I’m still digging my way through a never-ending stack of boxes after our recent move. Beth was helping by filling several ancient bookshelves with literary treasures accumulated throughout the years. One such treasure is The First Nine Months of Life. How serendipitous to find this, as Beth has been bugging me for The Talk. We had another book… I think it was called How Babies and Children Are Made… but Tommy was offended by it (history of sexual abuse) and repeatedly tried to throw it in the trash. I suspect he succeeded.


Beth is 10 and doesn’t have much knowledge yet. At least not accurate knowledge. She keeps asking me “What’s sex?” Guess it’s time I answered her. Interestingly enough, Julie, our foreign exchange student who graduates from high school in a little over a month, is operating with hearsay knowledge herself. This topic is apparently still not discussed by most parents in China, nor is it addressed in school as it is here. So when I go through this with Beth, we have already decided Julie will be present as well. That should be quite interesting, doncha think?


Children cannot truly understand adoption until they understand conception, and they are usually at least five before they can grasp the fundamentals of biology. Beth understands I am not her biological mother, but she doesn’t get it much past that… She is very much thinking about biology, though, as she is constantly asking me to… “Guess, just guess, where my eyes came from… my mother or my father?”


I believe it is possible to move past attachment issues, but an adoptee will always have adoption issues crop up from time to time. That doesn’t mean those issues play a major role in their lives day in and day out—simply that issues around being an adoptee last a lifetime.


While parents used to tell their adoptees they were the parents’ “chosen child”, that vernacular has fallen out of favor. Check out these two great articles about how to talk to you child about adoption.


The Chosen Child

Explaining Adoption to your Child

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