I’ve shared my most favorite open adoption picture before but I’m sharing it again because it’s just that good.
This is a picture of Madison asking Pennie about her birth three years ago. That’s 2-year old Madison there in her spooky Halloween shirt and there’s Pennie growing out her hair nappturality. This was back when Madison was just starting to really talk about her adoption and process her story and this picture marks the shift in their relationship where adoption was something abstract (a set of words we used together) and became something concrete. This is when Madison’s free-floating wondering became solid — this is my mother and she loves me. It marks a change in Madison’s confidence, too, as she began to bring her adoption up more and more and the transracialness of her adoption up more and more.
In the last five years, I have seen two significant events in Madison’s relationship to her adoption. The first is the day she said she missed Pennie and the second is the day she needed permission to love Pennie. This is between those two days, very soon after that first one. Here they are looking at the picture of brand new Madison being held up for Sam’s camera (Sam is Pennie’s best friend). Madison is wide-mouthed and gorgeous and she’s asking about that clamp on her belly button. This is one of the pictures from this day that was important enough to blog then and is important enough to revisit now. (click to make bigger)
Edited to add: Since that day I expressly told Madison that I would NOT be jealous to see her hug and cuddle Pennie, Madison is the hugging, cuddling fool with Pennie. If you go back and look at some of the Roscoe pics, you can see how physically affectionate she is with Pennie. She is the cuddling QUEEN, lemme tell you! And just like I promised Madison it would, it makes me feel very happy to see all that love going on!!
That’s such a great picture. I love that you and Pennie are able to give Madison some answers as she works on figuring things out. There she is learning to tell her story, and you can see it happening! And I love that your favorite adoption photo is one of Madison with her birthmama.
(And Pennie’s hair was adorable in her little afro. I could never talk Lee into wearing a ribbon like that, which is too bad because it looks SO GOOD! We’re going to see Good Hair tonight, and I’ll be thinking of Madison and how great it is that she’s gotten to see black women around her with a whole variety of hairstyles and healthy heads of hair.)
I’ll see if I can fix the link! Pennie and I were going to try to go see Good Hair — let me know what you think of it!
Congratulations!. It is such a lovely picture. It is so good to see an adoption done right and put a lie to the myth that the birth moms are somehow the enemy. You are my hero.
F
What a sweet picture–that says so much about the relationships your family has built. Love it!
Lovely post. It does my heart good to know that there are adoptive moms out there who “get it”.
What a gorgeous picture! How I wish that my son could sit down with his first mom and looks at photos of his birth.
I find it so interesting to hear what age Madison was when she started noticing and asking questions related to adoption and race. My son just turned two and recently announced, “Brown. My skin is brown. Your skin brown mama?”
His understanding of adoption is not very concrete yet — he can tell you his first mom’s name, and that she’s his birth mama and that she loves him — but I don’t think he really gets it yet. I think that’s in part because his first mom is not ready to be a part of our lives. I really wish we had the openness that your family does.
What wisdom and insight you have! Your blog is a resource in the adoption community! Thank you! Maria
Marie, I take it you’re a first time visitor? Your organization disturbs me — read through my archives and you’ll see why (too sick to link myself right now but you could start with http://www.ethicanet.org)