I saw a blog post yesterday by an adoptee and he said when he tells people he reconnected with his birth father they will say, "Oh so you found your real family?" He stated this comment makes him think what is your "real" family? Is it the people you grow up with or the people who are biologically related to you, or both?
He goes on to state one of his favorite quotes he uses when telling his adoption story is
"Losing ones family obliges us to find ones family. Not always the family that is our blood but the family that can become our blood." - Sean Connery in Finding Forester
He then asks at the end of his post, how do you define family?
My response, family is formed by the love in your heart not just by the blood that flows through your heart.
What's your definition?
8 comments:
I think it's both. One doesn't take away from the other. We can love all our kids, why can't we love both our families? As an adoptee, this is just soooo normal for me. And they're both real. :) Great topci!
I agree with Michelle. :) I don't know why we have to define it because it looks different for so many people. It doesn't have to be an either/or when it comes to adoption. Parents love their bio and adopted children just the same, but they admire individual characteristics or qualities unique to each child. Shouldn't adoptees be free to feel the same way without it becoming a competition about what is real and what is not? :) I don't see it as love in your heart vs. the blood that flows through your heart. I see it as having the capacity to love individual people just as much for different reasons. :)
Sorry, one more thought. I think we reverse WHO should define family. Sometimes it seems that the people who want to receive the love (whether it be the adoptive parents or the bio parents) are the ones who get to define it based upon what feels best to them. I believe that the more appropriate angle is to let a person define their own family for themselves. I don't bestow the title of "beloved" on myself. It is a title bestowed by the giver of that love. Does that make sense? :)
I think your definition may differ depending on the side of the adoption triad you are on.
I mean for this to come across gently, but I have seen this discussion before in other places. You are right that the definition differs depending on one's side of the triad. Because this is what I see over and over: Adoptive parents want or need for their adopted children to say that love is thicker than blood. They need that validation. They don't want their child's bio family to have the same level of importance because they didn't "do all of the day to day hard stuff". (I'm not projecting this attitude onto you; I'm just describing the attitudes and comments I have seen many times before.) This is where all the "grown in my heart not under it" stuff comes from, and it is just fluff, frankly. No one is questioning the authenticity of the parent/child relationship and the love they have for one another. Not in the least. But when the bio parents and the adoptees want to offer that a choice of either/or does not have to be made, the adoptive parent side does not like that very much. It is like there is some kind of possessive undertone to the "love is thicker than blood" argument, and it kind of might as well read instead "I adopted you to fill a void in my life, and you are wrecking my dream of being mom if you love anyone else as much as you love me." I hope that doesn't come across as harsh, but I'm just trying to be frank. Every adopted person's experience is unique to them, and their family dynamic does not look the same as another's. I believe that both adoptive parents and bio parents should give the adoptee the freedom to feel what they naturally feel regarding love for either family without being made to feel guilty or disloyal to one side or the other. Why do you think so many adoptees say that they search in secret or wait until their parents are deceased to search out their bio history? I believe it has something to do with the intentional or unintentional competition that is created by trying to emphasize that "your REAL family is the one who raised you". Adoptive families do not need this type of wording to have proper validation. The relationship is authentic and valid without all the effort to minimize the biological connection.
Really?
Hmmm...I don't think so. I hit all three parts of the triad, as I'm also part of a birth family. I think individuals might express it differently, based on how they've processed their expereince, but I don't think it's based on where you are in the triad.
Family is the people you love, support, nourish, and cherish - blood has nothing to do with it! I love my blood-family, but the some of the most influencial people in my life don't share a drop of blood with me!
I agree with Jenny. I've seen this too in the years I've been discussing adoption. It saddens me because my adoptive family is my family, but so is my biological family. I mean, there is just now way my biological family can NOT be my family. At the very least, they are my family in the technical sense. While adoption legally changes parentage, it doesn't change DNA. That exists, period. I'm not even talking about any kind of "bond", but just in a purely physical sense.
I do struggle with the need some adoptive parents have to dismiss that aspect. It seems to not be fully honoring of who their child is. I think it's fine to include a broader definition of family as we seek to understand all this, I just don't understand the exlcusion of the other.
I agree with this: "Adoptive families do not need this type of wording to have proper validation. The relationship is authentic and valid without all the effort to minimize the biological connection."
My adoptive family is completely valid. I don't need my biolgical connections to be dismissed in order for my adoptive connections to be real and true.
Hope that made some sense. :)
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