"The Importance of Telling the Story"

From La Bicicleta blog (via Tongu Momma's Sunday Linkage (if you don't check out TM's blog every day like I do, you MUST check on Sundays for her fascinating links to adoption posts throughout the blogosphere)), explaining the importance of telling our children their story -- their WHOLE story -- early and often:

I was talking with some ladies last night about our girls. We were talking about their complex beginnings, who has a lifebook, what's in it, how to talk with your child about where she came from and how she got here, you know, their stories. One lady in the group stated that she has a real tough time talking to her child about these things. She said Our kids are so little right now, they're happy, they're in a sort of honeymoon period. I don't want to lose that yet, I don't want to talk to her about all that bad stuff. I don't want one of those angry adoptees. (I'm paraphrasing, of course, but that's the gist of it)

And here I jumped in. I compared our telling our children about theirstories to the sex talk. I told her she has to get comfortable with her daughter's story. She has to be logical and matter of fact about it. This is where you were born. This is what happened next. This is where you went from there. And this is how you ended up with us. We, as their Mothers, have to understand that we didn't create this past, we didn't choose this past, this is how it went and our duty is to tell it honestly to our girls and help them make sense of it.

Nothing can be solved by sweeping it under the rug and hoping they don't think about it. Some of these women, my friends, can't bear to think of the details of their daughter's stories. The idea of their child being left by the side of the road in a box hurts their hearts so much that they can't bear to talk about it with their children. Which is understandable. But wrong.