National Adoption Day: My son tells it his way
Every morning, before dawn, we鈥檙e awake and writing. My eleven-year-old son usually gets up first. I鈥檒l enter the kitchen, intent on coffee, and find him perched on a stool over the family laptop 鈥� the ancient iBook where he types his stories.
Sometimes, he鈥檒l tell me what they鈥檙e about: a funny, complicated anecdote involving a school friend or a chapter in one of his fantasy worlds: the Tolkienesque realm with 鈥渄ark elves,鈥� the city with zombie-battling teen warriors.
But most mornings, I just get a glimpse of a Word page on the screen, black letters marching along in paragraph blocks as he types. I see the curved back of my son鈥檚 slender body, his black bangs tumbling toward the keyboard. I note other open pages, obscured by the one he鈥檚 working on.
He鈥檚 a tween. There鈥檚 so much he now keeps to himself, as do most kids approaching the watershed age of twelve. But for an adoptee like my son, there鈥檚 more at stake in describing life on his own terms and nobody else鈥檚.
Today is National Adoption Day 鈥� November is National Adoption Month 鈥� and it鈥檚 a time to celebrate what adoption means to families like our own. It鈥檚 a time to raise awareness about the hundreds of thousands of children around the world waiting to find permanent homes, especially those in foster care in the United States.
It鈥檚 a time when I love to tell the story of how we became a family. Yet, on this National Adoption Day, I鈥檓 struck by my son鈥檚 compulsion to write without my help or vigilance. I want to honor the many-layered stories that adoptees tell themselves, in secret and in public, and the way those stories enrich us all.
An adoptive family crafts one version of reality together. An adoptee, however, has at least one other version. For my son, it鈥檚 mostly imagined at the moment, pieced together from our recent visits back to Vietnam, his birth country. But it鈥檚 his, not ours, and I sense that he holds it close, like all those hidden pages behind pages on the family laptop.
He鈥檚 an unusual boy, one who thinks in terms of dialogue and scenes. He鈥檚 already a writer, and the world still seems infinitely malleable to him. But I believe all adoptees want to tell it their way, to find some control over what happens next.
That desire shines forth in Jill Krementz鈥檚 1996 classic, 鈥淗ow It Feels to Be Adopted.鈥� She interviewed 19 young adoptees, many close to my son鈥檚 age, and the book presents their first-person stories. Krementz refers to the big questions adoptees have 鈥� for instance, 鈥淒o I have any brothers and sisters I don鈥檛 know about?鈥� or 鈥淎re my parents happy they adopted me?鈥� 鈥� questions that are the stuff of storytelling. More important, though, they鈥檙e the questions adoptees contemplate on their own, no matter how supportive their adoptive family is.
Even in 2013, two decades beyond Krementz鈥檚 interviews, with more public awareness about adoption and acceptance of birthparent searches, these stories remain as fresh as ever. Take twelve-year old Carla, who was in foster care until about age three, when she was adopted. Carla says she doesn鈥檛 think about adoption 鈥渁ll that much.鈥� But then:
鈥淭here is one time when I do always think about my biological mother, and that鈥檚 on my birthday. I鈥檝e never skipped a year without wondering, How does she feel on this day? Does she think of me, or does she just pretend that I was never born and it鈥檚 any other day? Is she sad, or is she happy?鈥澛�
Such basic questions are like pearls, hidden within the growing self, worthy of polishing over time and preserving. They eventually become the stories that give anyone鈥檚 life meaning.
I can hazard guesses about the stories hidden on our family laptop. Once, my son admitted to compiling a page of forbidden curse words. Another time, he joked with both his dad and me about the many-paged 鈥淧arent Agreement鈥� he was drafting, following the lead of oddball physicist Sheldon Cooper on 鈥�The Big Bang Theory.鈥�
But here鈥檚 the only thing I know for sure, as a writer: Reality isn鈥檛 simply whatever we wish it to be, yet there鈥檚 magic in the connections we create ourselves. As an adoptive mom, I鈥檝e found, to my joyful surprise, that my son and I share a passion for words. It鈥檚 not genetic. But it鈥檚 a form of kinship, as mysterious in its way as love.
I can鈥檛 claim I鈥檒l never peek at those secret files without his permission, because I don鈥檛 know what future challenges we鈥檒l face. Still, my son is old enough now to define himself as more than an adoptee or a 鈥渓ucky boy鈥� or the kid we think he is. As melancholy as this sometimes makes me 鈥� who knows what a child born of another woman鈥檚 body will discover as he writes his own way into being? 鈥� my sadness is mixed with sweet awareness. He鈥檚 becoming exactly who he鈥檚 meant to be.
