What adoptive parents don't tell you during National Adoption Month

-
This post originally appeared in the Detroit Free Press as an op-ed in November 2014. 

When my wife Gladys and I were going through the mandated screening needed to adopt our daughter, our social worker joked that there is a no-return policy on adopted kids. I am sure she intended it to be our final reminder that adopting a child is a permanent lifestyle change. I heard her and immediately assumed that someone she worked with must have changed their mind at some point, and she wanted to make sure that never happened to another child.

I do not know if my assumption was right, but I was reminded of it reading some of the comments on the hashtag for National Adoption Month, which is happening right now. There is very little “real talk” in recruiting potential adoptive parents, and that needs to change.

The reality for adoptive parents is that for you to have a family, another family has experienced a tragic loss and the child you are adopting knows it, even the little ones. Once your adoption is final, and your child grows up, they will wonder who their biological parents are and ponder what their life would be like if circumstances were different.

The harshest critics of your adoption will be some of the people closest to you, the very people you felt would be on your side. They will level their criticism of your commitment, or your ability to parent, out of what they call a concern for your best interest. Fortunately, there are only one or two people like this, but it is still jarring if you are not prepared.

You have not experienced the stress and worry you will feel during the final few weeks leading to the court date to have your adoption finalized. In Michigan, there is a waiting period of up to six months from when a child is placed in your home until your adoption can be finalized.

You will grow to love that child during that waiting period, and you will realize that you have no legal rights as a parent until your final court date. The thought of something happening to scuttle our adoption of our daughter consumed my thoughts for at least the month before our court date.

People will ask if you have real children, or your own children, as if the very real bond you feel with you adopted child should not exist. If you have adopted transracially, expect a flood of curiosity about raising a child of another ethnicity and criticism that you’re not raising your child right.


My hope is that injecting a little “real talk” into the conversation during National Adoption Month helps convince more loving, caring people that adoption is the right thing for their family by helping them prepare. My life has been changed immeasurably for the good by adopting The Kid, and I know there are others like me who are looking for a little change.   

Popular posts from this blog

Marching for hope in our neighborhood

-
Image
The Kid and I walked our neighborhood this evening, but with a different purpose than usual. Many in our neighborhood gathered at Gesu Catholic Church to March for Hope . Roughly this time last year, a federal judge who lives a few streets over, was shot on his front porch in a botched robbery attempt. His physical recovery from the single bullet to the knee took the better part of a year and extensive rehabilitation, and his emotional recovery was sped by his church community and immediate neighbors. I don't know the judge, nor am I a member of his church Gesu Catholic. I'm not much of a protest guy either, I prefer to work behind the scenes. I read about the walk this morning , and almost forgot about it until Gladys started to do some work for a class she's taking. So we bundled up The Kid, and the two of us walked over to the church to support our neighborhood. When we walked into the church, I was struck immediately with the knowledge that this was not a protes...
Read more

Yet another blog of parenting advice

-
Image
A friend whose wife is expecting their first child was asking me for advice today. He's going to be a new dad, so he was asking in general terms because until you're in it, you really don't know what to ask for. My knee-jerk reaction was to tell him to get rest. Lots of it, whenever you can from now until the kids are adults. Forget the idea of work/life balance too, because balance is a myth. Sometimes work will take priority, sometimes the kids will, and sometimes dad has to be a priority. If you're too concerned about hitting a false measure of balance, you're going to miss something. The End of the Beginning And that was it. That's all I could come up with until I got in the car and scarfed down one of the sugar cookies I bought for myself as a treat that I had no intention of sharing. Here's what I came up with. Avoid watching Caillou at all costs. For some reason, kids are absolutely mesmerized by him. No adult on that show holds the kid acc...
Read more

The one question you can ask that is guaranteed to offend an adoptee

-
Image
The more I open up about my personal experience trying to find my birth father, the more convinced I become that people talk about adoptee experiences from the wrong lens. There is an implicit bias toward the adoptive parent perspective that can, and often does, negate the experience of the adoptee. I started really paying attention when people were asking me why I waited so long to reach out to my birth father. That is a legitimate question for his family to ask me, especially when considering he was in the last stages of his life. For the general public, I have a different standard and I would hope they would also ask me a second question, but few ever do. Did your birth family ever come looking for you? The only people that ask are my dearest friends. For the most part, I try to answer the first question sincerely and directly. Usually, I land on something like it took a long time to make the decision because I did not want to hurt anyone but eventually I realized I was ...
Read more