A couple of weeks ago, my eleven year old daughter asked me if I ever regretted adopting her and her younger sister. Out of the blue. Just like that.
At first, I was a bit upset and shocked. Why would she think such a thing? What had I done wrong to make her think this? But, it was lockdown. We’d spent nearly three months cooped up together, four of us; working from home, doing school work, the same walks every day. She had been followed around constantly by her nine year old sister, who, at the best of times finds it hard to self-regulate. Her Dad hadn’t been well and had slept most of the three months. I was running on empty from trying to hold everything together. At times, I had exploded, cried hysterically, and walked away, mainly when her little sister had screamed and ranted and thrown toys at me because she didn’t want to do the work her teacher had emailed through.
And, yes, this is most families in lockdown. But, there is a difference.
Tough on the inside
My eleven year old is a very thoughtful girl. She’s the oldest, she’s smart and she’s a thinker. She’s also been through more crap in her short life than most of her peers put together. Ever resilient, she’s soft on the outside but oh so tough on the inside. She has more determination than anyone I know. As she’s heading towards the teenage years, she’s thinking more about who she is; why she does and thinks what she does. She’s wondering where these traits come from and, saddest of all, she’s thinking what would she have been like had she stayed with her birth family.
Communication – talking helps
I know these things because we talk. It’s the thing that has given us our bond, our strength and our love. It’s probably why we are just about doing okay. When she came to us, at three and a half, the one thing she needed, craved, was attention. I could feel it oozing from her; someone please, please just notice me. We had conversations, yes, conversations, at three. She told me things about her past that she’d never told foster carers (I’d asked them at the time). I listened. She learnt to trust me. It was the first rung towards self-regulation, trust and being able to be happy. We are still on that ladder, just a bit further up.
At three and a half, we were her sixth home; sixth place of completely different adults, no connection between any of them, save for a social worker from the last placement who disappeared within two weeks of them moving to us.
I’m the rock
For nearly nine years, she has clung to me like a drowning person to a rock in the ocean. That’s how I feel, I’m the rock. Sometimes it’s stifling, draining, exhausting. She watches my every move for my reactions, my facial expressions, my approval or disapproval. But, for all the responsibilities, we, as adults, chose to adopt. She didn’t choose this life, didn’t choose to be born to parents who had no real hope of offering her a safe place to grow with opportunities that every child deserves.
Deep in my heart, I wish that both my girls had been born to parents who could have cared for them; I wish that we could have had our own biological children and have been spared the years of infertility heartache. But, we didn’t. Neither of us. And, thankfully, we found each other.
Tell it from the heart
So, back to the moment when she asked me: do you regret adopting me and my sister? Her face crumpled into a concerned frown. Using the techniques I’ve learnt from books and psychologists, or probably just completely from the heart, I exclaimed:
‘What?! Why would I ever think that?’
I could see her face relax a bit.
‘I can tell you, completely, hand on heart, that I have NEVER, since the day you both came to us, NEVER thought I wish this hadn’t happened. And, do you know why? Because my life is 110% better than it was before. It has meaning. Even with all the shouting, the screaming and the fall-outs, I wouldn’t swap any of it to be just me and Dad. Can you imagine how boring that would be?!’
She was smiling now.
‘I’d be sat there whilst Dad watched Top Gear, again, or read the paper. The most exciting thing in our week would be a trip to Tesco. We’d be just like Grandma and Grandad! OMG! Imagine that?
She was laughing. I know that she’ll think it again, next time we fall out, and there will be a next time. The good thing was though, I meant all of it.
