Pound Pup Legacy

This past week my family and I took a  holiday trip to Cancun, Mexico.  It's the first "vacation" we have taken in many years, so all four heathens were besides themselves with excitement.  [I envy their ability to be excited about things...]

As luck for this Pound Pup would have it, my first full day in Cancun found me watching a family that fascinated me.  There were two white couples, and a black child, no older than three.  I could not tell who were his "parents" since the one couple was middle-aged (late 40's at the very least) and the other couple was an openly long-term lesbian living-situation.  The child was well dressed, fed and by all appearances, very happy with all the loving attention he was getting from all four adults at the pool-side.  I'm sure most people would think, "That's sweet to see a child given so much love and attention."  I sat, instead, in awe of the child who smiled only when all eyes and action were directed towards him.  It amazed me how seriously he sat and looked when left out of the adult conversations.  It was his quiet manners that made him so remarkable to me.  For the life of me I couldn't remember if any of my children were as kept and mannerly as he, at the age of three.

That's when the Adoption Card hit me...  "appearances" can be so misleading and deceiving, especially when no one is watching the Quiet Moments an adoptee experiences when it becomes painfully obvious, "I'm not with my real mommy and daddy, and these people are very different from me ."  I remember being very aware of my own good behavior when I was a child, especially around my a.mother and both grandmothers.  I felt like I should never upset them because it was something Good Girls never do.  I never had the ethnic-difference that made me stand-out in a group appearance, but in private, I was told many many times by my adoptive grandmother, "You're not one of Us, but because my son decided to adopt you, I have no choice but to include you in a family that doesn't really want you."  How does a child respond to a woman who says "you are not of of my own kind?"  I quickly learned I couldn't tell my mother, because it would upset her, and telling my dad only made him angry -- so I found a way to sit and take the crap these women from both sides gave me.  I hated most of the women in both families, but I had to pretend to like them all, because that's what good girls do.  Good girls fake being nice, because that's what the gown-ups tell a child to do.  Be good and nice, and don't start any trouble.

Back in Mexico, it turned out I saw this mixed-family dynamic almost every day during my trip with my children, so I became disturbingly distracted and aware how different blood and biology seem to work in terms of a child's sense of comfort and familiarity.   I want to say the older couple were the parents to one of the younger women, because there was a connection between the two sets of adults that went beyond friends or co-workers.  Who's side claimed the child is still such a guess, because I had no one to share my voyeuristic interpretation with for further dissecting conversation.  All I knew was, I had no book to read, hub-man was busy drinking and laughing with his friends, my kids were all over the damn place and I had this young child's quiet adult-like behavior keeping my head busy with thoughts like:  WHO ARE HIS PARENTS?!?  Clearly, by the looks of things, the boy was not the natural off-spring of any of the four adults acting like family, so how did he fit-in, and would that become a problem for him later in life?  [This is why people don't like to talk to me because the long-term effects and consequences of Child Placement taint every conversation of mine!] 

Lucky for me, alienation is nothing new, but it's not at all a fun welcoming feeling to be left alone with my thoughts and empty conversations, either.

Yesterday was the last time I saw that little boy.  He was walking between the two younger women, and they were both holding his hand.  I know when my kids hold my hand, they look at me frequently, and don't stop their incessant conversations.  When I watched the little boy pass, I noticed the very quiet and serious look on his face, and how it didn't match the women's animated conversation.  I felt sad, in that kindred-kind-of-spirit sorta way, but then I realized my mind was doing over-time with this family on vacation.  I'm the first to admit sometimes I take things with kids and looks of loneliness far too seriously.

I had no intention of mentioning my little OCD distraction in Cancun, but I saw an article in Newsweek earlier today, "If Our Son Is Happy, What Else Matters?", and I felt like someone had to mention the simple fact that adult happiness is not at all the same as a child's ability to experience peace and laughter, no matter how great the situation may seem to strangers.  I think unresolved grief over the loss of parents and blood-family goes far deeper than most are willing to discuss, and for the sake of today's children being purchased through orphanages, I think it behooves us Adult Adoptees to admit happiness is a learned trait many adopted children learn to fake.