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LISTEN!

     For a few days our eleven year old had seemed restless and somewhat more pensive than usual. Suddenly at dinner he blurted out, Who are our ancestors?
That depends on what you mean, I began, only to be cut short by the remark, All I want to know is where your family and Dad's family came from! No long discussions on adoption or on different sets of parents, just a simple answer to a simple question. At least today! So we talked about how Dad's family on his father's side came over from France. On his mother's side the family was English. Mommy's relatives had come from Sicily. I was prepared to talk a little about his birth parents and remind him of their national origins, but it was obvious that for now he did not want to discuss it further. For today this was all the information he wanted to consider. I reminded him that we could talk about it a little more when he felt like it.

     Another week went by before he asked, What about my other parents? Who were their ancestors?
They were German, Irish, French, and English. Although this was not the first time he had been given this information, it did seem to be the first time it held any significant meaning for him.

     Later we learned that his class at school had been given an assignment to write a report on their ancestors.

     The matter in which our child chose to resolve his problem holds particular interest in view of our consideration of the Adoption Dilemma. First he struggled with the idea of choosing the English and/or French since this would include both his biological parents and his Dad. That seemed to him a somewhat reasonable compromise. But the assignment was not completed in time.

     Finally one day he said, But Mom, if I do the report on the English and French, then what about you? We struggled with this for a while and finally came up with the conclusion that since Sicily had been overrun by so many countries including France, there must be some French in my ancestry. Good, he said, then that includes everybody.

     While other families may find other ways to handle a similar situation, the important thing seems to be helping the child explore his own feelings about this.

     One twelve year old adopted girl told of sitting in a classroom while the teacher drew on the board a genealogical chart of an historic ruler and his descendants. When she came to one of the names she drew a line through it and said, But he was adopted, so he didn't count! The child was able to tell how hurt she had felt and how much confusion it caused for her. She felt that all of the children in the class who knew she was adopted were turning to look at her in a funny way. But even more importantly, the comment zeroed in on her feelings about herself.

     What does ancestor mean? What does descendant mean? Whose child am I? These were questions from a reasonable, happy child who dearly loved the only parents she had ever known, but who was beginning to struggle with the concept of her adoptive status.

     In a short series of casework interviews we talked of such things as family trees. We drew pictures of plant grafts and said in some ways adoption was like that, making a person part of the family tree of her adoptive parents. Yet at the same time the grafted branch did not just begin to live when it was grafted. Most helpful to her was the recognition that she did not have to choose one family tree over another, but she could accept the fact that she really had two trees.

     Further discussion led to a consideration of love and how loving one set of parents did not take away from loving the other. She told me that she had on a number of occasions imagined her original mother had located her and had insisted she come to live with her. She had been frightened, she said, because she did not know which mother she would choose. She did not know whether she would ever try to find her first mother, but she did feel tremendous relief when she was encouraged to talk this over with her adoptive parents. They in turn were able to assure her she need never choose between them. She was helped to see that love is not like a piece of pie that gets divided up and then is all gone, but rather that as we grow up we find that we love many different people in different ways. Loving parents who gave you birth in no way diminishes love for adoptive parents who have reared you, nor should loving adoptive parents in any way make it less possible to love the original parents.

     In my work with children I have seen numerous youngsters obtain great relief from anxiety when they are helped to deal with this basic conflict. But many others carry the anxiety for years. Some develop learning blocks. Perhaps it is easier not to listen or not to turn in reports than try to get others to understand. The examples given above are not unusual. It would be well for adoptive parents to be alert to the topics that are going on in school and to be ready to help the children with them. Many of the topics will be precipitating factors in forcing adopted children to look at their 'dilemma'. Besides discussions of ancestors, classes will focus on family structure, heredity, environment and sex education.

     Questions children have about their adoption are not always direct. What's an unwanted pregnancy?, asked our ten year old who had just read the headline in a book on adolescent growth. The factual information she wanted was minimal. When I asked if that made her wonder about herself, she began to talk about whether she had been an 'unwanted child'. We were able to discuss some of the difficulties involved in having children before you can take care of them.

     Sometimes the children may seem to want to deny their adoption and as long as this is a temporary matter, they should be allowed to do so. One day a child may deny the existence of his original parents and the next he may angrily tell you that you are not his 'real' parents. A certain amount of this is healthy and necessary as children try to work out their own conflicts.

     Once when our oldest was just learning to read, he noticed a book which we owned entitled The Adopted Child: He Doesn't Really Need to be Told. He doesn't need to be told what?, he asked. I explained that it was this author's opinion that if you adopted children you should not tell them about the adoption because they might be hurt by the information. I wondered what he thought about such an idea. His surprise response? I don't think it makes any difference, because nobody ever believes he's adopted anyway. Recently when I asked him what he thought about this he said, That's pretty silly. You have a right to know.