Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Prior to my adoption I read Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew (TAKWTAPK). I read blurbs about the book like:
voices of adopted children are poignant
I thought the book just plain sucked. You see I have relatives and friends who were adopted or fostered. Not one of them had ever expressed the thoughts in this book.
But I read the book again while thinking about Terri Doolittle’s Practical Attachment.
Item 11 from TAKWTAPK is:
I am Afraid I was Given Away by My Birth Mother Because I was a Bad Baby. I Need You to Help me Dump My Toxic Shame
Clik here to view.
Clik here to view.
And I could see how some of them made a lot of sense from an attachment parenting point of view. TAKWTAPK lists the top 20 potential issues for adoptees.
It was only after my adoption was completed that I realized how much this book shaped my thoughts. It helped me be fearless about talking about Natasha’s birth family. Adoption was part of our daily life.
Adoption was part of our daily life in the same manner that my brown (turning gray) hair is. It is just another fact. And all the facts (hazel eyes, right handed, loves reading, asthma, uncle in baseball hall of fame, etc…) add up to self-identity.
I include adoption in our daily life by:
- We stop at any display of a map or globe. I ask Natasha to find Ukraine, Taiwan, United States and Japan. We search for countries that we are connected to and she learns geographic.
- Natasha gets to pick her bedtime story. And sometimes she wants her adoption story.
- We read books and watch television together. We talk about them. The theme of abandonment and adoption come up fairly frequently. Hansel and Gretel is just one example.
- Natasha was brushing her hair. I came up behind her and gave her a hug. I told her, “You have beautiful hair. I bet your birth mama has pretty hair too.”
- We have a family joke that goes back to Ukraine. Natasha’s very first question to me was, “Do my feet smell?”. So sometimes she will take her shoes off the car. I will say, “Someone’s feet stink”. Natasha will giggle.
