“Am I really not supposed to be here?”
Adopted adults have written about struggling with identity issues. I’m not sure, but I wonder if that question was ever at the heart of those issues.
I remember teaching Sunday School and having several children of divorced or single parents in the class. The curriculum went on and on about how children were to be created in a loving, selfless and endless union of a married man and woman. I totally agree with that ideal. But I remember worrying that children whose parents were not together, or who were conceived out of marriage, would feel “less than”, accidents instead of co-creations of God and their parents.
The question is even more relevant to me now that I have two children born out of wedlock, at least one from the context of a violent relationship.
I’ve heard adults laugh about being the youngest of several children, “I was an accident.” Most of them were loved enough by their parents to be confident in that love. One friend said, “I wasn’t an accident; I was a surprise.” I remember thinking his parents were very wise to present it that way.
I know we emphasize that God loves everyone and everyone has a purpose. But, I wonder if the kids still wonder if they were somehow not supposed to be here. If they accept our teaching on premarital sex, doesn’t that lead them to the conclusion that they are here because somebody screwed up?
I hope my children will feel my sincerity when I share what I believe. Two quotes that express my feelings well are the poet Gibran’s “Your children are not your children. They come through you but not from you. They are the sons and daughters of life’s longing unto life.” To me that’s a way of saying, no matter what goes wrong, there is a drive toward life and love at the very heart of the universe.
I also think of a quote from the poem Desiderata. “You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. You have a right to be here.”
But most of all, Easter expresses what I really believe. Last night the Catholic Easter Vigil Liturgy contained the phrase, “O happy fault, that merited for us so great a Redeemer.” I call my children “Easter children” because they are God’s way of making a mistake into a miracle.
When my children are old enough to understand their origins, they may realize that, according to our moral standards, somebody (make that two people) screwed up.
“Well, sweetheart,” I’ll say, “isn’t that when God always does his finest work?”
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Helping Children With a Dual Reality of Birthdays