Another advantage of password-protection! Now I can write some about my family — I’ll just have to make sure that if they ask for the password, I let this entry fall off the front page before I give it to them. (Except for my brother who is already reading but he’s the only one of us who can keep a secret — including me.)

My mother feels very jealous of Madison’s birth family; they really threaten her. I’m not sure why this is except that some of her ideas about adoption our old school (naturally since she’s 60 and adoption is a brave new world now).

She’s worried about me going out there in June and goes back and forth between thinking I’m wonderful for going and thinking I’m stark, raving mad for even considering it. Her not-so-secret hope is that J. “moves on with her life,” meaning that we don’t hear from her nearly as often.

I didn’t realize how strongly my mom felt about open adoption until I said that we were going to frame one of the Target pics of J. and Madison to put in Madison’s room. My mom said that this would be

“shoving” the adoption down Madison’s throat and why should she be reminded of it all of the time.

Now let me stress here that my mother absolutely adores Madison and she absolutely adores me, too. I can tell by the way my mom looks at Madison that there’s something special between them and in no way does my mom relegate Madison to second-best grandchild status. And, in fact, I think this tremendous love she has for Madison fuels her worries about the adoption.

Anyway, when I was writing that antiadoption article, (which I need to work on this week actually) I realized that many of us naturally have this kind of biological bias about our kids. Now it’s not that the bias plays out as “my bio kid is better,” no, it plays out as “what if my non-bio kid likes his/her bio parents better.” We know that biology isn’t necessary for love but it’s easy to worry that this is only true for us.

So my mom has this biological bias, I think. She worries that 1) Madison will be hurt every time she’s reminded that we are not biologically related; and 2) Madison will end up having a stronger tie to her biological family. Also, although my mom does not think adoption is a lesser way to build a family, she does have this strong idea that the rest of society does feel this way (although in my day-to-day life, we have not much been exposed to this opinion) and so she wants to protect Madison from it. Like not “shoving” her birth mom’s picture “down her throat.”

I don’t know this for certain — my mom will only talk so much about it before telling me that I think too much — but I can only guess by the things she’s said including, “Those people don’t have a right to our baby!” (To which I replied, “Yes they do but more important, yes she does.”)

entrenched gender roles already?!

Now Brett’s grandparents are another story. His father is a baby kind of guy and he seems to celebrate Madison with the same cheerful awe with which he celebrated Noah. He marvels at the size of her feet, at the funny faces she makes, and at the way she runs around the house. Brett’s mom, we figured she’d take right to the adopted kid because she’s very new age. We thought she’d be all “the universe sent us this perfect child meant for our family and all is well.” And she has been this way superficially but really I think this is hard for her. She loves Madison but she seems bewildered by her. Now truth is, she’s never really been a baby person; she is in theory but in reality, they overwhelm her. I think with Noah she was ahead of her own learning curve because Noah looked exactly like an infant Brett (skinny ribs and all) so he was familiar to her. Madison is too much new.

I do think that as Madison gets older that Pam (Brett’s mom) will come around. And I think that she might have this same kind of puzzlement had we given birth to a bio child who more closely resembled me. Right now she is out in Oregon with Brett’s dad so that they can take care of their other granddaughter and I’m sure that this will go well but be a little crazy-making for all involved.

(My dad hardly bears mentioning because he treats Madison the same way he treats his bio-grandkids — with a modicum of interest and booming geniality.)

Of course since of these four grandparents my personal favorite is my mom, it’s her reaction that’s been most important and interesting to me. I am immensely gratified by how she has embraced Madison especially since she was resistant to the adoption idea at first. This had more to do, I discovered later, with her belief that we were too broke to pursue one and that no one would pick us.

I would like her to eventually grow into the idea of birth family contact. She tries really hard to be supportive, but I can tell it’s difficult. My sister — who loves the whole thing, loves Madison, has met J. and loves her, too — is a help here. She has a useful big mouth (once you learn how to make it work for instead of against you) and so I can send messages to my mom through her. You know, like saying, “I’ve been looking at open adoption studies and they say …” and my sister will dutifully repeat it. Plus I can give her a heads up about an upcoming visit or something and have her tell my mom so that by the time I get to my mom, she’s already worked her head around the idea.

I really could not predict the way our family has taken to the adoption. (The transracial part of it deserves another post but I will say that it’s not been as big a deal as the adoption itself.) It has been gratifying to see everyone love her so fiercely even when it challenges their ideas about family. That’s one thing about adoption — it kinda brings everyone along for the ride whether they want to come or not!!!

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