Monday, September 28, 2009
AMEN!!
Many people celebrate their "gotcha, metcha, family day" We do not. Our reasons are that kids celebrate birthdays....not gotcha days. Really do you celebrate your bio kids "positive pregnancy test day" or "the night dad got lucky"??? Ok....I am being a little snarky but you get my point. I read a post once about a little boy adopted from Russia. He had brothers and sisters who were the bio kids of his adoptive parents. He hated celebrating gotcha day because it reminded him that he was adopted and not like his brothers and sisters. Made sense to us. Hop on over to here and read a better stated point on gotcha day.
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13 comments:
Thanks for chiming in Maryellen! I was nervous about writing this post, but after speaking with several adlut adoptees and how negatively they felt about it, I went ahead.
Love your blog!
Judy
Hmmm.... thanks for making me think.
Thank you for making me think too..
Love this post...
My word verification :mismind
I totally understand your reasons for not celebrating forever family day. It's definitely a personal choice. And definitely valid one.
I do celebrate our family day anniversary. It is the anniversary of the day that I first ever held my child in my arms. For me (and hopefully for her), it is a very happy occasion. But if Bri ever tells me differently, then I will observe (or not observe) the day as she sees fit.
Hmmmm, interesting point. We do have a small celebration on our girls' family days, usually with a special meal, but we save the gift-giving for birthdays. Maybe as they get older they'll feel differently, but my girls, especially my oldest who remembers every moment of that day, really enjoy celebrating and sharing those memories. Our trips to China are part of normal everyday conversation around here (again, especially for my oldest who was 5 1/2 when we adopted her), so I can't imagine not recognizing the days we met them.
For our family, I don't really see those celebrations as me "reminding" them that they're adopted given that they talk freely about China and about how we became a family on a daily basis. I guess I'll just have to follow their lead on this as they get older...
Very interesting food for thought, thanks for sharing!
Amen! Though I'm all about a celebration, we won't be doing it at the expense of making our adoptive daughter feel 'adopted' year after year. It's a day that will forever be special to me, but my daughter was to young to understand that moment in time and quite frankly, I want her to grow up feeling as though she is just like my 3 bio children. My life is not about adoption, it's about family.
Maryellen.. we are taking this same concept I think. I post about our two years together but we don't celebrate with cake and ice cream etc the way I've seen others do. Infact, this year, we were moving Sarah into her new apartment on "family day". I all honesty, the blog is really the only place I post our "happy family day". more for me to remember than to ever remind Maddy. :0) We did take her out to her favorite Chinese Buffet but this is something we do often so I don't think it makes it truly "special" :0)
My boys are adopted from Korea and I have to say the first couple years I might have said today is the day the "stork plane" brought you to us..I can honestly say (sadly enough) I never think about it anymore..I know we got my youngest in the middle of Oct and the oldest in February but I could not tell you the actual date anymore. I never thought then I would forget but life with a 16 and a 12 year old then make you forget EVERYTHING!! (I know you understand:)
This is why I enjoy reading blogs of other IA parents. Your post really made me think. Our daughter has an older brother, JJ's and SS's birthdays are in March, within six days of each other (and both born in the year of the pig, hee hee.). The last thing we would ever want to do is make SS feel singled out in a manner that makes her feel less ours than her brother.
I can understand why blended families may not want to celebrate Forever Family Day. However it is a special day for us. As a single mom of one adopted child we don't have many anniversaries to celebrate. We dress up and go out to a special family dinner together. After reading your post I will let her decide in the future how she feels about this.
Hmmm I never thought of it that way. We brought our daughter home in Jan. 09. So we are approaching our 1st gotcha day. I planned on celebrating but not so sure anymore. Thanks for your post. By the way I found your blog through another adoption blog. I'm glad I found it.
Many Blessings,
Deanna
We don't either. We thought about it and remembered good times in China, but we did not mark the day with a celebration. Every day is a celebration around here, so it seems like overkill.
i haven't decided but never thought much about it- and for us, meeting day was incredibly hard on her and she is older and hasn't forgotten that. when she meets friends of mine now (especially if there are 3 or more) she gets sad and leans into me and starts to cry- thinking she's going to be "handed off" to someone new. i will always cherish our coming together, despite how difficult it was- but making a point to celebrate that day? hmmmmm- not sure. like maia said, everyday around here should and i hope will be a celebration for us.
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