If I Could Start Over With Adoption

-
https://authory.com/ChristinaGochnauer/If-I-Could-Start-Over-With-Adoption-af0551a6aefe04cc68b9966db511c6141

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

!!!Trigger Warnings!!! A Primer For My Well-intentioned Friends That Don't Quite "Get it"

-
Image
  Look. This is not my normal content. It really isn't. And I don't want to be "that" person about all this but honestly, I can't bite my tongue, or press my frustration down any further or I will end up either tongueless or exploded. Okay? I need you to just listen. Got it? Got it.  Toxic Masculinity:  What you seem to think it means: Masculinity=Men. Men=bad. All men are bad ewww men.  If I see one more "Masculinity isn't toxic" post, I will scream. Because intentionally or not that is completely missing the point.  What it actually means (not according to the "woke" crowd, we'll get there later)but according to the actual dictionary : a cultural concept of manliness that glorifies stoicism, strength, virility, and dominance, and that is socially maladaptive or harmful to mental health: Men and women both suffer when toxic masculinity perpetuates expectations that are restrictive and traumatizing.  Examples include but are not limited...
Read more

Our Adoption Anniversary and the Dissonance it Brings

-
Image
                              Today marks 5 years since our first 3 kids were adopted. A teeny baby girl and two older but small boys became officially ours. Since then we added two more little girls to our family. Adoption days are complicated anyway without our added family trauma. In the past, we have had a special meal or gotten ice cream.  This time last year our oldest wasn't with us. He had been in residential treatment for a while by then but I was still so deep in my grief over what he had done, and the fallout from it, the adoption anniversary didn't feel worse than all of the other days. Now that we all have truly begun to heal in earnest, today feels like a punch in the stomach. I find myself reliving the moment I found out my oldest son had broken our family. Facebook shows memories of 5 years ago, our beautiful, happy, smiling family.  Instead of being thankful I have childr...
Read more

How to explain adoption to a 4 year old part 1 (of 100000, give or take)

-
Image
The other day my littlest asked about her first mommy. Every time this happens I am gutted. It doesn't get easier for me but I'm glad she is comfortable talking about it. Hopefully opening the door to communication now will make it easier later down the road. It has never been a secret. We have pictures of adoption days hung up in the house. We have books about adoption on our shelves. Our oldest sons were 10 and 11 when they were adopted so they very much remember life before adoption. My girl is sunny, silly, and in many ways more mature than her four years on earth should allow her to be. To be sure she is every bit of a silly little girl but she sometimes asks me questions that I know if I blow off will just come back to me later, probably in public when changing the subject becomes more of a song and dance routine. So we have a policy of just trying to, in age appropriate language answer the question. When she asks me to tell her about why she couldn't live with her ...
Read more