My bioson is 3. At night he prays for our family and our adoptive sons mother and brother…just a simple ‘Please Bless mommy, daddy…..’. He knows that his little brother has 2 mothers. Recently he asked me why does T have two mommies? I was stumped…even though I thought I was prepared for this. Our adoption was supposed to be open but it appears our sons first mom does not want to communicate with us. Our son is is not even a year old, so I understand she may be grieving so we still send letters and photos. But….I would like some advice…from both first parents and adoptive parents on how to answer this? I don’t want to say his first mom couldn’t take care of her son, cause that is not true. I am sure she
would have done it just fine, but she was in school and had another son that just turned 1 and she couldn’t give him the opportunities she wanted to give him. Thoughts….advice???
How do I explain to my 3-year old why his brother was adopted by us?
– February 18, 2012Posted in: Community Wisdom
I believe in telling the truth in age appropriate ways if she felt she could not care for him then I would say that, more or less. As he gets older you can add (age appropriate) details. Right now you’re setting the tone for how your family talks about the adoption and also talks about your younger son’s birth mother and brother so that’s GREAT. It’s good practice for when your youngest starts asking about his adoption, too.
When my kids were younger and we talked about the adoption, sometimes my daughter worried that if parenting got hard for us that we would have to make an adoption plan (my son was seven when she arrived so that wasn’t a concern for him) and so we talked, too, about the supports that we had. This helped her begin to understand the complexities of her mother’s decision and also reassured her that she was with us forever. It’s an ongoing discussion and one that our children will continue to have when they are grown. Setting the stage with honesty, openness and acceptance will go a long way!!
I agree wholeheartedly with Dawn. I have had the discussion with my biological daughter about why my son is adopted, and I too didn’t want to say something inappropriate by accident.
I started by pointing out my own family (I have two fathers, and two mothers through divorce). Then it was much easier to explain that sometimes people “get to have extra mothers and fathers”. If you have some sort of nuclear family which could help you demonstrate, that might be useful as a jumping off point.
As my daughter has aged, she’s begun to understand that “Auntie X” is also her brothers’ OTHER mother (but not hers). And when she asked “Why?” I could say honestly, “Adults have adult issues to work out, and that has nothing whatsoever to do with her love for your brother, or for you.”
As the kids get older, we’ll add in what information is reasonable and respectful for them to know. When my son gets older, I’m sure he’ll be able to ask his b.mom directly for her reasons, and if he chooses to share those with his sisters is up to him.
There are some really books about adoption and about families. We just went to our sons JK open house and the schoolboard provided everyone with a book about ‘What Kind of Family are You?’ It talks about adopted families, families with one mommy or one daddy, or two mommies or two daddies etc.. We’ve tried to talk to our son about his adoption before but he just didn’t understand. But this book is such a great illustration of how many different kinds are family there are. I think with that kind of wonderful tool to assist, you could explain the kind of family that you are. We tied into the conversation not only different kinds of families but we talked about people with different color skin & hair & sizes .. it’s a big world out there with lots of differences.