Hospitals
There are two sides to every question.
Protagoras
Tonight, my son and wife were talking about the new baby. He was asking if my wife would have a phone in her room so he could call her. She told him she did when he was born. He then asked if she remembered what the number was but she didn’t. She told him that she wouldn’t be going to the same hospital but instead to the one closer since we moved after he was born. Anyway, he commented that he wished the baby was going to be born at the same hospital.
My wife replied that her sister and she were born at two different hospitals and that it was okay. She then explained which hospitals they were born at. I was in his room making his bed when I heard him ask her what hospital I was born in. I felt my heart skip a beat. She told him she wasn’t sure so he came to ask me. I told him that supposedly I was born in Orange Memorial but I am not sure. He asked why. I told him the agency won’t tell me and that I couldn’t really explain why.
This child of mine, this sweet brilliant child of mine says to me, “but you’re an adult, why can’t you know now?”
I could only look at him and smile that smile. The smile I use as a defense against letting my feelings really be shown, or my pain. Such a simple question which should have had such a simple answer. Funny how absurd this seems thru the eyes of child but not in the rules of an agency.
Oh well, it’s all about protecting the children, right?
December 29th, 2006 at 11:50 pm
Wow, how amazing for him to say that, makes so much sense, just not to the people who hold all the cards.
MSP
December 30th, 2006 at 6:41 am
yeah, huh? why dont we listen to the kids? they seem to get it. my 9yo is much the same way. asking why didnt my parents help me to keep my daughter, why didnt the daddy marry me, why didnt someone help me. those kinds of questions always give me pause.
December 30th, 2006 at 5:10 pm
Yes, kids do see it better.
And simple things do become so complicated.
January 1st, 2007 at 11:13 am
I feel most 6 year olds have a better understanding of adoption than the most learned of adoption professionals, who scratchh their heads and wonder in puzzlement of how adoption affects us.
Their really isn’t a mystery, that is what the children get, meanwhile the professionals are completely cloued by adult fantasies and wishful thinking.
It is horrible.
January 4th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Like you said to me…”Out of the mouths of babes”….. ;o)
Children’s clarity and simplicity is awesome.
January 6th, 2007 at 9:05 am
So obvious even to a child…. As an adult, and really as a child too, one should have the right to their identity. It makes me sick to think about how we do this to our own people. It’s schizophrenic.