Past Lives

Who-knows-how-long ago, someone posted a comment on the "Bedtime" entry asking about how I handle it when and if the kids mention their bio parents. I truly didn't mean to look like I was blowing that question off - this is the first day I noticed the comment was there.

Yes, the two older kids mention their bio parents pretty often. Sometimes even daily. They were 7, 4 and 2 when they came to the orphanage, so Adam and Liana have a pretty good memory of what their birth family was like. John and I are not at all upset when they start talking about their "Mama Zhana and Papa Misha." They were an enormous hunk of their lives, and a part of who they are. We let them talk away. Liana has some fantasies of her birth mother being an absolutely perfect-in-every-way mother, and I know that a part of her NEEDS to think she was. That's fine with me. I'm not perfect, and neither is anyone else, but to a 6-yr-old little girl trying to sort out the pieces of her life, I figure she can remember her any way she wants to. Adam remembers everyone a lot more realistically, (though not when he first came home he didn't), and I figure he'll set the record straight about "Mama Zhana" some day with Liana, but I'm not sure that it's my place. Maybe if nobody in the family had any real memories of them, I'd feel more inclined to step in and say something, but since Adam does remember, and is fair about his memories, I figure I don't need to do so. (Following me?) I figure my place is to parent our kids NOW. If we had pictures of their birth family, I don't think I'd necessarily put them on the mantle or anything, but I surely wouldn't hide them from the kids or make them feel ashamed to want to bring them out and talk about them. Sometimes when Liana hears a slow/sad song, she'll get quiet and say she's sad and wants Mama Zhana. When she watched "Pete's Dragon" and the lady sang "Candle on the Water" she actually burst into uncontrollable tears because she missed her so much. My job right then was to scoop her up and rock her, and tell her that I wasn't her Mama Zhana, but that I loved her, and that it was ok to miss her and love her too, and that loving two of us wasn't wrong or bad. I told her I was glad that she loved her Mama Zhana so much, because I knew how much she also loved me, and that it made me happy that she had so much love in her heart, etc.

Letting the kids talk to us about their birth family is fine, but what I DON'T want is for anyone to ever pump the kids for info about them. I really hope the questions come to me and not them, but that's not terribly realistic. I just hope they are ready to be graceful about answering, and that they remember that just because someone asks them such questions, doesn't mean that they should feel obligated to answer them.

Adam has mentioned the most about his previous family, and one day, I want to compile those memories for him in a written form. He may start to forget little things after a while, and some of those are things he has told us about. Like having kerosene lamps instead of electricity. Like no running water. Like what their house looked like. Like where he slept and what he ate, and where he played, what pets he had, and what his birth parents looked like and what they did, etc. I kick myself even now for not having a lot of it already written down, but I have been thinking about it for a long time. He might not fully enjoy it, but maybe as an adult he might, or maybe his children and grandchildren might. Know what I mean? He's told me enough to fill a small journal already.

Thanks for the comment, Anon! Now I'm inspired to start a project... ;O)