As birth/first parents one of the things that we hope for our children is acceptance into the family that we choose for them. That acceptance ranges from grandparents to aunts and uncles to other siblings.

Sometimes when families are built through adoption one of the uphill battles they fight for their kids is acceptance into the family as one that was born into the family. One of the things that we hoped for Punkin is for him to be accepted into his adoptive family the way I was accepted into mine.

We don't want there to be any difference in how he is treated by his grandparents or aunts and uncles than they treat their biological kin. I grew up in a house where I was treated just the same as everyone else. There is no difference in me or my brothers when it comes to favoritism or anything else. Just because my youngest brother is my parent's biological child doesn't distinguish him from me or my middle brother.

My grandparents, although from a time when adoption was a hush hush event in a family's life, were very accepting of me as well. They loved me just as much as they loved my aunts' and uncles' children. We were included in their wills, they went to great lengths to make sure that they followed the law so that we could inherit from them the
same as everyone else. But more importantly than that, they never distinguished my brother or I as the "adopted ones".

My aunts and uncles treated my the same as well. I was special in fact because I was the one that they had waited so long for my parents to have and then one day there I was. So in that regard I was a special baby and got treated as such at first. My siblings came along
though and then I was the same as everyone else.

That is all I want for my Punkin, to be treated the same way I was. I want him to be accepted and loved, just as I am treated by my adoptive family. To be simply the same as one of them.