This is a topic that is very timely for me (Thanksgivingmom) right now, but is something that all of us in open adoption deal with at least once during the year: birthdays.I know that birthdays can be an extremely emotional time, for everyone connected to adoption, not just those of us in open adoptions. So what is it that we do, as part of our open adoptions, during the “birthday season”?
Our experiences on this are so diverse, that I don’t want to limit your responses to one specific question. BUT, since some of us (like me!) sometimes like the specific questions, here are a few that have been rattling around in my brain as my daughter’s third birthday approaches:
- What do you/your family do to integrate open adoption and birthday celebrations?
- What do you wish you would see in future birthday celebrations re: involvement with your child’s adoptive parents/birth parents?
- Do you have an open adoption agreement that requires contact on/around birthdays?
- How does that agreement affect you? Do you wish it were different? Do you wish that you did have an agreement that requires such contact?
- If you do not have contact around birthdays, do you do something private to honor birthdays?
- If you’re an adoptee, how were birthdays celebrated in your family with regards to open adoption?
- How do you wish they would have been celebrated?
- And anything else you can think of!
This is one of those times where I wish Pennie had a blog — I would love to hear her take on birthdays (and today is HER birthday!!! She is a quarter of a century old now! Happy birthday, Pennie!!!).
We were awkward that first year. Madison was sick so there wasn’t a party. Pennie came over that night and Madison snotted all over everyone. Then we went over to Pennie’s house later that week and Pennie had made a cake and had some friends but Madison was still sick and it was a run down sort of evening.
On Madison’s second birthday, let’s see. What did we do? I can’t remember now. Ok I just looked it up in my library and Pennie and her friends came over and the grandparents came over and my sister and her kids came over and I made Texas Sheet Cake but forgot to put in the baking powder and so I made Texas Flat Cake. That was kind of a bust, too.
On Madison’s third birthday, Pennie took over. She was living in a house with a lot of room so she invited tons of people and made enough food for an army and we had a blow out! Fourth and fifth were more of the same except that Pennie was living in places with less room so the parties moved here.
To me, Madison’s birthdays are very symbolic of the progression of our open adoption. Caution at the beginning. Trying to figure out boundaries. Pennie’s tentative attempts to create her own celebrations. Then finally a merging of our friends/families and public recognition of Pennie’s presence in our family and her relationship to Madison.
Madison’s third birthday was a big step for all of us. I knew that going into it but I can see that’s even more true when I look back. Because on her third birthday, Pennie was in charge. We went to her house. That was the family celebration and she was the host. It was an important shift in our extended family’s relationship to Pennie, too. They got to know her differently there because even though the context was still all about Madison, they got to see her with her friends and see her cooking a magnificent feast and see her in her own world. You know? It was big. They got to see her the way I’d always seen her and it changed their relationship to her and their relationship to our open adoption. It just made everyone more comfortable with each other.
I hope that Pennie will continue to be in charge of Madison’s birthday celebrations and not just because it takes the heat off of me and because she does a better job of it than I can!!! (She’s volunteered to cater Noah’s bar mitzvah, too, and I hope her schedule allows her to do this!) I also like that it’s such a formal tradition in the same way that going to my inlaw’s for an Easter egg hunt and getting books on the last night of Hanukkah have all become. The weight of tradition elevates Pennie’s presence in our family and blurs what was previously a separation that made “open adoption” a context in itself and instead put “open adoption” in the context of our family.
(Actually as I write this I realize that we were all pushing for this in other ways, too, like Pennie has always come to Trick or Treat and my inlaws usually do, too but the birthday party was the first time that it was all within Pennie’s control and so our friends and family got the message that Pennie isn’t a marginalized birth mother who is lucky to get to come over and see Madison on our terms but is an autonomous whole person whose role as first mother is central to our lives as an open adoption family.)
I don’t know if I’m explaining it well but Madison’s third birthday party was a huge, huge step for us and I cried that day because I was so happy to see her worlds truly merged for the first time. You know my mom is Pennie’s facebook friend now. So is my sister and a ton of my friends. And several of those people met Pennie for the first time because she was throwing Madison’s birthday parties and so they immediately GOT how she fits in our family and that set up how they should respond when Madison talked about her and talked about her adoption and told them she was going to be a big sister, etc.
(But see, I wish Pennie was blogging it! And also now that she’s back at work I don’t even know if she’ll have TIME to respond to this huge entry but I’ll ask her about it when I talk to her today.)
Happy birthday to Pennie!
Celebrations are important, and I loved being at Pennie’s baby shower where her friends(/family of choice), your friends and family, T’s friends were all there and all bringing their own histories and connections to the larger group. You even had some weird woman you only knew online and her partner show up, and we loved being there! But I kept being so happy for Pennie that she was able to celebrate Roscoe’s impending arrival in a way that didn’t negate or ignore Madison’s place in her life but also didn’t make it a special separate event with your family and just her connections through adoption. I’m sure it’s complicated, but it seems so important.
You, you are the blogger who makes me wish that I lived in the same city as my son and his parents. The distance feels safer, but then your blog seems to give glimpses of how great that physical closeness can be.
of course, we celebrate with everyone! but i’m not a big party kind of gal so I only do it occassionally – like every other year we have a big bash for the kids’ birthdays. But, hands down, EVERYONE comes. Period. Everyone knows everyone, they all get along, there’s no special celebration for one part of the family over another. We just go hog wild. If it’s a non-party year, then it’s cake and presents and an open invitation to stop by whenever, whomever you are. I guess it’s different for us, seeing as how the kids’ aunt practically lives with us (she was for about 6 weeks but has since moved out but she eats supper and sleeps on the sofa when it’s convenient for her) Oh well, we’re just a big family.
I don’t participate in the open adoption roundtable since my son’s adoption closed back in 1992 and now, in our present day, with him back with us, I don’t feel as if I have experiences or wisdom to add.
But I always read your blogs and some of the others when the roundtable goes around and this latest post brought tears and even a sniffle or two. (The day was already “adoption-related” emotional.)
As I read about the birthday parites and the way your family was brought to understand where Pennie’s importance is in your family, as a First Mom, I could reate to how it must make Pennie feel and how it even touches me to be witness (cyberworld eyesight) to someone who doesn’t just say they respect their child’s first mom, they show it over and over again in their actions.
But my tears came for Madison and what it must be like for her to have both her moms in her life. To be able to form that relationship with both you and Pennie and to know that she has so much support behind her in that. I just can’t imagine what that is like, to just be allowed to be Madison. To love and care for everyone who loves nad cares for her and not be expected to be restricted in her affections as well as in her forming of her family and where she fits.
Thanks for this one, Dawn. Though there were tears, they were good ones.
I think birthday #3 happened because you always envisioned it to be that way don’t you? Like you and Pennie found a way for it to be THAT. It didn’t just happen. Yes, some of it was organic, but it was allowed to evolve between years 1 and 2.
Ultra-local open adoption FTW!
That first year Pennie hosted, was the move something you had to explain/defend to certain family or friends? Or did you just let the party itself become the teaching moment? I’m trying to picture what something like this would look like in our family (if it were even logistically possible), and I’m imagining a pretty wide range of responses from the people in our circles.
I read your article suz linked to with interest and I wondered to myself is there a “handbook” for would-be birthmothers that honestly talks about the important issues of grief (perhaps life-long) on all sides? Sums up current research in an easy-to-understand manner? Phone numbers, perhaps state specific? Resources? Something that could be passed to birth mothers through the internet and make sure they have a stab at making an informed decision? Perhaps with interlaced “personal elements” like your own path, Dawn and others …. and first moms like Suz and Pennie. Something to hand to young mothers we see at the clinic unsure and pressed for choices NOW.
Oh boy am I late, but Happy Birthday to Pennie!
She and I are the same age!
I’m happy to read your blog because your adoption is much more like ours than other people’s seems to be! Oh my, I was just discussing with my husband as I clicked through that it seems that some people have such stupidly HARD open adoptions, and most of the time it seems that’s at the hands of the adoptive parents! It’s ridiculous!