Perspectives on Challenged Family Building

Today’s post is taken from Borya and the Burps  by Joan McNamara. Adoptive Families magazine, in their August, 2008 issue, listed Borya and the Burps as one of eight “must have” picture books for young children! Joan, a Perspectives Press author,  is our “guest blogger” for a two-part blog about using Borya and the Burps to facilitate discussion about adoption with children of all ages—from any country!

Joan writes,

Each child is a gift to the world and should be a blessing to his family. In adoptive families, children bring into a new family the gifts of genetics, culture, and life history that must be incorporated into an understanding of the past and present. A child adopted into a family after living in an orphanage has taken a little longer, more complicated path to find the place where that gift is cherished and nurtured, a forever family. In part it has been this difficult journey that has contributed to such a child’s becoming the unique little person now blossoming in your home and heart. Like a diamond, these children have become strong and shining and beautiful not only because they are cherished now, but because of pressure from the past and how they have met the unique challenges of their young lives. Welcome to the adventure of international adoption through the eyes of a young child from an orphanage.

Some Background
Children grow best in families, with one parent or two to nurture, encourage and cherish them. We all know this. Even if an orphanage is as bright and cheery as your neighborhood day-care center, with appropriate nutrition, health care, and activities, children who live in group care have far fewer opportunities to learn healthy emotional connections and living skills, and thus have less encouragement to reach their developmental milestones and to develop positive attachments.

As adoptive parents, one of our tasks is to help our children make sense of their world and to integrate the many strands of past and present into a cohesive sense of self. This may be more difficult for adoptive parents because we have to first accept that our children come to us with the rich tapestry of their past, one that may have included not only good things, but difficulties, even sad and hurtful times. And for many children, even infants, leaving what is familiar for a new family may be a sad and scary time.

Children who have lived in orphanages and are then adopted leave behind a world very different from that of their new family, but one which usually has had strong connections for this child. Even very young children bring along a wealth of memories, some accessible, some not, when they move into their adoptive families. These memories may include good times, a sense of sameness and stability, and trust in people they cared about who have cared for them. There may have been relationships with special caretakers and with other children with whom they developed ties as close as siblings. These kinds of relationships helped children begin to learn about the importance of human connections and attachment.

For other children there may be fewer good memories, perhaps because of abuse, neglect, abandonment or deprivation in their past. An overcrowded orphanage with overworked staff and few resources may be unable to provide more than the barest of essentials for children in their care; it may have been too cold in the winter, too hot in the summer, with too many children to feed adequately or to give attention to. In such an environment, children may feel all alone in the middle of the crowd, where they are seldom singled out for attention and affection. They may have learned that the world is not a safe place and that grownups are not dependable creatures.

There seems to be a strong and universal human trait to reach out to a child in need. For parents, it seems almost an ingrained reflex to want to try to protect our children from pain and to ease our child’s hurts.

We want our children to be happy, to have happy memories and feelings to build into a positive sense of self-esteem. But all children, whether born into or adopted into their families, inevitably have a variety of experiences in life, with a wide range of accompanying emotions. It is how these experiences and emotions are dealt with—not ignored or forgotten, but considered and incorporated into a sense of competence that one has succeeded in moving through difficulties—that in part determines how a child grows stronger and more self-assured.

This tendency to want to protect children in need is perhaps part of the reason some people think about adoption as the rescue of a child, not just the growth of a family. But what adults see as a change for the better, some children experience as a kidnapping to an alien culture. Children and grownups may have very different perceptions and emotions about the same situations.

With adoption, all of the familiar and dependable people, places, schedules, food, words, clothing, and smells are gone. In their place are new and unfamiliar things. An orphanage, that seems like a less than positive, even deprived or negative place in an adult’s eyes, may have been considered as a safe and familiar home to a child, even with all of its obvious flaws. A loving adoptive parent and a stable home filled with toys, pets, and security may appear like a wonderful choice for a child to the grownups involved in adoption, yet feel to a child like being ripped away from everything she has ever known. While adults rejoice with an adoption, children may have a range of confusing emotions.

Even names, what people call you and how you intimately identify yourself, may be changed. Children as young as seven and eight months can recognize their own names and the endearing nicknames caregivers croon to them that help infants place themselves in the universe. How confusing it must be in this strange new place where people don’t recognize who you are!

Although Borya and the Burps is one of the very first books on international adoption from Eastern Europe to be widely available to families, families who have adopted from other regions of the world may find this story valuable as well. Simple comments from parents while reading about what were the same and what was different for their child can personalize this story. Adoption of children from orphanage care does share some common themes and situations in all parts of the world, and thus parents can share this story with their children no matter where their child’s orphanage was located.

Thursday’s post is the second part of this blog in which Joan shares her wonderful tips for how to read Borya and the Burps, with your child, in a way that opens up discussion of your family’s and your child’s own personal adoption story.

The “Reading and Resources” (right) highlight additional children’s adoption books so you can keep the information flowing between you and your son or daughter!

Related Blogs:

Books, Movies and Websites for Typical and Adopted Children

Sensitively Moving the Older International Adoptee

This is Not the Brother or Sister I Expected: The Need to Prepare the Typical Children