I always think I'm doing a great job at this parenting after placement thing. Until my children grow and develop and smack me with new things. Just the other day, my older son and I were sitting at the table eating our breakfast. And he asked, "Why doesn't Munchkin live with us?"

Color me floored. He's always been a verbal child. Sort of slow on the physical scale (but within range; just meaning he was never a climber and so on) but always pretty darn verbal. He's recently been asking some "big" questions about various life things. Some are funny. Some are normal children queries. And some, like this one, catch me off guard.

I simply said that she lived in her state with her Mommy and Daddy.

Then the kid floored me again. He threw in a "BUT WHY?" Aren't they supposed to make it to three before bringing the "Why's" to the table? Apparently not. Color me floored again.

And what do you say to the children that you are parenting who are too young to really grasp the concepts of birth and adoption? My oldest son does know that the Munchkin is his sister. He does grasp that sister is like brother, only a girl. But I know he doesn't realize that means that his sister, who doesn't live here, grew in my belly like his younger brother did. (I'm not quite sure he grasps that he grew in my belly yet. He would always just smile at us and laugh when we explained that while pregnant with my youngest son.)

We have always discussed his sister with him. In fact, each of the boys were "introduced" to the concept of their sister on the nights that they were born. I talked about their sister as I rocked each of them in the rocking chair. It has been important for me to keep that concept alive and real in their life. Her picture is in quite a few rooms in our house. (For example: not the bathroom or my youngest son's room which contains no pictures as of yet because, uhm, I'm slow. Otherwise, every other room in the house.) We talk about her. And despite all of this desire to keep her "real" in their lives, I wasn't prepared for questions to be thrown back at me this early. Oh, children. They keep us on our toes!

And so, I looked at my son's face, eagerly awaiting my answer, and fudged my way through it. I said something resembling, "Just like Papau and Yia Yia live in their house, some people just live in different places." He said, "okay," and went back to eating his oatmeal, satisfied with my answer. But I was not satisfied with my answer even though it did answer the question that he asked. I was also unnerved: if I'm not prepared for small questions like these, what about the big ones?

And so begins this journey of finding age appropriate answers to big questions. It's not just for adoptive parents and the children they are raising. Birth parents who have relinquished children are also forced to deal with this issue.

How have you handled it?

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For more on parenting after placement, read these posts.



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