Last week, we called Katie?s birthmom to wish her a Happy Birthday.? Katie took the phone first, disappearing into a closet so she could speak without anyone listening in.? After ten or fifteen minutes, Katie came skipping out and handed the phone to me.
?Hi,M!? Happy Birthday!? I began.? We chatted for a few minutes about how she celebrated with her friends.
And then, aware that Katie was in the room, I lowered my voice and continued, ?So, how are things going at home?? I asked the question, knowing with a heavy heart that the answer would not be encouraging.
M?s life circumstances have been in a steady downward spiral, and although she faces her problems with an indomitable spirit, things are somewhat bleak at times.? NOW being one of those times.
Last year, M left her job to spend more time with her seriously struggling sixth-grade son, and she has been unable to find another job for many months.? Without enough money to pay the mortgage, M has now lost her home.? I learned this when the flowers I sent for her birthday were delivered to her old address, instead of to her new apartment where she is able to stay with the help of public aid.
Katie overheard me talking with M about how she had moved, and she hurriedly came over with a piece of paper and scrawled on it, ?WHY DID THEY MOVE???????? I lightly said, ?Oh, they found a new place,? and redirected Katie to another room.
M?s financial worries, while formidable, do not comprise her greatest stress.? ?No, that is not even the half of it.? M?s thirteen-year-old son, Katie?s birth brother, is in crisis.? Plagued by bipolar and ADHD, his behavior has become increasingly erratic and out of control.
?D has not been in school since January,? M told me.? ?And two weeks ago, it got to where I told the counselor that I could not have him in the house anymore, that I was at my breaking point.?? M was worried that she could not control her own temper when responding to D.? Fortunately, she recognized that she was in a precarious place, and she asked for help.? D has moved in with her parents for now.
Having an open adoption is complicated.? There is so much beauty in allowing an adopted child to know and love her birth family.? But with that knowledge comes the burden of truth.? Katie is a very young child, and she has no idea of the hardships faced by her birth family, because we have chosen to shield her from that knowledge.
I struggle with how much information to reveal to Katie, knowing that one day, she will become fully aware.? I think it is best to let it be a gradual, age appropriate process.? For now, Katie harbors her fantasies, as all adopted children do, about her other family.
Will she have survivor?s guilt, when she learns that the childhood of her birth siblings was filled with difficulties?? Will she be angry that we didn?t do more to help them than we already do?? All three of M?s kids were in foster care when we adopted Katie.? The other two kids eventually went back home to M, and Katie came home to us.? And there the two paths diverged widely.
M does her very best, but it is incredibly hard to be a single mom with few resources and few support systems in place, especially when one of the kids has intense special needs.? Sometimes, things get ugly.
Today while Katie was at school, I called M to ask for her permission to write about these personal issues of hers, because I truly struggle with how it will affect Katie.? I mentioned how Katie was worried when she heard they had moved.
?Of course you can write about it,? M replied.? ?Not enough people know what it is really like to have a child with bipolar and ADHD.?? She commented, ?I always think of Katie as so young and not in tune with these types of problems, and it shocks me to think that she would pick up on anything at all.?
Katie adores and idolizes D, and she has no idea how different his life is from hers.? About six months ago, I mentioned to Katie in the course of a natural conversation that D was having trouble in school, because I wanted to plant the seed that all was not perfect, as a way to gradually introduce awareness.
Katie became very quiet, and later that day, she complained of a stomach ache, which is her classic anxiety response.? That is how I knew that she was unable to manage any negative information about her birth family.? And, as both my mother and my mother-in-law have told me, Katie should not have to carry that burden, especially at this young age.? I had tested the waters with that tidbit, and firmly learned that Katie still needs to live in the fantasy.
I believe in honesty.? I believe in openness.? But I also believe in the innocence of children, and in the fact that children need not be burdened with other people?s truths.? And so we go, and one of my biggest uncertainties in raising Katie continues to be deciding how to control the flow of information about her birth family.
There are no easy answers.? There are no road maps.? ?There is only this child, this daughter of ours, and the two families that love her.
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Source: http://www.chicagonow.com/portrait-of-an-adoption/2012/03/open-adoption-the-burden-of-truth/
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