I have a lot of jumbled posts in my head but when my work life gets busy, my blog is forced to suffer.

Here is my jumble in shorthand:

• Malinda posted about this parenting advice from Brian Stuy:

We have never brought up, unprompted, our daughters’ birth parents. We have discussed adoption, conception and pregnancy, and other corollary issues from time to time, but I have never, without having the subject introduced by a daughter, initiated a conversation by saying, “Do you wish you knew your birth mother?” Or, “Do you want to know more about your abandonment?” I have always indicated a willingness to answer any and all questions (not just about adoption but about anything), so I am confident my kids know that if they ask any question we will try to provide them with a good answer. But the point is, I wait for them to ask. Those that force-feed their children the deep issues of abandonment, birth parents and adoption, risk, I believe, getting the kinds of responses displayed above. In fact, by presenting the reality of birth parents before they are mature enough to handle it, for example, I think we risk diminishing our own position as parents to our children.

• At my grad school interview we were talking about conflict and I said I didn’t like conflict either (in response to someone saying she didn’t like it) but it’s always interesting.

• I am a navel-gazing, feelings junkie, over-thinker. Lots of people aren’t. Learning to respect people’s unfathomable boundaries is ongoing for me. Brett is my primary teacher.

• I was watching Lost on Tuesday, which is chockfull of obvious and less obvious adoption issues and adoption cliches and stereotypes and I was thinking about how deeply ingrained our presumptions are about “real” parents and changelings and lost orphans and false parents. I was thinking about fairy tales and mythology and thinking that our collective unconsciousness already feeds us these ideas. (I am typing this to avoid spoilers.) It doesn’t matter if they are “true” or not — they are part of our belief system.

• So unlike Brian, I think that even if we never ever ever breathe an unasked for word about our kids’ birth parents that our collective unconsciousness is already, in some ways, diminishing our own position as parents to our children. And our kids need to figure that out for themselves, which I think means we should be more explicit in welcoming that discussion. Not because we need to sway them but because we need to hear them out (or at least say to them, “I am bringing this up because I will hear you out”) so that they know whatever direction they choose, whatever belief feels like home to them, we will love them and accept them and never ever leave them. Even if they feel more attached to their birth countries, families and origins than they do to us. They may reject the “blood is thicker than water” belief system or they may not. But they will wonder about it.

• Brian also says:

They might ask at that point if they were born of their adoptive parents, and that would be a good time to answer, “No, you were born to a woman in China.” That is the type of answer I would give. But many use this opportunity to go ahead and answer questions not asked and not even thought of: “No, you were born to a woman in China. She is your birth mother, and she wasn’t able to keep you, so she left you at the gate of the orphanage.” This is the type of over-feeding that overwhelms most kids, and creates, I believe, unnecessarily emotional issues.

• There’s a third response, “No, you were born to a woman in China. What do you think about that?” When Madison learns something new or asks something new, I always end with, “What do you think about that?” or “How do you feel about that?” or “I know that might be confusing. Do you have some questions about that?” I know this kid pretty well and I know when the look on her face means she’s worried or curious or confused. So sometimes when we’re, say, reading a book that has some adoption-ish metaphor, I’ll stop and say, “Does this make you think about your adoption?” or “Is this reminding you of Pennie?”

• I mean, culturally? We romanticize birth ties. I’m not willing to say that this romance is more true or less true. I’m not willing to say that it’s a cultural bias we need to question or reject or welcome with open arms. I think it’s one that’s interesting to explore and for Madison, it is an absolutely vital exploration because it is a conflict she is living. Even if she is not a navel-gazing, feelings junkie who overthinks things, she will need to make sense of it in whatever way she needs to.

• So I bring it up. I don’t say, “Hey, Madison, do you feel so much more tied to Pennie than you do to me? Since she’s your real mother and all?” Instead I say, “How did you feel when so-and-so was talking about how much you look like Pennie?” If I was Brian Stuy in a closed adoption from China, I’d surely say, “Sometimes I wonder about your birth mom. Do you wonder?” Because I would wonder. And if I’m wondering, it’s not such a far stretch to think that the kid herself in question wonders.

• And I ask myself, do I believe the collective unconsciousness about changelings and lost orphans and birth ties? My answer: I do and I don’t. I do not think that birth ties are any more magical and true than love ties. But I do believe that birth ties are rich with meaning. I do think that in a culture that romanticizes our genetic origins that those genetic origins have an important weight.

• For example, gender has tremendous cultural weight, agreed? We can say that gender is a social construct but it does not negate the weight of it. We can say it is a figment of our collective imagination and we can choose NOT to believe that gender matters. Individually, we can do that. But culturally, gender still has weight and our questions and struggle with the cultural construct of gender is practiced against the beliefs that we are questioning. Which is to say, no matter how much we choose to believe that gender does not matter for ourselves, it does matter. Our personal practice of gender exists in contrast to the larger cultural construct. In other words, Lady Gaga owes as big a debt to Phyllis Schlafly as she does to Madonna.

• I find tremendous meaning in my own birth ties. (Witness my conversion to Judaism, the religion of my paternal ancestors.) I am, admittedly, biased to believe that Madison will find meaning in hers.

Oh this is a convoluted entry but it was a treat to babble on. My to-do list has grown like a batch of tribbles while I was writing though so no time to clean it up. Ack.