Episode 63 – You Did Not Grow In My Heart
How long does it take to “get over” adoption? That’s a trick question. Every stage of a child’s life brings new challenges in understanding their own identity as an adopted individual. In this episode, we explore each stage and what parents can do to help their children process their experiences. Learn how to talk about adoption with your child, and why your child may feel like an alien if you try to tell him, “You grew in my heart.”
We got some of our information from “Being Adopted: The Lifelong Search for Self
We also discuss our recent experiences with poop smearing, temper tantrums and a broken arm.
Kris Cartwright said,
May 9, 2009 @ 4:10 am
First time to hear your Podcast and I admire your honesty about the struggles your children and family face. Often we as parents want to hide the “dirty” things our children do when no one is looking and exaggerate the good things. It is comforting to know we are not the only parents with children that act out in various ways.
I had a big chuckle about your experience filling out the checklist of acceptable behaviors for your foster children. Having had similar experiences with these checklists both mental and physical I have come to realize that they are only useful to begin to prepare you for the many a varied challenges we may face as parents.
As a parent of 7 boys ages 6-15 I would like to offer a varying opinion on some of your thoughts on this Podcast. The first is in relation to your title You Did Not Grow in My Heart. I certainly understand your caution in using this term with adopted/biological children because children are more concrete thinkers but don’t underestimate how much children do understand and will grow to understand later. As a child I remember my pastor asking me if I wanted Christ to come live in my heart. He explained that when I make Jesus master of my life he resides in me forever. Wow, what a thought! I chuckled, Jesus lives in me? Is that like a physical guy in my body or like the force that lives inside of Luke Skywalker? Over the years and finally to the point of me accepting Christ into my own life as a teenager at an MK retreat it finally hit me what my pastor wanted me to understand. I could have the creator of the universe living in me! He loves me that much he wants to personally reside in my life! I wish now I could see that pastor and thank him for planting that seed in me and that one day the Holy Spirit would use it to draw me to him.
About a year after my 3rd son died my wife and I had the privilege to fill out a similar checklist that you mentioned. Having the experience of having a child with a terminal illness did make us keenly aware that there are no guarantees with any of our children no matter how they came to us yet all the same we checked of a few items that we naturally came to experience over the years. It wasn’t long after our initial training/certification to foster to adopt we got word from my brother of a little boy who needed a family and I thought how funny, we were a little family needing a little boy. It was then that I became aware of Isaac growing in my heart. Like all my children there was a moment in time when I became aware of their existence and their role in my life. Maybe it was a call from a brother or a photo on the Internet or a moment with my wife when we read the results of the pregnancy test. Having our children grow in our hearts is something all of us Fathers have in common no matter how our children come to be a part of our lives. My love for Isaac grows in my heart every day as do all my children and he needs to know that even if he doesn’t fully understand it today. One day he will and it is my prayer that he will treasure it knowing his Mommy and Daddy that did choose him during on of his greatest losses and I was the one who had the privilege of showing and teaching him about my love every day of his life. Just like God chose me several years ago and chooses to show me how much he loves me for all of eternity.
My advice to parents is to tell your children they grew in your hearts. Tell them you chose them and desperately longed for them. Tell them that in the same way God chases of you and is the creator of adoption and it is through adoption that we all come to be a part of his family. Tell them adoption is special not just to you but to God! Tell them that through God we all find our true identity. Keep telling them like you would a new born that you love them even though they can’t understand it just yet. When they act out and you don’t like them right then right then tell them again and again and again. Finally don’t just tell them but show them. Show them over the years how much you love them through your actions towards them even when they are not very lovable and through your own relationship with God.
My final thought on your podcast is for parents to understand that every child is different. They all love, laugh, grow, and grieve differently. They reach physical and mental milestones at different ages. Lists that describe the different milestones or stages of grief that children go through are generalities that hold individual nuggets of truth but are not always universal. Look for those nuggets of truth in your own children or even prepare for them so that you are not shocked or feel alone but do not make them into more than they are. I have seen children grieve in so many different ways and times that the only constant I have found is they are all personal to the child and very real. When Isaac came to us at 13 months he would eat until we made him stop often busting at the seams. A nugget of truth came to us from our training that often children at this age will show symptoms of grief through their eating habits. We were then able to begin to seek out how to help our new son cope with his grief in a healthier way. Now he is a lean 9 year old whom we have to encourage to eat his food.
Thanks again for your podcast and the thought provoking issues you bring up. Parenting is a process we learn and it’s fun to learn from others as we travel similar journeys.
Tim said,
May 10, 2009 @ 5:09 pm
Thanks for listening Kris! We certainly agree with the heart of your comment if not the specifics. We all should be letting our kids know that they are desperately wanted, appreciated and loved. Even if they don’t always understand how or why.
Amy said,
May 10, 2009 @ 10:28 pm
Hey Tim and Wendy,
Have you read _Adoptees Come of Age_ by Ron Nydam?
http://www.amazon.com/Adoptees-Come-Age-Families-Counseling/dp/0664256716
My husband and I read this book when we were preparing to adopt our baby girl from China, and though it was emotionally hard to digest, it was enormously influential. I would be really curious to hear your opinions about it.
When I tell friends about the book, this is how I summarize it. Nydam suggests that relinquishment is a primal wound that an adoptee must grieve. If they grow up not being able to process their sadness, thinking that it’s a taboo subject, then they will be pretty messed up adults. But if they grow up learning how to talk about their sadness concerning relinquishment, then they’ll do just fine. I’m simplifying.
Back when we were first filling out initial paperwork with our adoption agency, we read quite a few books on adoption, but this one really blew them all away in terms of content, research, and a variety of interesting anecdotes. The author has a lot of experience under his belt as a pastoral counselor who has counseled many adult adoptees over the years. It’s been a few years since I’ve read it, and I don’t have the book with me right now, but I’m really hoping to encourage you to read it. I remember, in particular, one section he wrote about the whole issue of “being known” and why that is so important to a child, a person. To be known by your biological parents is an intimate experience that speaks love to you. As Christians, we understand what it’s like to be known by our creator. Then he related it to Adam and Eve hiding from God in the garden after they’d sinned because they didn’t want their actions to be known by their father. I’m not explaining it eloquently, but that was one section that helped me understand the deep need for intimacy each child has.
How the book influenced me:
Before reading that book, I had imagined having to really work up the courage to talk to my growing daughter about sensative issues like relinquishment. I thought, “Oh no, how will I start that conversation? When will she be old enough to understand?” I was panicing about all sorts of things that people obsess over when they are not yet parents. But this book helped me imagine myself using the words “adoption” and “birth mom” in everyday conversations w/ a baby and todler and preschooler. When we finally adopted our sweet girl at 13 months, I did start using those words. I still remember rocking her to sleep, crying as I thought about her birth mom somewhere in China who was missing this tender moment. Even though I had tried to prepare emotionally for saying “birth mom” to my baby, I still choked up every time for the first few months. I know this is fine and appropriate and normal. But I chuckle a little now at how we also became desensitized to it when our daughter was about 3. The first time we read the story of baby Moses to her from her picture Bible, she loved the story and said, “Mommy, let’s pretend that.” So we acted out the story of baby Moses being set adrift in a basket, then found by a princess. She wanted to play baby Moses 10 times a day! We’d just keep acting it out. I remember the first time my own mother saw me playing “baby Moses” with my daughter, she got a lump in her throat and had to walk away. It’s been such a strange journey of trampling taboos.
I’ve realized recently how controversial Nydam’s book is in some adoption circles. As I was reading it initially, it made me mad. It destroyed my romantic notions of saving a poor sad little baby by filling its tiny heart w/ my love. One point his book tries hard to drive home is that there will always be some facet of your adopted child’s heart that is inaccesable to you (because of their bonding, even pre-natally with birth mom). I didn’t like that one bit. But one friend pointed out to me that there are plenty of birth parents who feel that way too–who feel a little bewildered about who their children are becoming. The objections I’ve heard recently to the book are that Nydam encourages adoptive parents to go looking for problems where there might not be any, that he encourages parents to help their kids grieve the wound, which may feel more like re-opening the wound to some kids.
I know a family who adopted a sibling group of 3 from foster care. Their kids were 5, 7, and 9 when I met them and they all seemed to be doing great. The mom told me that their kids all saw a therapist weekly now, even though there weren’t any huge behavior problems, because she wanted her kids to have a long and meaningful relationship w/ a counselor now while things are pretty good, so that when they hit adolescence and likely more identity issues, the kids will already have a good relationship w/ their therapist. I was so impressed w/ the foresight of that. Have you, Tim and Wendy, considered doing this?
An unrealted thought–Do you remember the podcast you guys did about foster care images in the media? I thought for sure you would talk about the movie _Antwone Fisher_ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7zXnqsFM-s
It doesn’t shed a favorable light on foster care, if I remember correctly, but it’s a beautiful film. Have you seen it?
Forgive the long-windedness–I’ve been saving up. I discovered your podcast a couple weeks ago, and I listened to all 62 of them in the course of a couple of weeks, at night, during our daughter’s nap time, washing dishes, running. I was rivetted from the first episode and felt priviledged to follow along w/ your story. I wanted to tell you that before listening to your podcast, I never imagined myself as a foster parent. I just kept thinking, that would be too hard. I’m not up to that. But I can really relate to you guys. You don’t seem that different from me. Hearing your story really helps me to imagine myself being a foster parent too. My husband and I are excited to start investigating it more! Thank you for putting ideas in our head to pray about
Praise God for his goodness in your family. Keep up the good work–with Him, you can do this!
Amy
Wendy said,
May 11, 2009 @ 1:49 pm
Hey Amy! Glad you found us and thanks for writing.
I haven’t read the Nydal book, but I just took a look inside on Amazon. It looks very good.
It makes my day to hear that you can see yourself as a foster parent after listening to us! Let us know if you decide to move forward.
Wendy
Arlene said,
May 11, 2009 @ 4:33 pm
Hi Tim and Wendy,
Enjoyed your podcast, as usual! I especially like the way your share “real” life. Yep, even the poop. That’s what makes life more interesting, right?
My husband and I took the foster parent classes, and got licensed over two months ago, but we have yet to receive a call. I know there is a bigger picture for this whole foster parenting thing, but sometimes it can get disheartening – especially after all the hours of classes, cpr, and getting our house prepared, all for us to just wait. I’m thinking there is less of a need for foster parents, and that’s a good thing, right?
You two are doing so well, what a wonderful podcast family you have!
rachel said,
May 12, 2009 @ 7:21 pm
Which of your episodes is the one where you compare the number of Christian Churches in the US to the number of children in foster care? I can’t find it and I want to send it to a friend.
Wendy said,
May 14, 2009 @ 9:14 am
Hi Rachel– In Episode 61, we mentioned the ratio of American Christians to children in foster care. I don’t remember where we talked about the number of Christian churches–although we may have! But I know where you can find our source… Try googling “One Church One Child.” This program was founded on the idea that if each church adopted just one orphan in foster care, there would be no more orphans.
Arlene– I hear you loud and clear! Waiting is so hard. Hang in there. The call will come.
Wendy
Episode 63 « All I've got. said,
December 24, 2009 @ 11:26 am
[...] Episode 63 Filed under: Uncategorized — leahacr @ 6:26 pm Episode 63 – You Did Not Grow In My Heart [...]