Growing Family

My Delights

Every boy should have the chance to wear pink jellies!

The makings of a dancer?

They're starting to become mischevious together!

NPR Adoption Series

There is a series on National Public Radio about adoption right now. The story yesterday was about transracial/transcultural adoption. I think the piece today is about girls adopted from India, who were actually stolen from their (birth)families.

I've only heard the first piece and I think they made things simple enough for people who don't have experience with adoption, but led into some of the complexities. Here's one of the stories if you'd like to check it out.

Reframing Moses: Examining Christian Adoption Culture

Recently Cloudscome wrote about her son's reaction to the story of Moses. I was struck by his childhood spin on the story (influenced by his own experience as an adoptee, no doubt): he was really upset about the princess (Pharaoh's daughter) "stealing" baby Moses.

I was lying in bed thinking about adoption, as I often do, and I decided to re frame the Moses story that so many Christian adopters like to use as a Biblical example of the sanctity of (transracial) adoption.

Here Goes...

Because a guy named Joseph (an Israelite/Hebrew/Jewish man) was trafficked as a slave into Egypt, many Israelites ended up there as well. They put down rootes there and became a significant part of the population. They were the ethnic minority in Egyptian culture. The Egyptians forced them to work at manual labor and abused them. They were so oppressed that the Pharaoh instituted a policy of genocide where he commanded that the midwives kill all the male Israelites being born. They wouldn't comply. He then commanded that every male Hebrew (Israelite) baby be thrown into the river Nile.

It was during this pogrom that Moses was born. He had two parents and an older sister. He was born healthy and loved. His mother hid him until he was three months old, until she couldn't hide him any more. She then set him floating in the river, in a basket, while his sister watched to see what would happen.

Pharaoh's daughter, the princess of the ethnic majority, saw Moses and had him retrieved from the water. She felt sorry for the baby, even though she could see that he was a Hebrew infant. Moses' sister stepped forward and offered to get a nurse for the baby. She got her mother. So Moses went back to his mother and stayed with her until he was weaned, when the Pharaoh's daughter transracially adopted him. She was the one who named him Moses, a name that meant "drawn out". She named him based on her experience of finding and adopting him. His name did not reflect his birth culture.

So Moses grew up and began to notice the discrimination and abuse the Hebrew people were enduring. Once he got so angry he killed an Egyptian for abusing a Hebrew. The adopted ethnic minority KILLED one of the people belonging to the race he was adopted into.

Some Hebrews questioned Moses and defied his acts on their behalf. He was challenged by his own birth culture.

When Pharaoh heard what Moses had done, he tried to kill Moses, his adopted grandson, but Moses ran away.

While he was hiding he helped the daughters of a local priest. They perceived him to be Egyptian. He was "passing" as Egyptian and his own people didn't even know that he was a Hebrew. He married one of the priest's daughters and said "I have become an alien in a foreign land."

So the story goes on from there, about Moses' life and how he led the Israelites out of Egypt, helping them to escape their oppression and abuse.

So Christian adopters correlate Moses' mother's sacrifice to the sacrifice a current birthmother makes. Unfortunately, I think there are more correlations there than we typically acknowledge. Moses' mother loved him, wanted him, and had the means to care for him. BUT she was part of an oppressed people group and as the ruler of the country waged genocide on her people, she was trying to find a way to save her son.

Moses was hardly the poster child for transracial adoption, and I don't think that his adoptive family is exactly who Christian adopters want to empathize with either.

As a Christian, I think that the Bible is a vital and relevant source of guidance and truth for those that profess faith in Christ. But to justify something as "Biblical" without taking into account all the dynamics and truths bound up in the stories, is, in my opinion, misguided. Of course there are other stories of adoption in the Bible, I've just go Moses on my mind.

So when I read this story I take away some different insights. I do not read it as "Moses mother placed him for adoption and he was adopted by a wonderful princess and he lived happily-ever-after-amen." I see the struggle his mother made for his survival, while his people were being exterminated. I see a brave woman who dared to bring him into her home, while her own father waged a genocidal campaign. I see her view of Moses centering around his place in HER life and experience. I see Moses struggling with his identity and ultimately defying and abandoning his adoptive family, his adoptive culture and his adoptive country. No one ever paints the glowing picture of Moses as the adult transracial adoptee. We focus on his mother's heroic efforts to save him. There is a whole lot of struggle and a whole lot of insight to be gained from reading a little further.

Exodus 1,2 tells the full story.

I'm Talking to YOU

So I don't know who you write for, but when I write it is as if no one is there. Well, at least there are less people to mind than there are in real life.

Some of my friends have awarded me the title of The Diplomat because when something needs to be said, I can usually find a graceful way to say it. I'm thankful that I have that talent but that's really not who I want to be when I'm writing here.

I started this blog to be able to write about the things that no one in my peer group really understood. That is, adoption and the challenges of being a white mother with a brown child. It has been a place to vent when I feel misunderstood or alone in my parenting. It has been a medium to reach out to other parents traveling the same road.

I want to keep writing that way, even though many of my friends and family now read what I'm writing here. I don't want to turn into The Diplomat. This is my space to breath. This is where I talk about the reality I'm living in.

I guess I'm afraid that I'll cave to self-censorship (beyond the self-censorship of good sense which I try to leave intact at all times) for fear of hurting or offending my friends.

When I sit down to write, I usually don't remember that people I actually know are reading. I'm just shaking my brains out to see what sticks. So friends, family, people who are used to constant kindness, please know that I love you all dearly. Should you feel offended or hurt by what I write, please let me know. While I do write this for me, I am all about a grounded dialog to better a friendship. So, that said, I am going to keep doing what I do here. For the most part it is pretty manageable, I think, but once in awhile I close my eyes tight and type an expletive, wincing, knowing that my mother may read it.

My Sister's Showcase

If any of you want to attend my sister's upcoming showcase, let me know. Go to Opal Designs to check her stuff out.

Life Without TV

I have never owned a TV.

When I was young we had a TV in the closet that we unpacked a couple of times to watch nature shows. The only thing I can remember seeing on TV in early childhood was a show about the African Safari and lions.

In later years we had a TV out but we were not allowed to watch it. We used to to watch educational videos and movies like Anne of Green Gables.

I grew up completely apart from any knowledge of American pop culture. The music, TV shows and movies that mark the passing of time and trends for my cohort are completely unknown to me. I mean, now I know something about them but growing up? Nada.

When the Captain and I got married we decided that we didn't need to get a TV as part of our house making. We have never regretted that.

In college I always found it rather eerie and Orwellian that everyone had been watching the same channels the night before and was talking about the same things the next day. On occasions where I had been watching TV (at a friend's house or something), like the coverage of a news event, I found it so bizarre that my classmates' perspectives and opinions were taken, without any changes whatsoever, from the news they had watched the night before. They didn't say "the coverage I saw presented..." they said things like "it happened like this". They did not seem to have any awareness that the media can be biased or prejudiced. It weirded me out.

Now, we watch a lot of TV and we have a netflix account that keeps our mailbox brimming with sometimes brilliant and sometimes abysmal films. We watch a lot of documentaries. Everything we see is DVD, on our computer. No commercials. Somehow, not having a TV makes me feel more free. It is one less connection to the "hive mind" (see, I learned about Star Trek). Don't get me wrong, I love to watch stuff, I just want to limit how much it shapes my world and especially my children's realities.

My Herbivore Existence

I've never really liked meat. I remember enjoying eating hot dog at my aunt's house in Philadelphia. I remember liking roast beef with the potatoes and carrots and onions. I remember my mother taking my to Wendy's to eat a big mac when I was about six and I learned to read. These are the three childhood occasions I can remember meat as a positive experience.

I can remember many more times when meet was the grounds on which my parents and I waged war in the strongest power struggle of my childhood. Ultimately, I won.

Sometimes I view my own vegetarianism from a neutral, unemotional perspective. I simply don't care for meat. I am too sympathetic to the animals that become dinner. I believe it is possible, through meal planning, to have enough protein without meat. And anyway, in the garden of Eden things started out without meat, right?

Then, on occasion, I am thrust back into the intense emotions of childhood where I am teetering on the brink of losing control, or I've lost it altogether. I remember sitting at the table until bedtime, staring at the single bite of meat that must be eaten. I remember crying, choking and gagging on clam chowder my whole family clan is proud of and considers a real treat (with fish caught and prepared by my great uncle in the Florida Keys).  I remember sneaking down to the basement (I think to look for ice cream), using all my strength to push up the lid of the deep freezer, only to come face to face with a whole fish, surrounded by its eggs.

I remember the hunter who lived with us who cleaned and cured meat in our suburban backyard. Then we moved to rural Tennessee where my parents went all farm on us. There was my first (but unfortunately not last) experience slaughtering chickens and plucking them. I rode with my dad to take our cow to the slaughterhouse, and then there was the time in Pennsylvania when we were eating beef for dinner and my cousin leaned over to ask me "do you remember the calf we played with last summer?

When I was ten my parents caved. They agreed that my rejection of meat was not a phase. They allowed me to become a vegetarian.

I try to eat meat every now and again. Sometimes it is to be polite at someone's house. That can go really wrong though, if you become sick while eating. I didn't actually lose the squishy ham-maybe-chicken mayonnaise salad, but the audible gagging noises I kept emitting, no matter how hard I tried to look relaxed and smile, could not have been the noises the cook was looking for.

I eat a bite or two of turkey on Christmas and Easter and enjoy it. I even tried a bite of my uncle's beef tenderloin up in Northern Michigan a couple weeks ago. The fact that he spent about $300 on meat, and that my dad (whose physique is the most impressive of any man in his fifties that I know) ate three servings compelled me to try it. And it was good. I think if someone else prepared meat for me, I might be able to try it more often*.

As much as I'd like to think that my being a vegetarian is a simple choice and that I could choose differently if I wished, that is untrue. I wish that is how it was.  Instead, the prospect of eating meat has the ability to incite fear, panic, nausea, and sweating.

When I was younger and used to tell God that I would be a missionary and go anywhere God asked me to, I would secretly beg Him not to send me to a place where I had to eat some crazy animal dish so that I wouldn't offend my hosts. I actually spent quite a lot of time worrying about it and it was a real obstacle to what I wanted to be able to promise God.

I'd like to get to the place where being a vegetarian is something I can un-choose, but I have no idea how to get there. It started as a power struggle and while I won with over my parents, I have lost to myself.

* I can, and do, cook meat for my family. And while we encourage our children to try everything, and I am hurt when they reject the food I put so much effort into preparing, we do not force our kids to try anything. I want to avoid creating the dynamic I grew up with, where my stubborness contributed to my becoming a vegetarian. After a couple of those all-night sieges where I had to try to meat before I could eat breakfast in the morning, I couldn't humble myself to lose face and admit that the meat had looked tempting all along but after I had said no the first time, I had to follow it through - all the way until now.

Let Sleeping Babes Lie

Is there anything more adorable than those little mounds of baby sleeping?

Boring Essentials Long Overdue

The Captain and I just had a meeting, scheduled earlier this week, in which I copied down all of our banking information, account numbers, passwords, etc to put in a safety deposit box. We handle financial decisions together but he is the one who has set up all of the accounts and all of the passwords.

It must have been about a year ago when The Captain was out of town and I needed to call the bank to track a check or something. I didn't know any of the information to access the account. I was so embarrassed and vowed that I would get all this information immediately. Heh.

It's a lot to keep track of; two banks with multiple accounts, a mortgage, multiple retirement accounts, insurance policies, deeds, etc. Things were a lot easier when you had checking and savings and a couple pennies to put in each.

I don't feel like I'm the ignorant housewife who doesn't know a thing about the financial affairs. But when it comes down to the details of accessing our finances I just didn't have my stuff together. Next: put my document in a safe deposit box along with other important documents, like Small Sun's adoption decree.

One of my girlfriends has important documents in a freezer bag, in her freezer, as a safety precaution in case of fire. Genius.

I feel such a load off after doing this...or I will, after I have the safety deposit box key in hand.

The Role of Reciprocation

I just finished John Raible's piece Lifelong Impact, Enduring Need in Outsiders Within. He puts forth an interesting idea about transracial adoptees.

Raible discusses how so much of the focus in transracial adoption, especially when a family is considering adopting, is how to raise a child of another race. Can they do it? How will their family respond? Do they have the resources? What is seldom thought of is the family structure 20+ years down the road.

When I'm talking about transracial adoption with people I encourage them to ask themselves "would I be comfortable in an interracial marriage or with my grown children marrying someone from a different ethnic background?" Children are naturally lovable and disarming. Many people can imagine loving a child of another race. But can they imagine forming intimate relationships and bonds with adults of color?

One of my girlfriends was considering adopting and African American girl and a friend she trusted asked her "but what will you do to keep your daughter from bringing a black boy home to date?" There's the crux of the issue: people can see a child of any race as cute and non-threatening while that same child as an adult may elicit a different reaction.

Anyway, I digress. Raible encourages parents to plan for the long term and to realize that once adoptees become adults they have several decisions to make. They may choose to identify primarily with one racial group, rather than a blend. How will the adoptive family react if their Chinese American daughter marries a Chinese American man and has Chinese American children, bringing a greater percentage of non-biological ethnic heritage into the family?

The most interesting thing Raible discusses is the adult adoptee coming to a time where they have to choose whether or not they are going to "adopt" their adoptive family. When a family adopts a child (a young child at least), the child has no say. They weren't consulted when the choice was made to remove them from their birth family, their country, their race, or their culture. As adults they have that choice to continue to identify themselves as part of their adoptive family or not.

This is really true for all individuals coming to adulthood. At least in our Western individual-centric culture. Kids go to college. They struggle with their beliefs. They move away. Sometimes they choose to completely distance themselves from their families and never really reunify with their childhood family structure. For adult transracial adoptees these decisions become more pronounced as there is no blood tie holding the family together. The family unit requires continuous choice and commitment.

What do you think about this? I hadn't ever really thought of that before. All the focus seems to be on whether or not adoptive parents can choose to love and commit to a child of color, not on whether or not that adoptee as an adult will in turn choose the adoptive family.

Interesting ideas to play with. Another layer of complexity enters in when there is an open adoption relationship and the child/adult has to learn to navigate the different relationships. Two mothers, two fathers, adoptive siblings, biological siblings (half and full), and extended family. Are there times when the adoptee identifies more with one mother than another? Or really connects with bio-siblings and feels distance from adopted siblings? Or visa versa? There is no real template for this. We're just swimming in a sea of possibilities. In thirty years when I've gotten this all figured out, you can buy my book.