Aug
30
The next roundtable prompt for the Open Adoption Bloggers webring is a “simple” one:
Since the topic has been stirred up a bit and I’ve seen posts popping out here and there:
Write about names/naming and open adoption.
Just like with any other naming by parents, naming an adoptive child is a tough one. Everybody will have an opinion on the subject, asked for or not. In an open adoption, it’s often made more complicated by the fact that the child often already has a name, even as an infant. In School Girl’s case, she had two. I can’t tell you what the right answer would be, but I can tell you about our story.
When we were in the midst of our adoption classes, the social worker in charge talked a little about naming, mostly to dig out the old saying “naming is claiming”. Which is why something as simple as naming a child can be a horrific ordeal.
M and S addressed it a little in their profile. I think it was something like “We’ve named her (School Girl’s orig. name), but if you’d like to change it that would be okay.” At the time there was no mention about her having a first and middle name, so we decided to use her original first name as a middle name.
After she had already been placed with us, we received copies of some of the birthparent social worker’s reports. That’s when we found out that she had a first and middle name already. It was a huge shock to me – I honestly had no idea.
Would we have done things differently? Would I have talked Evil Dad into keeping School Girl’s name as is at the time she was placed? I don’t know. There would have been our families to deal with. When I told my sister about School Girl’s original name, her reaction was, “My God! You don’t even get to give her a name?” I’m guessing that would have been mild in comparison to the reaction of…others.
So, our story is what it is. In the beginning, School Girl’s family called her by her original name all the time. It’s less so now. We make sure to sign everything we send to them with both her first and middle names, every time. Something from each family, just like the rest of her.
