My last several blogs have been inspired by my reading Waiting Child: How the Faith and Love of One Orphan Saved the Life of Another. While the heart of the story is four-year-old Jaclyn’s campaign to get the toddler boy she’d cared for in the orphanage into a family as well, many other issues are raised. I’ve discussed the question of “required donations” and the needs of children who have been forced into caretaker roles while still very young.
Other issues which came up in the book included the author’s daughter asking her how children were chosen for adoption, why some children remained at her orphanage and some children got families. I can’t imagine what a heart-breaking question must have been for Jaclyn’s mom, since we don’t really understand how the Chinese system chooses which children will be registered for adoption. I think I would have admitted, “I don’t know,” then offer reassurance that you are delighted to be matched with her. Some children believe, and some are told by caregivers, that if they do lots of chores and keep themselves clean, they will find a family. This puts a great burden on a child and keeps them insecure—will they lose a family if they get messy? Stress that adoption decisions are made by adults.
Try to get the best translator you can and get the answers double-checked, if possible. Misunderstanding a few words, while it probably won’t derail your adoption, can have impact. Author Cindy Champnella shares that she assumed her child had been assigned a name by a stranger after she was found; thus she didn’t feel too badly about changing it for an American name. She was stunned to discover, on a later trip, that her daughter, who came to the orphanage at 2 ½, was able to tell them her name, the name she’d been given by her birthfamily.
One more issue to consider is whether you can, or should, try to keep your child in touch with other people in her life before adoption. Some parents initially feel that their child should cut ties with his or her past and focus on the new family and the future. But some specialists say that cutting off the past may imply that the past was bad, and when the child someday realizes his origins he will have picked up on that negativity.
Many agencies work to place siblings together or at least keep them in touch with each other. Now some adoptive families are trying to keep friends in touch also. One family I know has a monthly potluck with all the families in the state who’ve adopted from their children’s birth country. Another parent lets her children call friends from her orphanage who have been adopted all over the U.S.
This last mom makes a good point, I think: She wants to keep the children in touch with the good things in their past life, with their friends and people who share their culture. However, she recognizes that her children need to keep their minds on their adoptive family the majority of the time. She feels that too-frequent phone calls could prevent the kids from totally attaching to their new family. Her solution is to have one day each week that the kids can call as many people from their old life as they want to, but the rest of the week the focus is on family togetherness.
When a family has newly adopted a child, they may need some time to “cocoon” as a family, just as some new parents by birth want to have some alone time as a family. Friends and relatives should not take this personally.
Please see these related blogs:
Talking about Tough Issues: Abandonment