Adopttive Parents: What kind of traditions?

Question

do you have to honor your child's adoption and/or childhood? Do any of these include the birth family? For instance, we take a picture of my daughter's footprint in the sand and send that to her birthmom along with other picturese every year. My daughter will get a copy of these in a scrapbook once she is grown.

Answer 1

Can I use that one?  I think that is great.  The problem we have is that the birth mom moves around a lot, and doesn't provide forwarding information.  I hope to someday get all of these pictures to her.

Answer 2

We also send pictures and letters to our children's birthfamily.  We adopted overseas and there are laws in their country that prohibit direct contact between the birthfamily and the adoptive family, but we can use the agency as an intermediary.  So, we send regular updates to the agency, who courier them to the country of my children's birth, where their birthmother can (and has) signed for them and picked them up.  

I've also learned to cook some African foods, we look for positive role models from their country of origin and have connections with immigrants from their country in the US.

Answer 3

i think that you should video tape every holiday and birthday and keep a copy and send one to their birth parents also when they get older start to get to know the birth parents and explain to your child whats going on and have them there if they wanted to

Answer 4

there was a ? posted recently re: adoption/gotcha day (i disagree iwth the 'gotcha day' title) as well as if talking about it a lot makes the adoptee feel further distanced from the family -- look at some of those answers.

I think the pics to the bmom is a nice idea and hopefully the bmom is receiving them (do you send direct or through an agency).

otherwise, as an adult adoptee, i'm not sure i'd want anything else memorializing my adoption status.  I will tell you i miss my mom's chicken & dumplings though :)  I miss Christmas Eve having to wait for the cookie delivery before we could open presents.  And having two weeks on my aunt & uncle's farm with no rules (you do something wrong, you're going to get hurt  lol).  I miss driving around with my dad to see construction in progress and getting an ice cream.    Those are the things that honored my childhood as a normal kid.

As an adult adoptee, I personally don't think it's necessary to celebrate or memorialize my adopted status.  However, i do feel that parents should be open to discuss any questions the adoptee may have and answer with any info they have.  I was told when i was 9 and truthfully, it wasn't a big deal.  I was snooping around when i was 15 and found an OBC with MY date of birth but to another girl (who, ironically was the same weight, length, etc as me!!)....took a bit but i figured it out.  I guess my mom was planning on giving me the info if i ever asked for it but i didn't; HOWEVER it's nice to know that if i wanted info, she was willing to provide it.  I think that's the biggest honor you can bestow on your child.

funny how my parents seemed so old fashioned back then but after reading so many posts here, i do feel they were a bit more progressive than some of the parents today!  btw, they were not rich white folks either...

Answer 5

we keep in constant contact with her other family.  we send pics and letters, but also visit whenever possible.  i speak with her other mother on a regular basis.  

we don't do anything to celebrate the adoption, we just celebrate that our daughter is a part of our family every day.  and we keep in constant contact with her other family so she can grow up having as many  people loving her as possible.

every year on her birthday i make a photo cd with music to a slide show that includes pics not only of her adoptive family, but pics of her with her biological family.  it is a memory disk that includes our daughter's entire life and family.