Oct
21
This
OAB Roundtable is an interesting one:
Write about a blogger (or bloggers) who influenced your real-life open adoption, and how. It might be someone who became an offline friend who supports and challenges you. Or a writer who makes you uncomfortable, but gets you thinking. Maybe a blogger who doesn’t even know you are reading. Tell us about them and how they’ve affected you.
There are a lot of bloggers who have influenced how I think about adoption in general, and open adoption in particular. Dawn was one of the first bloggers I ever read, and she’s been a huge influence on our adoption. Even though I don’t write about adoption so much anymore, just about all the adoption bloggers I read – Margie, Jenna, and Shannon, among others, influence how I think about our adoption. Usually I wind up making comparisons, which isn’t always a healthy thing. But anyway.
I think the one person who has influenced how our open adoption has gone is Barb. I’m not even sure how I started reading her blog. I think it might have been through Dawn, but I’m not certain. I do know that over the years we’ve become friends. We’re on different sides of the adoption “triad” (I originally typed that “tirade” for some possibly Freudian reason), but we get along pretty well.
Over the course of our open adoption, we’ve had more contact with some members of our daughter’s other family than others.
Knowing Barb and reading her blog has helped me realize that even though we don’t have too many people walking through our metaphorical open door, it’s important to keep that door open.
Barb’s writing is wonderful, isn’t it? So raw and insightful.
I’m really tempted to do a round on how the internet *hasn’t* helped–because that comparison stuff? Oh, yeah. But I think it might do more harm than good.
I’m really tempted to do a round on how the internet *hasn’t* helped–because that comparison stuff? Oh, yeah. But I think it might do more harm than good.
That such a tough call. But comparisons are tough to deal with too – nobody’s adoption, let alone an open adoption, is exactly the same, even though it can be good to see that other people are struggling or have lived through things.
tirade! i think that’s pretty fabulous.
and thanks for allowing me through the door. you’ve helped me in many ways, more than you’ll know.
(Yes, it’s from an old commercial that made me laugh like a hyena, but it fits here. Because it’s true.)
Gosh, thank you so much for the mention. Lately, with the kids both off to college, I feel like I know absolutely nothing about adoption, though. It’s really strange to be here looking back and wondering if I really did the best I could. I hope so, for the kids’ sakes.
I love your writing, thanks for being out here in blogland!!
But that’s a part of being an adoptive parent too – dealing with them as adults; supporting them if they choose to search for their first parents (or not), whether or not they decide to have children of their own, etc.
Thank you for your kind words! I love your writing as well; and I love how you stand up for the rights of Korean adoptees, how willing you and your husband have been to embrace your children’s heritage, and what you’re willing to share with the rest of us.