I haven’t talked about our adoption all the much. I mean, in public. I’ve discussed it plenty with friends and families and strangers on the playground and friends of friends considering adoption. I hadn’t gone in front of a group, though, and told my “story.” It’s a very different thing to share in this way than in a casual conversation or a piece of writing (I’ve written about adoption fairly regularly by now, some pieces published on this blog, other essays shared with very intimate audiences, and a few things beginning to be published elsewhere).
When you write about adoption or a particular issue pertaining to adoption, you have the luxury of reflection. You seek that opportunity out; that’s part of what motivates writing one’s personal narratives. When you are speaking in casual conversation, you can become more serious—or not—and more reflective—or not. So, I was more than happy for a chance to discuss open adoption a bit more formally with a group of people. I spoke to Marlene Gerber Fried and Barbara Yngvesson’s Hampshire College class Creating Families. The class had read one of my pieces about adoption, and been reflecting all semester about not only adoption but reproductive technologies, gay and lesbian parenting, and surrogacy, all in an effort to figure out what makes a family a family.
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I loved the students’ questions and was especially surprised by this one: what if eventually Saskia does not want contact with her birth mother or that part of her (Saskia’s) family? Would you honor her wishes? Would you let go of them?
Wow. That scenario just never ever occurred to me. You think, in that striving to be a good parent way with all sincerity that by giving as much access to her biological roots as possible (in Saskia’s case, access means that she has a fully open door to the maternal side and a slammed shut one to the paternal) you are contributing to her sense of wholeness. That she might someday feel overwhelmed by her sprawling family—not as individuals, but as complicating her, Saskia’s sense of identity—hadn’t ever crossed my mind before. I am sure I should have imagined that kind of scenario. I imagined mixed feelings, sure. I’ve imagined hurt or a sense of rejection. I even imagined some ambivalent-to-feel-this-way gladness. I have certainly imagined teen tantrums when you’re not my real mom could be a great fling-able phrase in my direction (as our therapist, the person who sat with us as we decided to adopt and then through the excruciating legal rollercoaster ride for the months after Saskia’s birth often said, “Adopted kids have such an easy way to diss their parents during adolescence, it’s almost a relief.”).
The student posing that question has a friend who felt that way. At age 16, her friend called for a stop to the dinners between birth/biological/first mom and adoptive family pleading that she felt overwhelmed by divided loyalties and that she just needed to choose one family. What’s more, she wanted her adoptive mother to mirror her decision. That was around the time, said Barbara Yngvesson that her adopted son—his birth in 1981 put their open adoption in somewhat pioneering category—felt much the same way, although he has, to date continues to maintain stronger ties with some of his siblings than his first mom. I think she’d describe her son’s current tact as loosening the ties, yet not entirely severing them (with luck, one’s life is long). Yngvesson’s point (she’s written about her experience in her forthcoming book) is that claiming some agency over contact—and trying to do so about identity—is a developmental task. The student’s friend is in her early 20’s though, and thus far, has not reinitiated contact.
Students pointed out that both the professor and myself, as adoptive mothers, seemed invested in our children’s mothers (as I’ve written about before, language falls short here because people get so confused with the notion that there are two women in this situation and both are the mother, albeit differently, the word applies equally to both). Part of why the opportunity to speak to this Creating Families class was so interesting was in what was revealed, things I knew but didn’t know about myself, such as the fact that I am so invested in assuring Caroline her due, as the one who brought Saskia into the world. I feel that way because the selflessness to creating her and ceding the chance to raise her—was harder, I am sure than she knew or imagined—and I feel awed by and grateful for this and believe I must never minimize that contribution. I don’t think the clock runs out on it.
At the same time, when asked what I would do if Saskia felt as the student’s friend felt, I instantly felt empathy for her friend and for adolescent Saskia. I am a child of divorce and remember acutely how hard that shuttling back and forth between houses was, and how the physical divide was relatively easy compared to the emotions informing that exercise, which caused me to feel guilty and disloyal pretty much constantly. I longed for one home, a singular family (even though, by then, I could not fathom my parents together, so it wasn’t a literal wish). I have some intense homebody impulses I am certain have everything to do with that sense of ongoing fractiousness from my youth.
I think a boundary I’d set is that my adult relationships could remain separate, could remain mine, and that I could respect my adolescent and adult child’s choices (my relationships extend past Saskia’s mom to that side of the family, and I am very fond of them all). Sixteen feels, not surprisingly, very far away-way (as she declares I should go when she pushes me from her if she’s protesting a diaper change or other such indignity) from two (and Saskia is so entirely, completely, authentically two at this very moment it’s really hard to project even ten minutes ahead; toddlerhood is such a very enveloping state). There are so many strands of her identity that I cannot really even wonder about how she’ll feel: the Jamaican heritage, the child of a domestic, open adoption (two neighbor girls within a stone’s throw of our house, in two families are also adopted, both internationally), the much youngest of four…
The things I know are very simplistic: I know that she probably won’t remember learning about her adoption, as in, one day I thought I was born to you and the next I learned—gasp—that wasn’t the case, because it seems we are committed to this being a fact of life rather than a revelation to wait and uncover with a ta-da; I know that she’ll hear us say she’s extremely loved too many times; and I know that she is extremely loved. For all the complexity, for all the inevitable missteps, I am going to hang my trust on that fact. Saskia is one extremely loved girl. Oh, and then, I’m going to cross my fingers and my toes and hope that love goes a long way to being “enough” to help her feel as whole and equipped to deal with any sense of being fractured as possible. Because I do believe adoption is inherently imperfect, and there is really nothing to say that could render it perfect. One is left, as all parents are, with love and the best of intentions.
