That’s the craziest thing I ever heard
I think I hurt my dad’s feelings the other day. I knew I was going to but I did it anyway. Not that I intended to hurt his feelings, but I had to tell him something uncomfortable. I had to tell him that when we get home from China with Lina, and they come to visit us, they can’t hold Lina (for a while). That’s the part that he said was the craziest thing he ever heard.
This is just one of the things I’ve come across in learning about adoption that seemed counterintuitive at first–how could it be bad to show a child that she is surrounded by lots of loving family members? The problem is that everything will be new for Lina: the faces, sounds, smells, and tastes will all be literally (but temporarily) foreign to her. She needs to know that in this crazy, mixed up world where she has already had many different caretakers, there are two people who will be constant for her. She needs to learn that she can trust us (and herself) first, then she can learn to trust others. It’s important that we give her as much chance as we can to bond specifically to us, her new and forever parents. We need to do everything we can during those first few months to help her attach to us; to know that she can rely on us and on the fact that we will be there for her. She needs to learn that she can literally depend on us specifically and exclusively.
There’s no reason to expect that Lina will have a particularly hard time attaching, but we will do everything in our power to provide a safe, trustworthy environment for her.
So how’d grandpa take being told he couldn’t hold his precious granddaughter when he first meets her? Pretty well, actually. After telling me it was the craziest thing he ever heard, he said he was definitely ready to read the book I’d recommended (Adoption is a Family Affair. And then he said something very typical of my dad: “The important thing is what I told you the other day: We love her already.”