parents to answer their myriad of questions, to share their medical history information, and to help them know why their birth parents let them go. 


Adoptive parents, please believe me when I say that this is your child, but that the child comes with a past, and that knowing this past, and sharing it with your child as they grow and mature helps you to raise a whole child into a secure and trusting adult. Biology caused this child to be born to their birth parents, but your dedication to the adoption process and to their adoption finalization has made them your child (lovingly and legally). Trust their love for you, it has grown through experience, if not through biology. Give them the gift of answering their questions to the best of your ability, do not be afraid because love should know no fear. Be their Santa Claus. 


Thank you for continuing to read my blogs and for your comments. Please feel free to continue to comment here or more privately using my email [email protected] 
These are your gifts to me all year, thank you. 
​

I wish you a Merry Christmas (if it applies to you).

Hello Blogville friends! Welcome back, it is so nice to ‘see’ you. This morning I have a honey lemon ginger turmeric concoction that I have started drinking as it is supposed to be good for me. I think it is appropriate to be drinking a clear beverage, maybe it will help me express myself with clarity. 

For some reason, I am inspired to follow up on my last blog (Shadows) as the impact of my birth parent’s ‘shadows’ really impacted on my life in at least two parts. The first part you have read about in my last blog, now let’s talk about the second part.

When something ‘casts a shadow’ it can also have a positive impact. Shadows can protect things from the harsh rays of the sun. For example, you might not be able to see foliage deep down in the shadows but as it grows and matures without being dried up completely by the sun, the foliage can sometimes bloom magnificently. For me, my adoptive parents gave me just enough sun to balance the shadows while I was growing up. They could not protect me completely of course and I did spend some time in the shadows, but they brought balance to being raised as a child who was adopted. Their love for me was the balance of light that I needed, to help me bloom. Though they could not protect me from the shadows of my birth parents, their love warmed me. They were only the first.

Carrying forward my parents’ balance between shadow and light was (and is) my husband. As our relationship got more serious, his willingness to accept a lack of medical history, which might well impact on children we might have together, was reassuring. He honestly felt that no one has a crystal ball that can forecast the future, adopted or not. Since we have known each other as long as I have been legally able to travel the adoption disclosure information path, he has been my travelling companion. He has often helped me see the light when all I could see were the shadows. 

The path to finding and meeting my birth relatives was filled with shadows and light. She had been born before me and also relinquished for adoption. As a result of the tragic practice of separating siblings to satisfy more adoptive parents’ needs, our own parent agency caused us to be separated for just over thirty years; our separation was the shadow. The first ray of sunshine if you will was meeting my maternal birth (half) sister. I wish I could describe to you exactly how it feels to look into the eyes of the first actual adult birth relative you have ever known. It was a bit like looking into the eyes of my newborn children, my only other known birth relatives. I looked for, and found, a kindredness in my birth sister’s eyes. Further, I found acceptance as her sons’ new aunt. Many hours were spent comparing physical resemblances among us and our children as the shadows of knowing no birth relatives began to dissipate.  

The next ray of light in my journey was my birth father. Though he never knew that I was casting a shadow of existence on this earth following his brief relationship with my birth mother, he did not leave adult me in the dark. The day I finally met him face to face was terrifying and filled with the cold fingers of fear that he might not like me, or be disappointed in who I was. Instead, he immediately took me over to a mirror and, standing side by side, the cold fingers of fear were replaced by and indescribable warmth as he compared our images, pointing out all similarities. There are no words except to say I bloomed a little bit more that day. 

My birth father sent me some photos of himself, and also of his children in varying stages of their growing up. I remember one photo, that is memorized in my mind’s eye, of all the children enjoying ice cream cones and I can still feel the coldness of the shadow that passed over my heart as I wondered where my ice cream cone was. I also noticed in these old photos that my birth sister’s ears stuck out just like mine did, my ears had been a source of shame until that moment when I felt the warmth of belonging, of sharing a physical characteristic with a paternal sibling. You might find it interesting that I felt an inexplicable jealousy when I eventually met her and she told me her parents had later arranged for a surgery to pin her ears back, while mine were left to stick out, fodder for teasing by my peer group. 

Before I met my birth father, due to geographic distance challenges, I met his adult children. I met the very children he had kept and raised with his wife, in full sunshine, while I lurked in the shadows of his past. They were wonderful. All shadows were driven away by the warmth of their acceptance. They accepted me as a sibling so unconditionally that I could almost feel the clouds parting, allowing the warmth of acceptance to replace the cold shadow of the fear of rejection. I met my nieces and nephews, immediately searching their faces for any resemblances to my children, their birth cousins. Instead of grandpa’s secret child I became grandpa’s other child, a new aunt. I bloomed even more. We keep in touch to this day and actually visit when I am in their area. There is a warmth when we visit, their acceptance that I am their sister drives away even the darkest shadows.

As you know from previous blogs my birth mother refused the opportunity to meet me, and my sister, casting one of the biggest shadows on my very existence. At our request, she did provide an updated medical history for my sister and I, as well as a single photograph of herself around the age that she was when she had given birth to me. I immediately framed that photograph to protect it from harm. Sadly for her, there would have been a ray of light if she had only seen the acceptance of us from the daughters that she raised. She raised them to be compassionate, and accepting women, whom I have had the pleasure to meet and form relationships with. I regret that she missed the opportunity to have all six of us together with her like a warm ‘Hallmark moment’. For her to have had a photograph of herself with all six of her daughters. But whatever her reasons were, at her request, her two oldest daughters remained in the shadows of her past.

I feel bad that she felt the need to keep us hidden in the shadowy darkness of her past. Her daughters were remarkably accepting when we approached them following the death of their, ‘our’ mother. Once over the shock of our existence, we were as welcomed into their sisterhood as plants welcome the warmth of the sun. If only she had known how accepting and non-judgmental her family would have been, I believe she would have been proud. Six sisters, daughters of the same woman, together at long last, out of the shadows. 
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Thank you so much for visiting with me today. I so enjoy your company and I hope you enjoy my stories. As always, feel free to comment here or send me an e-mail at [email protected]. 'See' you next time.