Congratulations if you actually made it through the whine-fest of the last post. It was such a downer, I don’t even want to leave it at the top of my log for long. Moving on….
I have an adoption-related question that I need help with:
For those of you who have birthparent contact or birth parent information, how did you handle it in your child’s lifebook?
For the record, I *did* make a lifebook for L. It just so happens that I never printed it. Yes, I suck.
I was looking at it last night and discovered it is now completely inaccurate. For the birthparent section, I said something like “We don’t know why, but your birth parents couldn’t take care of you so you went to the orphanage to live.”
But now, we know they could have raised her, but they chose not to because they wanted a boy.
Is that an appropriate thing to tell a 5 year old? It seems kind of heavy for L, given that in all of our many conversations about her birth family, L has never asked why she didn’t stay with them.
Is this the point where I am supposed to introduce the one child policy before she asks? I mean, I know I need to address the OCP in the lifebook, but how can you explain it to a 5 year old in a way that doesn’t make her think it was a personal rejection?
I feel stupid for needing to ask these questions, but now that L is actually (finally) processing some of her sad feelings, I am torn between being totally honest and not wanting to introduce new, upsetting information before she has even wondered about it.
If it wasn’t for that damn little brother, this would be a no-brainer: One child policy/population control/weren’t allowed to keep you. The truth is much more messy.
Help please.
Ugh. That’s a really hard one. I have no great ideas; I sat here and started typing up three different approaches to the “boys take care of their parents when they’re old” meme, but couldn’t finish them. I look forward to hearing what others suggest!
It’s a tough one. Could you say something about the OCP like, “In China, each family is allowed to have only one girl and one boy.” It’s kind of true – I mean the end result is usually that. Then as she gets older you can explain the cultural reasons.
Yeah, but L has a sister who was kept, too. :/
Oh. I thought the only kept children were one boy and one girl… didn’t realize there were two kept girls. I don’t know what to say then…
@ An: No no. Some families are exempt from the One-Child Policy. L’s family has one boy, one girl, AND L. They already have the quota. L adds a third child to the mix, and subsequently, goes against the law.
(Or so I believe.)
I went with “In China there are rules about how many children parents are allowed to have in their family. Because of those rules sometimes birth families don’t stay together. There are many adult reasons why this happens, but it is NEVER the fault of the child.”
I have no personal experience with adoption, so I offer this comment quite tentatively.
Is it necessary to change what you wrote? You made the book based on your understanding at the time. Your understanding has since evolved….as it will continue to do, yes? Why not let the snapshot of your understanding be the one that represents what you knew when you made the book? You and L and her birth parents and the other members of your families will continue having conversations about this. L will process at her own speed, as her psyche and maturity allow. But the first statement, what you believed when you brought L to her new home, captures the truth-as-you-knew-it when she joined your family. That’s valuable, too.
Or isn’t it? I could be wrong.
I don’t mean to suggest that you should lie to L. But….I guess I don’t mind that books copyright 2006 say, in print, that America has never had a non-white president. It isn’t true anymore. But it was true at the time of writing.
(That’s a slipshod example; you’re dealing with a truth that didn’t change over time, though your understanding of it did. It isn’t really the same. But I hope that you see my point–records catalog what we knew at the time.) If this is a book that you put together (even if you didn’t print it) years ago….cannot it represent what you knew then, and be supplemented in other ways with what you know now? “Your parents knew they could never have a son if they kept you” is a pretty brutal truth to record in print, outside the context of conversation. It may not even be the truth as you all perceive it and understand it in another 5 years. Can there be a lifebook Volume 1, and a five-year update in Volume 2?
Or is that just a bad idea?
“Your parents knew they could never have a son if they kept you” is a pretty brutal truth to record in print, outside the context of conversation. It may not even be the truth as you all perceive it and understand it in another 5 years.
While I wouldn’t disagree that that type of news could be damaging to one’s psyche, there is no other way past it.
A family is only allowed to have two children. First two children born are girls. Tradition indicates a boy is needed. What happens? Well, one of those girls has to be ‘left’ out. Otherwise they will never be able to birth another child in an attempt to have a boy.
There is no escaping that. That is the truth in this case. Whether or not L needs to know that in this point in her life is a different issue.
Yes, you can add to it, you can keep what you thought was true *at that time*, but you can’t erase the original, true, honest reason for the relinquishment.
Yes, clearly they’re not going to lie to L. There’s no getting around the facts they now know. My only question was whether leaving some of the newly-discovered facts out of the written book that was essentially created years ago, would be such a bad thing. They will have many and many a painful conversation to help L process her two families and how they came to be. Is it right/kind/necessary to put the not-yet-processed truth into this life book? Or can the book contain what they once thought was the story, and let the conversations help L incorporate the information they have learned since?
I’m perfectly willing to believe that for some people, possibly including this family, that would not feel honest enough. I certainly don’t think that they should try to mislead L as she grows up. I just wonder if printing the life book as it was designed would really be such a bad thing. Their understanding and L’s framing of her experience will continue to change and grow through the years. The book is necessarily an incomplete, static snapshot…does it have to be this snapshot?
I don’t think there’s any question that the kind of conversations referred to in other replies are going on and will be revisited for years. L will not be lied to. But there are things I talk about in conversation with my family that I don’t try to capture on paper until we’ve hammered out the potentially painful parts among us. This sounds as if it could be one of those topics.
I am no expert, though. My comment was only meant to be a question, a thought of a possible option.
(For what it’s worth…I didn’t mean that there would be a new explanation/interpretation of why L’s birth family gave her up….but that there might be more depth of understanding that frames that interpretation. I can’t really fathom how these relationships will be built and maintained. I accept that they are important relationships….but how AmFam can avoid loathing these people who threw away a healthy girl and left her unprotected, to be found by someone and taken to an orphanage….my hat is off to them, for doing what they see L to need, regardless of how hard it is to them. And I suspect that my summary above is essentially true, but it’s probably not the way the family talks about that sequence of events. They are developing a greater context to frame that story. Or, such is my impression, as a stranger who stumbled across the blog years ago and has lurked off and on ever since.)
I think each kid is different. We were at Sam’s Club and met a Chinese family with a little girl. We left and in the parking lot Sofie said – some kids are lucky because they have Chinese mothers. She thought it was cool that they they spoke Chinese, looked the same etc…. So this conversation led to why couldn’t my Chinese parents take care of me. I told her I did not know but I could make several different guesses as to why – so I explained various scenarios on why this might happen. We hit on the 1 child policy, and I explained it as honestly as I could. She cried, and said it was really sad. I agreed, etc..
I was unsure as I was explaining things to her. I wondered if I was being to honest, but decided to go for it. I just really believe that honesty is always the best route. Maybe 5 is too young for all of this. I don’t know. We talked about how it was sad and about other reasons why parents can’t take care of their babies. After a bit of discussion she asked me to tell her about it all again – she said she liked hearing about it. Then she said she wanted to go to China and see it and try to meet her Chinese parents. This lead to quite a bit more discussion, etc…
That is just my recent experience. But – as you well know, everyone is different. I have always chosen the direct route. I want her to always be able to trust me and to trust what I say. Good luck. It is a hard line to walk.
Not a chance in hell would I tell my daughter that was the reason her birth parents didn’t keep her. (Although my daughter is particularly prickly about the issue of not being a boy, since my son told her, basically, in a fit of anger, that but for our failed adoption, he would have a little brother instead of being “stuck with her”…which…ugh.)
Since she knows who her birth parents are, and will no doubt have conversations with her later about their choices, let them decide if that want to stab her in the heart with that kind of brutal honesty, but I don’t think you have a shred of obligation to share with your daughter a piece of the truth that could be potentially incredibly painful for her to hear. At five, I think it would just put all kinds of thoughts in her head, about being a girl, and about not being good enough.
I love the way K2 explains why some children are not raised by their birth parents. Since we rarely know exactly why decisions are made (even when someone tries to explain) I think we should be careful not to ‘explain’ what we can never really understand. Sometimes I think the best thing to say is “I don’t know” because I don’t. Good luck!
I think K2′s explanation would work. I’ve been using a variation of that with my son (as you might imagine, the boys take care of their parents thing doesn’t work for us). I’m not sure what to say if she probes. I, like OmegaMom started to try something like in some families the parents or grandparents decide that they need a son to take care of them when they are old….but it feels off key.
Please always tell your children the truth in an age appropriate way. Each child has their own age appropriate ability to understand these complex issues. K2 said it well.
Give your own children the truth so when a bratty kid in school brings it up because their parents think nothing of gossipping in front of their kids, your child has the best defense, The Truth.
I swear, in 1st grade a child said to my daughter: “They kill babies in China, my mom says so.” Or how about when the 2nd grade boy from Laos nods towards my daughter and asks me, “why would anyone throw away a perfectly good girl?”
I quickly learned to give her as much truth as I knew she could handle. As she matures, she asks more questions and I reveal a little more age appropriate information to her. She will never be able to ask me, “why didn’t YOU tell me?”
There are plenty of books out there too.
When You Were Born In China & Kids Like Me that sort of touch on the subject in an age appropriate way. Read them together.
It’s a rough world out there in school!
I found the book Telling the Truth to your Adopted or Foster Child to be pretty helpful in thinking through how to handle challenging information in the adoption story. I think you’re right, the particular detail seems a bit heavy for a 5year old, but placing the truth in some kind of age-appropriate fashion seems useful (so that eventually, whether it’s at 10 or 15 or 35, the full truth will fit into what you’ve already said). I can’t think of another frame beyond what some of the folks above have already said, though.
Funny that you write this post. The only suggestion I can think of would be add to what original story – what you thought you knew, and what is actually the truth.
Yes, males are favoured over females. Yes, baby boys are seen as better than baby girls. Yes, she will eventually hear about this from other people upon venturing out into the world. A lot of Asian adoptees hear about baby boys being preferred over baby girls. It’s an ugly truth, but it’s a truth nonetheless.
Many of these comments are suggesting you gloss over it, or do it in a way so that L doesn’t feel pained by it. To be quite frank, given what general public knows about Asian tradition and cultural preference, I highly doubt there is a way to escape a potential painful scenario. I’m sorry, but I just don’t think you can avoid it.
It’s like saying “I want to adopt from Asia where parents abandon their baby girls, but I don’t want to have to tell her she was abandoned.”
… well, what else do you expect to have to explain?
If you go into an adoption scenario where the prime reason for you being able to adopt is because the girl *was* abandoned, you’re kind of walking right into that sticky situation of having to navigate your way through abandonment exposition. That’s what I mean by being unavoidable.
I’m not suggesting embellishment because I don’t think it is possible. Maaaybe candy-coat it by saying male children take care of their parents, but even so, as L grows, she will hear things other than that.
On an interesting note, I once read on my sister’s blog that my brother was favoured over her. My sister went over to her cousin’s house and her aunt discovered an unsavoury collection on the cousin’s computer. My sister immediately returned home to tell her baba what a bad person her cousin was.
Sister: I am a good girl, I have never done that sort of thing.
Baba: You are not a good girl.
Sister: … but I don’t do those types of things.
Baba: You are bad. You always go out, never tell us where you go. Your brother is more responsible. He always communicates.
Sister: Because you never believe me! You always took his side!
Baba: Because your brother is a boy. He is better than you.
I like K2′s response as well. With my daughter– open adoption, completely different circumstances but plenty of adult issues that would be difficult to explain to a young child and would likely be brutal to live with while too young to understand the situations– I’ve simplified the history but not lied. I’ve gone with “we don’t know much about your birthfather” which is accurate but I have not shared some of the info we do have. As she gets older, we talk about adoption– and many other things– in more depth and I think the details will come out naturally– if awkwardly and heart wrenchingly for me– as she’s ready for more information. At least I hope so.
I have to say that I agree with Mei-Ling, I am not sure that there is anyway to avoid the painful truth and I think that if it presented with love, the facts and the cultural implications that it might be a little less painful as she gets older but it is always going to hurt. My kids have a similar issue as their birthmom is parenting their littlest sister but not the rest of them, it hurts, it is painful and it breaks their little hearts that she was willing to get clean for her but not for them. There is no way to take that pain away all I can do is help them learn to cope with the pain and grief it causes and I think you are goign to need to do the same for L.
I think K2′s response hits the nail on the head; truthful in an age appropriate way. The complexity of the “why” part is beyond what a five year old can process in an emotionally healthy way.
I, too, appreciate K2′s answer. Its honest, yet as reassuring as possible in the circumstances. I would add that there are also rules about the genders of the children. You have a real advantage: L’s other parents are in her life, and can help explain to her why they made the decisions they did. I believe you have some details specific to her circumstances. It may be worth saying something about how in China, as in many parts of the world, people think that boys and girls cant do the same things when they grow up.
Our kids live with hard and ugly truths, but they are their truths. I agree with Susan; details we add as they mature need to fit into the framework we’ve built all along.
I really like K2′s approach and agree completely with carosgram’s comment. While L will eventually learn about the Chinese preference for boys, I would be careful how you discuss it, and delay talking about it until she seems ready. Not being wanted b/c you are a girl from a child’s view makes it the child’s fault.
And, while we assume that that the OCP influenced the birth parents’ choices, how can we know or understand all that went into that decision? When L is ready, she can ask these questions of her parents’ herself.
Follow L’s lead, give her the opportunity, and she will let you know what she is ready to know.
I’ve made it my policy not to explain the trickier things until my child asks. We share the obvious facts, but the more difficult details I am holding until he is old enough to need answers (and even then, may hold some more damaging things back because, UGH). I think sometimes we have to get out of the adoption bubble and think how we would explain things to ANY child. i.e. if we divorced for infedility reasons, would we tell that to a 7-year-old? If an aunt commited suicide, would we tell that to an 8-year-old? We want to be transparent and open with adoption details but we still have to maintain the same sensitivities that every child deserves in terms of innocence, you know?
Hard.
The difference, I think, is that the situations you mention are things adults do to each other and themselves; adoption is something we do to our children. For example, if you child needed treatment for cancer, you would explain as best you could what was happening and why.
Have you considered discussing this issue with a child psychologist or someone well versed in early childhood development with a concentration in adoption issues? Maybe that perspective would be helpful.
I like K2′s suggestion also. I do think you should change it if she hasn’t read it. My understanding is that life books are added to and altered throughout life as details are learned and it becomes age appropriate to discuss in more depth. “Your parents were not able to get along and live together” is good for very young kids; the extension of “Your parents argued a lot and sometimes they hurt each other” etc. can be added when a child is more emotionally able to understand and manage those details.
hi Amber, I haven’t written in a long time… if you get a chance could you email me at the address here? The old email addresses don’t work anymore.
When we were in China our first time, we went as tourists and had a lot of time talking to locals in Beijing especially, some other areas also. I have been giving my daughter a more economic explanation of the one-child policies that I believe to be accurate.
I told her that China used to be a very poor country, with not enough food, and somebody who tried to help with that began some laws about how many children people could have. And the tradition, just now changing a little bit, is that a boy takes care of his parents when they are old, and a girl helps her husband take care of his parents, instead of taking care of her own. So people feel like they have to have a boy, even if they would rather have a girl. (I talked to a lot of people. I don’t think so many, at least in the cities, value boys so highly over girls and I really think this is the truth of it. Your son is your old age plan, and without one, big troubles loom.)
And, I went over the common scenarios about why a child might be adopted (family planning laws, young parents etc).