So, I am at church last Wednesday night attending an Exploring Christianity course with a group of people where one of them happens to be the mom of one of Annalyn's classmates. Later in the evening just before we left she tells me,
"Did you know that when I was in class helping out, one of the kids in your daughter's group made the comment that, Oh, it's because she's adopted."
My heart sank. How could this happen? I thought that I had taken all of the precautionary steps to avoid such comments from stinging my children's ears. Why hadn't I seen this earlier? Why hadn't Annalyn shared this with us?
I truly felt like a failure. How could I have not seen it?
Annalyn has been having a hard time with not talking or playing around when she is not supposed to and I had previously been chalking it up to her impulsivity and lack of self control. I never once thought that maybe, just maybe she was talking and playing around to try to win over some of her peers by being a social butterfly as if to prove that being adopted made her no different from anyone else.
A lightbulb suddenly went on. Even if the two were not related after all, I needed to, we needed to, address the feelings that Annalyn must be having as a result of hearing such cruel comments. I don't know why we thought that having this talk was something that you only do once.
After church that night, John took Annalyn aside to talk to her. She was surprised that we knew what had been said to her that she truly believes that God tells parents everything. She admitted to feeling embarrassed and unworthy after hearing the comment from a girl in her class. I'm not sure exactly what was said by John, but later when Rachel and I walked into their room at bedtime, Rachel asked Dad as he was leaving, "Why is Annalyn so happy?" I looked over at Annalyn and saw that she had the biggest grin on her face and knew that they must have had a great talk.
In fact, this is something that we'll be discussing with all of our children.
3 inspiring thoughts:
I am sorry. We had a very similar thing with Galya when she was in school, except that is was ongoing to the point that we decided to take her out. The teacher and school wouldn't even address it. It was mostly one kid who just kept saying things like "That isn't your REAL Mom" "You are adopted because your first Mom didn't like you". It was heart wrenching and it took everything in me to not KILL the kid.
Maybe the kid who made the adopted comment is just fascinated with the concept of adoption and is not mature enough to express that curiousity in a tactful manner? Or maybe the child is just insecure and is trying typical bully tactics? No matter - Annalyn has such a **sparkling** personality that she cannot help but attract attention. She'll learn to take the adopted comments and put a positive spin on them. "Why yes I AM adopted - isn't it great?!" I know I think it is!! She would not be MY niece if she wasn't adopted - and I am so happy that she is mine (too - gotta share!) I know I'm not the only family member to think so - and if that is 'adopted' well, how can that be a bad thing??
And yes, someone may point out the negative - about not being with her blood parents, but some children are not brought to this earth to stay with their blood relatives - just as some parents are not capable of birthing their own children. I believe we all have a destiny - Annalyn apparently needs you as her parents as part of her journey to fulfill hers. She is with you, because that is where she is MEANT to be! It is what she was born for :-) Love you guys!
I believe you hit the nail on the head Connie. I think the child that said this is insecure. She knows our family and has come over here a couple of times, so I know she understands about adoption. That is what really hurt Annalyn, because she couldn't understand why a so called friend would say something like that.
We tell her all the time that we chose her, and would choose her all over again.
We also gave her some *sparkling* comments to comeback with. ;)
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