This past Saturday, Stephen and I spent the day in a class on Adoptive Parenting. At first, we rolled our eyes a bit. A class on parenting? Pretty sure Lydia has done a good job at training us. However, we both found the class interesting and useful.

The instructor presented the idea that adoption is different than raising a child that is born into the family. It is not better; it is not worst. Just different. The class was structured around this theme and the material provided information on how to work with these differences inside your family. One truth is that our family will become a multiracial family. We will look different and this might be noticed. Are we prepared for the stares and comments?

We were given a list of words of positive adoption language to use with our children about adoption to help with unfavorable or ignorant comments that our children will mostly likely hear. For example, the word “real” as in “real” mom and “real” dad do not apply or we are to describe ourselves as the “real parents”. Rather one should use terms like “birth parent” to refer to the biological parent. The idea behind being intentional with these terms is that these words help our child tell his (or her) story. These words can bring about emotion. Adoption is born out of loss. A perpetual feeling of grief can exist for some people and we were told this can ebb and flow throughout the child’s life. By using neutral language, we can help our child tell their story with confidence and without negative emotions. Hopefully, he or she will be proud of their story and their background. Terms like “real” and “adoptive” to describe children and parents can give the perception that adoption is second best. This is definitely not the case.

We also were given a general description on how our child is being raised right now. Our child is most likely being taken care of by an elderly Korean woman; a grandmother figure. These grandmothers are focused on loving the child; not raising him (her). This is so great! Our child will be able to learn how to bond and how to love; something that can be a bigger challenge in larger institutions or orphanages. The flip side is that the child will probably have never heard the word “no”. In comparison, Lydia frequents her “no no” chair on a daily basis. As a general rule, there is no structured meal times and probably no set bedtimes. These are all things we will have to contend with when we bring him/her home.

Next week’s class helps us navigate the bonding/attachment component of adoption as well as the grief and loss. The social worker who works alongside us through the process and post adoption is also someone who is supposed to help us navigate and bridge together the different cultural expectations of raising a child from a different background. We are excited to continue through this process. It is getting more real as we complete the steps. We are working hard to get everything submitted so we can start the home visits. I think when we are finished with all of the visits, it will be time to send our dossier over to Korea to be matched! It’s becoming very real!