Reclaiming the Calendar to Better Understand Adoption
The calendar has too often become a transactional holding place for our full and busy lives and something that we can both dread dealing with and at the same time look at with joy and anticipation. Meetings, anniversaries, birthdays, and seasonal reminders of what’s to come fill our calendars in a basic and unifying grid. For adopted people, the calendar is another layered aspect of our complex experiences. From reminders of upcoming doctors’ appointments to baby showers, and traditional holidays like Thanksgiving and Mother’s Day, the calendar can sometimes lead to mixed emotions and unanswered questions.
Along my very personal journey of identity development, relationship building and facing and embracing differences, I have come to recognize the power in reclaiming the calendar as a transformational tool that can center and guide us on a path of growth and empowerment. The calendar forces us to be present, which can be difficult for adopted people because our pasts often remain a mystery. Staying present in the moment as well as planning for a productive future can be stymied when the past leaves you with unanswered questions and unassuaged feelings.
I realized though that the calendar is a way to better organize the questions about my past that can at times, lead to complex present-day experiences. It has become a way to focus myself in expressing the different thoughts and emotions I have about the different people who make up my family as well as the different points in the year these people, known and unknown, are present in my mind if not actually in my daily experiences. These expressions can take the form of writing out the questions I have, many remain unanswered:
What were my birth mother’s favorite holiday traditions?
What foods were prepared for birthday celebrations?
Did anyone in my family have breast cancer?
Who is my father?
These questions range in depth and practicality but they go hand in hand with many items that pop up on the calendar in any given month. When I allow myself the time to really focus in on the many layers of feeling and experience these touchstones hold, such as Father’s Day or my birthday, I allow myself to unleash both the questions and emotions inside me, express them outwardly when I can, process them internally, and ultimately work towards a sense of peace in my life. In this way I am ultimately able to better be present in these complex moments.
The calendar offers the perfect practical roadmap for the entire family, including young people, to purposefully and meaningfully engage in conversation about their adoption experience. Perhaps your child is also struggling on Mother’s Day to celebrate the Mother who raised her while also grappling with questions about the one who gave her life yet she does not know and/or is not present day to day. Maybe your child’s family engaged in cultural celebrations that are presently unknown to you yet your child may be wondering about as she strives to integrate her birth culture with her culture of experience. Mark these things on the family calendar and set aside time each week to create a validating environment where questions can be asked and emotions expressed safely. This simple activity will do wonders to bond your child with you as well as to her past. It is through these open and honest relationships that healthy identity can be formed. By reclaiming the calendar, you are reclaiming your family's time with each other, which is the most important activity on the ever-growing lists!
As I worked through my childhood years, the ever-changing emotions of my adolescence, through early adulthood and now in mid-life, I think often of how difficult it was at times to navigate the complexity of adoption and race. I think that it probably didn’t have to be that way; it could have been made easier if more thought and attention had been given to adoption practice and what it means to facilitate family building in this way. Yet I choose to take these challenges from my past and use them, I hope, to educate the world about what adoption can teach us all.
Listen to this month’s podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/born-in-june-raised-in-april-what-adoption-can-teach/id1088504227?i=1000549061221) where I interviewed adopted person Haley Radke. Haley created and hosts the podcast Adoptees On.