New parents get questions.
Often intrusive questions.
- How long was your labor?
- Was this baby planned?
- Did you want a boy/girl?
When adoptive parents get, the questions can get even more intrusive.
What is wrong with his real parents? What is wrong with his birth mother?
Why didn’t they want her?
Aren’t you worried they will come get him?
Was this baby a product of rape?
Why didn’t the birth mother abort?
Was the mother on drugs?
Regardless of how innocent the questions appear, they are problematic, especially when involving a child a mother placed for adoption.
Learn how to decline to answer respectfully.
Once the child’s adoption story is told within a family or neighborhood, this story can become folklore and the defining aspect of a child.
Don't do that to a child.
Before sharing details about your child’s adoption story, consider whether this is information you want to spread around.
You should be happy to share the journey and how you felt meeting your child. You can talk about the love you felt for the birth family.
A few weekends ago, I watched potential adoptive and birth parents interact. They were cautious at first. They stumbled through greetings and where to meet. They awkwardly decided where to have lunch while the child stayed in the hospital nursery.
The awkwardness and clumsiness of the meeting slowly drained away as they went from self-conscious chuckles to relaxed laughter.
The birth family revealed details about their lives–personal experiences which bonded the two couples. Those details, however, are confidential, personal revelations between them not to be disclosed to neighbors or random friends.
The personal backstory to your child’s adoption story is to be guarded. Some people are genuinely interested in you and your child’s experience. Other people are just judgmental.
Your child is adopted. That should never be ignored or hidden. The story of his adoption is not his identity or burden.
