Today we read The Mulberry Bird, by Anne Braff Brodzinsky. My five-year-old picked it out.
My eight-year-old daughter Meg has been, at least outwardly, indifferent to adoption books lately. This time she was very interested. When the bird first heard the idea of adoption from the owl, my daughter said, “oh, how sad!” Then quickly she said, “I wouldn’t do it!” Then after a minute, “Actually, I would do it, but I would visit.” The bird said “no!” just as Meg did. But after another bad storm, and a bad time of thinking the bird was lost, and finding him too cold to eat, the mother does. She didn’t talk much about it afterward.
I noted to her, “he wonders about his birthmother and what it would be like to live with her, and he’s a little sad, but he’s happy with his parents.” And, “he looks more like his birthmother than he does his adoptive parents, doesn’t he?” She nodded affirmatively.
Then after her sister left the room I told Meg part of her own story that has always meant a lot to me. Her birthmother had waited a few weeks after she was born to give her up It was on a special day in Korea, on which it is customary for family members to make wishes for each other, that her birthmother signed the relinquishment forms releasing her daughter for adoption. This was her mother’s action to ensure her wishes for her daughter’s future. (Meg was still in the hospital, so she never actually lived with her birthmother, but I presume the birthmother visited. I know she had several meetings with a social worker during that time.)
Meg smiled at that.
Later that night we read I Love You Like Crazy Cakes, which has a little bit at the end where the adoptive mother rocks the child and sheds a few tears for the birthmother’s loss, and Is that Your Sister? in which a six-year-old imagines her birthmother in various ways—perhaps she’s young and pretty, perhaps she’s raggedly dressed, perhaps she’s even a teacher who likes guinea pigs.
Meg did not comment on these two books, but definitely listened attentively, which is more than she’s done before. Something is brewing inside that head of hers. It may be a while until I know what.