And that has given me some time to sit and ponder.
I think we should all ponder every now and again. It's good for the soul.
For me, I have been thinking a lot about trauma.
And not for my daughters as of yet. I don't know if I am being naïve or if I am just ignoring the inevitable, but I don't think my girlz are going to suffer as a result of their being adopted. As I have shared before, I am from a pretty tiny small farming town in Florida and I personally grew up with 6 friends in my direct peer group who were adopted. At that time, all of the adoptions in Florida happened with the help of Children's Home Society, not international and all at infancy.
Of those friends, I know that 2 of them have done searches for their birth family and found them. Those 2 friends had very successful results and have found an additional layer of family that they are happy to join. The others haven't been interested in birth family searches.
What I wonder is what makes an adoptee want to search, or not.
Next year I will be a part of a group of teachers who will do a trauma study and I am hoping that the information and research will be applicable to adoption. I have never been one to assume that because my girlz were adopted that they endured trauma. I just don't buy it. Additionally, I am in the small group of people who didn't see them suffering in their orphanages.
I understand that there could have been more care, more attention, more touching, more one to one interaction. But that is the case with many bio families. I have seen it with my own eyes after 23 years in the classroom! I don't want anyone to think I am saying that orphanages are great places, I am just saying that Anna was given special care. Her caregiver wrote me letters after the adoption, so I know she was loved and cared for while in the orphanage. August was a wee bit older, and had a rigid schedule with lots of therapies and one on one interaction. Even if it was in a therapeutic setting, she was given face time and that added to her feelings of being cared for. Just as my students are. I know that some of my very students have a sense of "being loved" even if it's just during the day.
Some adoptive parents consider the "transition" from orphanage to adoptive parents as the trauma. Again, I just don't see it.
Anna who cried every time she saw me walk into her room at the orphanage stopped crying the moment we got into the car to leave. She clung to me like a spider monkey, and from that moment on, she looked to me as the person who made her STOP crying and not vice versa. Sorry for the picture quality. It just shows that Anni stopped crying. And if you look close, you can see I started crying. Tears of absolute joy. A b s o l u t e...
will continue next time...
2 comments:
I think it's fortunate for you and your daughters that they were young when adopted and also that they had such caring people who took care of them in the orphanage. Because they were young, I doubt they have any memories but the life they have with you. From your blog, they seem so well adjusted and they have family that loves them so much.
Trauma is a mystery. I tend to think that since your girls seem so beautifully adjusted now that you dodged that bullet. I really get cross with the folks who PRESUME that adoption = trauma. Obviously, there is SOME in there....but no more than the kinds of trauma many well-adjusted kids face who lose parents, or siblings, or endure health crises or whatever. Life comes with SOME trauma.
Like you, I know many adopted children who are happy, well-adjusted kids. Likewise, I've seen a lot of kids with all the checklist of symptoms related to trauma - and they're bio-kids....who perhaps had early health issues, or maybe their mom did. (One of the most troubled kids I ever met came from a lovely family, with super siblings - but his mom had had a severe recurrence of Crohn's disease when he was born.)
Maybe it has to do with the other people in their lives, or genetics, or just their resilience. But some kids seem to have endured dreadful things and come out happy, whereas others suffer horribly with PTSD. I've had some of each.
I hope you'll update us on the study!
Post a Comment