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Why do we need an Adoptive Parenting blog? Is there really much of a difference in parenting for adoptive parents versus biological parents? If so, what are those differences? What parenting challenges are unique for adoptive parents?
The short answer is yes, adoptive parenting is different from other parenting in a number of ways. Different is not the same thing as “better” or “worse”; it is simply different.
I saw some of these differences from the very beginning, and I would get frustrated when well-meaning friends refused to acknowledge that these differences existed. Fortunately, I had a friend with twins about my son’s age who was happy to talk with me about the challenges of being different. Even though our parenting challenges were not the same, it helped to have somebody who understood the frustration of having different parenting issues than the other moms in our group.
Adoption is a wonderful way to grow a family, but it is not the same as growing a family biologically. Adoptive parents who try to fool themselves into believing that it is the same are doing themselves, as well as their children, a disservice.
Here are some parenting issues that are not experienced by most biological families:
- Comforting your child when he is teased about not having a “real” mom
- Communicating with the birth family
- Connecting with another culture
- Dealing with adoption prejudices
- Dealing with unforeseen special needs arising from things that happened before the child joined your family
- Deciding whether to tell the teacher about the child’s adoption
- Explaining the complexity of adoption to a child in a way that is age appropriate
- Explaining where babies come from with the qualifier that the child did not grow in mommy’s tummy
- Hearing an angry child say, “You’re not my real mom”
- Looking different than your child
- Parenting a child who is not yet your legal child
- Sharing the naming process with an expecting mother
These are just some of the differences off the top of my head, and I can definitely keep going. There are many parenting books available, but few cover these types of parenting challenges. That is why we need this blog – to talk about these types of issues.
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