Conversation, IRL

In conversation this morning with son and husband, adoption came up, as it has a tendency to do.

It was a result of me asking my husband if I'd told him before that my mom had recently told me I was kept in the hospital for a month or so prior to them taking me home (I had to look back in my blog to this post in order to confirm the month as I'd said 6 months this morning...wow, proof positive of how as story gets embellished) and how it doesn't appear to have affected me. I did confirm that "I seem unaffected, don't I?".

The discussion moved all over the place from there.

We covered how a psychology text book conveys the notion that a child isn't so much affected by being adopted but rather by who they are adopted to, that it's so different to be adopted by a family of another race in that it's much more difficult to escape the fact that one is adopted unless the adopted person is not with their family, or, as my son pointed out, they're at home with only their family.

We talked about the notion that adopted people are more likely to give a child up for adoption to validate their experience, to make it ok, a notion I cannot entertain in application to myself (it was always in my thoughts to NOT ever do this because my biological mother did), but understand it in the way that it's a fact that human beings do perpetuate cycles and behaviors that logically they shouldn't/wouldn't be as likely to perpetuate as someone else, as they are aware of how it feels.

We discussed how although some of the online discussion seems just plain "stupid" (my son's word) that much of it is necessary to attempt to educate and how although I think it's fantastic and helpful it always sticks in my head that people who could quite likely do a perfectly acceptable job of parenting a child they've adopted without all the extra information have the potential to become "afraid" of their child, and this will do exactly the opposite of what all the educating is (hopefully) meant to be doing. How an attempt to "help" prospective adoptive parents be better parents unintentionally could possibly do just what's trying to curb.

We talked about a supposed group of women who are talking about adopting out children intentionally with the purpose of supplying childless parents with a gift of a child, something to which my husband reacted in disbelief comparing the act to giving someone a golf club if they didn't have one of their own, that it couldn't be that simple, it wouldn't be normal. We talked about how this scenario was entirely different than a woman who finds herself pregnant with a child she doesn't want, that this scenario certainly does exist.

I'm off to a family gathering today where I'll likely see a baby, newly adopted by a cousin, and another cousin who, as he ages, is the spitting image of my beloved dad who I miss especially at these family events.

I'm looking forward to it all. I love family shit.