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I have two boys. Big J is 7 and he is my biological child. Little J is 4 and he is adopted. When we were thinking about adopting we were told by an agency that as parents we’d be less attractive to potential birthmothers since we already had a child, and a bio one to boot. Seems like many people figure you’ll love your “own” child better.
I’m here to tell you that’s not how it is. We love both our boys. We are parents to both our boys. We don’t love one better than the other.
Now, is one of our children easier than they other? Oh, yes. Big J is a lot easier child than Little J. Big J is older. This is important to realize. 7 year olds are a lot easier to get along with than a child just emerging from toddler-hood. Also, Big J doesn’t have the background of deprivation and possible alcohol exposure that Little J has. But that doesn’t make one of them good and the other bad! Instead, it means that we have to work that much harder to see that Little J gets what he needs. We have to be better and more attentive parents to him, because he requires more.
So which of my kids gets more attention? Little J, the adopted one. But it’s not because he’s adopted. It’s because he is who he is. He could very well have been my bio child and have similar issues (probably w/o the prenatal alcohol exposure, but who the heck knows?)
I was thinking about this the other day – about how my husband and I have been so proactive to seek help for Little J’s behaviors (after a good deal of non-support and even opposition from some of our friends, family, and his school). I was wondering if I’d be so ready to do so if he had been our biological child. I think not! I think I would’ve been far more likely to put the blame on our parenting skills (which probably do share some resonsibility – I ain’t perfect) instead. But because Little J is adopted and because I did so much reading and preparation for his adoption I was aware of the issues of kids adopted from institutions, as well as possible alcohol exposure in his past. I had read studies about attachment and about malnutrition and ADHD and sensory deprivation. I was prepared.
Had he been bio? I wouldn’t have read a thing. I read all the pregnancy/baby books when Big J was in utero…why read them again? I woud’ve had to start from scratch.
There’s an interesting article I found called “Nature in Adoptive Parenthood” by Irving Leon, an Instructor at the University of Michigan, where he argues that adoptive parenthood is a very natural state of parenthood, and one in which the emphasis is on parenting as opposed to procreation. He says that adoptive parents are more likely to be accepting of their children’s differences in temperament and personality than are biological parents:
Adoptive parents are frequently warned not to expect the similarities in styles, temperaments, talents, and so forth that are usually taken for granted in biological families. With the now constant reporting of genetic contribution to human behavior, today’s adoptive parents are probably even more primed to face inborn differences with their children. As we all know, however, genetic connections work in mysterious ways. How common it is in families to have one child be the “spittin’ image” of a parent and another seem, well, different. While some families comfortably tolerate differences, others do not. Might adoptive parents be more ready to accept and even enjoy these differences, assuming that has been part of their preparation for adoption? Both the readiness to accept inborn differences in one’s children and the less likely tendency to invest one’s self-worth in their achievements, may help adoptive parents to better appreciate their children as unique individuals in their own right.
I like that. While I like to think of both my boys as unique individuals I can see where this might be true. It’s something to think about…
