Sister Carrie

Ask Sister Carrie: How should I respond to other children's questions?

This is the first in a series, maybe, of questions from readers. A faithful reader writes:

Dear Sister Carrie:

Yesterday, I helped chaperone my daughter's preschool class field trip. I would like to spend more time with her class than I can, with my busy career. So the kids don't really know me.

On the way home, on the school bus, one little boy asked if I'm my daughter's mother. I said yes. He asked, "Then how come she has dark skin and you don't?"

I froze. And all my brain could think of was the scene in The Great Muppet Caper where Jack Warden questions how Fozzy and Kermit could be identical twins.

Which was both inappropriate and not helpful to either child.

We're hitting that stage, suddenly, where we're so normal to ourselves that other people's impressions are coming as a shock. (What do you MEAN we don't look like a normal family?)

What would you have said?

And here's my helpful answer, based on 15 years of adoptive parenting: Uh, I don't know.

I mean, it hasn't come up that much. I used to plan what I would say if another kid made that kind of comment. Like "What do you mean we don't look alike? We both have two eyes, a nose, and a mouth, right?" Or "We both have brown eyes. Of course we look alike!" Which would have been about as helpful as the Muppet clip. (I'm glad other people use weird things as touchstones. Me, I see everything in terms of original Star Trek episodes.)

But people in the Pacific Northwest are famously reserved. Northwesterners, children included, tend not to be direct about things. So typically a kid would say to one of my daughters, "Is that your mom?" When my daughter said yes, the kid would just look quizzically at me. I knew he was waiting for further explanation, but he was too polite to say so.

I'd almost rather he came right out with it. It's hard to deal with the implied question. Like when people see you out with your daughters and ask, "Are they sisters?" and you say, "Yes." You know you haven't answered the question they are really asking, which is "Did they originally come from the same family?" or, more bluntly, "Are they real sisters?" Sometimes when people ask "Are they sisters?" I'll say, "They are now," which covers the situation and is only mildly smart-alecky.

(I'm not a big fan of the wise-ass remark. People don't ask questions to be mean. They want to understand. Yeah, it's none of their business, and being a poster child for adoption or whatever gets tiresome. But the more people we educate, the less ignorance we have to deal with.)

But back to the original scenario. The kid's question really deals with two subjects, kinship and race. My sense is that it's too much information to answer, "Because we adopted her." That's your daughter's story to tell. Which leaves you with addressing the racial differences, something that is really difficult in our society. You can't be either too delicate or too forthright, especially when dealing with children. You can't say, "Because she was born in China and I was born in America (or wherever)," because "American" is not, or should not be, synonymous with "white." (Pet peeve of mine.) On the other hand, if you say, "Because she is Asian and I am white," the kid may be confused, especially if he himself is white. A Caucasian 4-year-old has probably not been exposed to concepts of race. He thinks white = normal. (Has anyone ever tried this approach? I'd be interested to know how it worked.)

So I think that, after I froze and thought about how Spock didn't really look that much like his mother, I would answer something like, "People come in all sorts of colors, and people in a family don't always look just the same. Do you have the same hair color as your mom and dad?" It doesn't completely answer his question, but it doesn't give too much information, either. If he wants to know more, he'll ask. And it would buy me time to decide what to say next.

Here's the grain of salt to take this with: It all depends on your child.

Some children don't really care if you tell the story. Some children will pipe right up on their own and tell people they were adopted. I remember taking Bess to preschool one morning and she ran up to a little friend, flopped onto the beanbag chair where he was sitting, and said, "Hey, Ben! I'm adopted!" Apropos of nothing. Just making conversation. Another time, when she was older, I drove her and some of her soccer teammates to a tournament. A girl in the back seat looked from Bess to me and back and asked Bess, "Are you adopted?" Bess said, "Yeah. Are you?" Heh.

My kids have generally been pretty nonchalant about adoption and essentially considered it to be the norm in family building. Other children are more sensitive and private and really don't want to get into it. You have to keep in mind that the way you answer this one little boy this one time may set the stage for more questioning. If you say, "Because we adopted her," the cat is out of the bag. He may tell other kids, and soon kids may be asking her, "How come your parents adopted you?" "What happened to your real mom?" That's a lot for a preschooler to deal with.

You also have to keep in mind that how you answer will be a model for how she answers these questions herself. You have to walk that very fine line between protecting her privacy and not acting as if adoption is something to be ashamed of.  You have to take your cues from her, and at the same time model a workable approach for her. Good thing mothers are mind-readers, right?

Your goal is to get your child to the point where she is able to respond to these questions herself. The time will come when you can turn to her in this situation and say, "Would you like to answer that question, sweetie?" And then she may say, "Because I'm adopted" or "Ha! My mom wishes she had the same skin as me, 'cause it's awesome" or "I don't really feel like answering" or "Buzz off," depending on her inclination. And you will watch with a smile on your face because your child is so cool and confident about the whole thing.

Resources: Here's a pretty good article on helping your child answer tough questions from schoolmates, though it's geared somewhat toward foster child adoption. There's even a whole book on the subject of responding to questions, which I haven't read, but it might be helpful. And Adoptive Families has a wide assortment of articles addressing different situations and stages of development.

Acknowledgments: Thanks to AS for finding the cute retro illustration. I wore my hair just like that in seventh grade. And my handwriting is exactly that illegible.

The new baby

Last fall we got a second dog.

I know. It seemed like a good idea at the time. We adored our Corgi/Shepherd mix, S, a/k/a The Best Dog in the Whole Wide World. But she seemed to be lacking for dog companionship. She was wildly happy when we went to the dog park, and looked reproachfully at me when I wouldn't stop working to play with her 10,000 times a day.

Besides, how much work could a second dog be? Heck, it might even be less work than one, because they'd entertain each other! (Go ahead. Take a moment to laugh now.)

So I visited Petfinder, you know, just to look, and before I knew it I was calling about a little male Corgi/Chihuahua mix, P. The rescue group tried to get us interested in a Jack Russell terrier they had, but I said no way -- I did not have the energy to deal with a terrier. So they brought P by for a home visit. The woman from the rescue group warned us that he would cling to her and be cautious around us, but that wasn't the case at all. He let us pet him and talk to him, and he happily chased around the yard with S. He seemed content to let her be dominant. And he was so cute, with his extra-perky ears. The rescue group thought he might actually be Corgi/Papillon, which sounded like a good combination.

That's how P came to live with us. We had a honeymoon of, oh, about two days. Then the mayhem started. He and S began to compete over toys, sofa space, and attention. They competed with each other to see who could most effectively terrorize the cats. They competed over who could bark the most when the doorbell rang. P took it a step further and started to growl at people entering the house, even nipping at those who extended a hand.

And he ran away. If we left him outside for more than five minutes, he would dig under the fence and run down the street. He would not come when he was called, so I had to chase him. He yelped piteously when I picked him up to carry him home; I was sure the neighbors would think I was beating him. Is this how he came to the shelter? Had he run away from a bad situation and been picked up by Animal Control? What had happened to make him so afraid of people? (And why would he run away from our pleasant home?)

The list of bad behaviors grew. He chewed things. A lot. In minutes he could destroy a chew toy that S had been nibbling on daintily for months. He chewed all the way through three nylon leashes. I sewed them back together and he chewed them again. And he was not, let's say, 100% house-trained. Especially on cold, rainy mornings.

We filled the holes under the fence, and then he tried to jump over the fence. Watching him jump, I came to a horrifying realization: He was part terrier. It was unmistakable. The thing I feared had come upon me. He clearly had a high-energy temperament, which contrasted with S's laid-back ways.

Having a second dog no longer seemed like such a great idea. What were we thinking? Why did we disturb our happy home? When he ran away, sometimes I found myself wishing he'd never find his way back. I wanted to go back to the way things were before, so peaceful and calm. I missed S, missed our easy connection and the comfortable rhythm we'd established together before this interloper came along. I felt bad for getting her into this mess.

This whole time, I had a growing sense of déjà vu. I realized that I'd felt this way before: every time we added a child to our family.

You can probably see where I'm going with this. Adding a new child to any family requires a tremendous amount of adjustment on everyone's part. Roles change, relationships evolve, the workload increases. But the adjustment is complicated by unknowns when a child arrives through adoption, especially an older child. Parents have to be ready for all sorts of surprises that aren't contained in a hundred-word child profile and brief medical report. An older child has a past, a past that we, as new parents, probably don't know much about. His medical history and family background are sketchy at best. She doesn't know the "rules" of this culture and our family. He may not know how to form close relationships. She comes with a fully formed personality, tastes, and interests. He demands a tremendous amount of time and attention, time and attention that we used to devote to our beloved first child. We feel guilty toward our first child because our second child takes so much time and attention. We resent our second child for taking time and attention away from our first child. We feel guilty for resenting our  second child for taking time and attention away from our first child. The children who we thought would play happily together seem to be locked in a battle for supremacy. And typically the majority of the burden for keeping all this managed falls on the primary caregiver.

It's natural to have "parents' remorse" after expanding your family. I've learned from experience that if you can stick it out for a few months, things generally get better. Some children make themselves at home right away; some take longer. (Full disclosure: Our family has adapted fairly successfully to each addition; partly that's because we were well prepared, and partly because of the children's resiliency.) A lot depends on the personalities involved, family members' flexibility, and the chemistry among family members. It takes at least six months to settle into a new routine and relationships. "The new normal" may be a cliché, but I think it's a useful one. There's no point in hoping that things can go back to the way they were before the new arrival. They never will. But different can be good too -- in a richer, more complicated way.

After six months, P is still a bit of a pain in the neck. He's pretty high maintenance. But he is also a loverboy, always making worshipful goo-goo eyes at me -- he has golden eyes, like Edward Cullen at his swooniest -- and he insists on kissing me full on the lips, even if I turn a demure cheek toward him. He and S are friends, mostly. Not every member of the family is equally enamored with him, and if he ever decides to bite anyone in earnest, the jig will be up. We're not out of the woods yet. But even if getting another dog was a dumb decision, we will always know we did our best for him.

I don't know that there's any way to fully prepare for the upheaval caused by an addition to the family. It helps to be aware that you will feel conflicted -- maybe really conflicted -- no matter how eagerly you anticipate the new addition's arrival. It helps to know that things will get much harder before they get better, and that patience will be your best ally. The very best advice I can give you is familiar advice: Prepare for the worst, hope for the best. It should be every parent's mantra.

It also helps if you carefully consider the consequences before adding to your family. But that's another post.

Everything might go well. But it might not. And here's where my cute new dog/new baby analogy falls apart. Because as important as it is to fulfill our obligations to our pets, the stakes are much, much higher when we are talking about the life of a child.

A hopeful view of rehoming

I just read this rather hopeful article about the possibilities for rehoming children following dissolution: Rosie is Blooming: Adoptees Thriving After Adoption Dissolution. The article links to additional articles on adoption and dissolution, including this interesting study.

(Personally, I believe that adoption dissolution is something of a necessary evil, like divorce: you don't go into a relationship expecting it, and it's the last resort after all other efforts have failed, but sometimes it's best for everyone concerned, and affected families need support, not blame. More later.)

Welcome

Please have a seat. Can I get you a cup of tea? It's quiet here. We can talk.

I've observed over the past few years that there is a major gap in support for adoptive parents. After the tension of waiting for a referral, making an adoption trip, and completing legal paperwork is behind us; after the last social worker has filed the last postplacement report; after the squeaky shoes and diaper bags are packed away and replaced with sneakers and school backpacks; after children have outgrown the FCC or FRUA or iCHILD playgroups and holiday events; after we've lost interest in the insulated culture of the message boards -- that's when some of our biggest challenges arise.

And with current restrictions on international adoption programs, more people are adopting waiting children who are older or have special needs, and they're jumping right into some very challenging transitions without much preparation.

Ninety percent of the time, the challenges adoptive parents face are just the ordinary challenges of parenting. It's that remaining ten percent that drives us crazy. We need a manual for that part. Wishing on stars and looking for rainbows and ladybugs won't cut it.

Let's pool our resources. My husband and I have three daughters whom we adopted from China, two as infants and one as an 8-year-old. I've been hanging around the adoption community for the past 16 years. I've read thousands of message board posts, hundreds of blogs, and a library of books. I've taken one child through attachment therapy and school IEPs and helped another  learn English. I've interviewed dozens of parents and experts for articles on adoption that I hope made a little difference for parents who were looking for help.

And just when I think I've seen it all, I'll meet a parent dealing with an issue that's new to me. Sometimes I'm that parent. Raising kids is a hard job.

So let's talk about it. Guests posts are welcome. If there's something that's of concern to you, send me an email. I'll keep your identity secret when I repost if you like, but tell me enough so I know you're a real person. If I don't know how to help, I'll find someone who can. At the very least, you'll get an understanding ear. Maybe we can have some laughs, too. Parenting doesn't have to be so serious, right?

And remember to seek professional help immediately if you feel that the safety of any member of your family is in jeopardy.

In the meantime, I'll post some articles and information that I think might be helpful.