Are We Guilty? - The Sequel

My sincerest appreciation to everyone who commented on ARE WE GUILTY? This has been the most-commented-upon post in Swerl's short, modest history. Thanks!

Your comments have spurred me to further refine my own thoughts, and I am excited to share what I hope will be a more reasoned distillation of my point-of-view:

Everyone seemed to react to the idea of "educating people". I think that's important, but it is only a BY-PRODUCT. As a parent (obviously) the well-being of your kids is really your ONLY priority. So, when I say that I will be very open to questions, even potentially intrusive questions, I say that ONLY for it's benefits to my child.

MODELING:

Kids model their behavior. If we're lucky (and if we deserve it), they model themselves after us. They may model themselves after peers. They may model themselves after karate-proficient mutant turtles.

Every encounter, in the presence of your child, in which your child's story becomes a topic -- with strangers, with work associates, with neighbors, with folks at church, with family -- will be a time in which your attitude towards your child's story (and your child's different way of coming to your family) will be viewed and internalized by your child. It WILL BE. Someone asks, you talk, child hears, child MODELS his or her opinion about his or her own story. This will influence his or her self-esteem. It will create an emotion, long before the child can make his or her own decisions.

Because of modeling, I feel the idea of "allowing the child to choose how to tell his or her own story" is a canard. The child's been watching US make that choice for years before we ask it of them, and in this scenario, our choice has been to REFUSE TO DISCUSS IT.

Chances are, they will internalize this, model this, and their choice, too, will be to refuse to discuss it. This is the idea of "shame" to which I had previously referred.

Not making a choice is also a choice.

THE ADOPTION LITERATURE

In a few essays, articles, blogs and forum reports, I see an exchange crafted in the following manner:

QUESTIONER: Where did the child come from? How did you get him/her? Does he/she have parents? (or some variation)

ADOPTIVE PARENT: That's private information, that's my child's story to tell, when he so chooses.

Now, the kid may be sucking on a pacifier. So that's a total dodge. That's a "I'm not answering your questions".

I've read some other accounts where the adoptive parent counters: "What sexual position did you use to get pregnant?" (obviously snarky) or a terse "It's not your business."

To me, "None of your business" implies shame.

TEACHING A YOUNGER CHILD TO OWN A STORY

Since we're on the list for a girl under twelve months, and since the kids we have now are 5 and under, the following is written from the perspective of a parent with kids who can't completely speak for themselves. It is, I think, an effort to parent in such a way that when the child is older, she WOULD feel comfortable speaking for herself.

I agree with Brian that I would never tell anyone more than I would tell her, and that when she feels comfortable talking to adults, she can explain her own story. This is really about how to handle questions from people -- including friends, family, co-workers, etc., prior to that time.

To me, how to model these encounters in such a way to ensure that your child does not associate shame with his or her origins (no matter how horrible) is to make sure that EVERY ENCOUNTER IN WHICH THAT CHILD'S ORIGINS ARE MENTIONED ENDS TRANQUILLY AND POSITIVELY FOR ALL INVOLVED.

That way, the kid learns that his or her origins, no matter how painful, are not a source of shame. The story can be discussed in "polite company". The story is to be OWNED.

People talk all the time about "owning" their stories: Christians discuss "owning" their faith. If Christians don't feel comfortable, in themselves, express their faith openly, do they have it? Strangely analogously, in the early days of the AIDS crisis in America, the rallying call was not for a cure, but "SILENCE=DEATH" Alcoholics always talk about how the first step in recovery is to admit the reality of their situation. In WWI, they learned that the only cure for "shell shock" was "the talking cure", a precursor to all post-traumatic stress therapies (and if being either relinquished or orphaned isn't a cause for post-traumatic stress...)

To own a story is to discuss it without shame.

Now, within that, certainly there are a million ways TO talk about stories, a million ways to direct the conversation, details to be added or glossed over.

I think this is where some of the comments and my post my suffer from a semantical conflict. I'm not advocating volunteering every bit of information. What I am advocating is handling questions in a non-confrontational manner, in the spirit of openness, so the kid and the questioner do not see the parent being defensive or guarded.

One of the essays I read features a woman who would not tell which of her children was adopted. For most of us, that's not a question that needs to be asked. The questions will be variations on "why are you parenting a black kid?" These questions will come from EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE. Some will be more carefully crafted than others. I have black nieces, and when my wife and I have taken them shopping or whatever, we always get questioned -- from black people and white people and Latinos and Asians and old and young, whatever.

Based on those life experiences, I imagine I will handle questions this way:

Is she yours?

She was born in Ethiopia, but, now, she's our child -- one of the gang!

Is she adopted?

She's adopted. We adopted her from Ethiopia. Ethiopia is an amazing country. Did you know it's the only area of Sub-Saharan Africa never to be colonized? It's a great culture...

Is she an orphan/where are her parents?

IF SHE'S AN ORPHAN:

Sadly, her birth family died. Ethiopia has had a rough time of it, and the United States hasn't done enough to help. As a culture, Ethiopia values children tremendously and are going to amazing lengths to ensure that every kid in Ethiopia has a loving family, no matter what's going on.

IF HER BIRTH MOM IS ALIVE:

She has her first family in Ethiopia, but because of conditions over there right now, her parents loved her enough to relinquish her to be raised by us, but we're doing everything we can to make sure she knows her family there and knows her culture.

IF SHE'S NOT AND WE DON'T KNOW THE BIRTH MOM:

She has her first family in Ethiopia, but because of tragic conditions there, her parents loved her enough to relinquish her to be raised by us. We're trying to honor them by doing everything we can to connect with, and, within our power, help all the other kids in Ethiopia.

I think politics is important. I think it's important for kids to feel empowered in our great democratic society. I feel that politics can be part of the explanation. I also know people hate hearing folks with causes, so it seems like a great way to conclude a line of unwanted questioning without conflict or discord. Any questions about why the child was given up can be countered with the real facts on the ground -- the number of orphans, the toll of diseases that we find manageable, the fact that the Clinton administration helped support drug company patents over human life, the fact that the Bush administration made a number of showy promises towards meeting Millennium Development Goals which have gone unfunded, etc. Heck, maybe I'll just carry ONE bracelets around and pass them out if someone is so interested. That would at least model engagement and empowerment to my child. Also, it's suitably boring to enough people that they'll probably disengage politely at that point -- without having my child see me refuse to talk about her entry into our family.

AIDS

Amy asked a provocative (good) question about HIV status. We are not adopting an HIV+ child at this time, so none of my imaginary projects dealt with that reality. After a lot of mulling, I think there's a way to address that honestly in front of your child as well. Again, it mixes the personal and the political. I think you can say that your child is HIV+, but, thankfully, the viral count is low and she will live a long, healthy productive life. Furthermore, she's no danger to anyone else.

From there, I'd say that it's tragic that a dollar a day could prevent this. That life in Ethiopia is just as valuable as in the USA, but while we've almost eliminated mother-to-child infections and have allowed this disease to become a manageable, chronic condition, in Ethiopia and much of the less developed world, there is still a lot of needless infections and a high mortality. I'd talk about the Lazarus effect these drugs have (a great picture in THERE IS NO ME WITHOUT YOU), and the fact that the "cocktail" has been refined into a twice-daily pill.

If the child is around a group consistently, say in church or school, explain it to everyone at once, maybe.

BIG CAVEAT: RACISM

All of the above is said with the understanding that the questioner is not racist. If the questioner IS racist, then that person needs to be corrected firmly, and then the conversation must end. Part of modeling is also teaching how to stand up to racism.

WHERE IT COMES FROM

I'm a joker with a blog. I don't know anything. I know I'm in the minority, here. But I've had the experiences of being in public with my nieces. For the HIV thing, I've known people who've died of AIDS and I also know, as a close friend of our family, a man who has lived for 15 years with it, who went from full-blown AIDS, with dementia and the whole bit, to now being back to working a demanding job and being the dad to four kids. I also have a sister who's adopted, who has struggled with issues of identity her whole life.

From my sister, I've learned that a close bond and a happy childhood does not guarantee a happy adolescence or young adulthood. My parents are in primary education. My dad has a Masters and was on the verge of getting his Doctorate in childhood development. They did everything "right" -- as of the 70's and 80's. The two things they didn't do were to embrace the fact that she was half-Puerto Rican, and they did not help her own her story prior to being adopted. (She was adopted as a newborn). It was a closed adoption, but she did reunite with her birth mother(with sadly disappointing results). She, too, was allowed to tell her own story, to judge what she wanted to say... and she never wanted to talk about it. My parents thought that was proof of her attachment and proof of their good parenting, until she hit 16 and the world came crashing in. She's 30 now, and she has kids of her own, but I think she could've had a happier 16-27 if she didn't feel that there was a social stigma being a "drug baby". To our family, empowerment would've been teaching her from the first, not just that she was loved and wanted and "meant" for our family and "chosen", but that her mother was a junkie -- and that does not define her. That last bit, that her "story" doesn't define her, that, although it is a fact, it is only one of a million, and will not be her summing up -- that was never modeled for her. She was the guardian of her "story" and it quietly tore her apart under all of our noses.

For these reasons, I feel the child's story should NOT be arbitrarily held back, and then dumped on a 10 year old (or whatever the age), passing the buck of the responsibility, the weight of that story to the child.

The child should grow up knowing that difficult truths can be de-fanged, made commonplace, to the point where the situation of their birth and adoption are normalized -- not a "story" placed in their lap like a gift or a curse, but just common facts -- with their TRUE "life story" -- the story of how their lives turn out -- yet to be written.

I'd love everyone's input on this. Once again, I'm just trying to sort all this out, myself. I greatly appreciate everyone who stops by and I welcome a very healthy discourse!