My son recently had a birthday. He attends a Montessori school, where birthdays are a really big deal.

Montessori schools have an entire program set up for birthday celebrations. The children sit in a big circle. In the middle of the circle is something to represent the sun. Index cards with the months of the year are placed around the sun. The birthday child holds a globe and circles the sun to represent one year of his life. Meanwhile, the class sings a song about each year. The child stops after each year, and the parent shares stories and pictures of the child from each year of his life.

After this, the teacher reads a book about the birth of a child. The book is age-appropriate for the class, and it is great way to talk about how the child was a welcome addition to his family.

Because my son's teacher knows that my son was adopted, she read the book Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born to the class. She asked me right beforehand if that would be okay. I said yes, but I was a little concerned about whether Nicholas would want his adoption discussed publicly like that. However, I also knew that the book the teacher usually read would not really describe how Nicholas came into the world, either.

Fortunately, I knew that the teacher had read the book to the class before and that Nicholas liked it. He wound up being very pleased with the book, so it looks like I made the right call. That being said, I felt a little uncomfortable in that some of the children had not heard about adoption before and had some questions about it. While I am (obviously) all for educating people about adoption, there is also a time and place for it, and I do not think my kid's birthday celebration was the right time or place.

I hope that Nicholas will tell me if he is ever uncomfortable with his adoption being discussed. While adoption is simply a part of his life, it is different, and as he grows older, I suspect he might not want to be the poster child for adoption in his class. At least I will know this is coming next year (he will have the same teacher again), so I will be able to talk with him about this ahead of time.

Photo credit: Faith Allen