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I’ve been reading some very thought provoking posts by adoptive parents who are sending their children to school again or for the first time this year. Some proactive parents discuss the issues surrounding adoption as soon as possible. Some wait awhile, not wanting to single their child out. Some fall into some other variation, choosing a path they feel is best for their child. They all make their decisions for reasons that are important to their family, their child.
All of this talk leaves me wondering how I should be addressing this issue.
My oldest son had his orientation yesterday for his second year of preschool. We sat with his teachers while he played (not-so-quietly). We talked about the normal things, some concerns we had and some things we knew that he needed help with over the next year. But I never broached the subject of his sister, her adoption and her place in our family.
To be fair, he’s in the same class he was last year as he started preschool early. As they didn’t completely overhaul the curriculum, I know that we won’t (likely) be presented with a family tree kind of lesson this year. What about next year? I don’t know what the 4-5 year old class does. (Though my friend’s child is in that class this year and I’ll have her tell me.) What about kindergarten? Or first grade? Or second? Or so on?
I will take cues from the adoptive families who have handled this issue for longer than I have had to consider it. I will let my son dictate who he wants to include in such a project and in what way. I won’t force him to do anything though it will be used as a time for discussion of such issues.
The truth is, however, that family trees are not the only time that adoption may or may not come up. He talks about his sister at will. Will a teacher tell him that he doesn’t have a sister? Will an adopted child be in their class? Will someone make a joke about being adopted? As his social circle expands without me, these issues loom. I do what I can to make sure he understands, as best he can, the presence of his sister in his life. I make sure he knows that he’s not going anywhere. I have no control other than that.
I’m eventually going to face this issue with the school system. I dread it, to be honest. I can’t imagine our particular area becoming super-accepting of something “out of the ordinary” in the next few years. Perhaps I’ll be proven wrong.
I hope so.
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Photo Credit.
While having a sibling that was adopted into another family may not be the “norm” remember that the majority of families today are non-traditional. Step dads/moms/sibling and half siblings are everyday things.
As with most things, being open and honest without giving to much information seems to work. If your boys are confident about the subject then others will pick up on that to.
It’s still tricky though and I don’t think it’ll ever be “easy” as with all things parenting.
As an adult adoptee, your blog caught me by surprise. I thought this battle had been fought and won decades ago. My adoptive parents were both teachers. I filled in my family tree with my adoptive parents as my parents and my brother…not blood related as my brother. No one ever told me I didn’t have a brother, or my brother that he didn’t have a sister. We were and are a family. Adoption is the means by which we arrived. As an adult, I found my birth family and now I have two family trees: : one by birth, and one by adoption.
AJ; I’m a birth mother. Not an adoptive mother. My parented children are assumed to be my only children despite the fact that their sister hangs on our wall and they know her as their sister. While adoptive parents have fought the fight, birth families in open adoption are fighting a different fight. We’re trying to make people recognize that respecting families includes respecting those adoptive families AND those birth families.