Kinship

Here are two responses to a difficult dilemma that one family is facing.

"We are the proud parents of two children, a girl and a boy, both under the age of 5. The children’s biological parents are parenting two other children. Though we would like it, the birth parents are emphatic that they don’t want an open adoption. Despite this, we leave photos and letters with our agency. Our adoption agency has told us that the birth parents have not told their children about their adopted siblings.

Have you discussed the possibility of being asked to adopt one of your child's siblings?

As an adoptive parent, there is a chance that one day you will be asked if you would like to adopt one of your child’s siblings—maybe a newborn, perhaps a teen.

That phone call will probably send you into instant emotional turmoil, and you’ll probably be asked to make your decision fairly quickly. In this article, we hear from adoptive parents, all of whom received one of those calls. As you will see, each reacted differently to the news and made their decision in different ways.

Five years ago Sophie Perkins* was an empty nester in her fifites with a busy career. She had no idea that she was soon to become a full-time mother again.

Though Sophie knew that her daughter-in-law and son weren’t parenting their children adequately, as she lived some distance from the family, she didn’t have a full grasp of the situation. Her son and daughter-in-law made great efforts to appear as though they lived relatively "normal" lives.

In 2002, I had the opportunity to spend an incredible week with a wonderful friend, also an adoptive mother,visiting  the country of our daughter’s birth.

“I’m not your real Mom. You are adopted.” Those may not have been the exact words, but at age two-and-a-half that’s what I remember hearing. From that moment on, my life changed. Although my mother’s intentions were good, she could not have known how this would impact me.

At the same time as making this comment, she also told me that I would accompany my parents the next morning to bring home a new sister. I was told that we would take a ferry and drive through tunnels to get her- a curious place to get a baby sister, I thought!

Spending a few hours with David Kirk, author of the books Shared Fate, Adoptive Kinship, and Exploring Adoptive Family Life, is a remarkable experience.  He has lived through so much in his life and has much to say about politics, religion, sociology, and, more personally, what it means to be Jewish, a father, and an adoptive parent. He is one of those people who can make meaningful connections between events and experience, effortlessly.