I woke up last night at about 4:45am and let my fears run away with me for about an hour. I replayed every inch of the grad school interview and re-cast myself as Chris Farley awkward. Wasn’t really useful or anything but I can’t count on my brain to serve me well at 5am.
Now I am frustrated by a commenter over at Adoption Mosaic. But I think this person is a button pusher and I’m letting her push my buttons so I need to stop that. I just hate to think that she’s scaring any other adoptive parents away from letting their kids express their feeling by using scare tactics. It’s like when people start tearing down open adoption in general by talking about abusive situations in particular. Well, let me own my mistake in assuming that we’re all starting at the same place. Like I think it goes without saying that openness does not supersede safety but apparently it must be said so that people can’t use one extreme to shoot down openness in general. (sigh) Or I cannot assume that it goes without saying that we teach children to be kind to their friends so I don’t get someone arguing that if Madison is allowed to express her concern that she finds Pennie prettier than I am (because she was concerned, bless her heart, when we all know that Pennie is prettier than I am, which is not to say that I’m dogmeat just that Pennie is awfully pretty) she will go around telling her friends they’re ugly.
BUT I also know that some people are using these arguments not because they have real concern but because they will defend to the death their right not to agree with me. Actually that’s not quite right. They’re aren’t just disagreeing with me; they’re trying to prove that I am completely wrong.
This is where I need to think about it. (And this is not just about Bee; I’ve been thinking on this a lot lately.) Am I as cocksure and as unwilling to make way for a difference of opinion? Well, I’ll tell you — I am positive I am right about how I handle things with Madison re., her loyalty issues. I am willing to stake my child’s emotional health on that. Am I just as willing to say that another parent is wrong? Well, not quite.
See, when I write for a general audience, I am writing for a general audience. I do recognize that my generalities are sometimes way too sweeping. I need to work on that (it’s a process). I do absolutely think it’s a mistake to take any one parenting choice out of context of an entire relationship, which is why I can defend spanking parents. My mom was a spanking parent. You know I think my mom rocks. I do not think spanking rocks. But spanking was one choice in a myriad of parenting choices and it was not the sum of my relationship with my mother. This is why I can say with absolute confidence and in one breath that my mom was (is) a wonderful parent and that I don’t approve of spanking.
Likewise there are a lot of great adoptive parents who make single choices that I find frustrating or mishandled. I can say with confidence that I think it is a mistake to hush our children if they express concern about loving their birth parents more than they love us. But I think loving parents can make that choice (to hush their children) and can even make it in a loving manner. I don’t think that this one decision defines the entire relationship. I think there are many reasons we might hush our children like maybe they bring it up when we have a headache and can’t take a heavy discussion. Or maybe they bring it up when we’re fighting with them and we’re too mad to handle it well. So I’m willing to condemn the decision to stifle our children without condemning the entirety of that parents’ parenting. It’s just one piece of that parenting relationship and it may not be illustrative of anything BUT that one piece.
However I do think brushing things off or hushing them up can be a symptom of a greater unwillingness to honor our children’s adoption stories. And otherwise wonderful parents can do that, too. Which is why I write about this stuff, really. Because I have been so fortunate in finding people who have modeled different ways to do adoption, I want to give back by also modeling a different way to do adoption. I want to write about the parts that I think I do right (along with the parts I struggle with) because I have this great kid who is confident and loving and fun as all get out and she is thriving in an open adoption that is not always easy. I want to show how when my daughter asks, “Do you care if I think Pennie is prettier than you?” That I can say, “That’s fine” and our world doesn’t cave in. In fact, our relationship gets stronger.
Basically, we adoptive parents don’t need to be afraid of our children’s love for their first parents. I think that’s a really encouraging idea and I would have liked hearing it when I was waiting to adopt and worried about how it would all play out.
Ahh well. Probably none of this would have got to me so much if I hadn’t been playing Chris Farley on my own personal mind-TV this morning. Dangit.

















