9th November 2009

Dear diary

posted in Adoption, OmegaDotter, Parenting |

OmegaDotter has been gifted over the past year or so with many, many notebooks.  Each of them has been christened “my diary”, with great plans to write in it every day, and then, usually the day after, *poof* goes the idea, floating away with the wind.

Recently she dug up one of those notebooks and started actually writing in it.  Every day.  She has been writing at bed time, after I read (or she reads), and after we play the Feeling Game.  She stashes it under her pillow, and earnestly tells me that “it’s secret!”

Yesterday, she decided to make me read her entry.  It was about how Buffy died.

Tonight, she made me read her latest entry.

It started out:

Dear Diary - I relly miss my birth mom.”

She told the story of how “I became separated from her”, how her birth mother had not been able to keep her, because in China you can’t have more than one child.  (Okay, I have told her the whole “one child if a boy, two if the first is a girl”, but I guess it hasn’t sunk in yet.)  And how her birth mother kept her for a week, then left her by the side of the “rode”, and a policeman picked her up and took her to the “orfinije”.

There was a little drawing underneath, a framed picture with “I ♥ my birth mom”, sort of scrapbooking style.

So I climbed into bed with her and snuggled and talked about how it was okay to miss her birth mom, and it was okay to talk about it.  That we would be taking her to China for a visit when she was 10 or 11, and maybe we’d try to take her there every few years.

Our little lawyer immediately tried to negotiate the visit for 8 or 9 instead.  Ahem.

Then she wanted to print out posters with her picture on them, with the Chinese for “lost girl” on it, to take with us.  At which point…sigh.  How to explain to her that something like that could get her birth parents in trouble?  Or that it probably wouldn’t do much good, because, face it, where she was found is a city, a big city with 1.34 million in the urban area?

I suggested we could write a letter to the orphanage.

Then she made me read another entry she had written, about a dream about Kai, where I had taken his bones and made him come alive again.

Deep waters.  Each of these entries has dealt with “loss” in some form or another.  I told her I thought that writing down what she was feeling in her diary was a good idea, and that she could always talk to me or OmegaDad about her feelings.  And I told her that it was her diary, and I wouldn’t read it unless she wanted me to, and that she didn’t have to let me read it if she didn’t want to.

I must point out that there was a great deal of (normal, accustomed) squirming and twisting on her part, and some teasing on my part, wherein I told her that her birthmother would make her do her chores and her homework.  Plus some tickling, and, interspersed in the midst of it all, her trying to put her ankles behind her head.

(Once upon a time, I was able to do that.  I was able to put both ankles behind my head.  I told her ages ago.  She has tried to do it ever since.)

But still.  Deep.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 10:52 pm and is filed under Adoption, OmegaDotter, Parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

There are currently 8 responses to “Dear diary”

  1. 1 On November 10th, 2009, Sister Carrie said:

    Deep waters indeed. You responded just right, I think.

  2. 2 On November 11th, 2009, preTzel said:

    Wow. Kate that is very deep but I am glad she is writing about it and feels comfortable talking to you and ODad about it. Keep those lines of communication open and kudos to you for handling it perfectly. :)

  3. 3 On November 15th, 2009, Peach said:

    Thank you for sharing this experience with your daughter.
    I have to admit that when I read your response to her questions (maybe not given to her, but the ones you expressed ~ about it being unlikely that she could find her first parents, or her poster could get her parents in trouble?), it bothered me.
    As adoptees we grow up completely believing what our adoptive parents tell us about the circumstances around our adoption. But when we become adults and find out more information (more than our parents said was available) it brings with it emotions that “just is” ~ nothing our adoptive parents could say or do will take them away or keep us from having to walk through the grief, no matter how hard they try. And it even more invalidation when we sense our adoptive parents are trying so hard to do this for us ~ to take away our pain, through their answers, honest or not.
    When I found out about the monetary aspects in adoption, and the fact that an industry is behind alot of the separation, not just pure abandonment, it both helped and hindered my healing. It helped me realize that my first parents, my adoptive parents and I all were caught in a system fueled by money, and instead of just being “abandoned” as the adoption business likes us to think, society and this business fueled that “abandonment”, so it made it much less personal.
    But no less painful.
    I know I’m rambling and sorry for the long comment ~ just trying to express my thoughts.

  4. 4 On November 15th, 2009, Mei-Ling said:

    “Our little lawyer immediately tried to negotiate the visit for 8 or 9 instead.”

    Judging by the “ahem”, I’m guessing that you feel as though you won’t have adequate expenses for such a trip.

    Did you previously consider taking your daughter back on a ‘homeland’ trip when you were still in the process of adopting, or even just after finishing the process at all?

    I ask this because a few years ago, I found a piece of paper in my mom’s Chinese [class] book where it had one of those questions: “Why do you want to learn Chinese?”

    And her answer: “Because if my daughter ever decides to go back to her birth country, I would want her to be able to communicate.”

    Note the “if” there. Not the “when.” This answer - which is similar to the way you wrote out the statement about taking your daughter back - is very generic and allows no promises to be made. That’s fine - you can’t promise a major trip without being certain of your financial limits, obviously.

    But the thought? is what counts. It’s already on the fence. It’s already a “maybe if”, not “when should we.”

    “That we would be taking her to China for a visit when she was 10 or 11, and maybe we’d try to take her there every few years.”

    The “maybe” indicates (to me) that there is no genuine interest because the idea is still so loosely held that it could easily vanish. You could potentially talk about the future forever in terms of return trips and it might never happen, no?

    In order to foster an important sense of cultural identity… wouldn’t it be a nice idea to consider the “when” instead of “if”? Of course, I was always against the idea of returning to a mother who “didn’t want me”, but your daughter has clearly stated in multiple ways that she misses her birth mother.

    Wouldn’t that at least set the wheels in motion before the years pass and prevent the “maybe ” from becoming a “never” until your daughter ends up doing it as an adult - possibly on her own?

  5. 5 On November 15th, 2009, Mei-Ling said:

    I thought I’d add this to clarify:

    I don’t mean to impose or command you to return to your daughter’s birth country, nor that you feel “obligated” to do so.

    I am simply stating that when one says something implying “maybe” or “we’ll see” that… it usually remains on the fence while the years pass, and by the time the tickets are actually booked for the cultural journey, the child is no longer a child: she’s a young adult adoptee.

    I am not suggesting you drain all of your financial extras or that you simply bankrupt your mortgage in order to afford a trip. But I am suggesting that you take into consideration that the mindset “if” or “maybe” can very, very easily turn into “never”… simply because time is passing while you state “if” or “maybe.”

    “In order to foster an important sense of cultural identity” <- I didn’t phrase this very well, and do not mean to imply that your daughter’s sense of identity will be based solely on a return trip. I was trying to indicate that since she is talking about her birth-mother and stating quite clearly she misses her - or maybe misses the “idea” of her - that such a trip might be worth it…

  6. 6 On November 16th, 2009, PunditMom/Joanne Bamberger said:

    I never cease to be amazed at the depth in the thought that PunditGirl puts into thinking about these things, as well. She turns 10 soon and we will be taking our first trip back to China with her next year. I am excited, yet I struggle with what to expect from her — she is excited, too, but I know the trip will raise many things she often keeps to herself.

    Thank you for sharing. It is always helpful to know that my daughter isn’t the only one who thinks about these things.

  7. 7 On November 16th, 2009, OmegaMom said:

    [...] was meaning to respond to some comments made by new readers to my post Dear Diary, but that will have to wait.  (Thanks to TonguMom for the link!)  Time to go out into the [...]

  8. 8 On November 29th, 2009, OmegaMom said:

    [...] Peach said, in response to my Dear Diary post: I have to admit that when I read your response to her questions (maybe not given to her, but the ones you expressed ~ about it being unlikely that she could find her first parents, or her poster could get her parents in trouble?), it bothered me.As adoptees we grow up completely believing what our adoptive parents tell us about the circumstances around our adoption. But when we become adults and find out more information (more than our parents said was available) it brings with it emotions that “just is” ~ nothing our adoptive parents could say or do will take them away or keep us from having to walk through the grief, no matter how hard they try. And it even more invalidation when we sense our adoptive parents are trying so hard to do this for us ~ to take away our pain, through their answers, honest or not. [...]

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