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The story will be singular and different in each family. But you have to keep in mind: the effects that the story produces in the kid depends on how and when it is revealed.
Before, adoption was seen as a decision with mysterious and dark consequences; that is why it was something that people should keep hidden. It was the time in which lying to kids was kind of unpunished (“so, they don’t understand... they are kids and don’t realize it. If they don’t know, they don’t suffer”).
Why do we lie?
Psychopedagogy, together with psychology and pediatrics, redefines what is the kid mind, what he needs, what is good for him... Specialized magazines, TV, books spread it out and then nobody is innocent. When someone lies to a kid, in a way he knows. Usually, adults don’t lie for the good of the kinds but because we have issues to face hard problems like death, or painful like when we have to uncover some aspects of us that show us as we are: fragile or with failures.
Not to be able “to do” kids is a failure of the body and realizing this there’s a great amount of frustration, pain, jealous and envy for all those who are able to do so.
In other times, when coming to adoption, the couple simulated a pregnancy or invented a long trip from which it returned with a beautiful baby. The impossibility to give birth implied that condition that society determined as not resigning: mother and woman were almost synonyms. In the other hand, for a man was a matter of losing power and manhood; and specially not to transcend with his last name.
There’s no unique model of family.
In certain cultures, to become mother is the maximum commandment for a woman. She’s located in a close space and a kingdom: home
Although, it is hard to recognize that family is in itself a cultural creation that can or can not be based in biological ties. “Adoption is precisely the possibility to form a family based not in biology but in culture”.
It is important that adoptive parents can think and question their fears, prejudices and myths about adoption and the way that an adopted kid is seen by culture.
Interdisciplinary teams that work in this theme, provide orientation and tranquility to the couple and, of course, the groups that are organized and gather because of the same experience.
“People gets here with a very fantastic idea of what adoption really is. In that moment, almost 80 percent assure that they won’t tell to their kid that he or she is adopted”.
As the process goes one, this idea starts changing. Since the arrival of the adoptive couple, there’s an evaluation in which they are also trained about some themes they have to know in order to their future relationship with their daughter or son. In SENAME this work is reinforced in workshops with the parents, in which they share their experiences. “In this way, little by little, people understand that it is not fair that everybody knows the facts but not the adopted kid. Acting with the truth is the only thing that avoids trust crisis in case the kids finds out his origin with other people different from his parents”.
Although there are no recipes for the when and how of the revelation, the professional thinks that the kid should know this from the beginning, even before he or she can speak. “Kids understand much more that we can imagine. This is why we can send caring messages that trace a path, like ‘the day you got into our lives’, ‘the day I found you...’ This will make easier the moment in which a clearer and more concrete explanation be requested. You have to be prepared, because, no matter what you want, the kid might ask it any minute”.
You should also consider that the idea of identity gets into the kid, teen or adolescent in different ways. It is not the same to know our identity when we are 2, six, eight or twelve. Sometimes, parents say they want to wait until their kid gets older and can understand. What usually happens is that this expectation last months, years... and the ideal moment never appears. There’s lot of fear to hurt with the truth or divides. Without taking into consideration that being denied in it true origin makes a kid fragile, to fix this is a way to give him all his strength and pride to be in the world. When kids know their true story when they are teens, they tend to deeply reproach their parents hiding this truth. To ignore what other people know about us doesn’t avoid suffering, it causes it.
Carefully
The way in which the story is transmitted, the fact that the story and that truth are part or not of daily life, the way in which information is revealed and who reveals it... all these have effects for the mental health of the kids.
What is to be adopted? It is to be a kid like any other but with a story that begins before encounter mom and dad.
It is not always good to say everything you know. It is essential to be careful with the access to the information and how the kid receive it. To build a story doesn’t necessarily means to use all we know about the biological family of the kid. As in many other things, we pass from a woman that filled her dress with big pillows and invented a fully detailed delivery, to the idea of “telling the whole truth”.
There are adoptive parents that prefer to speak only when the kid asks. But, if he doesn’t answer? If he feels that thought? To wait until he asks isn’t it a way to avoid facing this issue? Sometimes we think that it is good to find examples, using TV characters, family or school situations to explain the theme. There’s always a birth, any surgical intervention or even someone one. Although, kids are not always in conditions to associate their own condition with an example that it is not clear or worse, it is confusing.
When kids know their true story when they are teens, they tend to deeply reproach their parents hiding this truth.
Experts say “information about the origin claims some degree of independence about some other episodes in life, it demands intimacy... due to the importance of this subject. The presence of both parents is ideal when revealing the information. Nevertheless, experience shows us that usually is the mother who finds the ideal circumstances to do it, according t what she feels in the “same frequency” with her son in a precise moment. Then the father gets into that conversation when he gets home.
To strengthen the ties
As always, and in our conditions of human beings with flaws and holes, we do what we can, when we can and how we can about giving this information to our kid as many other stuff.
Since they knew they were giving up treatments, Juan and Graciela were making a photo album of the house and then of the adoption. The grandparents with a new cradle; they in the moment of getting their son, his first bath... and every episode of their first moments together. Since the first day, they talked to Germán about how happy they were when he arrived to become their son. It is for sure that adopted kids will have moments of anger and the adoptive parents will try to accompany them when elaborating their original situation. “To know that there’s another mom that conceived the baby leads him to ask himself what he could do to be abandoned. This idea hits the kid, but if parents are well prepared they will open to support and receive their kid in this sorrow”.
You should also consider that the questions of the adopted kid don’t look for an answer but try to confirm that the other is willing to answer what he can or knows, that the other is tolerant and will hear the uncertainty and questions that appear. This acknowledgement makes stronger the ties between parents and kids.
Beyond biology
To assume and exercise parenthood or motherhood is to be aware of a process, a role to build, a function that each person unfolds in a singular way and that is not reduced to a biological thing.
Capacity of procreation is, in itself, does not make us parents. In the same way problems don’t appear because a kid knows he is adopted, but secrets and a bad way to handle the information about the origin and the difference with “the others”.
The first act of the biological mother was not to abandon, but to deliver, care, give life. When the time comes to tell the story, some parents say they felt as “before taking an exam”. For them, that moment implies to live again what they went trough since they thought or decided to adopt and the frustration of not having conceived him or her.
It is essential to name, pronounce the word adoption since the kid is born and always avoid hiding. The best way to tell a son that he is adopted is making that the word adoption be part of the daily language. It is vital to take away from it its negative burden, because it is nothing to be ashamed of.
Frequently, kids ask:
What is to be adopted? One adequate answer is to tell them that to be adopted is to be a kid like any other but with a story that begins before the encounter with mom and dad.In a way, when adopting a kid there’s a pregnancy. Every adoption goes along with a long waiting period, full of hopes and fears, doubts, anxiety and illusions that start shaping the kid, they imagine him or her before they see him or her. It is a gestation time in which the future of the kid takes its place and, when they get together for the first time, it appears the need of knowing each other and discovering mutually.
To build a story
To make a story is to place facts, situations into a script, make them together and form the fabrics of a story. This is essential for kids and parents not only in families with adopted kids. You can say that one of the objectives of the story that parents tell to their son is to build a story for him.
A story makes sense and answer the questions that every kid has. In order to make it we can use photos, draws, other stories, songs. One example can be the making of a photo album, not only after the adoption but also with pictures of the place before, with picture of the place in which the parents met their kid.
If there are no pictures, we can make drawings that allow us to make a story and imagine about what we know. All these will allow the kid to explain his birth, which means to feel valued, loved, cared, and we know this is essential in his life. In the other hand, we have to remember that every family, even the one with biological sons, has always something to build. In it there are also ties that emerge progressively.
It is important all the stuff that allows to fill the blanks and shadows of the memory. Almost all adoption stories start with parents who really wanted a kid; and with a kid that really needed and wanted to have parents. In the end, it is the story of a encounter.
The fact of keeping it secret means that this story couldn’t get into the family day and the history of the family. This indicates that adoption is lived as something painful and terrible; and not a pleasant and exciting fact; as it is to wish a kid, look for him and find him.
You were waiting for a mom and a dad
"It is possible to tell a kid how you went to look for him and where he was. And that was into the womb of a lady that made him with a man. She took care of him when she was pregnant. Since that lady couldn’t take care of him, she had to leave him for other people to help him grow up. Meanwhile mom and dad were sad because they couldn’t have a kid. That happens sometimes to adults. Then they were told there was this baby waiting for a mom and a dad. They went to look for him... and there they found him... he was really small and he had big eyes and small hands. Since then he is a member of that family".
Where to go?
There are several institutions that help parents about their relationships with their adoptive kids.
SENAME
It offers five sessions workshops and has psychologists and social assistants. Currently is dedicated to parents that have already initiated the proceedings in that institution in the Metropolitan Region. Phone: 02-2392010
Chilean Foundation of Adoption:
It has to ways for workshops: for sessions along a month or one session on Friday and all Saturday for parents that travel from their regions.
It is extended for all the interested people.
Phone: 02-6968714
Saint Joseph Foundation
It has workshops for pre-adopters that apply in the institution and external people for all the interested community: Phone 02-2191514
Quinta Tilcoco Home
It offers free attention, individually, given by psychologists and social assistants for all parents that request it, every Saturday in the afternoon
Phone: 072-541271
To remember:
* When lying to a kid, in a way he knows.
* What brings problems it is not to be adopted but the secrets and the way information is handled.
* Ignoring what other people know about us doesn’t avoid suffering, it causes it.
* It is essential to name, pronounce the word adoption since the baby is born and avoid hiding this truth.
* The best way to tell a kid that he is adopted is making this word as part of the daily vocabulary.
* The way in which the information and who reveals it has effects in the mental health of the kids.
There is a lot of fear to be hurt by truth and that this truth divides.
Excellent article, published in a prestigious national magazine.
Dr. Pedro Barreda |
