So here's the thing. There are things that are super easy for me to put into words.
Then there are times where there is just no need for me to rewrite the book.
This is one of those times. Leah Sweet writes one of my favorite blogs, The Sweet Family Life
She is a fellow adoptive mama, but she is so much more. She is the best combination of so many things. She loves God. She really "gets" the importance of her marriage. She has adorable kiddos. She manages to be irreverent, sarcastic, hilarious, and profound all at the same time. And boy, can she write!
So this time, I'm gonna let her say it for me. Thanks Leah!!
But no matter who you are and why you are reading there is one common denominator. Adoption.
Talk about a miracle. And man, I don’t blame you for all the excitement. It is far more similar to childbirth than you can imagine! And now, here you are, reading this letter/email/blog post from a stranger. A total, complete, stranger. And yet, it is very possible that I know and understand your friend, your daughter, your brother better than you do right now. The child coming to live with your loved one?? I know that child better than you do, or you will. Why? I get it. I have been there both ways. I have been the one getting the baby, and I have been the one watching from the sidelines as someone else receives a new child. And because I have walked it, there are things I now know. And I want to share this with you, and your loved one wants me to share this with you because there are some tender things here. Some tough stuff. Some reality that, despite all the beauty and wonder of adoption, is very real and needs to be addressed in a safe way. And weirdly enough, sometimes a stranger with whom you share an incredibly intimate connection can do this for you far better than you can do it for yourself. So it may as well be me.
Your loved one, whoever that may be, is about to embark on something that is beyond extraordinary. Something that can only be fully understood by the one walking through it. And know this, first and foremost. They are thrilled to be sharing the experience with you. They are thrilled that you are thrilled. They WANT to share the experience with you, want to have you watch as they walk through it. And live it. And embrace it. And eventually, embrace the child.
But.
You are not walking it. They are. And because of that they need you to understand a few things. Please, I beg of you. As someone who has walked it and NOT been understood….please, read this knowing that the person who gave it to you loves you. Respects you. Adores and admires you. But in this case, he or she needs you to listen, and understand and absorb. And even if you disagree….put your disagreement to the side and recognize that you do not know better right now. That your intentions may be wonderful, but that the parents’ needs and preferences MUST be respected at this time.
1.) This great joy is also born out of great loss. This child, the adopted child, has suffered one of the greatest losses man can endure…the primal loss of its biological parents. Whether you think I am a fruit loop new agey psychobabbler is irrelevant. Why? Studies too numerous to count have been done, proving that there is a recognition, a primal awareness, when a child is relinquished by its biological family and brought into a new one. Even when this happens at BIRTH the child recognizes it on a subconscious level. Thus, when a child is relinquished, and languishes in an orphanage or receives love in a foster home or is relinquished as an older child, the new relationship with your loved one starts with a loss. It will always be there. It can not be ignored. And it should be respected in whatever way the new adoptive parents choose to deal with this. Ask your loved one how he or she will be handling this, and more importantly, how he or she wants YOU to handle any questions or comments that come your way. Don’t come up with your own answers. Don’t make decisions. Don’t think you know “they are fine” etc. That’s not the case.
2.) This child has an incredibly personal history before he or she meets your loved one. Whether that happens at birth or years afterward is irrelevant…he or she has biological, ethnic, and other connections prior to the new ones. Your loved one may share some of the information with you. However, he or she may not. You MUST respect this. It is vital. Some of our precious kiddos come with a very broken past. This is his or her story. No one else’s. If your loved one chooses to share it with you, then you will need to keep it to yourself. The past, the story of this new child deserves the utmost respect. It is not your story to tell, to share with your friends because it is miraculous or heartbreaking or whatever else it is. The only thing you can share is what your loved one, the new adoptive parent, says is okay to share.
The perfect example of this is potential medical needs and issues. This is the norm now, and is more common than not. The new child, the adoptee, very possibly has en existing medical condition. The new parents may choose to keep this private. Or they may share it with you. If they share, then find out IF you are allowed to share this condition with others. If you may discuss it publicly. If not, respect that. Some are visual and hard to miss. Some are private and not discussed. Follow the lead of the new parent, and trust them. Do not dishonor their decision as it disrespects them, but moreso, disrespects the new child in your life. How would you feel if you caught/contracted/developed herpes, hepatitis, dementia and everyone shared it? Talked about you and your condition despite your explicit instruction NOT to do so? “Oh, but we wanted to pray over it!!” I am a believer in the power of prayer. The more the better!! But to share the personal information is not important. If you believe in God, then You know that He knows the need. You don’t need to share it with your friends under the guise of a prayer request. Or for research. Simply don’t do it.
3.) Probably the toughest issue to face is snuggling, touch, need-meeting, etc. Maybe this is your first grandchild. Man, you are excited. You have told everyone about this gorgeous Chinese cutie coming your way. Her referral pictures are on your phone, in your wallet, your house, everywhere. And who doesn’t love to snuggle a little one??? I get it. I really do. I am a baby lover, a baby whisperer. I love all babies, all kids actually, and love to get my hands on them. BUT…and this is a big but. Hands off until the new parents say it’s ok.
You hate me now, don’t you?? Who does this lady think she is!!! You may feel resentful, irate, and even angry, wondering why your loved one gave this to you to read because, to be honest, you are starting to get offended. Please. Take a deep breath. Now consider this. A new child knows nothing, or very little, of love. His needs have not truly been met by anyone in a consistent manner. He has had to fight for his food. Drink a scalding hot bottle of milk in under a minute or it is taken away and no more food comes for many hours. He has never been outside a crib. Maybe he was tied into a chair, for hours on end, over a bucket with a hole in his pants so he could pee or poop. Maybe he was only fed if he was quiet. He learned that no one would hold him when he cried. No one would care for his boo boos. If you think I am being melodramatic for effect, you’re wrong. These are the most common truths of orphan life abroad. And I didn’t even go to the truly harsh ones. The point is this. The new parents need to be the ONLY parents. The child needs to learn, for the first time, that there is ONE set of people who will love and hold and comfort and feed and calm and care for him unconditionally. He should have every possible need met by these new people. He needs to learn trust. And this, when taught at birth that no one is there, is immensely hard. Your loved ones have been learning about this. It is called attachment. And it is a bigger deal with more intricacy than you can begin to imagine unless you have walked through international adoption. And until they meet their child, and truly know and understand what kind of attachment issues they are dealing with, the rule is hands off.
4.) Perspective. The people in your life who you love are having a baby!!! I don’t care if that baby is 1 or is 11….any adoptee is coming with emotional difficulty, regression on some level, physical or spiritual trauma, and as a total stranger into a new family. The parents are ready, and yet not because all the reading, research, and training can’t prepare for the full reality. But YOU need to see their new child as an infant. In general, women don’t pop out a baby and then watch as everyone else does everything. Nope. That mom becomes the sole provider, life giver, sustainer of that child. The newborn’s parents are everything, and the child needs to learn this. The adopted child is no different, except we don’t see that because, especially in international adoption, this is not a newborn. So change your mindset. See this child as the newborn in the family. And let him or her be treated as such, taken care of as such, and so on.
5.) And along the same lines of perspective is your personal approach and opinions about parenting. Maybe you have raised 5 perfect kids. They all are beautiful inside and out, true givers with great senses of humor, have remained chaste til marriage, never smoked pot, have built businesses from the ground up, are successful millionaires who now devote all time and funds to worldwide charitable needs, and somewhere there is a picture, maybe in the Smithsonian, of YOUR face, labeling you as the best parent in the entire history of civilization. Great. Congrats. Now zip it. Yeah, I said that.
Your strategies, beliefs, and approach to parenting may all be awesome. We may agree on them! But guess what…adoptees often need something different. Something outside the box, a strategy that goes against your nature, your preference. Different approaches to feeding, to discipline, to illness, to defiance. Example…the first time my daughter told me, “NO!!” I celebrated. What? You celebrated an act of defiance and rebellion?? You better believe I did. This is a HUGE step in attachment. This means that she was comfortable, confident, to proclaim herself OVER me, to defy me and she felt ok doing it. It proved that she felt like, “this lady, my mom, is not going to abandon me if I disagree with her, which is why in the past, when they brought me home, I was always so obedient. Because in China, when I wasn’t, I was punished or ignored or not fed for days or given away.” So yeah, you better believe that the “NO!!” gave me joy. But the interesting thing is this…a friend of mine had the opposite scenario. She adopted a little boy who was defiant, NO MATTER WHAT. He would be hungry and she would offer food and he would refuse it. He had to get food, everything actually, on his own terms. It was his coping mechanism, the way he felt power in some way. And it took a year of being home with them to where she said, “honey, I cut some melon for you!” and he came over and said “thanks mommy” and sat down and ate it. That was a HUGE step for her child. Same issue, two different presentations of it.
So you see? It’s not all cookie cutter parenting, and you don’t have all the solutions. Time outs for adopted kiddos can be traumatizing. Or not. Meal times can cause panic attacks. Think of something simple, ordinary. And there may be a brutal truth behind that for an adoptee.
So what’s my point? Like I said, zip it. Don’t tell the parents they are doing it wrong. Don’t try to do it yourself. Don’t tell them how great your kids did this, responded to this, how only this works, and so on. Because you don’t always know. Now, if you are close to these people, very close, and you see some tough stuff, first, ASK. Ask the parents if 1.) they need help and 2.) if you can share your experience. If they say yes, then share. Maybe it is applicable and maybe it will be super helpful. That is great. We are all works in progress and I am not saying your approaches or beliefs are wrong. You have experience and history and those are beautiful teachers. What I AM saying is approach it in a loving way, with the understanding that you may not know best in all circumstances when it comes to parenting a newly adopted child.
And now I get to the final bit of advice more crucial than anything else.
6.) Love. Seems like a given, right? But really, love is a tricky thing. Love means acceptance, it means grace, it means honesty. It means patience and a whole bunch of other things. In fact, it means reading this and putting your opinions and possible hurts to the side and see the intent. But really, it most means being there. Whether in person or in thought is irrelevant. Be available. Be ready. Be approachable and involved. The new parents want to include you. But some things they have to learn for themselves, some things take time, and so on. So don’t be offended. Don’t be put off if their little one is not attaching well, or is “mommy shopping” (very common, ask your friend what this is!!) and therefore your friend/son/daughterinlaw/cousin won’t let you hold their new little one. Just wait. Be there. There is a lifetime to spend with this child. Let the new parents get what all new parents should get….the beginnings, the first fruits, the opportunity to bond as the immediate family they have now created. And then you, later on when everyone is ready, can be a great part of it, welcome to hold, snuggle, and give all the treats you can to spoil them rotten which is the privilege of non-parents everywhere.
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