Which picture is true.

So today I did an exercise with my kiddos.  They were supposed to draw a picture of what their life would be like if they had never been adopted.

It’s interesting to see what they drew.  One child drew a picture of a grave and her Mom and her sister crying next to it.  The other drew a picture of her and her Mom dancing. But Mom had been scribbled out twice, because “I drew her too small.”

Wow I’m sure your thinking one of my kids is loopy to draw herself in a grave, while the other one is dancing with her mom.  Odd thing is the one who drew herself as dead is my very attached one, not the one with all the issues. You see she understands that most likely she was abandoned due to the fact that her medical problems were beyond the ability of her parents to pay for her medical care and considering she spent 3 weeks in a hospital which saved… her... Life… She has a realistic picture of what happened in her abandonment and adoption.     

The one dancing  with her Mom, well earlier in the day she also drew a picture of her first Mom as crying begging her daughter to come home to her cause she misses her daughter so much…  Her mothers’ culture would not tolerate an unwed mother.  Things like “honor killings” happen to single pregnant ladies.  The fact that she survived to be born shows great liberation of her first grandparents mind.  But the plight of Mom’s without fathers in her culture is a bleak one.  Living in the slums is a much more realistic plight.  Being label a ____ child.  Zero chance of an education.  How do you tell this child that you can see in her paper work she was shown to family after family in her home country and no one choose her.  

Even widows in this culture are vilified forced to wear white and blamed for the death of her husband.  So First Mom couldn’t even fake she was a widow.    My dd is aware of the plight of widows and single parents, being in the ministry brings her face to face with the reality of life in her home country.   Yet she discounts it all "No! that will not happen with Me and My first mom."  (DD is swimming in de-nile.)

I keep turning back to Sherrie Eldrige’s insights into adoption, I really feel her birth mom was really scared about this pregnancy because My dd spends so much time being scared about everything.  She hides things and her emotions.  I can just see her first Mom hiding her pregnancy and how she felt.   I see it in the eyes of my child every day.

Odd isn't it.  From the first look the picture that looks happy shows a child who still lack the understanding about her adoption.  Fantasy and denial still reign in her heart. Whereas the scary picture of a death, shows how the second child although younger has the greater understanding of her situation and how it is something to be sad about, and something to be happy about.