Elf Yourself this Christmas.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Honestly, I just about wet myself watching this Elf Yourself dance that you create yourself with photos from your family.

Here's ours! Have a laugh.

Kim

A Different Kind of Love - is it true?

This article really tore at me. It's called "Adoption - A Different Kind of Love" and was featured in the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday. It's really well written with no judgements or assumptions made that I can see.

Nevertheless, if you're like me and do not yet have your adopted child (still waiting) it might make you worry.

I've always been a nurture (vs. nature) person and my husband is the same. All of the conversations we have had with each other and with friends and family have been to educate them and us on the importance of not looking at our adopted child in a 'different' way, that they should be treated the same as biological kiddos and therefore just as wanted. The alternative, for us, is unacceptable and we have always been of the mindset that our child will be our child in the full sense of the word. That biological doesn't have a part to play and that it's not going to make any difference anyhow.

These parents in the article, and there are many examples, have been very honest about their feelings towards their bio and their adopted children.

Some are painfully honest (wonder how their kids feel/would feel about reading this??) about how their bio kids are 'more loved' and they would do anything/feel more for the bio kids and not so much in the same way for the Adopted kids. Ouch!







Other parents state how they don't feel the difference at all. They see their kids as their kids, regardless of how they came to their family.

The main difference, from my perspective, can only be in how the parents are wired. Let me explain. We are all different, have different upbringings ourselves, different parenting techniques were what brought us up, we have different ways of approaching human relationships, romantic relationships, how we treat strangers as opposed to how we treat people we know, and whether we take more than we give most of the time or the opposite. All of these subtle historical events (and more) that shape who we are right now, have a part to play in how we then go on to treat our own kiddos and what we teach them. Not that one set of people is "better" than the other, or more deserving of children. We are not clones and therefore can't be expected to have the same life perspectives.

It's difficult to get across the length and breadth of what I am trying to say here (so I hope I'm making a little sense) but my theory on why there differing reactions to our adoptive children is just the above. We are all wired differently, make different and often subconscious choices about how we will approach life. Hence, we have different reactions to the same or similar situations.

I'm open to suggestions and keen to read and talk about all sides of the story but I still can't see that there is one definitive answer to this question of nature vs. nurture.

Now if I could just get my comments link to work so you *could* respond then we could have a great discussion!

Kim
Waiting 17 months for our baby Anytime now, I hope.