When the editor of Adoptive Families contacted me to update Secret Thoughts of an Adoptive Mother, I began to think about what I’ve learned from the hundreds of adoptive families I’ve met in the course of traveling across the country with my book. I’ve come to understand that the process of adopting, like the process of parenting, is replete with bittersweet feelings; the paradox is that such contradictory feelings can co-exist.

The journey toward adoptive parenthood is characterized by emotions that swing like a pendulum between extremes: greatest hopes and worst fears; solid leads and bleak dead ends; frenzied rushing and endless waiting; outward confidence and inner doubt. By the time your son or daughter comes home to live with you, you’ve already been through the emotional mill and are ready to enjoy the fruits of your so-called labor.

It’s not long, however, before joy, gratitude, and wonder are joined by their emotional counterpoints, and you begin to realize that mixed feelings have followed you right into parenthood. In the course of any day (or any hour) with your beloved child, you can swing from joy to frustration, from gratitude to nonchalance, from wonder to worry, and back again. All parents experience these feelings; they come as a surprise only to those of us who thought that the process of adopting children would be harder than the process of parenting them. Turns out that the real labor starts after the delivery.

The Paradoxes

You’ll think your child is beautiful and brilliant… no matter how plain or average.
Maybe it’s because you never looked at another human being so lovingly; or maybe, just maybe, it’s actually true…but most adopted children are gorgeous (to their parents). Maybe it’s because you’ve lavished so much attention on them, or maybe, just maybe, it’s actually true…but most adopted children are gifted (according to their parents).

However, unless you live in Lake Wobegon, where “all the children are above average,” chances are, your love has clouded your objectivity. Excessive adoration for long-awaited children can produce overly empowered youngsters. Spoiling kids to compensate for adoption simply creates spoiled kids. Eventually, though, outside your home, they’ll realize that they are not the center of the universe.

So, empower your kids with your love — and prepare them for a world that may not love them nearly as much as you do.

You’ll think it’s a match that was meant to be… and know it’s a match that may never have happened.
No matter what the circumstances of the adoption, no matter how disparate the physical similarities, no matter how arbitrary the timing, most adoptive parents are certain that they are with the right child: This was meant to be! So much about the adoption process is out of our control; perhaps the desire to claim destiny’s involvement helps accelerate bonding between strangers who become family.

However, the flip side of this equation makes everyone uneasy: If you and your child were meant to be together, what does that suggest about your child’s biological family?

So, respect fate’s double-edged message. And know that shared experiences are an even stronger bonding agent than shared origins.

You are proud to be public with your adoption…and then ready to be private.
It is during early, ecstatic days that photos of infatuated families are taken; odes to our long-awaited, couldn’t-be-more-perfect children are written; and, frankly, adoption is at its most appealing. Most adoption articles, books, listserv messages, and brochures feature new parents with young children.

However, there comes a time later on when your children no longer want you to be adoption’s spokesperson. The stories I tell about my son are early ones; I no longer have his permission to share certain parts of his life. Pre-pubescent kids and teens are mortified to be singled out. And, more significantly, the complications of adoption may supersede its celebrations. I’ve decided it’s more important to be a good parent than to be a good adoption ambassador.

So, learn how to talk about and promote adoption without compromising your family’s privacy.

Adoption is wonderful …except when it stinks.
When our young children learn from us how marvelous it is to be an adoptive family, they wear the label with pride. We’re delighted to be invited into our child’s first grade classroom to present a lesson on the subject and show how happy and normal we really are.

However, what’s cool at six years old is not at eight and never was at ten. As if life weren’t hard enough, adoption complicates everything. Your child has to reconcile the life he is living with the life he might have lived. It’s extra work without extra credit. And that stinks.

So, understand why kids wish they weren’t adopted and, by all means, don’t take it personally.

Adoption is commonplace…but adopted kids often feel out of place.
Everybody knows somebody who is adopted; it’s a well-established and accepted way to build a family these days.

However, there’s nothing normal about living with parents who aren’t related to you, who don’t look like you, or who had to get fingerprinted before they could meet you. There’s nothing normal about having another mother and father somewhere in the world. No wonder some adopted kids feel different.

So, instead of trying to get your children to feel just like everybody else, accept the fact that they have good reason not to, and help them celebrate their uniqueness.

You tell your children the truth…but not the whole truth.
Our children deserve to be told everything we know about them. It is their story.

However, it’s hard for kids to get an unfiltered version about why and how they were adopted. It’s not that we set out to lie, but we sometimes soften or leave out the bad parts in an effort to protect them. The early adoption stories we tell frequently omit the birth father — in part, because we’d have to explain that adoption involves sex! Many of our children were unplanned pregnancies; it gets tricky when we tell them how great it is to have them and how bad teenage pregnancy is.

So, tell your children the whole truth, in serving sizes they can handle. The only thing worse than bad news is no news.

You want to talk to your kids about adoption…and they don’t want to talk to you about anything.
We spend years talking thoughtfully to our children about their adoptions.  There are entire books written on how to do that.

However, at about the age when the conversation could have a little give and take, kids start to grunt in single syllables. The tendency is to think, “If you don’t want to talk to me, I’m not going to talk to you,” but adoption is part of your child’s identity for life.

So, keep talking. If you keep the discourse alive, it can become a meaningful discussion again someday.

Your child didn’t choose adoption…but gets to choose how to deal with it.
Most parents have told their family’s story over and over through the years.

However, at some point, your children become the ones to get questions, and their answers may be different from yours. It is your child’s personal history — and his or her choice to determine how and whether to tell it. Our son got so sick of certain questions, he created a website to deal with them.

So, listen to the answers your son or daughter gives; you can learn something.

You may find it easier to adopt a child of color…but transracial parenting is harder.
People wanting to adopt children of color often become parents sooner. However, transracially adopted children do not have the advantage of learning about their ethnicities through osmosis, as happens in single-race families. So parents of children with racial identities different from their own have to work at connecting their kids to their birth cultures.  Sometimes, adoptive parents can feel overwhelmed by the responsibility, and guilty about making their child vulnerable to ostracism by thoughtless and prejudiced people.

So, get help from people of color, learn with your child, and stop apologizing for being whatever race you are.

You think you’re prepared for parenting…and find things you weren’t prepared for
It’s one thing to read that some kids have ADHD, learning differences, or depression; it’s another to live with a child struggling with one or more of these. You can go to the ends of the earth trying to help — only to learn that biochemistry trumps interpersonal chemistry.

So, loosen the link between your child’s success and your parenting skills, between your child’s happiness and yours. You can have an influence, but you deserve neither all of the credit nor all of the blame.

You have dreams for your children…and they may have other ideas.
We know better, as adoptive parents, than to expect miniature clones of ourselves. Still, we hold on to specific hopes and dreams for our kids. We expect great things from our children — in part, because we’ve given so many great things to them.

However, highly motivated and achievement-oriented parents sometimes raise sons and daughters who turn out to be only average…or worse, children who are motivated to become anyone but you. Kids figure out who they really are, with or without your endorsement. Parents need to come to terms with that and hope that some of the values they’ve tried to instill seep in and take hold when no one is looking.

So, give up the fight to mold your children, because you can’t motivate them to become someone they’re not. Instead, try to motivate your daughters and sons to become their best selves…no matter how weirdly they dress.

Adoption explains everything…and nothing.
Is my son biting me because I’m not his birth mother? Does my daughter keep losing stuff because she’s lost her biological connections? Figuring out what’s normal, what’s idiosyncratic, and what’s a problem is tough — especially for parents who’ve been forewarned about the emotional fallout of adoption and whose radar is on high alert. Adoption is easy to blame for poor behavior, poor grades, and poor self-esteem.

However, there are a slew of deviant behaviors that afflict individuals with equal opportunity. How large a part adoption plays is a puzzle that keeps many mental health professionals employed. Once your kids figure out that adoption is a handy culprit, they can blame it for almost anything. Our son used to ask a question about adoption every night at bedtime…it’s a great stalling device.

So, you can try to understand why kids do what they do and work on changing that which can be changed: namely, behavior, not adoption.

The Biggest Paradox of All

We read. We attend seminars. We talk to other parents. We listen to our children. In other words, we do our best to become better parents every day. Still, we are humbled by the ultimate paradox:

The more you know about adoptive parenting …the less of a know-it-all you become.