Extended family

Learning about open adoption

When my husband Chris and I decided to walk through the adoption process for the first time, we heard from several social workers and adoptive families about what openness in adoption typically looked like. We were adopting from the United States; in most international adoption situations, openness seemed to mean having occasional contact by letter, email or phone, which usually died out after the first few years.

An unexpected question

I thought the most difficult thing my son could ever say to me was “You’re not my real mom,” but the question that really threw me for a loop was something completely different. We were driving to daycare when out of the blue, my brown-skinned, afro-haired, almost five-yearold son said innocently, “Mommy, I was white when I was a baby?”

“Um, what? No! Huh?” Tire screech, deep breath. I figured I had about five seconds to organize my thoughts and say the right thing.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because white skin is beautiful.”

Wow.

Last week I got an email from a woman whose friend’s family is struggling after their recent adoption.

Her heartfelt note asked what she could do to help this family. The line that grabbed me was, “The mom looks sad and frustrated all of the time.” Most likely, the entire family is fueled by fear and sadness.

She closed her email with, “What can I do to help? What can our church family do to help?”

Family camps can be highly motivating and empowering experiences for families (Lewicki, Goyette, & Marr 1996) and can act as a tremendous catalyst for forming healthy attachments in a family system.

Cathy, along with her amazing partner, Dave, is parent to 16 children: four by birth and twelve by adoption, aged from 33 down to 12 years of age. She has nine grandchildren with number ten on the way. Together, Cathy and Dave have presided over countless holiday celebrations with their everchanging family.

We couldn’t think of anyone better to ask for advice on how adoptive families can make their holidays happy and fun, no matter what’s going on at home.

What are the holidays like in your family?

Our son, River, was three weeks old when he was taken from the Xi’an Social Welfare Institute (SWI) in China and given a new start at the Starfish Foster Home.

Starfish cared for Xi’an’s most sick and vulnerable children, and was started in 2005 by Amanda de Lange, a native  of South Africa. River was there until we came to adopt him on June 20, 2011; although, for the most part, he lived  at night with foster parents, Zhou and BaoRong Zhang, and their daughter Christy.

Before I got to know both sides of Victor’s birth families, I had a firm opinion about open adoption. I thought it  was the only way to adopt, and it would help our child with his sense of identity and belonging.

Open adoption was better for the birth families, and our lives would be deepened by these new family members. In my cushy fantasy, I’d have a close relationship with the birth mother, and her family would be our family. We’d  snap group photos at graduations, pop corks at weddings, and sniffle as new kids came along for the birth  parents.

My son Gabriel has been talking about tattoos since he was about 14 or 15. He has always talked about wanting the tattoos to have some meaning for him, as opposed to just being a picture he likes. His first tattoo, which he got at age 18, was of the Liberty bell. It was representative of where he was born (Philadelphia) and says “circa 1993,” which is his birth year.

At the beginning of our adoption, emotions were high, birth family visits were frequent, and roles were unclear. Well-meaning friends and family members suggested that it might just be “a whole lot easier if our adoption was closed.” We could bond with our baby without interference, and the birth parents could “get on with their lives.”