Here is a story for you.
My parents were always honest with me. They told me right from the beginning that I was adopted. In my little kid brain, I just assumed that something like half the kids are adopted and half of all kids grew in their moms’ bellies.
Moving along. Now I’m in third grade. Gym class. Girls’ locker room. Somehow the topic of adoption comes up in conversation. I think nothing of it and tell them all proudly that I am adopted. I am teased. I realise quickly that not one other girl in my class is adopted. At lunchtime I ask all the boys. None of them are adopted either.
I was angry. I felt like I had been lied to by my parents. I was different. I was not normal. Being different is bad in elementary school. The whole day, I was teased by the kids in my class. They told me that my real parents didn’t love me. Something was obviously wrong with me or they would have kept me.
Real parents? My parents were my real parents. What were they talking about?
I went home furious. At the mean little school kids. At my “real parents.” At my parents. How could they adopt me and do this to me?
My mom asked me how my day was.
“Horrible.”
She asked why. There was always something dramatic going on, but I don’t know if she was ready for this.
“Mom! Who else in my school is adopted?”
She tried very hard but couldn’t actually think of anyone else.
I demanded answers: “MOM! If Ms. White (the principal) told everyone in the school who is adopted to go stand on one side of the cafeteria and everyone who is not adopted to go to the other side of the cafeteria, do you mean to tell me I’d be ALL ALONE?!”
My mom didn’t know what to say.
Luckily, my little sister was listening. She was confused. She decided to butt in at this point. “Well no. I’d be there, too!”
She said it so nonchalantly that I couldn’t help but smile. Even in the third grade I realised that I wasn’t alone. I had a kickass family. We stuck by each other no matter what. That’s what family is. I wasn’t angry anymore. I will always remember that day: the only day in my life that I wasn’t sure I liked being adopted. And it didn’t last very long.
Being adopted is awesome.
