adoption language

Ok, I am taking the post my friend Katie did which I loved and adding my two cents...ok, it's more like $1.50 of different currency wrapped in bacon!

The language of adoption was something I never really thought about until I adopted, I will be the first to say I just didn't think about it. Now...let me tell you people, I DO think about it. Not for me, but for my kids.

We are taught at a young age that words have power, words make people feel small, words can hurt. And as we get older we think that we no longer have to use the same care with words that we once did. Why is that? Well, when we were going through the "preparation for adoption" classes we were given a page of "proper adoption speak" and to this day I think of this paper every time someone who is not thinking blurts their shit out. And sometimes the one blurting the crazy shit out is your KID!

Here's how it went down.

K is nine and really interested in adoption, she is adopted. She has always known and knows her birthmother, knows her story and she knows I am her mom. We talk openly and she can and has asked many questions. So, the other day was like any other day until...here comes K skipping up the stairs, singing a Selma Gomez song and wearing socks on her hands, don't ask, and the following conversation happens:

"Hey Mom"

"Yeah, what's up?" (I'm doing dishes)

"Are you like my STEP MOM?", tilts head to the side.

"WHAAATTTT????????", I drop a dish in the sink.

"You know, because like I have 2 moms right? Frannie (not her name) and you. So you're like a step mom.", she twirls as she makes this pronouncement (remember she's nine!)

"UUUUUHHHH, no...I'm your mom, Frannie is your Birthmom, she made a birth plan for you and chose daddy and I to be your parents...", calm voice callllmmm voice.

"Yea, I know", she says, in a bored voice, "so, you're LIKE a step mom?"

Don't worry the story gets better. I stand there thinking, I know this kid, I KNOW THIS KID, she is mildly OCD, amazing at math and science...she needs this explained with order!

So, I say, "We have legal documents, signed by a judge that state you are our daughter and I am your MOM...we like went to court and everything...", great! Now I'm talking like her.

"Soooooooo....I have like a brother who is like a cousin...a brother cousin...so is Frannie my mom cousin?"

"WE DON'T LIVE IN KENTUCKY!", I did say this in a crazy loud high pitched make dogs run voice.

"MOOOOOMMMMM! We live in Michigan...like Kalamazoo. I don't know anyone from Kentucky...can we have hot dogs for dinner?"

"No, I'm making chicken...maybe tomorrow."

She twirls away...humming...

I shit you not, this conversation happen.

She is nine. She is looking for her place, where she comes from, how she got here. She wants to be able to relate to her friends, who I might add, have step parents, step children, step everything. She wants to feel special, but not the special that it makes her feel different.

She doesn't know that there is adoption speak...she just knows that no matter what question she throws at me I will answer to the best of my ability. She is one of five people that can get away with it and I take no offense.

After all it's her life she's talking about :)

What she doesn't realize, what she is told and still rolls her eyes at, is that she is one of a kind, an amazing, creative, wonderful girl that I am proud to call my daughter.

Brother cousin...that is a whole other thing.