Jan
7
The new OAB Roundtable is up at Heather’s blog. It’s all about New Year’s resolutions for open adoptions:
Call them resolutions, commitments, changes, or choices–how will you be proactive in the area of open adoption in 2010?
I’ve been thinking about this since our last visit with M&C. A couple of things come to mind:
- I want to be better about sending more regular emails and letters. Yesterday was a good start – I added C & M’s email addresses to a mass picture email. Not the hugest pictures in the world – just a couple of pictures from one of School Girl’s afterschool activities – but it’s a start. I should say that I do send pictures and cards on a regular basis, and that I am horrible when it comes to sending anyone anything. Cards, letters, emails; you name it, I’m notoriously bad about sending it on time.
- Now that School Girl’s getting older, I want her to have a bigger hand in sending communications. Especially pictures and/or letters. She’s been selecting what pictures are sent for a couple of years now, but I’d like her to start actually writing letters to go with the packages. Just like with any of her other relatives.
- I need to learn to let go. Just let go of the expectations that I had at the beginning. We can be a happy family with whoever wants to join us. I can’t control who decides to be a part of this and who doesn’t. I can’t, and I shouldn’t. All I can do is to keep the relationships that we have going, and keep the door open for whoever else can bring themselves to walk through. Which is both sufficiently vague to suit me and tells whoever happens to be reading exactly what they need to know.
There are some other things I’ve resolved to do this year, but they’re not really adoption-related. So that’s enough for now.
Good luck with your resolutions! They sound great.
“Oh yes, why this blog got its name. I was very impressed by M; by her strength and determination, by her kindness when we met, by her ability to think of her child first and not herself. She was the Good Mommy who was sacrificing herself and her child, and I was the evil nasty bitch who took her child away. No, it wasn’t really true, but that is how it felt. Sometimes, when I’m having a bad day, that’s still how it feels. Hence the name.”
I LOVE this. I found you from the roundtable. This is really great! You are so real and true and I am adding you to my blogroll for adoption moral support and updates on Zombies.
“I’d like her to start actually writing letters to go with the packages”
Just after Christmas I got a picture and a handwritten letter from Kidlet. It was 2 sentences long, and they were the best most awesome 2 sentences I’ve ever read in my life. Please do encourage School Girl to include letters I’d bet anything she writes will be cherished.
That third one is so hard, but sometimes so crucial. I’m working on it myself.
A great read from a position of more hindsight:
http://jmomma.wordpress.com/2010/01/07/opening-adoption/
The greatest gift anyone can give their child is the freedom to love all who want to be part of their lives without feeling any loyalty constraints.