So yesterday..... Siya came home with this sheet! She explained that she had done this eco map of what she remembers from her time in India!! Being an adoptive parent for 5 years nearly it shocks me how many choose not to speak of their adoptive child's past. However, Rakesh and I embrace it. It allows us to have extremely important discussions with Siya but also shows her that she can speak to us about anything!
This eco map wasn't something she had been asked to do by her teacher but a task she chose to do in her own time! Having gone through what she had written its crazy how well she understands her adoption and how much she remembers her time at the orphanage!
She spoke about how she had no food, how her real family are in India and we are her adoptive parents (a fact), how she came to us with spots (she believes were caused by hot milk but in fact they were hot water burn marks), how she had no toys and she also spoke about her friends that she had left behind.
Siya's teacher called me after school explaining that during a class discussion of parents...Siya had raised her hand to share that I'm not her real mummy and that her real mummy is in India! She has shared the fact that she is adopted with her closest friends at school and I could not be more proud! I'm not her birth mother but that doesn't make me any less of a mother to her! So many people are shocked and mortified when she states that I am her other mummy. But what's wrong with that? Yes I am her other mummy, the mummy that has not given birth to her and the one that is raising her like my own! Being an adoptive mother is not a shameful thing and society needs to change this perception that she will abandon us in future, because we are not her birth parents, to locate her 'real' family. I mean what even is a real family? Yes she may choose to go in search of her birth family and that is her right! Why shouldn't she?
It's these open discussions of her adoption within our house that allow her to express what she knows and feels regarding her adoption!
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