“if you want to adopt kids at an older age, that’s just lazy and you’ll miss the important developmental years. you won’t be able to connect.” okay but consider this:
1. I will not be able to handle a baby, but I will definitely be able to manage and guide an older child
2. no diapers. hallelujah
3. As a foster child gets older, their chance of adoption plummets. Adopting an older child gives a late break to someone who would have otherwise had to age out of the system
4. my plans for adoption are none of your concern
Holy shit people actually say that? Inviting a kid in need to be part of your family is ‘lazy’?
Being there for the ‘developmental years’ is so important not having it is a dealbreaker?
‘You won’t be able to connect’ with another human being unless you’re there for their formative years, imprinting on them?
…people who make that argument should probably do a LOT of soulsearching before they consider getting a toy baby adopting a younger child.
I had a sociology professor once and both he and his wife were registered social workers (in addition to him teaching), and after a couple of years married, they started talking about adopting a child. They’d seen the system up close, they knew how hard it was for some kids to get adopted. So when they sat down to start the fostering process, they told the agency to give them their toughest, most difficult case. If anyone could handle a kid who’d been labeled a “problem child”, it was these two people.
The agency paired them up with a 12 year old girl – the oldest they had, far, far too old to be considered for adoption typically. This girl’s birth parents had had drug problems, she’d been in and out of a couple dozen foster homes, no one able to handle her, she ran away frequently and had diagnosed behavioral problems, she was surly and defiant. When she first met them, she was clammed up tight, snarky, unwilling to trust them or anyone – and really, who could blame her?
But these two adults poured every bit of their compassion and training into this one child, into getting to know her, earning her trust by listening to her and treating her like a person who mattered. And slowly, slowly, she came around. Slowly, they built a relationship with her, and she came out of her shell. It wasn’t always smooth sailing, but having these two adults who were utterly unwilling to give up on her, or see her as the problem, let them work through each issue as it arose, and slowly they started to see this other side of her personality emerge. She joked around, she grinned often, she got excited about sports games and yelled at the tv with her foster father, she was making friends at her new school and doing better in her studies.
One day they sat her down and told her they loved her and they wanted her to legally, officially be part of their family. But they thought she deserved a say, too. If she just wanted to be fostered for the next five, six years, they could do that too. But they wanted to adopt her, they wanted to keep her for always. Did she want them? Yes, she said. Yes, I want to keep you, too.
My professor came into class one day with a grin that just would not go away, bouncing on his toes. We all wanted to know what was up. The adoption was finalized today, he told us. Today I have a daughter! And he showed us pictures of his brand new 12 year old daughter hugged between he and his wife, the three of them grinning at the camera. I’ve been her dad for awhile, he told us, but today it’s official, today we’re finally really a family.
I heard that story in the spring of 2001, when I was 20. This girl just 8 years younger than me, the age of my younger siblings, this girl who everyone had given up on. But these two people, they knew they had enough love and training to handle whatever was thrown their way, these people stayed true to the commitment of being parents, didn’t give up when the going got tough, proved slowly and methodically that they loved her, that she could trust them.
That girl must be in her late 20s now. She’s had parents for more than a decade and a half. She hasn’t had to face this scary century alone. She has parents who went with her to her freshman orientation for college, I’m certain of it. If she’s gotten married, I know her father walked her down the aisle, that same grin splitting his face, the same grin as when he announced that he had a daughter, the same grin he wore every time he talked about her. If she’s had kids, her kids have the best grandparents.
They are a family of choice built on commitment and trust and love. You can’t tell me that isn’t bonding, you cannot tell me that it’s lazy, that that was somehow easier or less worthwhile than diapers.
i hate the trope of kids giving their favorite stuffed animal to a younger child as a sign of compassion and coming of age, as if this is something that should be expected of kids as they grow up
im 22 and i dont care who you are you’ll have to pry my ikea shark out of my cold dead hands
I can’t remember the name of the study, but there was a theory, supported by pretty good evidence, that if you have your comforter, be it blanket, plush, pacifier, whatever, taken away when you’re not ready to give it up, even if you’re a dinky little kid, it can have really long lasting effects. People who kept their comforters into adulthood were less likely to smoke, drink or do drugs, tended to have better family relations and home lives etc, while those that saw their comforter removed or destroyed were more likely to be drawn to more serious “comforts” elsewhere. The more extreme the removal, the more extreme the result. Typically.
We learn at our own pace to make and break connections and emotional ties, and the situation is forced upon us, we seek comfort. But whoa wait, you can’t possibly have comfort anymore, you’re five. You’re a big kid now.
So when parents are forcing you to “grow up” by tearing the only comfort in the world from you, they could actually be messing you up big time.
In psychology they’re called “transitional objects” and they help the neurobiological process of helping children learn to internalize the experience of being loved and cared for, which is an essential part of learning to regulate your emotions. They are REALLY important.
I wonder what it means psychologically that I’ve started getting a few more for myself?
Well, there’s a process we call “re-parenting yourself” where you give yourself the love you missed out on in childhood, and thereby start to heal the pain you’ve carried since then. And using childhood comfort objects can be part of that.
Oh..
Oh my god…
In the year of the lord 2018 our grown asses start healing.
This makes me feel less bad for being an adult that still sleeps with a teddy bear. My parents tease me about it but they never took any comfort items away from me.
I love the huge cultural differences in Space Marvel™… Asgardians like speak in iambic pentameter and use beatiful, eloquent words and then the guardians are like “y’all’d’nt’ve’f’i’dn’ve!”
Loki: our cruel and terrible sister, Hela, Goddess of Death, emerged from the unknown and brought upon our land a storm of suffering and chaos, the likes of which have never been previously known to civil creatures
Rocket: anyway this dickhead Taserface threw me in his pirate-ship prison cell lmao it was nasty
Valkyrie, Lady Sif: we are classically trained, elite, and highly effective warriors, who are equal parts dignified, celebrated, and feared
Nebula: lmao what if I cut off my own hand – oh my god I’m gonna do it, watch this
Thor: welcome to Asgard, the most beautiful and prosperous of all the nine realms!
Peter: here’s our ship, it’s tiny and disgusting but it’s all we have, we love it
Heimdall: Never before has an intruder slipped past me. I want to know how.
Drax: *laughing loudly w his head thrown back* If you kept your floors dry the intruder would not have slipped on his way past you!
Hela: Tremble before me, Asgard, as I usher in the dawning of a new age! We shall once again become the conquerors of the universe!
Groot: I am Groot.
One is a high fantasy book. The other is a dnd game
Astronaut bird 