Wanted.
I am cooking Rwandan Chicken and White Beans to celebrate "Gotcha Day." Zeke and Etienne are helping (I use this term lightly) and we are talking about what it was like to bring them home.
Me: "......so than we brought you home forever."
Etienne: "Because my birth mom didn't want me, right?"
I froze. We have never, ever said such words. Not even close. AAAHHHH!!!!! What did we miss here? How did he get that idea?
Me: "NO! It wasn't that she didn't want you. Your birth mom couldn't give you food or clean water or school."
Zeke: "Or a doggy, E."
E is only 4. Yet he has come to this conclusion on his own. We have to consider developmentally, he can't grasp that a loving action is to give your child to another family. He may think "love means giving me away." So we talk about concrete logistics relating to birth moms. The simple necessities of being a parent. Yet still we get to this thought of not being wanted.
Could he have come to that conclusion from a comment possibly made by another child? Not your kiddos, but maybe someone at church or in a play group. Think of how easily a child could have said "Are you adopted? Why didn't your real Mom want you?" To the child asking the question it would be harmless, not understand the effect it might of had on E. Just a thought...
ReplyDeleteAnd I added that comment because during my nephew's first day of school he was told by another child (when my niece went to pick him up) "That can't be your Mommy. She's white!". The logic of kindergarten... ;-)
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