Things I've thought about... partway at least.

So as the title mentions, this post is about "things I've thought about, but not all the way through". I imagine, that in preparation for bringing Magpie home, this post is one of many topics I've thought about, but haven't quite figured out how to work out when it happens.

To give credit where it's due though, some things you just can't plan all the way through.

I wonder about the day Magpie come home with a school assignment: "chart your family tree"... or "every one bring in a baby picture of yourself".

This is in fact something I've thought about a few times. Wondering if that day might come, and hoping we'll have given her the skills, the ability to gracefully hear this assignment and not be brought to tears by the assignment and the knowledge that she may be perceived as quite different than her peer's families... fitting in is so important early on, I remember those days.

What reminded me of this topic was a timely newspaper story about the need to "Educate Educators About Adoption". It was in Sunday's paper and picked up via the Chicago Tribune. It's an article written by Bonnie Rubin and it's important to give credit to her since I'll be using her material liberally.

She talks about parents of children who come home with similar assignments from school and mentions along side that nearly 1 in 25 American families has a child who is adopted. I found that number to be surprising but also comforting. Perhaps that figure can lead to a change in the way we look at the family unit, for what it has become, defined by grandparents raising grandchildren, parents with adopted children of another race, single female or male parents, same sex parents and parents who had children through the donation of someone else's sperm or eggs. Many outside the realms of adoption but all of them considered 'unconventional'.

The childhood exercise of charting your family tree has never been more complicated. Though I imagine it will continue to become more complicated until the day that the 'unconventional' family is considered 'conventional'. In our generation, unlikely, but in Magpie's or Magpie's childrens generation... perhaps.

Bonnie writes that many teachers are learning ways to be more sensitive and inclusive in their lesson plans. Using this exercise as a way to educate their students on 'unconventional' families, helping to mainstream the idea that families in America, hold on to your hats folks, are not all made up of 2 different gender, same religion, same race parents with 2.1 kids. Yup, I kid you not.

Let's face it, what happens at school has a huge impact on shaping children, their self image and their image of others. Oh how I wish I could protect Magpie from the normal things all children and adults face, and anything else that makes her feel uncomfortable. We hope to raise her with the knowledge that she will always be loved by us, no matter how different our family may seem at times to others around her. That with us, she can express anything she feels, about us or others, and know that she is safe, she is secure in our ability to listen without internalizing it or judging it. We hope we can find a way to do that.

To give her the ability to see the world, not through rose colored lenses, but through lenses capable of seeing all the beautiful colors of the world.

Other things I think about...

Being unable to give her any information on her medical history
Racial Discrimination, of any type
A longing to know her birth family
Answers to 'why she was abandoned'

Some of these items are logic based (medical history) while others are culturally based, no matter what, they will all, at one time or another be matters of the heart.