People out there in the world
I keep tripping over adoption in weird places. I keep meeting people (in real life) who it turns out are adopted, have adopted siblings, lost/placed a baby for adoption, had a mother/aunt/sister/friend/grandmother who lost/placed a baby for adoption, know that there is an adopted sibling/cousin/aunt/nephew who was placed for adoption, etc. etc. etc.
I know I wouldn’t be privvy to these conversations if I didn’t have my own adoption story. I suspect I might not be privvy if my adoption story wasn’t an open adoption story since what leads to these generally intimate conversations is hearing that Pennie is a part of Madison’s life.
Every story is different and every story is in some ways the same. They are all heart-wrenching and moving and so important.
Then this made me think of something else. At the last American Adoption Congress conference, Sharon Roszia asked each triad group to stand. First the adoptees, then the birth families, then the adoptive families. I only stood for the adoptive families even though I am part of an extended birth family. Later I mentioned this to a first mom who was sitting with me sharing pictures and I said I hadn’t stood up because I knew that this family member wasn’t quite out about her adoption and I felt like it was taking on her story. Like I was usurping her story. And this woman leaned in and took my hand and said, “Next time you have to stand!” She said it fiercely. She said, “If you don’t stand, you’re denying that child your family lost! Stop denying her!”
She said it was my story, too, because it’s my family’s story. (And yes, I started to cry. I was already crying when I showed her pictures of Pennie but this set me to sniffling again.)
(I think about how little I know about this story and how afraid I am of digging and yes, it sure helps me understand how this denial happens. I have good intentions — the feelings of the people involved — but maybe those good intentions are misplaced. I don’t know. I’m working through it.)
So likely there are even more of us with adoption stories. Likely there are so many hidden children, hidden shames (hidden families) and really we ought to be talking more about it in real life. Really we ought to be talking about it so that the adoption secrets come spilling out and erase the shame as they come tumbling from the closets we hoped would contain them.
wonderful that by being open, you allow these stories to come out and be dealt with. the support and validation you are providing is so important.
“Every story is different and every story is in some ways the same. They are all heart-wrenching and moving and so important.”
This is why I share our story and why I can’t get enough of hearing stories of other families. And why I believe the sharing of stories is so vital.
It is so true. People I’ve known socially for years started telling me their adoption stories after Little Man came to live with us.
Some of them told us that they’d never felt comfortable telling all their stories. Some of them had never told anyone that they’d been adopted.
I’ve been touched each time hearing the love and loss that they each shared with us.