Finding Balance Part 2

continued from part 1 

After more and more reading, I've found some angry, bitter adoptees.  I hurt for them.  My heart aches for their pain.  While I'll never ever know how they feel, I "share in their troubles".  Reading their stories has opened my eyes and heart to some of what my boys may feel and struggle with.  It's certainly helped me see many things to NOT do, say or even imply as an adoptive parent.  However, I will lead my boys down the path of those who have experienced suffering before them.

The boys were born into a culture where a deformed ear is read as a bad omen or misfortune.  Deaf is rarely accepted, therefore a Deaf person will not be allowed an equal education nor job opportunities.  Because of that, their birth families either felt fearful of the bad omen or simply knew they couldn't care for that kind of "disability".  (If they boys had been born 90 years earlier in the US, they may have been placed in a mental institution.  I pray that with the spread of technology and education, Chinese culture will open its eyes to disabilities [I hate using that word to describe Deaf] as Americans did, not many years ago.)

The fact is, the boys have suffered greatly in their young life.  But that doesn't mean they are destined to a life of suffering.  They are being given a chance to continue their life with a family who will love them forever...no matter what...and in a place where the fact that they are deaf won't hinder them becoming all they can be.  They are being adopted into a family, then will be Brownies.  Being adopted will color their life.  Being Deaf will color their life.  Being Chinese-American will color their life.  Having a Deaf parent will color their life as it has their siblings' lives.  These things will all make up an amazing story of who they are.   Some of that story is heart-breaking and much of it will be redemptive and full of joy.

One last comment.  I read somewhere within a blog or blog comments that we, as adoptive parents, must realize that we are "raising someone else's children."  No.  They were once someone else's child, be it for 6 days or 11 months, but now after relinquishment and through adoption, they are our children.  They are not foreigners in our home.  We aren't foster parents, caring for these boys until their "real" family can reunite with them.  They DO have a life and history before they came to us.  They DO have their birth/first/original family.  One of my boys has a foster family who has raised him for half of his life.  These truths of their first families are balanced by the other truths that they were relinquished, have lived as orphans for 2 years each, and are now being adopted into the Brown family.  That adoption makes the boys every bit as much a "Brownie" as the ones born from my flesh. 

As for raising my children, I'm trusting in God's grace, His guidance, His leading my husband and me to be wise and educate ourselves on every aspect of parenting all 5 kids, each unique and set apart for His glory.