Pardon? Did I Hear That Right?

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!
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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 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!