Adoption & the Family tree
Spring is a time of anniversary reactions among my traumatized children, some of whom coincidentally experienced their biggest traumas, including that first big trauma of birth and separation from their birth mothers, in the spring.
My son Rowan, adopted at age three, has anniversary blues lasting from the first hint of spring until early June. He recovers once his birthday passes, but until it does, he’s a mess of emotion, unconscious reactions, self-loathing, and longing.
Last week, with ruinous timing, Rowan’s history teacher assigned the class an ill-fated project, whereby students were to write and illustrate a book about their origins.
rooted in loss
In this assignment, each student was to draw their family tree. Rowan has a wry, sardonic sense of humor. Upon reading this first instruction out loud at the dinner table, he debated the merits of using his Korean birth certificate, which states that he had no mother and no father.
I joked, “You’re a god, Rowan, without beginning or end!”
“Bow down to me!” he imperiously demanded, striking a pose–and was promptly answered by several dinner rolls pitched by blasphemous siblings.
As he continued to read the project instructions aloud to our spellbound family, its requirements seemed more and more appalling to the umpteen children at the table, most of them adopted. He was to write a story about the day of his birth. He was to write a birth announcement for the local newspaper. After this, a section containing funny stories from his childhood was called for.
“I wonder,” he mused, “what amusing stories I can tell about the orphanage? Or maybe I could joke about being restrained in the hospital bed.” Our humor turned dark as the moonless night as we offered ideas guaranteed to impress his teacher, Ms. Smith.
re-negotiating the family tree assignment
Twice that week Rowan approached his teacher and told her he didn’t feel comfortable doing the assignment, asking for an alternate.
“Sorry, Rowan, but I’m not making an exception for you,” Ms. Smith sighed at his first request. “I’ve had another adopted child in my class before. I know how it works.”
Rowan was mute with astonishment at Ms. Smith’s response, for she was usually a thoughtful, kind person.
Mistaking his astonishment for mulishness, she snapped, “Just do the assignment, or take a zero. Use your adoptive parents and their family tree. They’re your real family, anyway.”
That night after dinner, The Council of Cheeky Knights convened, summoning our most powerfully persuasive paladin, Lady Eve the Expounder, and dispatched her to the school to have a little visit with the teacher.
“Thou art, after all,” declared Rowan, “the Real-eth Mom-eth.”
As we sat together before the fire that evening, I told my husband—flatly at first, as if assessing a hypothesis—that my primitive, protective, and obviously violent shadow self wanted to kick her ass. Then I said it again, sharper this time, savoring the raw, electric honesty of it. By morning, it had settled into something even more satisfying, the kind of righteous maternal wrath that makes a woman sit straighter at breakfast, sip her tea with deliberate control, and repeat herself—not for emphasis, but for pure, unabashed enjoyment.
At the breakfast table, therefore, Lady Eve the Executor announced, “Children, today I’m going to go up to the school and have a little talk with Ms. Smith. And after that, I’m going to kick her ass!”
The politically, parentally incorrect mum. Way to train one’s children to respect authority figures, mum—but the kids predictably laughed and cheered.
Later that day, when I met with Ms. Smith, of course I didn’t kick her ass. Our meeting was one of the most pleasant I’ve had with a teacher with whom I didn’t see eye-to-eye initially. She showed herself to be smart, compassionate and open minded, the sort of teacher you want and pray that your children will have.
By the time I left, she understood—perhaps for the first time—that not every adopted child was placed as an infant, and that their day of birth wasn’t always a cause for celebration.
Nor was adoption, as commonly idealized, a universally cherished event. For many, it carried layers of ambivalence, grief, or resentment—feelings often at odds with the prevailing cultural narrative of rescue and gratitude.
all adoptions begin with loss
When I think about what my son has experienced, I want to take all the Ms. Smiths by the hand and entreat,
“Oh, Ms. Smith! Every adoption begins with loss—even for infants. And most adopted children worldwide aren’t babies at all by the time they are adopted. Many wait for years in foster care or institutions before finding a permanent home.”
“Ms. Smith, Rowan survived years without a mom and dad to hold his hand? Don’t you know that through multiple surgeries he suffered alone with the pain, bewilderment, and trauma?”
“Ms. Smith, this child lost everything but his life in Korea. He lost his ancestors, his language, his culture. He was welcomed in America by round-eyed, big-nosed strangers who spoke gibberish. Can’t you see that, by that time, this boy’s heart was a frozen, hard, tiny little pebble? Can’t you see that he had fallen in on himself?”
“Ms. Smith, maybe for you every adoption seems a blessed event. Maybe for you this miracle happened because of adoption. But, Ms. Smith, that’s not the way we see it. We think the miracle of recovery and healing happened not because of adoption, but because of grace.”
“Ms. Smith, pardon me for saying so, but I’m angry that you told my son to do things your way or take a zero. Don’t you know that, within himself, he had felt like a zero his entire life? You made him feel the zero once again.”
“Ms. Smith, my son is not alone in this. He has a family, and yes, we’re his real family. However, his ideas about his birth, adoption, history, and life are his own. He has a right to not want to do this assignment. How hard would it have been for you, raised and tended by loving parents your whole life, to have had mercy on someone who started out with so much less? Is there some reason why you wouldn’t allow your students options–especially those born with fewer opportunities than others?
rethinking the family tree assignment
These are some of the things I wish I had communicated to Ms. Smith that day. Instead, I met with her as an Adoptionland diplomat, said my piece and supported my requests with research and statistics. This was effective because Ms. Smith is a reasonable, decent human being. She provided the class with alternative options, yet was surprised when several children chose them.
Perhaps it’s time to rethink the family tree assignment.
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