When I Was In Mamas Belly: Talking About Birth Parents

Internationally adopted children in a multi-racial family, often as early as 2 and a half years old, realize that there is something different about them. Particularly if you or your wife have beenreading them stories like Over the Moon or I Love You Like Crazy Cakes, they may start talking about and querying about their birth mother and father.

Many children try to piece together their history with statements based on stories you have told them like: “Before I was born you and mommy lived in Kentucky.” and “When I was a baby, I used to like to throw my peas on the floor.” At around 3-3.5 they can even draw parallels with their friends and siblings. “When I was a baby
I liked blueberries. When Graham (little brother) was a baby, he liked blueberries too.”

Sometimes history is confusing for kids. As parents, it is our job to be as truthful as possible with them without putting too much of the burden of reality on them to the point when they are scared. As a noodad, you know your child’s fear barometer better than anyone (besides maybe your wife). It is up to you to decide how much to tell your son or daughter and when to do it, but my advice is to do it as soon as possible. In fact, you should pay tribute and/or mention to your son or daughter’s birth parents infrequently (as opposed to rarely or less). It is far better to have them growing up with the correct information in their little heads, even if they do not fully understand it, than to change the story later. If they walk around talking about when they were in your wife’s belly and you do not tell them “You grew in your birth mother’s belly.”, then you are setting yourself to shock them when they learn the truth. They will be hurt, confused or could even feel betrayed depending on how old they are when they learn. This also goes for other facts that they might be confused about. If you kid walks around saying “When we go to China (Korea, Russia or wherever), I am going to meet my birth mother.” and you choose not to lead that one off at the pass, you are not teaching your kid about truth and trust.

I think that Over the Moon does a great job of explaining the birth mother’s role to a little one. The paraphrase is something like: You grew like a flower in another lady’s belly, but she could not take care of you. It goes on to talk about how the mommy and noodaddy (your wife and you) came to be her parents. The lesson here is that many small doses of reality, while not totally saving your children from confusion later on, will help them put the pieces together over time and save them from large, harsh doses of reality when you throw them a changeup. Sometimes the truth hurts, but when you always tell the truth, maybe not so much.