In response to any concern that I’m stepping on their toes by asking about their feeling and bringing stuff up. I asked them at lunch and they were both so verbose that I forgot everything they said and told ‘em they’d need to come down here to talk while I type. Now as Mia said, these kids are “in a power-laden relationship with me” so heck, assume that bias if you like. I’m typing as they talk. (Then I went back and cleaned up typos but left syntax as is because who would want to fix Madison’s syntax??? It would be so much less fun!)
Noah, tell me what you think about bringing awkward topics up and asking you about your feelings a lot.
Noah: It’s like sometimes it’s ok but then sometimes it’s annoying but when I tell you to stop you stop.
Is it ever awkward for you when I ask you stuff?
Noah: Not really.
What about when I want to talk to you about awkward teenager changes?
Noah: Then I say STOP TALKING YOU’RE MAKING ME FEEL WEIRD!
Is there anything else you want to say?
Noah: Nope.
So do you think parents should or should not bring up potentially difficult or awkward topics?
It depends on the kind of stuff. They should stop talking if the kid says no.
Now for Madison. Madison, how do you feel about me bringing up your adoption to you?
Madison: Well, like it makes me really feel gooder to get the bad feelings and sad feelings out. Because it feels nice just to share feelings with some people.
Do you ever wish I wouldn’t talk about it or wouldn’t ask you about it?
Madison: It doesn’t feel like anything really. It just feels like you’re talking to me about adoption. I don’t really mind if people bring it up first because I’ve talked about it a lot and I’ve gotten used to the whole thing by now.
What about when I ask if you worry about me being jealous? Or about Pennie being jealous? Or other hard, scary feelings like that?
Madison: Well, since you have been also telling me that Pennie doesn’t mind and you don’t mind if I got something for you and didn’t get something for Pennie or I got something for Pennie and didn’t get it for you. So I don’t think you would mind really about that. If they were as brave as me. Well, I don’t really feel like anything when people bring up the adoption first.
So do you think parents should or should not bring up the adoption first?
Madison: Well, I think that parents should so that it can remind kids of happy feeling inside of them. So yes I do agree that it should be true.
So let’s be clear, some people think that parents should not bring up their kids’ adoptions too much or talk about birth mamas or birth dads unless the kids bring it up first. What do you think?
Madison: Well, I don’t think that’s really possible. Sometimes it’s good to get out the sad feelings and the bad feelings. So anyway I don’t think it’s possible to bring up the kids birth mamas too much because sometimes it’s good to get mad feelings out about sad and face your fears, persevere. People need to persevere around this town!
Madison, do you have any more advice for parents wondering about talking to their kids about their adoption?
Madison: Well, sometimes you should really say that is there anything I could help you about your adoption? To adopted because maybe they might need your help about getting out their feelings really. Maybe you should just ask them what is wrong or maybe if they feel like sad or anything about it so you can maybe help them get out the saddies. Just remember that you should actually just ask it and you should also be gentle about what you say because it might upset them. Be very gentle, but you can say is there any way I can help you about your adoption because you seem sad about it. So that’s all I have to say and one more thing YO PEACE OUT Y’ALLS!
Yes, as Madison says, “Be very gentle.”
That could be said about a lot of stuff! I love your kids.
Straight from the horses’ mouths, huh? This is awfully interesting to read. And your kids are charming as heck.
Persevere! Love it.
I love how their styles match their answers — Noah’s more concise responses matching his more guarded “as long as you stop when I ask you to” stance, and Madison’s enthusiasm reflecting her “no such thing as too much” approach.
(Though maybe that’s just how they seem here, you say they were both verbose at lunch.)
Noah was less formal before we came downstairs but I’d say this pretty much reflects who they are. And even when he was very young he was definitely more guarded. It took him longer to open up about things and he was most likely to do it when we were driving. He also thinks on thing a lot longer and needs space to do that but Madison processes out loud.
Madison is a really smart cookie, I have to say. The whole “I don’t think that’s really possible” clicks with what I was thinking. Especially in a closed adoption (which is basically what H’s is; we have some pictures but no ongoing contact, sadly), I really don’t know that kids WOULD bring up their adoption without their a-parents bringing it up first. Even though I think we’re encouraging of her first family, I can kind of see Hannah testing the waters. She’ll mention her f-mom and then sort of look at me to see my reaction.
OMGosh, I love your kids!!
I know when we need to close conversations about adoption or really anything difficult for Nate because he’ll close off and want to play with his monster trucks or something like that.
“People need to persevere around this town!” is maybe the best thing i’ve ever read. Love it all.
i find it so much fun reading madison talk, eh?
I agree!!! oh my!! so funny to imagine a little girl saying that!!!lol!
Your kids are so eloquent! And just amazing. Madison’s articulateness about all this is also just a counter to Stuy’s reasoning: look at how much complex stuff she is already processing, b/c you’ve (and Pennie has, too) set her up for all that.
Yeah. “People need to persevere around this town.”
Best sentence ever.
hey dawn, i /loved/ it whenever madison made a new post on her blog, and can i tell you that i really really like this post, too? i seem to really love hearing /their/ voices straight from their mouths [okay, your a conduit, i admit
], but i just wnated to let you know that i really dig posts where they’re the ones speaking!! i love reading them!
I loved it!! And your kids are wise and adorable!
I love this! I’ve “interviewed” my kids a few times, and it’s always enlightening. “People need to persevere around this town!” — those are words to live by.
Things that get put on the internet tend to hang around forever, and kids should not be the ones to decide what goes up about their personal life while they are still children. That is a parent’s job, to protect your kids. Maybe when they are older they will not find it all so cute.
“Interviewing” you children?
Unlike your many fans, I am not impressed.
I think that as grown ups, these children will love that their opinion was so valuble. And I doubt that things ‘hang around forever’.
Dawn could make this disappear in a second if she wanted.
Dawn, I am guessing that youmeant no harm and that your intentions were well-meaning. We all have done well-intentioned yet perhaps misguided things in our lives. At least, I know I have.
I can understand Maryanne’s point. As quoted from the book, “The Spirit of Adoption,” (Gritter), “We must be careful not to sentimentalize, sanitize or even glamorize the pain of adoption; it is really miserable stuff, and it is intensely personal. It is interior. The pain of adoption is not something that happens to a person; it is the person…”
However, I do think that it is important that adoptive parents realize how crucial it is to begin cultivating open conversation with adoptees about the complexities, the loss, and grief of their experiences as an adoptee from early on.
It is true that too many adoptive parents out of fear, ignorance, neglect and a whole host of other reasons choose NOT to build such a foundation. They tell themselves that they will “wait” on the adoptee to initiate a discussion or conversation regarding their thoughts and emotions about their adoption, which is a grossly misguided and uninformed presumption/misconception. It makes me cringe every time I encounter a parent who adheres to this philosophy.
There may perhaps be another way to communicate this point without making it seem so “cutesy,” but I do appreciate your attempt to emphasize the importance of adoptive parents NOT being fearful of initiating discussions with adoptees about their loss and grief.
Just for clarity’s sake, I’m a 35-year old adult Korean adoptee who in post-reunion with my Korean parents. I continue to process all the complexities and difficulties of adoption, search, reunion, and post-reunion. It’s not fun a lot of the time, but it’s the reality I cannot escape. I wish the resources available today had been available to my adoptive family, so that perhaps they would have known to cultivate an environment of emotional openness and honesty from the beginning. It would have helped tremendously.
I didn’t respond to Maryanne because she and I clearly have different values around the internet and writing and sharing about our kids. It’s an ongoing discussion in the blogosphere but I prefer to have that discussion with folks I know and who are part of our (my kids’ and my) lives like my husband, Madison’s first mom, my parents, my friends, etc. In other words, Maryanne has a valid point of view; I just don’t happen to agree with it so I left her comment up to speak for itself.
But cutesy? Really? Madison may be freaking cute but this was not cutesy. She has a strong point of view that she wanted to share on my blog. For the rest of the day she was strutting around (because I told her people were impressed with her being so articulate) saying, “You know, I’m the expert on adoption because after all, I am adopted.” I call that pretty dang empowered.
Madison has veto rights on my blog and she’s exercised it (the rest of my family, including Noah and Pennie, have the same rights). You may not agree with the way my family is living out its blog-life and like Maryanne, you have a right to that opinion but that cutesy thing, that just really rubbed me the wrong way. Please don’t dismiss my daughter (or son) and their words just because they’re young. Madison’s way with words may be all kinds of adorable but it’s all kinds of awesome, too.
Hi Dawn,
First of all, I apologize for offending you and for not communicating clearly enough apparently. I hoped that the fact that I am an adult adoptee would make it clear that i do not take the pain lightly and that’s in fact the point that I was trying to make.
People have a tendency to naturally view adoptees as perpetual children, and I think someone who stumbled across this could misinterpret it in that way, and discount it because of Madison being a child. But that’s exactly the point I was trying to make, is that it’s not cutesy and that parents need to take this kind of thing seriously. I obviously did a very poor job of making that point clear. So again, I apologize.
And I also feel a bit like you didn’t hear or consider what I shared with you. I was actually coming to your defense as an adult adoptee. I wrote, “However, I do think that it is important that adoptive parents realize how crucial it is to begin cultivating open conversation with adoptees about the complexities, the loss, and grief of their experiences as an adoptee from early on,” and “I do appreciate your attempt to emphasize the importance of adoptive parents NOT being fearful of initiating discussions with adoptees about their loss and grief.”
It was primarily your readers’ responses that gave it a “cutesy” feel. Comments referring to them being adorable and funny, etc. Not that those are bad comments to make. I was just surprised that there was not more acknowledgment of the sadness and loss to which your daughter referred.
I am an adult adoptee by the way, and as one who deals with the loss and pain continually, I actually was not dismissing your daughter’s comments as “cutesy,” but was bothered that there was not more seriousness and gravity in the comments.
Sorry to upset you, Dawn. And sorry you misunderstood my intentions.
Again, I was trying to simultaneously acknowledge and respect both points of view in a considerate and diplomatic way. I meant no harm and again, I apologize that you felt I was minimizing your daughter’s words. That is exactly the opposite of what I was trying to say! I must be a worse communicator than I thought.
My best to you and my apologies. Take care.
Hi Melissa,
As one of the people (and I am an adoptive parent) who just responded to a comment Madison made that was sassy and funny, I want you to know I really hear your point. I do respond to the seriousness of adoption loss on Dawn’s blog (as does she, on a fairly continual basis, i’d say), and just happened not to on this post for some reason. Maybe I was in a rush? Maybe its just what I felt like commenting on. But I did want to let you know I can see where you’re coming from on this.
Best, Cynthia
Melissa, it was very big of you to come back and clarify what you meant and apologize especially when it’s clear that *I* was misunderstanding you. So let ME apologize. I wrote later at night than the time stamp shows and I probably should have waited until I had a decent night’s sleep under my belt. What I was hearing was clearly not your intention and I apologize for not paying better attention.
A blog on the internet is NOT sharing with “folks you know”. or friends and family. Anyone can read it and most of the people reading it are strangers. I find the concept of a parent “interviewing” her children odd. You may choose not to respond to my comments, but be aware that I am not the only person who is not “family or friends” reading this blog.
But, Maryanne, you missed Dawn’s point — she’s saying she has the discussion about what/if to share and how to share it on her blog with folks she knows, friends and family. Of course she realizes that the majority of people reading this blog are strangers.
It may or may not be relevant at this point to say that I’m a pretty private person myself — I’m mildly uncomfortable with Facebook, even with all the privacy controls I can think of. So I don’t have a blog myself, and if I had one I’d try really hard to be anonymous. But I really recognize how personal all of this is, and that for some people a blog is a very useful means of expression. Because blogging is not for me or my family does not mean it’s a bad thing for everyone.
Personally, I’ve learned a lot about adoption from Dawn’s blog.
I have learned things about open adoption as well from this blog. Like you, Shelley, I do not have or want a blog and do not want to be on Facebook for a variety of privacy reasons. My children are all adults, including my oldest who was surrendered as an infant, and we now have a tentative email relationship. I would never do anything to endanger that relationship, or to embarrass any of my kids.
Perhaps because I am older and did not grow up with the internet, I am often not comfortable with the level of disclosure on many blogs, written as if they were private diaries but out there for the world to see. Self-disclosure by adults is one thing, a personal choice. I do not think minor children have the discernment to make that choice, especially when a parent is urging them to disclose their feelings in public.
But of course, it is Dawn’s choice to do this, and anyone else who proceeds in this fashion, her family and her prerogative to tell all. Not saying it is wrong for her to do this, just that it can have unforseen consequences in the long run for the kids. They are not in school now, but someday may be. People may read things they have said today that later they may not want out there.
Maybe I am just a paranoid old fart, but I am only voicing another view that everyone is free to disagree with:-)
And Maryanne, note that I said I didn’t reply to your comment because I wasn’t interested in getting in an argument that is likely to go nowhere and frustrated us both. It’s fine that you voiced your view here. I just wrote to someone else (who asked that her comment, which also took me to ask, not be published) that I think a blog is as much its comments as its content. I just try not to engage in discussions that are likely to turn into fruitless arguments cuz the internet has enough fruitless arguments! I think we will always be on different pages re., blogging publicly and that’s fine. It’s one of those I may disagree but I’ll defend your right to say it? So there you go.
The thing is, though, that kids are very adept at picking up and believing and repeating the party line in their families. I could interview my kids about topics that they’ve heard my positions on over and over (hospital birth vs. home birth, vaccines and medication, homeschooling, vegetarianism, race politics) and I’m pretty sure whatever they say about those things is going to reflect our family’s culture around them–not an absolute truth or an independently-thought-out rationale of their own. So, as heartfelt as Madison’s responses are, to me they speak more to what she’s learned environmentally than to a full understanding of the issues Stuy is describing.
True but I think they’re a valid expression just like any kid expressing their family’s values. I’d still take your kid at his/her word about home birth, homeschooling etc. but I’d also give them room to feel differently when they got older. Likewise with Madison. And I still think her beliefs (like any child’s beliefs) have weight. There’s a reason kids can’t vote but that doesn’t mean that they ought not to be listened to.
Here’s what’s so funny to me. They did a study in which they asked adoptive parents to ask about their adoptees adjustment. They’ve also done studies in which they ask kids to talk about their adjustment in open adoption.
The kids views most often match the parents views and this seems to bother NO ONE when the kids are saying how happy and well adjusted and delighted they are about adoption.
Suddenly, if a kid says they wish they could live with their biological parent, or that they feel deep grief or that it’s hard, or that they wish they hadn’t been adopted their views are just “drama talk” or wishfull thinking like…
“Oh lot’s of us wish we could have lived with our Aunt but it’s not really a huge life issue”
People tend to believe kids when they say they like adoption. (Even if it’s their parents veiw.) They tend to “suddenly realize” that the parents view might have an affect if the child says they have other feelings about adoption too. Like maybe the parent planted all those thoughts in their heads!!!!!
Which can be equally true and HARMFUL if a parent plants the idea that the child should feel nothing bu joy about adoption.
However I think adoptive parents who are willing to talk about and ask about other feelings in adoption get slammed for “planting ideas” and adoptive parents who are only willing to talk about it in a positive way get praised for talking about it at all.
The reality is, each child views adoption differently through childhood, and yes the way adoption is talked about shapes their view of it.
However I can say, as someone who was only told “adoption is good” I definitely had a “Secret world” of difficult feelings that I had no one to talk about with.
I think I lost a bigger part of the relationship I could have had with my adoptive parents because of this and it wasn’t their faults. They were just doing what all the “experts” in adoption were telling them.
If Madison can grow and be told that she IS the expert in knowing her feelings, and that those feelings can be happy, sad, angry, discontent, joyful, appreciative, or critical of adults decision then that is the closest we can come as adults to giving our children the freedom to grow in their own feelings.
We can’t change that as adults we have feelings and that no matter how hard we try our children will pick up in our feelings and those feelings will influence their perceptions, thoughts and ideas about their own feelings and beliefs and how comfortable they are expressing them; but we can do all that we can to give them that empowerment in whatever way we know how.
Like for example, as an adoptee I think, “what if I just wanted to go back to my birth family”
Dawn is one of the few adoptive parents that I know who I think could hear those words and feel whatever genuine ache any parent would feel on hearing even the idea that SOMEONE ELSES child might have felt that way, and still listen and try to make sense of the best way to be a supportive person and understand and be a good parent within that.
Having a blog that talks about adoption as an adoptive parent, who is willing to involve people with drastically varying opinions is really hard and challenging.
But it open the door for communications that would have no way of happening other wise.
I think in the “critique” of Dawns interview there was sort of a combined, “Well you shouldn’t have interviewed them, their opinions are just your opinions, and you shouldn’t have shared that with the world anyway.”
When adoptive parents post articles on sites like NPR or other larger media outlets and the kids say sweet things like, “I know you’re my real parents and that’s all that matters”
The public says, “Yay, isn’t that sweet, there’s a really caring parent sharing how great adoption is.”
While I think sharing your childrens lives is a tricky thing, there would be very limited ability to talk about the issues that Dawn wants to share, or even get feedback on, without sharing some pieces of her lives and her childrens lives.
And I think we need more parents that, whether they are willing to share their childrens stories or not, are willing to listen to varying viewpoints, and share their thoughts on what have learned, what what they continue to learn about adoption with other adoptive parents who need to hear this stuff.
Anyways I think I’ve rambled enough.
: )
lol, in your most recent post about the comments here, you said you look askance at the parents that freely blog their kids and I thought, “yup. that would be ME” because I am so very open but I make it clear. I’m open in the hopes that people in my situation will have their unspoken questions answered and/or feel free to be open too. There is a lot of pain in adoption on all sides of the fence and pretending the elephant isn’t in the middle of the room is absurd. In addition, there are lots of questions about what works and what doesn’t work to help our impaired kids and many times, professionals are NOT the ones with the answers.
That said, I might be viewed askance (because you’ve never mentioned if you approve or disapprove but I imagine you might look less favorably on my approach lol), but I do it knowingly in the hopes that others will benefit from our story. I’ve discussed this at length with my counselor – that i’m so open about everything and that this part of my personality is unusual but she agrees, my openness is freeing for many more than just me.
and I can delete at will.
I don’t double-check with my kid *every* time I write about her on my blog, but I check in with her now and then about what things she might not want me to write about and if I’m even a little unsure, I ask her about it. I do ask for her permission every time I post a photo of her. She’s usually okay with photos, although sometimes now she will veto because she thinks here hair was too messy or some-such (I roll my eyes *in my mind* when she does that, as if the internet cares her hair is messy, heh). But she understands that I like to talk to other people about life, about being a parent, about being a homeschooling mom, she understands it’s part of a larger conversation, sometimes with people we don’t really know. What’s too much sharing? Well, that’s for me and my family to decide, right, not for some passers-by who might think I share too much. What connection are we making with folks if we don’t share anything? Lol, just creative writing at that point? I think your blog is … necessary, Dawn, and I think Maddie would agree. Your honesty about the good and the hard parts of open adoption help the world. Madison obviously feels that her open adoption should be the norm, that every adopted child should know his/her first family and her voice is powerful. As to what someone said above, about Maddie just parroting values she hears in her family. Where else would she get her values? No child grows up without the values of their family. Either they grow up to hold those same values, or they don’t, but we are surely shaped by our parents’ beliefs. Maddie doesn’t seem like the kind of person to believe something that she doesn’t feel in her heart. I don’t know her, but she comes across pretty strong in her own words and in the stories Dawn tells about her!
I don’t know, maybe it’s because I’ve been reading your blog for six years, or maybe I’m just clueless, but for all that you do put out there on the internet, Dawn, I feel like you protect a hell of a lot. I mean, a LOT a lot, and it seems to correlate with kid-age; it’s been a bunch of years since Noah showed up in any real way at all here, you know?
So even though there are days and times when I think, “oh, my kids wouldn’t be comfortable if I posted something like that about them on my blog,” I never ever think you’re doing it without gut-checking its wisdom for your own kids/family.
I would totally interview my kids for my blog. Not just as a parent, but as a genealogist and historian. Sure, the kids’ opinions are going to change, and maybe be less-family centered or less filtered as they get older and my own power re: their opinions gets lower, but their opinions right now are fascinating for themselves. If anyone tried to tell Gemma that she believed what she did b/c of her dad and me, she’d totally take them to task. (She might not be entirely correct to do that, but she’d still really resent the implication.)
[...] And a little quote from a young celebrated adoptee, “People need to persevere around this town!” [...]
[...] or not talking about adoption Dawn and Malinda have recently written about adoption talk in reponse to this post. I have written [...]
[...] It started for me when I read Dawn at This Woman’s Work interviewing her kids about whether she brought up adoption too much. I had to play catch up and go back to reading [...]
[People tend to believe kids when they say they like adoption. (Even if it’s their parents veiw.) They tend to “suddenly realize” that the parents view might have an affect if the child says they have other feelings about adoption too. ]
There’s a certain status quo out there about adoption, and kids very, very, VERY easily pick up on things. Before I was in contact with my biological family, I was convinced that the adoptive family was the ONLY real family, could ever ONLY be the real family, and that this is the life I was meant to live in. While we, as a society, often say “Each adoptee’s experience and feelings are their own”, the view in adoption that I just wrote about is the only view that is outwardly praised and encouraged in a social environment.
But even when I started contact, and all these contradictory feelings popped up and I started thinking, “Well, hm, maybe adoption isn’t all puppies and rainbows”, the first thing *I* told myself?
“Be grateful. You could have died. You had loving parents. What more could you want? Don’t be so unappreciative about what adoption gave you.”
It was betraying everything I had believed or been taught to believe about adoption.
No one had to tell me that. It was all these subconscious messages I received: be grateful. Adoption is wonderful. Anything negative is worth the positive in adoption. Shut up and don’t make anyone else uncomfortable. You’re the wrong one. You’re the adoptee, and you were saved, so you should be grateful. And so on.
So when an adoptive parent asks their kids about their response in regards to adoption? Maybe the kid thinks adoption is great, maybe the kid thinks adoption is not so great. Maybe the kid thinks some parts are awesome, and other parts suck, or maybe the kid isn’t emotionally mature enough to delve through the complexities of adoption yet. I’m not saying a young child’s response is COMPLETELY reflective on how the adoptive parent has been parenting.
But another aspect of it is the environment and the messages that the child absorbs through people. They hear people talk about adoption. They see people talk about adoption. They learn what is discussed and what is not. They learn what is socially acceptable. Again, I’m not saying their opinion is necessarily flat-out based on what the adoptive mom has been telling them. But parents are often the strongest influence throughout childhood.
What am I getting at?
Here’s the thing: the adoptive parent became Mom/Mommy THROUGH adoption. That’s the whole point of the adoptive relationship – mommy is there because of adoption, the child is there because of adoption. Adoption is the reason they became a family.
Kids are aptly aware of this on many levels. So, to say anything that they might fear will be seen as “bad” means they will hurt, upset, and/or disappoint those who have relied on adoption to create their families. So of course, they’re going to say that you know, adoption is great on some aspects, and in others maybe it’s a little sad because they miss their foster families, or that sometimes it’s wonderful because they love adoptive mom so so much, and other times they really miss their biological mommy who “gave them up.”
They’re not going to focus heavily on the loss aspect because it makes people uncomfortable. And unlike other forms of loss, where people say “I’m sorry you lost family member xx” or “I’m sorry you grew up without knowing xx”, people are so quick to point all the wonderful stuff that adoption causes (despite the loss) that said loss is often blatantly overlooked.
And kids realize that at very early ages, what makes adults uncomfortable. Or what MIGHT make adults uncomfortable.
When adoption isn’t being praised, it makes adults uncomfortable.
I think this is very true and also it’s very true that if Madison had said something more party line that the people who were critical maybe wouldn’t be critical and the people who WEREN’T critical would maybe have been critical. But at heart there is a silencing of the adopted person’s experience of adoption child or not. While Madison’s opinions about adoption are certainly going to be influenced by us, I do believe that her FEELINGS about her adoption are her own and Madison is, frankly, not happy about the whole adoption thing. Now she is a happy person and she is a joyful person (because that is who she is) but she’s pretty clear that no one asked HER if she wanted to be adopted and if they had, maybe she’d have a different answer. To her there is no paradox in loving me but wishing she could have stayed with Pennie and I so totally get that. I so totally get that while Pennie and I are on either side of a theoretical divide where Pennie got loss and I got gain, Madison is LIVING that divide and that the great blessing of being a child is that you ought to be able to take gain for granted (i.e., Noah doesn’t sit around being grateful for me and appreciative) and so for her, she’s really happy to tell you that adoption means she is missing Pennie.
I do think that as she gets older that she’s going to have to, as you say, delve through the complexities of adoption and I think that’s when the openness we have in our discussions now will really pay off for her. Because we have established our (adults — Brett, Pennie & me) willingness to hear her questions and her criticisms and her grief and her anger. Right now its just about honoring her feelings but later it will be about honoring her right to have a critical view that doesn’t reflect ours. I know that my mental health has been dependent on my ability to look critically at my parents’ divorce and recognize that what was good for my family may not have been good for me on an individual level and to accept that, forgive my parents, allow myself my anger and incorporate my own story of loss into my personal narrative of becoming. So I get that this will need to be true for Madison, too.
Babbling. But you struck a chord with me.
[...] And last, but certainly nowhere least, is Dawn’s entry, I’m Interviewing the Kids. [...]