I have finally finished my papers for this semester, so I am allowing myself to get back on the blogging train again.
I have a couple of thoughts about the 'guilt' post by Swerl. There are things about adoption that I feel guilty about, but I haven't felt guilty about the decision not to share our child's family details with people outside our family. Our social worker talked to us from the beginning of our home study process about thinking about the adoption as a triangle. We are one point of the triangle--the adoptive parents, our child will be another point, and his or her birthparents will make the third. Each point has its own perspective from which it is viewing the process. Each experiences joys and heartaches associated with the events as viewed from its point of view.
So, as adoptive parents, it is important for us to consider how the other triangle points experience the adoption. This is where the privacy about our child's history will come into play. I agree with many of the commenters on the
referenced blog. We probably won't tell more of our child's story to others than we have told our child. This does not mean that we won't want to talk to people about the adoption! This absolutely does not mean that we are not (already) proud of our child and what he or she has already gone through to be with us. But, it does mean that the reason his or her mother chose to make an adoption plan will probably be something that stays within our family until our child is old enough to decide how much of that information he or she wants to share with others.
Something J and I have talked about that was mentioned on that blog was our reaction to seeing multiracial families in public... especially parents who have children who are a different race than they are. We watch them. We look and we brainstorm about their lives and we hope that everything is wonderful. We tear up. We talk about how it will be for us. We wonder how it is for them. I will have to be more careful about this. I DO try to respect the privacy of these families... I have not once gone up to any of them to ask questions about a possible adoption. However, at this point, I am pretty sure that I will be OVERJOYED to be approached and asked about how we came to be such a beautiful family. I am armed and ready to politely shoot down any misconceptions or defend my family against any offense!
I was on the phone with my Gramma the other night. She mentioned that she keeps up with the blog and then said that she had something to tell me. She thinks we're crazy for even THINKING about cloth diapers. She said that she would have given anything for the option of disposables when she was diapering her kids. She remembers when someone got her a gift of a diaper service for one month after my Uncle Paul was born--She said it was the GREATEST gift ever!! She has even discussed this with her friends and they agree! She asked if we realized how gross it is to have to wash dirty diapers out in the toilet. Gramma also said that the day that you think you have enough diapers to last through the day is the day YOU WILL RUN OUT!!
It is true. The thought of cloth diapers is the thought of a generation who has always had access to disposables... a generation who has time to be concerned about the environment... a generation where every family has its own washing machine and dryer...