Somehow we think that if we do and say all the right things, adoption won't be confusing or painful to our children. But that's not acknowledging what adoption is. Adoption is confusing-it's hard for a child to get an unfiltered story about what happened and why. Sometimes, our love gets in the way; parents have a tendency to want to soften situations or leave out the bad parts. Our sons and daughters will come to understand-with or without our help-that there's an underside to adoption. No matter how well things have worked out, adoption involves loss and loss involves grief. And we cannot insulate our children from either one. As adoptive parents, we can't fix our children's past. We can't make everything right for them, but we can try to make anything that comes up be alright. Bad news is less likely to screw up kids than no news.

The desire on the part of some to have families be a certain way (meaning biological) and look a certain way (meaning they match) is really challenged by transracial adoption. It doesn't matter how enlightened we are within our homes, a family that doesn't match will still experience bias. Cultural myopia doesn't always allow others to see us as a family, no matter how much we feel like one. Anytime we love someone from another race, through transracial adoption, interracial marriage, or friendship, we are forever changed. We are no longer monoracial. As a result, we begin to see the racism and prejudice that always existed but never before showed up on our radar screen. We can't teach our children how to be something we're not, but we can make concerted efforts to find role models and culturally appropriate opportunities. The experience greatly enhances all of the lives it touches.

Thankfully, things have changed a lot since the days of secrecy and the pendulum has swung toward openness in adoption. But, with that more recent trend comes the expectation that open adoption is a panacea. It is not. Open adoption doesn't guarantee smooth sailing and access to birth families doesn't mean synchronicity with them. Open adoption is helpful in answering some questions for a child and in linking the past with the present. By framing a child's world as a bigger constellation that includes the birth family, adoptive parents are giving permission to their children to feel connected to the different parts of themselves within this larger picture. There can be a spirit of openness within a closed adoption when you think of openness as part action and part attitude. It's about helping an adopted person have access to knowledge of, and appreciation for, who he is and where he came from.

Many times friends introduce adoptive families to each other only to find out that they have nothing in common except for the friends who introduced them! Being an adoptive parent doesn't say anything about the kind of parent you are or the kind of person you are-it describes how you created your family. Sometimes, adoptive families start to think that they are better than their plain old vanilla counterparts because they've had to work harder to become families. It's true that adoptive families don't happen by accident and it is also true that happy families don't happen by accident. While adoption is not as easy as building a family biologically, there is something profound and spiritual about families like ours. There's a sense-no matter how far away our children came from, no matter what age, color, or health, no matter what the reasons for an adoption-that it was somehow meant to be. Many people mistakenly think that adopted kids are the lucky ones-that's the ultimate myth. Luckiest of all are the mothers and fathers who get to be the parents of these children.


Jana Wolff is author of "Secret Thoughts of an Adoptive Mother," which is now available in a revised, paperback edition.

© Jana Wolff

Credits: Adoptive Families Magazine