A while back, MJ wrote a blog about her son asking her whose tummy she (MJ) had grown in.
I had the same experience very recently, not with my four-year-old but with my seven-year-old. I’m sure I had told her before that I grew inside Grandma Jo, but I am learning the truth that young children may tell their adoption story flawlessly without really understanding it.
Children are also self-centered (that’s not a negative judgment, just a developmental stage) and assume others are, or should be, like them. When Meg asked me again, “Whose tummy did you grow in?” and I responded, “Grandma Jo’s,” she said to me:
“You mean your birthmother is the same as your mom? That’s weird!”
My four-year-old daughter, meanwhile, was playing with a doll the other day. She put it under her shirt, as I have seen both adopted and non-adopted children of both genders do when they hear of a friend’s sibling growing inside a mother. She then ran into the next room, took the doll out, and ran back to us holding it and exclaiming, “Look at my baby! She’s adopted!”
Yesterday adoption came up again. I asked her playfully, “So who’s adopted?”
“Me,” she replied unhesitatingly. “And Meg.”
“Yes,” I responded. “And Patrick, and you, and everybody,” she continued.
“No, not everybody is adopted. In fact most people aren’t adopted; they grow inside their moms. But lots of people are adopted—they grow inside their birthmothers, who love them and help them find their moms.”
I knew I was over her head at that point. I tried to make it comprehensible by naming as examples an uncle and a preschool friend who had been adopted, and then naming a couple of family members who hadn’t been adopted.
Then I decided to check her understanding for myself.
“What is being adopted?”
“It means baptized.”
“No, Baptism is about joining the Church. Patrick was baptized, and he’s not adopted.”
“No, he wasn’t baptized.”
Well, maybe I’ll bring out her brother’s Baptism photos later. Her attention span was long gone regarding this conversation anyway. Actually she had been twirling around throughout the whole conversation, and now twirled out the kitchen doorway. See blog on ADD and adoption. (Grin).
I’ll keep you updated on how this plays out.
Please see this related blog:
How to Tell a Young Child That He is Adopted