How Do Adoptive Parents Talk About Adoption?

November is National Adoption Awareness Month, a time set aside to acknowledge the many lives touched by adoption. Adoption Awareness Month was designated to spread awareness, celebrate families grown through adoption, and recognize the many foster care children still waiting for homes. 

To honor this special month, today, November 1st, my collection of essays, Belonging Matters: Conversations About Adoption, Family & Kinship becomes available. The book supports the adoption community while creating a conversation with those not directly touched by adoption. It also explores the pursuit of identity and the boundaries of family and kinship.

All this brings up an important question often asked by those within and outside the adoption constellation:  How do adoptive parents talk about adoption with their adopted child?

First a little history and then a personal anecdote.

In the closed adoption era, a child’s adoption was often a closely guarded secret and rarely discussed. Because of infertility issues, adoption was the only vehicle for adoptive parents to build a family. Which meant adoption was a gift, but it was also a stigma. And, at this time in our country’s history (when abortion was not an option), societal shame forced an unwed woman “in the family way” into making an adoption plan. The stigma of illegitimacy trickled down to the adoptee. As a result, adoption agencies matched adoptees to their adoptive families to make them look like they fit in, like they belonged in the adoptive family. This enabled the adoptive parents and their child to avoid public scrutiny and to avoid uncomfortable conversations.

Nowadays, in modern adoptions, adoptive parents readily discuss the details of their child’s adoption story with them. These open adoptions provide an exchange of important information like family background and medical history between the birth and adoptive families. Sometimes the adoption plan allows for frequent contact between all parties. Secrecy and stigma are less likely to be factors in the relationship between the members of adoption’s triad.

Because I am a product of the closed adoption era, my adoption and the circumstances surrounding it were not a frequent conversation. The rigors of closed adoption meant there was little information our adoptive parents could pass on. If my adoptive parents brought up adoption at all, the dialogue was associated with a special occasion like my birthday. 

The following condensed excerpt (from my second memoir, a work-in-progress) showcases how uncomfortable and contrived, the conversation often felt for my parents, my sister, and me:

After the gift opening, Jenny and I leaped up and hugged our parents and grandmother. When we returned to our seats to admire our presents, the room grew as quiet as if it was a Sunday Mass. 

  “Jack, are you alright?” Mom asked.

Gone were Dad’s dimples. Instead, tears collected in the corners of his blue eyes. He stared at my sister and me in a familiar, loving way. I had an inkling about what he might say next. 

“The day we picked up you girls at St. Vincent’s was one of the happiest days of our lives,” he said.  

Across the dining room table, Mom and Dad shared a knowing look. I stayed rooted in my chair, my face flushing. I didn’t dare glance at my sister. Something about the conversation embarrassed me. 

Dad took a sip from his tumbler of Scotch and said, “Girls, take your gifts up to your room. When Mom is done in the kitchen, we’d like to talk to you in the living room.”

My sister and I galloped up the front staircase to put our presents in our room. We lingered. Neither of us were in any hurry to join our parents in the living room, a place which was usually off-limits. It was where breakable glassware lived in locked cabinets, and the spot where grown-ups gathered for cocktails before one of my mother’s dinner parties. 

“I guess we’d better see what they want to talk about,” my sister said.

I followed her down the stairs. We paused at the wide entrance to the living room. Dad had taken his cigarette and ashtray with him from the dining room and made himself comfy in one of the overstuffed armchairs by the fireplace. In his right hand, he swirled a fresh tumbler of Scotch whiskey.

“Come in girls!” Dad said, his expression serious and thoughtful.

He gestured to the cream damask sofa with its perfectly placed sage and rust velvet pillows. When Mom appeared in the doorway, she gave my dad a quick nod. He leaned over the coffee table and stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. Mom untied her apron and took a seat in the matching armchair across from my dad. 

“Please begin, dear,” Mom said to my father.

I scooted closer to my sister. Our thighs nearly touched, and I could hear her breath coming in quiet puffs. Being close to her made the flip flopping in my belly settle down. 

What was this about? Were we in trouble?

“Your mother and I wanted to have a little talk with you tonight. It seems fitting since it’s your birthday. Remember our other talks about the two of you being adopted?”

My sister and I glanced at one another and then back at our parents. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my sister nod, so I did the same. I swallowed, wishing I could dart into the dining room and finish the glass of milk I’d left on the table. 

“You know we love you both very much, right?” Dad said. We nodded again. “That we desperately wanted you to be our girls?” 

“We love you too,” I said, picking at the cording on the edge of the cream sofa.

Dad’s smile vanished. He glanced at Mom and continued. “If someday you decide you want to look into your adoption. We’ll help you.” 

The tears that had appeared on Dad’s face at the dining room table made a comeback. 

“Are you girls happy?” Mom asked.

Suddenly, it felt as if there was no more air in the room. I wanted to roll my eyes at my twin, poke her, and run back up to our room. I didn’t dare. Instead, I just sat there, gaping at my mother, speechless.

Thank God my sister answered my mother’s question for both of us. 

“Yep. We’re happy. And we don’t need to look into the adoption stuff.” 

My sister’s little speech brought instant smiles to my parents’ faces. I felt relief wash over me. I liked making my parents happy. 

The look Dad gave Mom seemed to say, “I told you so.” 

My twin’s words pleased me, too. She’d spoken for both of us. I hoped we were done with this icky conversation once and for all. 

Dad blew us each a kiss and picked up his Scotch. “Okay, that’s all we wanted to talk about.” 

“Can we go back up to rooms, now,” I asked.

Mom nodded, her smile warm and friendly like it had been when she led our family in singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to my sister and me. 

Each time my parents called my sister and me into the living room for these talks we grew more comfortable discussing it; it became part of our family’s story. I’m relieved that our adoption wasn’t a secret, that our parents expressed how they felt about us, and that they offered to help us learn more about our adoption story if we wanted. Over time, an uncomfortable topic eventually became normal. 

Adoption is complicated and the conversations surrounding it mean different things for each side of the adoption triad. But like any other important situation, the more each person shares their unique perspective, the more we listen to hear, the more meaningful a relationship becomes. Conversation matters. Belonging matters.

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Like me, Fellow Muse Literary author Jill E. Schultz is releasing her new book Liberated: Releasing the Dark Cloud of Shame on November 1st.

• We’ve decided to get together and Talk Books!
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In case you missed it, my interview with Tim Maudlin on The Anchors of Encouragement Podcast is live at this link.

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