It's all about perspective

“Gotcha Day”

It’s a phrase many of us have heard often in adoption circles.  The day The Hubers family adds a little sister is definitely one I want our family to celebrate with great joy. I used to not think twice of it, until someone recently pointed out to me that this concept of “Gotcha Day” describes the adoption experience mainly from one angle.  The adoptive family’s perspective.

From where Kevin and I are at right now, we envision meeting our child with lots of excitement and anticipation.  Our instinct will likely be to want to hug her, kiss her, stare at her, marvel at her, imagine her meeting her siblings, imagine her depending on us for help and imagine all the ways we will grow into a healthy family together in the future.

From our child’s perspective the experience will be drastically different.  Whether verbally, subconsciously or kinesthetically, her instinct will be “I don’t understand why I’m not in my familiar environment right now. Why are these strangers smiling when I am not happy?  I don’t understand why they are hugging me and taking me away? I don’t know them. They smell different, they sound different, I’ve never seen this room.  Where are all the other kids? What is going to happen next? When am I going to eat if I’m not in my usual place?”

So it seems while “Gotcha Day” is what we will experience as parents, one author suggests that from the child’s experience it might be more accurately described as “The Big Change”.  I am starting to embrace this description.  Change is hard.  It doesn’t mean it’s bad.  In fact, it’s often good.  As I believe this adoption will be for our child. But it’s still hard.

"Chosen” 

Another description I’ve heard. And again, this is the act done of the adoptive parents and other authorities involved.  Not the child’s experience. In cases with young children, the child being adopted has absolutely no choice in their world being turned upside down.  There is the potential that a child could perceive that something they did, what they looked like, how they acted is what made us love them. And if that characteristic goes away, then their chosen status in our family is jeopardized.  This is a big weight for a little one to carry. I have to wonder if being “chosen” is a lot to live up to.  Also, sometimes when I have heard this phrase used, it has come with an attachment of “most parents just get stuck with the child they’re born with, but we got to choose you”.  I believe these conversations are initiated with the best of intentions to communicate the worth and uniqueness of the child adopted.  My current thought is that a simple “God put us together as a family” fits for describing both birth AND adoption stories and honors them both.

“Loss”

It’s a bit daunting to “relive” the story of some children who came from some very sad beginning years.  And it’s hard to think of a happy day for us as a very stressful day for our child.  There appears to be strong evidence that anniversary reactions are real.  A child has an internal body clock that when the time of year comes around when something stressful happened, their body and actions could quite possibly be experiencing that stress all over again.  But if we ignore the loss of that day, that month, that first year, whether or not she is able to articulate her loss, we miss an opportunity to acknowledge this significant part of them.  Our child needs a coherent flow from that part of their life to this one, and loss is the bridge they will have to cross to get from one place to the other.  Hopefully, Kevin and I will be able to validate their loss in this adoption and help them navigate towards accepting it, healing from it and living with this as part of their story.

The author Patty Cogen suggests re-telling the adoption story from the child’s perspective.  She says parents often tell of how long they waited, all the paperwork they did, how they prepared the rooms, how excited the family was, etc.  These are all good things to share with our child.  At the same time, it's important for us to remember that telling the story from her perspective is important too.  Acknowledging the scariness, the unpredictability, the newness of everything, the grief she felt.  She suggests telling a child her adoption story from her perspective even if the child doesn’t speak English yet.  It’s just a good habit.  By making this a habit of talking with our child about the loss, it will be more natural to revisit throughout the years.  The concept of “don’t bring it up unless they do” can only take us so far. It’s my conviction that even if our child doesn’t talk about it, they need us to forge the way, giving them a voice to put words to some things they might not even know they need words for.   I know some friends who bring up the loss their child experienced in adoption every once in a while, especially on special days when they might be thinking about their past like Gotcha Day/The Big Change Day, Mothers Day, Fathers Day and Birthdays.  Often, the kids aren’t interested in talking about it at that time.  I think it’s so great those parents keep bringing it up periodically, so when their child IS ready, they’ll know they are in a safe place to do so.

I have many favorite quotes from Patty Cogen’s book “Parenting Your Internationally Adopted Child”, but this one stuck out to me recently (pg. 82) …..

“Remembering loss with someone changes the memory.  From then on, the child (and you) will remember the loss as shared, not as experienced alone.  The experience of a shared loss is the healing balm of a relationship.”

This reminder to try to see the world from our adopted child’s perspective will hopefully be a blessing to her once we start parenting her.  In the meantime, I hope the reminder in general, to see things from a child’s perspective, is making us more of a blessing to Jude, Annie and Timothy even now.