When he was four, my son announced with a puffed up chest and a proud grin, "I'm adopted!" to another parent on the playground. He knows the truth. He knows that to be adopted is special. The response was a wincing "I'm sorry."
My son, also when he was four, took to asking people if they were adopted. Most often the response was a surprised "No!" To which he would say, "I'm sorry." If they were holding a baby, he might add, "Did you adopt your baby?" Often the response was again, a shocked and surprised, "NO!" Oh, the look of utter pity for that baby that would cross my son's face.
What makes me angry is the assumption that to be adopted is less than. The assumption that somehow you are not "wanted." Simply enough, people who are adopted are often twice as wanted and twice as loved. All birth parents love their children desperately. Even if they choose to have their child adopted. Even if the choices they are making mean that their children aren't safe and need to be in foster care. This doesn't change the absolute pain and desolation any of us feel when we loose a child. And then, to be adopted. How glorious is that? A family goes through hours of homestudies, interviews, background checks, social workers in our home measuring rooms, giving us the once over, months and sometimes years of waiting. And then finally, our precious bundle comes home to us. Oh, to be adopted, you are most certainly wanted.
To be wanted. To be claimed. This is what children need. To know that no matter what happens you have a family to fall back on. This is what we all need to feel safe, to take risks, to feel whole. So, whether you are raised by your birth parents or your adopted parents, I hope that you get to feel adopted. You are the luckiest kid in the world if you do.
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