While reading some posts in the Considering Your Options forum, I came across an interesting quote by an adoptive mother. I'll just throw it out here right off the bat:

I think if someone is on the road to adoption, through foster or privately, they have patience. I think that would be a given.

I will admit to laughing out loud. To be fair to this adoptive mother, she was responding to another forum post in which the advice given basically said to push the limits and test the potential adoptive family by "acting obnoxious" to see if they would act or react in an appropriate manner. Let me tell you: that's not the way to go. Don't do it. It's silly.

But the advice telling all expectant parents considering relinquishment that all adoptive parents are always patient is, in essence, just as ridiculous.

Here are the facts as they stand: Adoptive parents are human. They will lose their patience. They will lose their patience with each other in a relationship. They will lose their patience with their child. They will lose their patience with their child's birth parent. They will lose their patience with work. With in laws. With society as a whole. No one on this Earth is wholly patient in every situation thrown at them. Expecting adoptive parents to be patient at all times just because they've been through a long and arduous waiting process in order to build their family is not only an unfair expectation of them but it is unfair for birth parents to assume that their child's parents will always be patient.

Adoptive parents are not saints. They're going to make mistakes. And sometimes those mistakes will involve how they communicate with you. The good news is that you, too, are not a saint. You are going to make mistakes. And sometimes those mistakes will involve how you communicate with your child's adoptive parents. If both parties keep that information in mind and they are counseled to such a realization, problems that arise won't become immovable mountains. Instead they will just be minor speed bumps along the way.

And so, in short: don't forget that any family you are considering placing your child with will be a human family. Treat them with the respect that you wish to receive.



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