Guest blogger at the New York Times blog, Motherlode,
Jenni Levy, muses on the question of how to feel and what to think when
she has to identify her child as "adopted" on a life insurance form:
"Most
days I feel good about the way we are together. I have become my
child’s mother without denying her heritage, without erasing her
origins. So...why can’t I just check “adopted child” and move on?
I
can’t choose one because it’s a false dichotomy. My daughter is
adopted, and she is my child. Both of those are true. I don’t want to
deny any part of our relationship, even if it is just to answer a
bureaucrat’s unthinking question."
So when is it appropriate
to make the distinction between someone's biological or adopted child,
as such? We are always hearing about celebrities and their "adopted"
children versus "just" their children, and the labeling is all the more
glaring when multiple children come into one family both ways (for
anyone out there who just came out of a ten-year coma, Angelina Jolie
and Brad Pitt for example).
I am a mother by adoption. In fact,
there are so many labels qualifying my family I sometimes don't even
know where to start. I am one of three
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