Many of my Fresh Outlook Friday posts have had a positive undertone: adoptive parents challenging stereotypes, birth parents succeeding in life. This week the outlook is fresh but the undertone is somewhat hard to pin-point. It's not a negative feeling but it's a complex one that needs to be discussed. While I featured an entire series on birth parents parenting after placement, we don't hear a lot of talk from birth parents on the topic. Parenting is busy enough and often their adoption blogs concentrate solely on adoption content.

But isn't parenting after placement still adoption content? I think so.

Suz of Writing my Wrongs wrote a moving post about bedtime with her children. In play-arguing over who was "first" to get Mommy's bedtime kisses, she was struck with this comment from her oldest parented child:

“No. I am first” said my eldest son “Oh, wait, no, I am not first. DAUGHTERS NAME is first”.

First and foremost you must understand that Suz didn't have an open relationship with her daughter or her family as the adoption was closed. In 2005 she found her daughter. Just prior to that time, she found the words to tell her oldest son, her second born child (and first with her husband). She wrote an eloquent, much-needed post offering up advice on how to tell children about prior children who were placed for adoption.

I have seen many first moms struggle with telling subsequent children about their half or full sibling that was lost to adoption. I am often asked what to do, how to say it, when, etc. I cannot answer the questions posed. They are not my children. I don’t know them. I only know mine. I can only share my story and experience and hope that others can learn from it.

And while Suz doesn't come out and tell you how to tell your child, especially if you are dealing with a closed adoption, she offers up her own honest experience with the situation.

Her post today and the second one from over a year ago speak volumes to the subject of parenting after placement. Words that need to be heard by birth parents who may be dealing with this or might deal with it in the future, adoptive parents who wonder what their child's biological siblings might be told and adoptees to see that first families do honestly try to integrate them into their lives. They aren't magically forgotten.

It's important, I believe, for us to remember that even our children who aren't placed for adoption are still going to have to process all of this information. They are going to have questions. They are going to need answers. Upon receiving the answers and information, they are most likely going to talk about their sibling. As birth parents, if we continue to talk about these issues, together, in the blogosphere, we are giving ourselves a support group that doesn't exist in the "real world." Spread too far and too thin, we can't meet at Denny's on Tuesday afternoons to discuss what to do when Little Jimmy asks about his placed sibling over Easter dinner. But when we blog about it, when we place ourselves and our experiences on the line for others to read, even if we're doing it mainly for a chronicle of our own lives, we are helping others.

It is refreshing to me to know that other mothers are discussing these things with increasing regularity. I am beyond pleased that other mothers who have been through these experiences are willing to take the time to share them with virtual strangers. One day, Nicholas will talk more freely than current day half-English, half-Nick-ese. And while our adoption is open, he will still hit me with some doozies. By reading others, I am gaining insight on how to handle these situations.

I think the blogging world, itself, deserves a nod on Fresh Outlook Friday. How did we survive these trials and tribulations beforehand? (Those mothers deserve even more applause.)

//
For more on Parenting After Placement, read:
1. Resources: You are NOT Alone.
2. Mothers Give Advice.
3. Ability as a Parent.