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A decade ago when John and I first began to seriously discuss adoption, it was not an easy decision. We had four children already, so it wasn’t ‘logical’ to be talking about adding more. When we finally concluded we’d really like one more child, and decided that Korea was the best option at the time for our family, our next question was about the feelings of the child. How he would feel being the only adopted one, the one that didn’t ‘match’? Would it really be fair?
We decided that giving a child a chance at a home was better in the long run than not taking one child because we couldn’t take two. So we plunged in. I did a lot of reading about transracially adopted kids’ feelings. I made our son a lifebook and planned ways to keep communication open between us and our child. We got out there and made friends in the Korean community in our area. We met other adoptive families. We learned about Korean language and culture.
And yet the more we got to know our son, the less comfortable we became with him being the only adopted child in our family. He is a sensitive kid who notices people staring. I suppose that could be related to the attention he’s always gotten. But from what I know about his personality, I suspect he’d have been that way even if he’d grown up in homogenous Korea.
Within a year of our son coming home, we realized we just didn’t want him to grow up as the only adopted child. When we bought our second Korean son home, we felt a tremendous sense of relief. Now our son could see someone else who looked like him in his own family.
Though the decision to adopt again (and again!!) was right for us, I know that adopting more than one child is not an option for many families. I still believe that adopting one child is better than not adopting at all. I also think it is possible to raise a happy ‘only’.
But I do think that if your child will be the only adopted one in the family, it becomes very important to be extremely well educated as a parent and to provide that child with a support system. Find friends of your child’s ethnicity. Ideally some of these friends will be other adoptees like your child, and some will be adults who can serve as role models.
Lately I’ve been enjoying a friend’s blog– she’s been writing about building friendships in her local Ethiopian community. This is just that kind of outreach that will benefit our children, whether or not they ever end up with a sibling who looks like them.
Photo credit: Mary Owlhaven
Mary, I’m honored that you’ve been reading my little blog and that you consider me a friend. : )
I’m still trying to carve out time to write about the brand new classroom at “our” Ethiopian Orthodox church that Justin and I helped (big time) to turn into a reality. Oh, the high hopes I have for that space!
Hope all is well with your beautiful family. Happy Thanksgiving.
Randi
Another great post. And thanks for reminding me of that blog. I’d found it a while back and then lost or forgotten it. They really are a cool family. Though we’re in process now of adopting one (or possibly two, if twins happen to be available), we so want to have a family that is more than three, and all different colors.
Mary,
We also have 3 adopted children, (along with 3 biological) and it has been such a blessing for them to have that shared experience. However, one of our adopted kids is a different race than the rest of our family. She is African American. We are about to be blessed with a newborn baby boy in the next week or so. Over the last week we have been talking a lot about the baby. My little beautiful “brown” girl, who is only 3 1/2 by the way, was the only one to ask about his “color”. She said, “is he going to be brown like me?” I was immediately struck with the feeling that we had indeed been wise in seeking to add ‘more color’ to our family through our next adoption. I was so happy to answer her “You bet sweetie! He’s going to have beautiful brown skin and dark brown eyes… just like you sweetie!”