After I hang out with my mom friends, I always have this feeling of unity and difference at the same time. We are all mothers and our parenting struggles are much the same, but there are somethings we will just never understand about each others’ experiences.
I am really uncomfortable when people tell me what a great thing it is to adopt a child. I don’t feel that it’s great. I didn’t do it because it was great. I did it because I wanted to be a mother. Who am I to say that Minnow or Peepers are better off with Hubby and I than with their biological parents. I don’t have the hubris to think that my life here in America is better than what their potential life might have been. I do believe that my children are fortunate to be growing up in America but I have a hard time saying that, because Ethiopia is their birth country and it is an amazing place full of amazing people who are willing to give us the opportunity to be parents.
I know that those who have not adopted do not understand fully the extent of contradictory emotions and feelings that accompany adopting a child and especially a child from a foreign land. I never want my child to think that they need to be grateful for being adopted.
I also don’t know how to explain the added pressure I carry around as an adoptive mother. I know that I want to do what is best for my children, but I also want to raise children that their birth mothers and birth fathers can be proud of. I want to make these women (and men) who have given me the greatest gift one person can give to another proud of the job that I am doing. I see Minnow’s birth parents in him and have to say they must have been amazing people. I don’t know how to explain it, but his birth parents are part of our family and I want to do the proud. The expectations are high and I hope that we can live up to them.
These amazing children are not just mine…they are also Ethiopia’s.
Thank you Ethiopia.
Embracing Imperfection 
Beautifully said. And, my thoughts exactly. I HATE it when people tell me how “lucky” Elsa is. Are they nuts? I’m the lucky one – and it seems so creepy to think of it any other way…
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To both moms here – you and your commentor – I don’t think non-adoptive parents mean, literally, that your chid is lucky to be in America, but that they are lucky in that “isn’t it amazing what the human heart is capable of” way.
I mean, maybe they do and they are judgmental of your child’s country of origin. Then they are jerks, right? But I think when people say adoption’s great or you are lucky or something, they are just in awe of how we as humans can love and care for each other. And that is pretty amazing, that you have this sense of honor and responsibilty. It was beautifully said.
My girlfriend’s daughter has only been home since January, and I do think it’s crazy/cool that she was born in China. China! And we are in NJ – all that distance and time and major cultural differences, but here is her daughter. It’s not the love that amazes me, it’s the literal travel and inventions and everything else that allows you to get on a plane, go halfway around the world, and meet your baby. Maybe I’m simple, but all those things combined fill me with an incredible emotional amazement.
I think parenthood is a deeply cool thing, and maybe that’s just what they’re saying. We are not all eloquent, and I sure haven’t been here – I am sure there are things you could take offense to, despite my best intentions. What I’m saying is I don’t think you or your kid(s) are luckier or better than me and my kid, but I do think it’s so cool both our families exist, and God bless the things that brought us here.
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EDW–Thank you. I agree with you on most everything…the issue is when non-adopters say how lucky our children are and how fortunate they are that they get to grow up in America with all the “things” we have here–ignoring all the things they have left behind without a choice or say in the matter. I understand their thinking–I though that way before I adopted. What I try and remind them is how lucky I am as the parent that I was able to adopt.
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Well, thats just plain old American jingoism, right? That money equals better, that our country equals better. I think, as you point out, you have to have an experience that changes you not to think the way we have been taught to think.
Thanks for understanding what I was trying to say…and I understand what you are saying. 🙂
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