Andie.ink

My parents have a valid excuse for having shortcomings as Adoptive Parents. The research, the knowledge, the adoptee voices, the education, the accountability just was not there.
In my generation of adoptees, our parents were winging it.
Some of them did better than others.
But as my Mom always said… usually in the midst of arguments… “there is no book for this!”This reality is very helpful in our healing towards the mistakes our Adoptive parents made. I can sit with the knowledge my parents had very little knowledge to work off of and extend them grace and mercy. They were naïve.

But let me make it VERY CLEAR.

This generation of Adoptive Parents… You will NOT have this legitimate excuse. Your mistakes will be yours solely because guess what?

There are books. Lots of them!
There has been research and studies.
There is education.
There are adoptee voices.
There are ethical practices.

You are adopting and parenting during a reckoning in the adoption community. You WILL be judged and held accountable by your adult adoptees.
They will eventually grow up and find out this education existed. They will call you out, ask questions, and hold you accountable.

Your actions NOW will determine your relationship later.

You don’t have an excuse.

Any reluctance to place yourself in the line of education and learning is on you. And your adoptee will be the plumb line that sets the relationship straight one day. Your refusal to learn… will cost you.
More importantly (Because you are not the more important person in this adoption story), your adoptee will be harmed. Profusely. And those who willingly induce harm upon other people for selfish gain are called abusers. No matter “how good their intentions were.”

Because God can call you to something and you can still mess it up. I mean. Have you met our friend Jonah?

Don’t let your adoptee be your whale that holds you accountable.
*Coveat: You will mess it up. There are no perfect parents. But there is a difference between parents who were doing their best and parents who knew they could do better and chose not to.