Telling Children About Adoption

Video Transcript

"Often people ask me if I actually tell my children if they're adopted. In my case, it's pretty obvious that they're adopted since they're from Guatemala city but yes they've also known that they're adopted and it is more of a process than a one time thing. They have always known that they're born in Guatemala City. If people say, "Where were they born? They actually were very politely say, "We were born in Guatemala city." But it still isn't real to them. They don't realize that everybody else wasn't born in Guatemala City. When they played dolls when they were little girls much younger than now, they used to line up all their baby dolls on the couch and then they would say, "Okay, you go in the other room and then I'll show you the babies and then I'll tell you which one to take home" and then I would listen very closely and they would say, "Okay, now you have to take the plane because this is in Guatemala so you get on the plane. You fly here” They would pretend to fly and then one will be the social worker and she will say, "Here's your baby. Aren't you happy" and then they would kiss her and hug her and then they would take her home on the plane and that was the way they played. That's how the believe babies came home. They now know that other babies are born you know biologically to their parents but that's what they thought. As they've gotten older, now I have a six year old and she was speaking with her friend and it was about six months almost a year ago that she was talking and the friend was saying which hospital were you born in and Olivia said, "It didn't happened like that" and she said, "No when your mom was in the hospital which hospital were you in Texas?" And she's like, "No, no I wasn't born here." She said, "What state were you born in?" And she's like, "No, no it's different." And so finally, I jumped in and I explained to the little girl she was born in Guatemala. And she said, "Yeah ma, I was trying to tell her that I born was born in Guatemala right and what's that lady's name?" And I said, "Your birth mother." And she said, "Yeah, I have a birth mother." And the little girl was totally bewildered but within like five minutes we just explain what had happened and you know that she was born in Guatemala City and that she you know had a birth mother and she has birth father and that when she was ready, she when all her paper work is ready, I went down and got her and my daughter interjected very quickly, "Yes as fast as she could went down there and took me home and now I live with my forever family and I'm very much happy and loved." And so that was how my daughter saw it is that, that what happened and it's plain and simple and as she gets older, she will learn more information about the process, more information about her birth mother and what we know and things like that and her birth father but the four year old I have knows very little other than the fact that she has a birth mother and she was born in Guatemala city but it's never a secret then it's never really a surprise and it's never anything they fear. It's just who they are so it becomes incorporated into their beings and so it's not something that they ever have to they know that they can ask me anything. I will show them any document. I will show them any pictures I have about where they were born so it's just part of who they are. It's not ever a question or surprise."