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Saturday, May 12, 2012


I'm sharing this because I like it. I like what Pam Sweester founder of the Vietnamese Heritage Camps in Colorado says here about listening to our children. Our family loves to go to her Heritage Camp each summer. 

http://www.heritagecamps.org/

I once heard an "expert" in the field of adoption talk about Mother's Day as a time to sit with your children and talk about their birth mother, and about how much she sacrificed for them, and must have loved them to be able to give them up.  So, being the young, impressionable mother that I was at the time, I gave it a shot with my kids.  Whoa, did that ever NOT work!  My daughter looked at me like I was crazy, and said, "I don't want to talk about this," storming off in a huff. My son burst into tears and informed me I ruined Mother's Day for him, and he wasn't about to give me the construction paper flower he made for me at school!
Here, I really thought I was going to open up all kinds of wonderful dialog with my kids about their birth mother, after learning from the "expert" that it was the perfect time to do so! Instead, it seemed to take away their chance to just be "normal," and give their mom a construction paper flower.  I have learned a great deal since then...not from any "expert," but from my children. They talked about their birth parents when THEY wanted to, when THEY were ready, not when I sat them down for a forced conversation.  I am sure there are still experts out there saying Mother's Day is a good time to open up this conversation and I also have no doubt that for some families, it really does work in the best way. I only want to offer another point of view based on experience. A very wise and wonderful Korean adult adoptee once said to me, "It is THEIR journey, not yours....let them take it and feel glad when they ask you to join them."  Both of my kids have taken me on their journeys now and then, in their own very different ways, and for that I am indeed glad. Nothing makes me happier in the world than being their mother!