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Just Like the Real Thing
By Jami Ward
(I'm irked, and this particular column is kind of a free association for
me because of that, so I'm not real sure where it's going to end up.
Stick around and we'll both find out.)
I'm more than a little upset by yet another reference in the media to
some person who was just convicted of a brutal murder as "the adopted
son" of Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so. Even if it had not been a report of
something bad, even if the subject had been about a local kid who had
saved someone's life, why was it necessary to categorize that young
person as "the adopted child"? Even if the media labeled all kids as
adopted children or as stepchildren or as birth children, I'd still be
upset. I think my strong bias against labeling people has been explored
in previous columns, but this issue touches me personally.
For those who do not know, my son is adopted. I've never hidden that
fact, but it feels very strange to me to write that down. I don't feel
like he's my adopted son; I feel like he's just my son, period. I have
had people tell me that I'm a noble person because I adopted a child,
but in reality I was being selfish. My spouse and I cannot have
children, so to fulfill our own personal wants and desires for
offspring, we adopted someone else's child. At a gross level then, what
we did was not noble; it was merely satisfying a want. But that's an
oversimplification, and in reality, what we did was not just satisfying
a want. It was, instead, filling a void in our lives that we knew
existed, and that we desperately wanted to fill in order to feel
complete.
We first met our son when he was 24 hours old, and immediately fell in
love with him. He came to live with us 2 days later and has been with us
ever since, which has been approximately 27 months now. We have no plans
to ever hide the fact from him that he is adopted, but we also don't
plan to make a big deal about it. As I said before, I certainly don't
feel like he's my adopted son; I just think of him as my son. I simply
cannot imagine loving him any more than I already do, simply because he
carried some of my DNA. He, of course, knows us simply as his parents,
not his adoptive parents. I know families who have both adopted and birth
children, and they assure me that it's the same for them: there is no
differentiation in their hearts or minds between the two. So, if the
parents don't see them any differently, why does the rest of the world
insist on doing so?
Also, in today's world, birth parents are not always the only ones
raising children. With the divorce rate as high as it is, with
re-marriage as common as it is, stepparents are also quite involved in
the upbringing of children that are not theirs by birth. I find it hard
to believe, despite the clichés to the contrary, that stepparents are all
evil. I know a lot of people who love their spouse's children just as if
they were their own. It is not only a possibility, it is an actuality for
most second marriages where children are involved. Again, if the parents
don't see their children as stepchildren, why should anyone else? The
last thing any of us needs is another label to categorize and subdivide
us all further.
OK. So now I'm at the end of my adoption rant (and yet another label
rant). I was afraid that I wouldn't have a transgender connection here,
but I just might have one, after all. It's this: If any of is to truly
make it in our self-perceived gender role, we must truly adopt that role
as ours. Appearances of masculinity or femininity, like appearances of
family, are nothing without the real thing underneath. However, just as
a family with birth children can adopt another child without loss of
love for any of their original children, we should not totally shun our
"original" sex-assigned gender. There are many good masculine and
feminine aspects and traits in everyone, and we should strive to balance
them within ourselves as we pursue our own gender role and gender
presentation.
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