As I mentioned previously, I have my cousin Trina here, along with her four kids. One of her children is a 16-month-old boy. I have blogged about him before. Darrion is one of the happiest kiddos I have seen in a long time.

He giggles and laughs and cackles and shrieks constantly. He hollers for his mom and she picks him up with a smile. He buries his face in her chest, and then turns around and grins at the world, knowing he’s safe and loved. He is now two months older than Dora’s age when she came to America from an orphanage in China. This picture is difficult to see, but it shows three kids about Darrion’s age who were in Dora’s orphanage, and believe me, they are not smiling. Their body language in no way approaches Darrion’s confident swagger.

It is difficult for us as parents to keep in mind our children’s deprived beginnings. When months and years of effort have followed 8 months or a year in an orphanage, it seems as if we should be able to leave those early months behind. Sometimes we can. Often we can’t.

I am most reminded of the impact of early childhood loss and deprivation when I see the impact of awesome attachment parenting. Do you know how you don’t really appreciate what you have until you don’t have it any more? It really hits me how much our kids miss when I watch the attachment dance in full swing between a healthy baby and his healthy mom. You can read about it in books, but you really don’t see the Big Picture until you see a happy, secure, well-adjusted child like Darrion demonstrating how it is supposed to happen. How sad that it doesn’t come close to this ideal for so many kids … kids all across the world in all kinds of environments.

Photo of Dora's orphanage