Roy Mustang is a character in Full Metal Alchemist, which is Noah’s manga of choice at the moment (and at the center of some of his Christmas requests). Earlier today Noah came out of his room and said, “Did you know Roy Mustang is adopted?”
Madison’s ears perked right up.
“Hey!” she said. “I wish he were real so I could talk to him about, you know, adopted.”
I asked, “What would you talk to him about?”
“I’d talk to him about how it is missing your mommy.”
“You know, Madison, you have some friends who are adopted. Like [friend], [friend] and [friend]. You could probably talk to them about it.”
“Maybe I will do that next time.”
“And if you ever wanted to talk to a grown-up about some adoption stuff, I can find you a grown-up to talk to.”
She stood by the Christmas tree for a bit, making her wooden mouse toy climb up the branches, thinking about this.
“Well, I don’t think so now,” she said. “But if I want to then you’ll go find somebody?”
“Yes, I promise.”
“Ok then. Maybe sometime.”
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How wonderful for her, despite the fact that she has to deal with adoption loss, that she has you to help navigate her through it.
Such a moving post for a mother of loss to read. We can all only hope that our childrens parents are HALF as supportive as you are.
Thank you for setting such a positive example in a situation that all too many times results in the opposite: fear, secrecy, and shame.
*tears*
great that she can think about what she wants, and knows you are there to support her.
1. Hubby loves Full Metal Alchemist, I don’t get it sometimes.
2. It’s great that Madison has so many people to turn to while working out these adoption questions and feelings. We’ve been having little snippet conversations about Mommies, the roles they play in raising kids, what it’s like to miss your mommy, etc, etc… it’s hard to see the questioning and know that you can only provide so much of the answer.
Big Hugs.
Quite frankly, I’m jealous of how clearly she can express herself.
You know there’s a huge Madison fan in our house who’d love to talk to her about being adopted (and can cover being black in a white-majority family soon, I suppose!) if she ever needs non-fictional support.
There’s a lot of adoption-type narratives in manga. I’ll bet Noah is more sensitive to that than most readers his age. I have never tried Full Metal Alchemist, though, and don’t know if I could.