Mushishi
“I’ve learned a lot this year.. I learned that things don’t always turn our the way you planned, or the way you think they should. And I’ve learned that there are things that go wrong that don’t always get fixed or get put back together the way they were before. I’ve learned that some broken things stay broken, and I’ve learned that you can get through bad times and keep looking for better ones, as long as you have people who love you.”
- Jennifer Weinervia @quotemadness
it won’t be like what you imagined. maybe you get the road trip to the beach with coffee in your hand and the radio playing, maybe you don’t. but happy shows up. it’s in a 2 AM game of jenga with your new college friends. it’s curling up for another marathon of netflix. it’s meeting the person who will be your best man at the wedding. it’s 4:45pm in the library when the girl in the study coral across from you quietly whispers “i’m going to set everything on fire” and then turns to you and asks if you wanna take a break for dinner (say yes, she’s very nice and you both need a moment away from the stress). it’s the mornings they have omelettes and in good books and in a puddle that looks cool. it’s sometimes picturesque, but more often it’s full-belly laughter at stupid things on the floor of your friend’s house while in the background someone is debating the best way to win settlers of catan.
i know it gets dark early now and the tired is setting in and everything sort of feels blank and hazy and you want to spend ages staring at walls thinking of nothing
but happiness will find a way in. it will be small moments. look for them.
here is an idea: normalise the idea that adopting kids is a valid option even for parents who could conceive a child themselves, and not just an inferior backup option for parents who can’t
Just coming from an adopted kid, the benefits of adoption:
-When your kid asks where they come from you can literally say you pre-ordered them and waited for them to come in. My dad always equated picking me up from the hospital to ordering a sofa at k-mart and it always made me laugh. No need to explain pregnancy till they’re older.
-Your child will always know it was wanted and on purpose. My parents waited 5 years for me. They waited. For me to be born. I was wanted, from the moment I came into this world, by the people who raised me.
-You don’t have to pay for pregnancy or birth. Just adoption fees. No thirty thousand dollar hospital bill.
-You don’t have to give birth, or be pregnant, both of which objectively suck.
-The biological parents of that baby will be so happy that there is someone in the world who is willing to watch over their child. The relief that comes with that is overwhelming.
-You’re saving a child’s life that would otherwise potentially be stuck in the adoption and foster system for their entire childhood.
I’ve always heard arguments about wanting the baby to be ‘yours’ but really. My parents are my parents. Just because I don’t share their DNA doesn’t mean I’m not theirs. When it comes right down to it, blood of the bond is thicker than water of the womb.As another adopted kid, I second every point made here. When I’m asked if it’s weird having been adopted, the simple answer I always give is, “No, because I know for damned sure my parents love me and I love them to death too.”
Let a child into your life who needs a good life of their own. Consider adoption.
Also stop believing TV, Kids wanna be adopted and most of them aren’t gonna get with their adopted parents and then be like “well it’s been fun having you raise me since before I could talk and loving me for the past 12-15 years but fuck you now I’m going to find my real family and live with them forever and be a “normal teenager/child.”
America needs to stop putting blood relationships above every other type of family.
Also, as an addition to everything but especially the last point: TELL YOUR KID THEY ARE ADOPTED. The last situation only happens if its kept a secret because it becomes a grass is always greener scenario. If the child knows, it becomes a normal thing.
As a child who was adopted when I was 12, I was totally in support of my adoption. Actually the final hearing was postponed a short while so I could turn 12 & submit my own statement to the judge. I went through so many years of abuse, neglect, and abandonment. I *wanted* someone who *wanted* me. I love my Mama Bear with all my heart. She’s my world. She saved my life.
Consider adopting. There are so many children in the foster & adoption systems that are desperate for a loving home. I’ve also been through the foster system, and it is hell. Straight up. There is no money, too many kids for the system to handle, and social workers who have been so beaten down by the bureaucracy that they don’t try anything. And that is the Canadian system. I cannot imagine what kind of fresh hell the U.S. system is like. Save a child from that. And not only babies are options. Consider it. Please.
The way people dismiss non-genetic familial bonds is honestly such pervasive and insidious bullshit!! Literally the number one response to telling people I was adopted (particularly when I was young) was always, “oh, ooooooh, SORRY, I didn’t KNOW” — like I had been forced to admit something uncouth and embarrassing?? — followed by “so do you know who your REAL parents are?”
People are always asking if growing up adopted made me feel inferior, or insecure, or somehow bad. No, it never did! But you know what does?? This: “I don’t think I could ever adopt. I want a REAL kid. Oh, you know what I mean…. who’s really MINE, you know?”
