Summer Re-Run: Zoe Talks Adoption

Zoe Talks Adoption -- Sept. 18, 2008

Adoption is hard to understand because you don't know who your birth parents are and you don't know why they let you go and where they live and their phone number and address. Ex: You might be wondering about adoption and what adoption is, well adoption is when you get born and your first parents give you away. End of example.

I think about my birth parents like every day. You too might be wondering about your first parents, too, just like me. If you do, here is some advice, some things that help me:

1. Talk about your feelings, like

• Talking to my mom about adoption so I can understand more about it.
• Thinking about my first parents in my dreams at night and then I can explain to my mom on the way to school the next morning so she knows.
  
• Explaining to my mom about how sad I am so she can understand how I feel.
  
• My mom telling me it's okay to be mad and sad about being adopted. I don't have to be happy about it all the time.

2. Go to live in China like a real Chinese girl, going to school and walking everywhere. You can even go visit your orphanage and see how they loved you and took care of you.

3. Even if you don't go live in China, you can learn about China so you can understand more about your China family and why they couldn't keep you.

4. Reading stories about adoption helps, and reading my own lifebook helps too. I liked making my own book about my first parents and my adoption, and writing about my feelings in it. You can use your imagination to draw pictures of your first parents.

5. I like being with kids like me, adopted kids and Chinese kids, because they might have the same feelings I have. But they might not, too.

[OMG -- I promise, every word is Zoe's! She wrote this out yesterday while waiting for her ballet class to start, and I had no idea she'd written it until she showed it to me today and asked if I could post it on the blog. Yes, she did it as a numbered list, I just reorganized it a bit and combined a few things for ease of reading. I'm in awe -- Zoe, Born Blogger!]