Adoption
**CaptainSerious, candm & foreverbride**
Hi there!
I saw your responses to my post and I'd be happy to respond!
So, since two of you asked questions regarding growing up in a very caucasian area, I'll start there: As a baby, I knew no different and growing up, there was never a point in which my parents told me I was adopted, I just always knew. And I didn't ask a lot of questions either, I just accepted it and thought it was quite normal and was fine with it. I had a few moments as a child that I can remember that were awkward - one being that when I was in 1st or 2nd grade, a classmate asked me if I was black and being the matter-of-fact person I was (and am!), I just said "Nope - I'm from Chile." and I doubt any of my classmates even knew where that was or what skin-tone of people came from there. I also remember a time where a classmate said to me - "Do you have a mustache because you're brown?" and I played it off like nothing. I wasn't real sensitive to anything, and comments didn't really bother me - but I was very aware of being surrounded by people that didn't look like me. I didn't ask questions too much, but I was always wondering if there would be more people that would come live in our town that looked more like my adopted brother and I. I didn't experience racism, no one was particularly mean to us and we grew up as normal members of the community. I was never treated any differently, but just due to my own curiousity, I always had a fascination about where I came from.
My feelings toward international adoption are 100% supportive and strong. I would never have given up the life I had, even having met the life I would have had. International adoption is a beautiful thing and an option my own husband and I are considering, even with my having a child (previous relationship) and us expecting our first together. I think it would make a perfect blend to our family and it pulls at my heart to know there are kids out there throughout the world who need to be loved by a home who opens its arms to them and having been an adoptee myself, I couldn't be more lucky to have been on that end. I know firsthand at how lucky a child will be to have a home like that.
My feelings about my adoptive parents: I couldn't be prouder to be the daughter of those two people. They opened their hearts to us and we are, in my eyes, a completely happy and loving family. My parents were always open to my questions on my adoption, they hid nothing from me, they were honest about everything and when the time came for me to make that call to tell them I had booked my plane ticket for that first trip to the motherland, they cried with me out of joy that they knew I'd be doing something to satisfy a need I longed for. And when the follow-up call came to tell them that I was going to meet my birthmother and family, I could feel their nervousness over the phone and I could sense their grief even, that they thought they were being replaced, but they never said it. They always supported me through my quest and a few days after I got home from that trip, we had a long discussion and I assured them our parent-child relationship would never change - it's been almost a year since that trip and it really hasn't changed a thing. I talk to my birth family very rarely and I"m very content just knowing they are out there and they now know I've spent my life thinking of them, yet so happy to be where I am here in the US.
I guess the one thing I wish my parents would have done differently is really tried to emerse us in our own culture, instead of pretending we were theirs. My mother is Italian-Irish and my father is full blooded Swiss. So we did a lot of things with their cultures, and none for ours and I always wanted to know more about me. Not that I wasn't grateful to be a part of the family and a part of their heritages, but to know more about my own would have been wonderful. I had to do all the footwork on my own after I had left the house as an adult. I did eventually get to go to Chile, with the intention of just seeing the country, meeting the people, and experiencing where I came from and it was the shock of my life to know that my Chilean searchers had found my birth family just a mere 2 weeks before my arrival in Santiago and I was absolutely blown away by the experience to meet them. It was the most incredible experience of my life. That first look at the woman who gave birth to me was a feeling I can't even describe. And I hope as adoptive parents, you know that if your child has that need to know, that need to see where they are from and who they came from, that you help. It's not because we think they can do better, or because we're not happy - it's because some adoptees, like myself, have a space to fill that only that can satisfy. It's very weird. My own adoptive brother - nothing like me - he could care less about his Chilean family, doesn't want to meet them, doesn't care to go there. He's quite the opposite of me, he doesn't have that need and perhaps your adopted children won't either. But I'm just saying, having been there, if they need to do it, stand by them and make sure they know that you're their parents first and foremost and that you'll be there for them on their journey because they'll really need to know you're supportive.
Geez, hope I'm not sounding too preachy here. LOL
Anyway - thanks for letting me ramble. I'm so happy to be in a position I'm in, especially having been on the reunion journey, and that I can help answer things beforehand. Please, by all means, e-mail me if I can help more. I'm happy to do it.
Your adopted kids & future kids are all very lucky little people to have people like you in the world!
chaotic_mum@yahoo.com
I saw your responses to my post and I'd be happy to respond!
So, since two of you asked questions regarding growing up in a very caucasian area, I'll start there: As a baby, I knew no different and growing up, there was never a point in which my parents told me I was adopted, I just always knew. And I didn't ask a lot of questions either, I just accepted it and thought it was quite normal and was fine with it. I had a few moments as a child that I can remember that were awkward - one being that when I was in 1st or 2nd grade, a classmate asked me if I was black and being the matter-of-fact person I was (and am!), I just said "Nope - I'm from Chile." and I doubt any of my classmates even knew where that was or what skin-tone of people came from there. I also remember a time where a classmate said to me - "Do you have a mustache because you're brown?" and I played it off like nothing. I wasn't real sensitive to anything, and comments didn't really bother me - but I was very aware of being surrounded by people that didn't look like me. I didn't ask questions too much, but I was always wondering if there would be more people that would come live in our town that looked more like my adopted brother and I. I didn't experience racism, no one was particularly mean to us and we grew up as normal members of the community. I was never treated any differently, but just due to my own curiousity, I always had a fascination about where I came from.
My feelings toward international adoption are 100% supportive and strong. I would never have given up the life I had, even having met the life I would have had. International adoption is a beautiful thing and an option my own husband and I are considering, even with my having a child (previous relationship) and us expecting our first together. I think it would make a perfect blend to our family and it pulls at my heart to know there are kids out there throughout the world who need to be loved by a home who opens its arms to them and having been an adoptee myself, I couldn't be more lucky to have been on that end. I know firsthand at how lucky a child will be to have a home like that.
My feelings about my adoptive parents: I couldn't be prouder to be the daughter of those two people. They opened their hearts to us and we are, in my eyes, a completely happy and loving family. My parents were always open to my questions on my adoption, they hid nothing from me, they were honest about everything and when the time came for me to make that call to tell them I had booked my plane ticket for that first trip to the motherland, they cried with me out of joy that they knew I'd be doing something to satisfy a need I longed for. And when the follow-up call came to tell them that I was going to meet my birthmother and family, I could feel their nervousness over the phone and I could sense their grief even, that they thought they were being replaced, but they never said it. They always supported me through my quest and a few days after I got home from that trip, we had a long discussion and I assured them our parent-child relationship would never change - it's been almost a year since that trip and it really hasn't changed a thing. I talk to my birth family very rarely and I"m very content just knowing they are out there and they now know I've spent my life thinking of them, yet so happy to be where I am here in the US.
I guess the one thing I wish my parents would have done differently is really tried to emerse us in our own culture, instead of pretending we were theirs. My mother is Italian-Irish and my father is full blooded Swiss. So we did a lot of things with their cultures, and none for ours and I always wanted to know more about me. Not that I wasn't grateful to be a part of the family and a part of their heritages, but to know more about my own would have been wonderful. I had to do all the footwork on my own after I had left the house as an adult. I did eventually get to go to Chile, with the intention of just seeing the country, meeting the people, and experiencing where I came from and it was the shock of my life to know that my Chilean searchers had found my birth family just a mere 2 weeks before my arrival in Santiago and I was absolutely blown away by the experience to meet them. It was the most incredible experience of my life. That first look at the woman who gave birth to me was a feeling I can't even describe. And I hope as adoptive parents, you know that if your child has that need to know, that need to see where they are from and who they came from, that you help. It's not because we think they can do better, or because we're not happy - it's because some adoptees, like myself, have a space to fill that only that can satisfy. It's very weird. My own adoptive brother - nothing like me - he could care less about his Chilean family, doesn't want to meet them, doesn't care to go there. He's quite the opposite of me, he doesn't have that need and perhaps your adopted children won't either. But I'm just saying, having been there, if they need to do it, stand by them and make sure they know that you're their parents first and foremost and that you'll be there for them on their journey because they'll really need to know you're supportive.
Geez, hope I'm not sounding too preachy here. LOL
Anyway - thanks for letting me ramble. I'm so happy to be in a position I'm in, especially having been on the reunion journey, and that I can help answer things beforehand. Please, by all means, e-mail me if I can help more. I'm happy to do it.
Your adopted kids & future kids are all very lucky little people to have people like you in the world!chaotic_mum@yahoo.com
Mom to Jace (7/2004), Cade (2/2009) and baby girl (5/2019)
This discussion has been closed.
Re: **CaptainSerious, candm & foreverbride**
BB&J
Thanks so much for taking the time and effort to respond in such detail!
It helps to know that you never felt prejudice growing up in white, small-town America. It makes me feel much better about our resolve to move.
Many of the other things you've said are also ringing true with how my husband and I are hoping to raise our child. It's nice to have some confirmation that we're on the right track.
Thanks, again, and please stick around.
I think you hit the nail on the head, take each child and each day and each growth phase one at a time, knowing they may want to know - and the next day they may not. And teaching culture as well - that I agree is very important.
Blessings to you, and thank you for sharing (even tho I'm lurking here)
Congrats to all of you
I'll pop in every now and then - I'm enjoying reading your posts and getting a real feeling for how my own parents must have felt. It's quite educational for me
Glad I could help!