TRUE STORIES // It's Not "Us vs. Them"

TRUE STORIES is a guest post series sharing honestly about adoption and foster care. My hope is to create a culture of support for the adoption/foster community.  If you would like to share your story, click here. Today’s post is written by Danny Remchuk.

I would be lying if I didn't say that adoption was every emotion rolled into one. It is funny, heartbreaking, sad, depressing, and exhilarating all at once. I thought about this post...should I talk about the time we were at the grocery store and someone said we must be on welfare because we have a black child? Should I talk about the family member who said, upon learning we were adopting from an African nation, "Why'd you have to go and pick a black one"? Do I talk about the funny mistakes we made as first time parents? I've decided to talk about something that is not often mentioned but should be.

I should start this with the fact that I am adopted (right from the hospital) and my wife is adopted as well (from medical foster care). I am also employed as an Adoption Specialist working with families through the system who are adopting and walking them through the process.

I'd like to stop the "us versus them" mentality that often runs through adoptive families. Our existence is not to try to make ourselves the same as biological families, no matter what the "adoption experts" try to tell us. We have adopted...that is different than having children biologically...therefore WE ARE DIFFERENT.

Yes...people are going to make us "prove" we are the parents of our children...ESPECIALLY if they are of a different race or look totally different. It happened with my parents (which is why my Mom dyed her hair red...she got sick of it), it happened with my in-laws, and it has happened with us. We have had to produce our court orders in MANY places: passport offices, social security, schools, doctors offices, surgical centers, hospitals. This does not bother me and maybe it's because we went through the same thing. Seriously...when our court order came through I thought about having it printed on a shirt and wearing it OR getting thousands of copies and having a tickertape parade with it!

We will be treated differently. Why? Because WE. ARE. DIFFERENT. If adoption (international or domestic) were normal...EVERYONE would do it. It is ok to be different? Don't we teach this to our children? Don't we celebrate differences? Why not celebrate this?

I once saw a Facebook post about how adoptive families should be equal to biological families and we should militantly protest until it becomes so, and I thought it sounded absurd to me. I don't want to be the SAME. I don't want to be NORMAL. I was CHOSEN by my parents; my wife was CHOSEN by her parents; our son was CHOSEN by us. He needs to know that; we needed to know it; and we should CELEBRATE it! Shout it from the rooftops! My faith requires a step higher...GOD ORDAINED ALL OF THIS...my placement, my wife's placement, and our son's placement with us. If that's not a reason to celebrate it...I don't know what is.

So yes, we will have to show court orders; we will have to prove our children are our children; but I say BRING. IT. ON. Ask me for my court orders? I dare you! Ask me for his passport? WITH PRIDE! People will wonder if he's really ours, but we know the truth. We celebrate the truth. We celebrate being DIFFERENT.

I say the same thing to my families now. Explore the differences, celebrate them, make your children feel special. Our parents were GREAT at this...I just pray we will be as well.
Now, pardon me while I fill out an order form for MORE certified copies of our son's court order! YAHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Would you like to contribute your own adoption/foster story? 

It can be humorous, heart warming or an honest struggle. 

Submit your story here.