As we enter Mother’s Day season, it seemed like a good time to mention that adoption challenges the status quo. A seemingly simple holiday becomes riddled with questions:
- Is my birthmother thinking about me?
- Should we do something to recognize or remember our child’s birthmother?
This is particularly worth thinking through if you have an open adoption. - Do foster children feel confused and torn during this time?
Have I mentioned school projects? I.e., the family tree project. Understanding family relationships is an important part of education and what better way to cement these concepts than to have a child construct her family tree, right? Wrong if you’re an adopted or foster child. Actually it’s not really such a bad project as some adoptive parents would have you think. However, it does take some sensitivity and thoughtfulness on the part of the teacher, parents, and student. I remember feeling a little like a poser on my tree (even with 2 adopted siblings and 2 adopted cousins). I mean I had always felt like a part of my family until I filled out a paper that seemed to want to connect me genetically to them even though I knew I wasn’t and didn’t leave room for a family to whom I knew I was genetically connected even if I didn’t have any names or pictures to fill in. So what to do? I would recommend either approaching your child’s teacher to see if she can change the requirements to be create a family tree for your family OR an historical family (i.e. George Washington). The other option is to create a grafted tree of sorts. I kinda like the latter myself. After all we are grafted families!
What other status quo things get complicated with adoption?