The Rose Colored Glasses of Adoption
My rose colored glasses have been shelved for a while now. You know the ones in which you look at all things adoption as something equivalent to a Hallmark movie? The thing is, though, I don’t see adoption in a dark, gloomy way, even without those lenses. I think that I see it in a more realistic way. It’s a process, really. Something like going from a typical childhood, for those few who were raised in a functional household setting, to the realities of adulthood. The shock that things aren’t as easy and magical as you thought they were as a child, and the realization that reaching adulthood didn’t actually equate to a happily ever after. Adoption is like that.
It starts with the warm fuzzies you get in the beginning from feeling that you are going to do something amazing by ‘saving’ a child, and the certainty that they will love and appreciate you for it. Then there is the sometimes cruel reality of, ‘This isn’t what I signed up for!,” once you are home and dealing with the behavior that surfaces from the depths of your child’s traumatic past, and your own shortcomings in how to handle it. BUT THEN there is a light that shines through when you get beyond that tunnel of darkness. When you choose love and choose hope over fear. Then you realize that it’s not going to be that Cinderella ending, but might lead to something more infused with reality. Something transforming, not just for your adopted child, but for yourself as well.
This reality, though, requires you to say to yourself, “What kind of person am I going to change myself into so that I can be the kind of parent my child needs for me to be?” Because anything less, trying to change them first, is putting the cart before the horse and will never lead to forward movement. And once we have achieved this transformation, we can look back and realize that we have grown, and that we have new strength. And with this new strength we can help our child grow, so that they can one day look back in amazement at their own new strength, and their ability to overcome hard things.
It starts with the warm fuzzies you get in the beginning from feeling that you are going to do something amazing by ‘saving’ a child, and the certainty that they will love and appreciate you for it. Then there is the sometimes cruel reality of, ‘This isn’t what I signed up for!,” once you are home and dealing with the behavior that surfaces from the depths of your child’s traumatic past, and your own shortcomings in how to handle it. BUT THEN there is a light that shines through when you get beyond that tunnel of darkness. When you choose love and choose hope over fear. Then you realize that it’s not going to be that Cinderella ending, but might lead to something more infused with reality. Something transforming, not just for your adopted child, but for yourself as well.
This reality, though, requires you to say to yourself, “What kind of person am I going to change myself into so that I can be the kind of parent my child needs for me to be?” Because anything less, trying to change them first, is putting the cart before the horse and will never lead to forward movement. And once we have achieved this transformation, we can look back and realize that we have grown, and that we have new strength. And with this new strength we can help our child grow, so that they can one day look back in amazement at their own new strength, and their ability to overcome hard things.
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