Funny how the world works
Oct 13, 2004 Adoption
Noah had his spanish group at the library today and I was looking for books on abortion — to have at my pro-choice brunch — and on the shelf next to the choice books was this one: The Post-Adoption Blues. I’m only a chapter into it and already I’m nodding my head in agreement.
If you’re planning to adopt, take my advice and pick this book up. This is from page 29:
As a fallible human being and parent, thoughts creep in: Am I the best parent for ths child? Do I have a right to this child? Would this child be better in a black/Asian/minority family? I’ve taken her away from her birth family. Will she hates me when she grows up? …
We feel that we cannot possibly live up to the hype we have been compelled to create, and therefore we are not entitled to this child. For parents who adopt from another country [Dawn here: This applies to me, too; it's what I was talking about below.], the feeling of being a “rich American” compounds the lack of entitlement. … [We think] that we have taken something that isn’t rightfully ours, and we have taken it because our socioeconomic status enabled us to.
When Madison was about four months old, we went out to eat and were seated near a large African American extended family. From their conversation, it sounded like they were all out to eat together after church. Sometime before our meal was served, one woman came over from that table to gush over Madison.
“What a beautiful sister of God!” she exclaimed. “Look at this beautiful child of God! Little sister, what a beautiful baby you are!”
When she went back to her table, I felt like crying. I suddenly felt so sad that Madison wasn’t going to have the opportunity to grow up as a Black child in a Black family. I felt so inadequate.
I realized that it’s one thing to theorize about transracial adoption but now she’s here — this child of my heart. I love her so much and the thought of failing her devastates me. And now I recognize in a much more profound way than I ever could before, that I am going to fail her on that.
When she was even smaller — about two months old — I saw the bio of another couple seeking to adopt through our agency. (It was online and linked to from the “waiting families” page.) A professional African American couple who owned a newspaper catering to the Black community in their city with a beautiful bio daughter. They had more money, they had more education and they were Black. And for a split second I thought, “I should send them Madison; I’m sure J would understand if she could read their bio.”
It was all of this at the beginning that had me thinking I might be going a little crazy. Our guilt over J’s grief. (I’d start shaking when I’d pick up a message from her on voicemail and my head would start pounding — it was so hard to put aside my feelings and call her knowing that I would have to confront her sorrow again.) My feelings of inadequacy. And oh Madison cried so much those first months. My rational self would remember that babies do cry but my emotional self would think, “She’s crying because she misses J and hates that I took her away.”
I’m not trying to scare people away from adoption or from adopting transracially (if I had it to do again, I’d do it the same way) but to say that it’s really all right when it’s not all polkadots and moonbeams after placement.
I have a feeling that I’ll be writing more on this as I get further into the book.
