Why Adoption Awareness Matters to Me (and to You!)--by Kaela Enderle

“Where did he come from? Why couldn’t his real mom take care of him? So she just didn’t want him?”

     These are the questions of a grade-school aged girl I had a conversation with in my car a couple of months ago. This was certainly not the first time someone has randomly asked me questions that catch me off-guard. Young kids tend to ask questions more “bluntly,” and that’s to be expected—though I think you’d probably be shocked by some of the equally blunt questions I’ve received from complete-stranger adults in the middle of the store.

I have mixed feelings when it comes to adoption questions. When friends & family ask questions, I welcome it! I love that they care enough about our family and our son that they want to grow their awareness about adoption. When random strangers ask questions, I don’t always know how to respond because it’s difficult to determine why they want to know. Where is the line drawn between 1) Genuine interest & wanting to learn more about adoption, and 2) just plain nosiness into my son’s business just because he looks different than me?

With young kids, I know it’s simply because they are curious & know/understand very little about the complexity of the world we live in. As I floundered my way through trying to answer this girls’ innocent questions at an age-appropriate level—trying to help her gain maybe a glimmer of a new perspective of adoption, love, and birth parents without getting into personal detail about my son & his birth mother specifically (that is his personal story to share someday)—it became evident to me that this girl, probably like most kiddos her age, had very little exposure to adoption and had clearly gained most of her perspective from things she had seen on TV or in movies.

I then thought about one of my first experiences with taking my newborn son to the doctor’s office. At our first appointment at this office (just as one example), both the doctor and nurse asked me, “What drugs was his birth mother using while she was pregnant?” and, “Do you know why his mother gave him up?” These might seem like "normal" questions to some, but as an adoptive mama, these questions made me cringe a little. I know they weren't meaning to be insensitive in any way, but without realizing it, they had made some rather forward assumptions--as if it were inevitable that someone who “gave up” their child probably uses drugs. They seemed very confused when I tried to explain to them that we had an open relationship with his birth mother and that she had done the best she could to care for him during her pregnancy—that she didn’t “give him up,” because she didn’t want him; rather, she made an adoption plan for him because of her love for him.

I try my best not to get too riled-up about these experiences. Most of the time, I recognize that people are taking a small handful of difficult adoption experiences they have seen or heard about on the news and are assuming that most adoption works that way, simply because that’s all they know or have been exposed to. People assume the birth parents did something to have their child “taken away,” or that they “gave them away” because they didn’t want them. Most of the time, the cringe-worthy language people use when referring to adoption, such as “His mother gave him up,” or “That is so special that you gave a loving home to a child who wasn’t wanted,” simply comes from a poorly informed, historical “orphan train” viewpoint of adoption, and a lack of understanding on how that type of dialogue might be offensive. On one hand, I view it as an opportunity to educate & hopefully help others to realize that not all adoption stories are the same, and not all “popular” conclusions about adoption are accurate.

On the other hand, it makes my mama heart hurt to think that so many people—from young children to professional adults—have such “tunnel-vision” perspectives on birth parents and adoptive situations. 

This matters so much to me for two reasons:

1) It matters to me because I love and respect my son’s birth mother so much, and it hurts me to think of the types of questions/assumptions she must face. As a nurse at a pregnancy clinic over the past 5 years, I've had conversations with many women in unplanned pregnancy circumstances who are considering making an adoption plan for their child. All of them are in very different circumstances & have their own reasons, but all of them I have talked to say the EXACT same thing: “I don’t know if I could ever give up my child.” I have yet to meet a parent who considers this choice for their child and has an “easy” time with it. Most women I have talked to in early stages of unplanned pregnancy would rather go through an abortion (which is generally more publicly “acceptable”) than face the “shame” of being a birth mother, which breaks my heart. How might the way we talk about adoption based upon our assumptions affect these moms?

2) It matters to me because I love my son, and someday I know he will be sitting in a classroom of kids or in the doctor’s office—surrounded by people who have been provided very little accurate information on various adoption circumstances. And while the questions he will receive might come from honest curiosity, these questions can be TOUGH. Though I can try to do everything in my power to help him understand the love that his birth mama has for him, I cannot forever shield him from the hurtful assumptions, lack of sensitivity, and the questions he will one day face without me.

I do not write these thoughts to discourage people from asking questions! I love it when people ask me questions that come from a genuine desire to grow their understanding of adoption. I write these thoughts because I hope to spark a conversation in your own minds and within your own families.

So here are MY questions for YOU J :

1)      Regarding general adoption awareness:

• What do you know about adoption, and what resources are informing your perspective?
• Are you familiar with the differences between infant adoption vs. adoption of an older child? Adoption through foster-care vs. adoption through and agency or private adoption? Open/Semi-open adoptions vs. closed adoption? Domestic vs. International?
• PARENTS: Have you ever had a conversation with your kids about adoption? How might learning more accurate information affect the way you or your kids think/talk about adoption?

2)      Regarding birth-parents:

• What if you knew that carrying through with what you felt to be the best choice for your child in your situation would create a cloud of scrutiny and negative assumptions by others around you? Would you have the courage to go through with that choice?
• When you hear the words “birth mother” or “birth father,” what comes to mind? (Further: If you were to voice your answer to this question out loud knowing there was a birth parent in the room, how might that affect your speech?)

3)      Regarding those who have been adopted:

• When you meet someone who has been adopted, do you find yourself subconsciously forming assumptions about their story? How might these assumptions be potentially harmful towards that person (child or adult) if they could see right through to your thoughts?

My final question for all of us is this: What can we do to change our perceptions of adoption (and the perceptions of those around us)? Here are some answers I have identified:

1)      We don’t need to know all of the details of someone’s adoption story in order to be sensitive—the best thing we can do is minimize hurtful assumptions by simply acknowledging that all adoption stories are different! Children who have been adopted process their stories in different ways, birth parents make their choices for a variety of reasons, and the experience of one adoptive family will vary from the experiences of others.

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2)      Change the way we talk about adoption!

• If you read nothing else on this post, read this picture below! The words we use when talking about adoption are SO important, as the words we choose can take on deeper meanings than we intend.

3)      We can educate ourselves! I am certainly no expert in adoption just because I have one first-hand experience—I am always learning. Here are some ideas to help you get started:

• Know anyone who is currently going through the adoption process? Help support them by following their updates & praying for their family! Also, talk to adoptive families about their experience! Before Caleb and I started our adoption process, this was by far the single-most impactful way we learned about adoption.

• Check out websites such as BraveLove.org –An organization that seeks to change adoption perceptions by acknowledging birth parents. Includes video interviews and stories from their perspectives (check out this link). TheArchibaldProject.com is another website that shares various adoption stories from foster-care to international adoptions.

• If you're a reader, read books! Here are a couple of my favorites:

"Adopted for Life" by Russel Moore--An excellent book that talks about the priority of adoption for Christian families and churches.

 

"The Lucky Few" by Heather Avis--A quick, easy read of this family's personal adoption journey that will open your eyes to a new perspective on open adoption, special needs adoption, and more.

Obviously this is not an exhaustive list of resources, but I hope some of these resources & thoughts will help you think through ways that you can make a difference in changing adoption perspectives! Thanks for taking the time to read!