So here is what happened after church. We went downstairs for coffee and donuts, as we do most Sundays when Lute is mostly well behaved during the service. (Yeah, we bribe our children, and sometimes it works.) The boys were running around, playing with their friends, dancing onstage, chasing each other, and stopping for brief moments to stuff their faces with maple bars. Eddie asked for water, so I lifted him to the water fountain, where he managed to ingest about three teaspoons from the 12 gallons that hit his face.
As I started to carry him back to where the action was, an older gentleman stopped me and asked, “Is he your foster child?”
“Oh no, we adopted him as a newborn, he’s mine,” I replied happily.
“It looks like he needs a lot of guidance, doesn’t he?”
Well, yeah dude, he’s TWO.
I was a little more diplomatic than that, but a bit of the mama bear started to well up within me.
Why is there such a stigma attached to adopted children? Here is my thought: they are kids. A kid is a kid. Now I am not saying that there aren’t real issues for children that stem from adoption. I’m sure there are. But I am just as sure that every child has some issue of some kind… because they are human. They are going through life. And life isn’t fair, and we all have to deal with that at some point in some way, and we usually feel pretty disillusioned and victimized.
Before we brought Eddie home, several people asked us if we knew if he was exposed to anything harmful (valid question) or if we were worried that he would have predispositions that we weren’t prepared for. I am not sure I am prepared for any of the things any of my children are predisposed to. You should see George when we cut off the cookies.
If anything, it’s been the opposite of the common misconceptions. If you were to spend a good amount of time with my three children (does anyone want to, by the way?), you might notice that Lute and George have a little bit of a woeful nature. Sometimes a lot of a woeful nature, actually. Eddie, on the other hand, is probably the most joyful kid I have ever encountered. He might get a little frustrated from time to time, but he is usually having a grand time doing whatever it is he is doing. And yes, he is a handful, but that is because he is a boy through and through. (I think they are calling that “spirited” these days, right? Wanna be PC.)
So here are a few statistics that I hope help eradicate some of the ideas floating around about adoption:
85% of adopted children are rated in “excellent” or “very good” health.
The national average for non-adopted kids is 82%.
over 90% of adopted children have positive feelings about being adopted.
88% of adoptive parents describe themselves as a “happy couple”.
Non-adoptive parents: 83%.
The New York Times did an interesting article awhile back that addressed this issue. I know I have a tendency toward the Pollyanna side of life, and I can gloss things over from time to time, but in my heart of hearts, I really believe that a change needs to come about in the attitude toward adoption.
In my experience as a parent with three little boys very close in age, no kid is easy, but every kid is a blessing.
Hi Carina. I’ve seen your blog a few times and grieved when your adoption fell through. We just had one fall through a few weeks ago, it really sucks. But God is still good:) Anyway, excellent post. The first thing I thought after reading it was, “I’m a biological kid to my parents…and I need guidance…and I have issues….and I’m 31. Let’s have some grace on a two year old.”
Unlike you, I tend to be Debbie Downer:) (and again, raised by my bio parents…). But God works through all our personalities, adopted or not. And every kid IS a blessing!!
Thanks for writing this!
Abby, I am so sorry for your loss. It is a rough go when it falls through, but there is always hope, and that’s what we’ve got to hold on to.
Thanks for your sweet words!
xo
Carina…. I absolutely LOVED this post. I work in orphan care in Uganda and have adopted a 2 yr old girl myself. Sometimes it seems I am just seeped in information and stories of all the problems/ issues adopted children have for a lifetime. Thank you for this hopeful stats and your positive outlook!
I have zero tolerance for that kind of thing. I’m glad you handled it well. I’m afraid I wouldn’t have been very gracious.
While I am thrilled that your family has a wonderful outlook and I wish more would . . . I want others to realize there is another side of adoption that deals with early trauma for the kids and Reactive Attachment Disorder. I think many others go into adoption blinded thinking that all will be well if I love them “enough” and they are woefully unprepared to deal with all that comes along with it. Even children adopted at a VERY young age can have attachment issues and it is a hard road. I am by no means suggesting that people not consider adoption!! I am saying that looking at the Pollyanna side of it is GREAT, but know there can be an ugly and terrible side that can rear it’s ugly head and you must be prepared for that.
That said, I DO NOT regret my adoption . . . NOT AT ALL. I love my son, I HATE the early trauma he suffered and the issues it brings to him and us daily. At 17 he is an integral part of my family and I cannot imagine life without him. But love and a positive outlook alone will not get me through most days. It is hard and it is painful. I have friends who have HAD to relinquish their adopted child back to the state just get them the help that he/she needed. It is/was heart wrenching, life changing and painful.
Love to you and thanks for sharing.
Sheri, I agree with you. There ARE real issues that stem from adoption and I don’t mean to disregard those. But in this particular instance, I think that this man was the perfect example of the very common assumption that every adoption will be hard, every adopted child will present difficulties, and they are less than biological children. They aren’t. We are very, very grateful that the road (thus far) has been very smooth for us, and Eddie is a tremendous joy in our lives. I struggle with the fact that he will encounter these stereotypes for the rest of his life. Who knows what we’ll encounter in the future with more children? I do want to be prepared for the very real issues that kids have to deal with. Thank you SO much for sharing your side.
Love this post, thanks so much for your insight and humor 🙂
Love this post! I agree wholeheartedly. I just see my kids as kids, and they all have their own little quirks and issues. Sometimes people blow it up too much. While we are still working through some things with our adopted kiddos, I am also working through some issues with my biological children as well. We take it one day at a time. 🙂
I think it is possible that there was more than just an adoption bias involved. For his whole life your son’s behaviors will also be interpreted based on the color of his skin. Three of my four sons are Black. The first time I was aware of how differently my AA sons are judged was when our oldeest Black son was just a toddler. We were shopping and he had grown restless and was climbing in and out of the stroller. An older man commented, “He’s a trouble maker, isn’t he?” As a pre-schooler the same son was accused of being a bully and scaring the other children in the baby pool. His crime? Swimming under water… Another son was stopped by security as he left a large discount dept. store with my husband and asked to produce a receipt for the gallon of milk he was carrying. When the employee realized our son was with a white man he assured my husband it was routine policy. Funny, we’ve been carrying milk out of that store for years and have never once been questioned. Most recently our son was accused of taking a customer’s car keys at his job. He and 2 other employees (both white) had pushed the 3 carts carrying her returns to the garden dept. When she couldn’t find her keys she said she thought she’d laid her keys in one of the carts and the “black guy” must have taken them. Turned out her keys were in the ignition of her car the whole time! Did she apologize to my son? Only if you consider “I hope no one thought I was accusing anyone of anything” a sincere apology. I should clarify that we have raised our family in a large, diverse city. It may have lessened the occurance of these kinds of experiences, but it certainly hasn’t eliminated them because those perceptions of black males run deep in our culture.
We owe it to our kids to prepare them for the reality that not everyone “gets” adoption, as well as the attitudes they will face based on their race.