How do you create belonging in your adoptive family?
A family created through the miracle of adoption, sometimes, to the outside world, doesn’t look like what they think a family should look like. How many adoptive families have to hear: “Are they all yours?” Family members don’t have to look the same to belong. but we can create a sense of belonging in our adoptive families by focusing on how much alike we actually are.
To ensure that you give your adopted child, and all your children for that fact, a sense of belonging to your family celebrate your sameness. All my sons are adopted and have various ethnicities: Anglo, Hispanic and Cherokee Indian. Even with our various ethnicities, I tell my sons that they have my unique eye color (green with specks of golden brown), or my sister’s W-sit, or their dad’s face shape.
I tell my children how we do look alike. And sometimes, I can sense a special feeling from that, even from my oldest, that became my son at 12 years old.
Recently my Facebook feed has been filling up with images from the LikeParent app – an app that calculates what percentage a child resembles each parent. Of course, it’s not scientific or anything, but a fun little thing to do anyway.
So, of course, I had to do an experiment – I wanted to see how much the LikeParent app says my sons look like me and how much they look like their dad.
I was pretty confident going in since all our sons have my exact eye color.
Our middle son looks so much like his dad did as a toddler and young boy. In fact, while looking through some old family photos, I picked up a photo of my husband as a toddler in a high chair. My husband’s reply was: “That looks familiar.” It was if we were looking at a photo of our middle son! (But our son does have my eyes!) So here are the surprising results:
Our youngest son, Lil Bit, is Hispanic, but definitely has my eyes and my smile. I’m constantly amazed at how much he resembles my sister too, especially with that thick, wavy hair. Of course, I realize our youngest son has his dad’s round face shape, and my husband back in the day did have really dark hair too. So look! Our son is a perfect blend of us.
Our oldest son shares my Cherokee Indian heritage. We both have a long narrow face with those Cherokee high cheekbones. And his eye color is a duplicate of mine! Many people are very surprised when they learn that he isn’t my biological son. So these results are completely bogus!
But finding similarities of our family goes beyond our physical features. I tell my sons how they like bike riding like I did. Two of my sons bite their fingernails like I did. My middle son is a math wiz like me. “I used to do that too.” Our middle son LOVES baseball – just like his dad. Children mirror their parents in so many ways and pick up our sayings, habits, and beliefs.
By pointing out our sameness as a family that it can help minimize those differences to give a more cohesive sense of belonging. Families are alike! So celebrate your child’s sameness to help promote a sense of belonging to your family.
