Adult Adoptees- listening to their stories

I think adoptive parents are consummate researchers.  We look at agencies, we check out homestudy requirements, we know what countries are open or closed, we read read read all we can about adoption.  In that quest to know what the process is going to be like and what our kids might experience, we will hopefully run across some adult adoptee stories.

These aren’t all easy to hear.  As with much of life, those who are unhappy often have the loudest voices.  Some adoptees were brought into dysfunctional families and went from one sad situation into another.  Many came from great adoptive families, but always felt like something was missing.  Many are now angry that they didn’t have a say in a decision that ultimately determined the course of their life.

And as an adoptive parent, these stories are tough to read.  I make it a habit to spend some time a couple days a month reading through these stories.  I want to be prepared if my kids struggle the ways these adults do.  I give my kids the freedom to feel whatever they need to feel about their adoptions, even if it’s hard for me.  I know whatever experiences I may have in life, I will never know what it feels like to have been placed for adoption and raised in an environment different from my biology, so I want to be respectful if my kids have hard feelings about that.  But it can make adoptive parenting feel like a futile task.  Like you’re loving and nurturing a ticking time bomb- a child who will some day come to hate you and resent the very act that brought them into your family.

I have been blessed with a lot of adult adoptees in my life.  When I read these stories of anger and resentment, I can’t actually connect them with the real life adoptees I know.  Even a friend who was adopted into a very sad situation has a beautiful outlook on how God used that in her life and has gone on to adopt children of her own.  I have found that sometimes when I’m feeling overwhelmed by the painful stories of adult adoptees, I have to counterbalance that with the actual humans I know who love their adoptive parents and have been a support for me in the adoption process.

I have read blogs where people condemn even what I am describing to you right now- asking adoptees about their positive adoption experience.  They say “adopters” need to hear those stories to assuage the guilt they feel about stealing someone else’s child.  Ugh.  They say it belittles the adopted adult and makes them forever a child, having to explain the circumstances surrounding their adoption.  Obviously there are tactless things people say, but I have found my adoptee friends and family members to be amazingly gracious with me in answering questions and even enjoying the opportunity to talk about something that makes them unique.  And I’m not asking questions because I think they’re an oddity.  I’m asking questions because I want to do this “right”.  If they had a positive adoption experience, I want to know what their families did to help them come to peace with their adoption.  I want to learn.  I want my kids to benefit from having adult adoptees in their lives they can go to if they have questions I can’t answer or to normalize their life experience.

Which is why I wish everybody could know Tara.

Really.  Whoever you are, you would benefit from knowing Tara.  There are few people in this world as honestly happy and open and positive as Tara.  And I don’t mean the kind of “positive” where somebody is running from dealing with their issues.  Tara is positive, but also REAL about her struggles and how she’s learned to cope.  (Want proof?  Check out her blog- http://detailsanddahlias.wordpress.com)

I’ve known Tara for a couple years now, but I don’t remember when she first told me she was adopted.  I do remember last year when I met her mom I almost made a remark about how much they looked alike before it hit me that I knew she was adopted.  The resemblance is remarkable, but that was a happy surprise for Tara’s parents and not a genetic foregone conclusion.

So when I was struggling with some issues in connecting my daughter with her adoption, Tara seemed like a natural person to talk to.  Driving away from our three hour coffeehouse chat, I just wished all my adoptive mama friends could have been right there beside me, hearing the affirming and sweet words of my friend.  I’ve been excited for an opportunity to share a little Tara with you in two ways- today via the wisdom I gained through our chat, and tomorrow when Tara shares her story in her own words.
So here’s what I learned from Tara:

Tara’s parents taught her she was loved and accepted and they communicated love and acceptance for her birthmom, too.  It was a closed adoption, but they never pretended she wasn’t adopted or minimized the sacrifice of the woman who gave her life.  Tara has a lot of positivity about adoption and about how her parents handled it.

It was so affirming for me to hear that while Tara now has total confidence in her identity, when her parents talked to her about her adoption in her early days she responded in much the same way my daughter does- with indifference.  She heard the beautiful things her parents were saying about her birthfamily, but she wasn’t ready to interact with that information.  She needed to be secure in her identity as her parents’ child.  I loved hearing Tara talk about how she and her mom would joke about how similar they look and how her mom would never correct strangers who commented on their family resemblance.  I needed to hear that.

I left our talk feeling a new freedom to embrace my role as MY daughter’s mother.  I wanted to wake up my little girl and just hug her.  It really has changed how I see my role in my daughter’s life.  I continue to talk about adoption, but I have also started affirming to my girl what ways she is “just like Mommy”.  This is a phrase I had avoided, but now I am loving.  She has brown hair with waves “just like Mommy”.  She loves ice-cream “just like Mommy”.  She wants to snuggle in blankets with a book “just like Mommy”.  She loves to say, “We are the girls” whenever she wants to draw a distinction between the two of us and all the boys in our family.  She really is my girl.  And I’m so thankful Tara helped me feel comfortable relaxing and letting that be enough.

If you’re an adoptive parent, I hope you’re investing in the lives of adult adoptees around you.  Listening to their stories (positive and negative) and learning from their experiences.  Your kids will thank you.