Brian Is Their Father

I was scrolling through facebook which is definitely one of my favorite hobbies and I saw this meme.

Well, I was about to make a silly comment about how I had no choice because he lives in the house and then it hit me. Brian is their father. My mind never went to anything but that. Yes, someone else did their biological part to cause their existence but Brian is their father. It made my heart happy to know how little I focus on the fact that they are not genetically ours. I am aware that they aren’t and I am proud of our adoption story but it only partially defines us. And I know that Brian feels the same way.

I was having lunch with a friend, the other day. He was talking about his kids and how he relates to his son’s emotional reactions to life because they are similar to his. He said something to the effect of “Well, it makes sense, our kids (referring to both of us) have our genetics.”

Then he realized that it wasn’t true for me. He had the same delayed realization that I did because sometimes I forget, too. haha. We then spent a few minutes agreeing with each other that my kids would pick up on our tendencies just by being in the same house. He might have thought he upset me but he didn’t. Even though, I have my moments of forgetting; it doesn’t hurt me to remember. It was all good and all true. Our kids are so much like Brian and I in so many ways, not all of them good. 😉

I know that there are different schools of thought about adoption. They say it’s loss. And I know that’s true in some ways. I know there are different reasons that children end up adopted. Some sad, some noble (when the parent is trying to do right by the child), and some unavoidable. I know that there is often trauma around it and it can truly be heartbreaking. I don’t want to minimize it.

But, I can’t speak to that. I haven’t been on that side and I never will. And it definitely doesn’t change the fact that I’m so glad that we did it. I know my kids are happy and that’s everything.  Or in William’s case, as happy as a teenager can be to be with his family. 😉

If you are out there and wondering if you could love a child who is not yours biologically. I mean, could you love them enough? Could you accept them as yours? And feel the love that you would feel if they were biological? The answer is yes.

Yes, you can. I assure you that you can love them enough to want to strangle them, just like you would a biological child. 😉 You can love them enough to be hurt when they don’t want to hold your hand anymore or just want to stay in their room on their tablets. You can love them enough to cry when they get an award at school or when they wandered too far in the neighborhood and your mind went to worst case scenario. You can love them enough to get true happiness from the simple things like baking cookies together, hearing their stories about rappers and youtubers that you’ve never heard of or hitting a beach ball up and down the stairs with them while praying it doesn’t hit the lamp. You can love them enough.

And, with 400,000 children in the foster care system who won’t be yours genetically but could be yours in every other way, why not prove my theory? (Come on, you know I had to work it in!)

Meanwhile, I want to bask in the awareness that I absolutely, completely, one hundred percent, love my children as my own. Because they are.