Category Archives: kids’ self definition

a good life, acceptance, fostering and adoption family impact, insomnia, kids' self definition, parenting, psychological impact of adoption, raising kids, self confidence, self esteem, sense of family

Acceptance of Self in Adoption

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“Do what you can when you can until you can’t.  Then rest easy knowing the haggard look of the man in the mirror has been well earned.”

It’s funny because these are words I tell myself all the time when I look in the mirror and try to accept the parts of me I wish were air brushed away.  Most of the time, I think I accept a reasonably accurate view of myself.  Still, I do all of this with years growing up knowing who I am.  I know my parents, and I recognize them in so many parts of how I live.  I know where I got my protestant work ethic, and I recognize the roots of my ever questioning of assumptions.  I see the roots of my drive.

For my children, I suspect this will always be harder.  While they may come to accept themselves, I have no illusion it will be as easy for them.  For example, every few months we have a conversation with O after he says his birth parents are dead.  We do not know this and have no way to find out.  Still, it is touching when he releases a balloon into the sky for his “dead” parents or grandparents to let them know he is thinking of them.

Every now and then we have one of those humorous moments when we are hit over the head with our kids’ efforts to define their place/group in society.  This week’s moment was a dinner conversation between A (oldest daughter) and J (my wife):

“Mom, am I half-African and half-American?”
J: “No”.
A: “Then why do they call me African-American?”

I can only hope A comes to realize she is all American and all African-American over time along with everything else that she uses to define herself.  Her definition is hers to make.  Maybe with acceptance, she will no longer obsessively pick at her hands.  Maybe then, she will find peaceful sleep at the end of her insomnia.  Sadly, such a day seems so far away.

 

If you said this was a picture of a girl at bed time who will take 3 more hours to go to sleep, then you win the prize. At least her new dog has learned her role in the night is to jump in bed and try to teach A how to sleep.
If you said this was a picture of a girl at bed time who will take 3 more hours to go to sleep, then you win the prize. At least her new dog has learned her role in the night is to jump in bed and try to teach A how to sleep.

 

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decision to take in a foster child, kids' self definition, MS fatigue, parenting, Tennyson, Ulysses

Home at Last with Family Whole

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The last stanza of Tennyson’s “Ulysses” sums it up:
 

“Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are–
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield.”

A week of nights squared, just one day short of 50 days in the hospital, is how long K spent at Hopkins.  My wife, J, was there all save the 4 days (the four during our long planned trip to Disney when she called constantly for updates and arrangement of care).  Through the 49 days, the kids made do with my time and attention for many an afternoon and evening.  I can’t say it was all fun and easy, but there came a point when I kept saying “we, as a family have invested so much, how can we walk away?”  Nobody ever promised us a rose garden.  Our kids, at this age, seem to know only care vs. don’t care, and the thought of walking away isn’t one I can see them considering.  They were disappointed with every set back.  They wanted K and J back home. 
 
“Maybe she will get out tomorrow or in just a couple of days.” became the mantra for all even when it was harder to believe.
 
Still through it all, I think there was a wear down of body and emotion, but not of will.  I could see it in J, and I felt it in me.  As for the kids, I don’t know that they could recognize it.  Their behavior after every visit spoke to the emotional costs though.  Those were some difficult evenings, but through it all they came out seeing her again and taking pride in being with her and making her smile. They take pride in their bonds with her, their little sister.
 
In the end, it seems our resilience emerges tougher.  Do it all again?  I don’t know if the same decisions would be made knowing all of the end costs, but I also can’t think of a single spot where hindsight would lead me to a different pick.  I’ve always been stubborn, and yielding on such things seems unnatural.  I say all of this not 24 hours after her return home with my MS fatigued self having a cold and J being run down.  The first steps of any journey may be the hardest, but heck if the last ones aren’t the most draining as the push towards the goal is realized. 
 
What’s left? 
 
Just us
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