Wow, I just realized the last time I wrote anything about our adoption journey was in January of 2020 — almost THREE years ago! That makes sense, for the most part, since our little family has just been clicking along living life day-to-day. But leaving things with updates about where we are on our journey, or lack there of, isn’t the full picture of adoption. Adoption isn’t just how our family was formed, it’s part of our family every single day. So, this is my attempt at holding some space for adoption in our family and in this digital space. We often say that we don’t want Brighten to be able to remember finding out she was adopted because it’s just always an ongoing conversation. And it truly is, so let’s continue the conversation here, too.
“Mommy, why are my eyes green and you, Daddy, Grady, Swanson, and Rory have brown eyes?”
This was an adorable question that Brighten asked me a few days ago. She’s six (how?!) and started kindergarten in August. She is loving school and truly thriving, but something about school has also prompted a lot of questions about her identity and story. I always try to answer her immediately so she knows that her questions are always welcome. I also aim to only answer the question she’s asking — rather than the 15 questions she’s not asking but are related to and on the peripheral of the question she’s asking. I’m honest, and I try to be direct and short-winded.
So, on this particular day, I told her that she has green eyes because her birth mom has green eyes and that her birth mom gave her the gift of beautiful green eyes. Her follow up question made me giggle as she asked, “So do all kids who were adopted have green eyes?”
Gosh, I love 6 year olds.
We talked about how sometimes kids who are adopted may have different features than their parents. They may have different eye color or hair color or skin color. They may be tall and maybe their parents are shorter. Or they may be short and their parents are taller. But no matter what, the way they look is a gift from their birth family that they take with them to their adoptive family.
Now, of course I realize that oftentimes kids have different features than their parents and they’re biologically related. But, this goes back to only answering the question she asked. I could tell in that moment that she was curious as to why her eyes were different. She wasn’t interested in how families can all look different and how genetics works (I couldn’t answer that question anyway).
I know as she gets older, the questions will get harder. We’ll go deeper into her story and I’m so thankful that she’s asking these questions now, and I pray we are laying a foundation for those harder conversations in years to come.
