What We Learned at Conference

Halleluiah, we are back home again! I survived an entire week in Kenya at a conference and am SO glad to be back to my house, dogs and new furniture. It was an interesting week full of new experiences for Ella and she made even more progress in her “development into a normal person” that we’ve been working on. Praise the Lord that my mom was there, otherwise I’m sure that Ella would have digressed quite a bit. Mom is SO good with her and understands exactly where we’re coming from.

I also had some “new” experiences as a new adoptive, single parent of a transracial child. Many people are super thrilled for us both (thank you to those people!), some are downright hostile (shame on you folks – you’re ignorant losers!), it’s so weird to some that they just ignore both Ella and me (whatever – your type are easy to deal with cuz I’ll just ignore you back!) and others have the attitude, “she’s cute! Gonna keep her?” (again – you are an ignorant loser –this is my DAUGHTER, NOT a new dog or kitten, but at least you’re not hostile about it…). And I need to learn to deal with them all (in a godly and mature manner of course. Probably not with sarcastic wit ;).

What Ella Learned:

Ella is learning how to control herself and function in a controlled, appropriate way. There were a lot of other, “normal” 3 year olds there and it was really evident to my mom and me that Ella is just not “there” emotionally or developmentally. And why should she be? These kids have had parents and other siblings to help teach them to make decisions and behave appropriately their entire babyhoods. Ella has not. She has had no one, until now, to help her “buffer her stress” (term I learned from one of my many adoption books) so she gets really overwhelmed and just freaks out. It is therefore, my and my moms job to help Ella take control of herself and deal with the “stress” of new, fun things by helping her to calm down before she freaks out.

Even to a moron like myself it was glaringly obvious that I couldn’t plunk my 3 year old into the 3 year old class with all the other 3 year olds and expect her to be able to function like them. My books tell me to set my child up to succeed so in order to do this I put her in the “baby class” – infants to 2 year olds. I’m so glad that I did this! Her Granny stayed with her otherwise she would have been controlling the soft hearted child care workers from Northern Ireland. She does NOT like the pressure of controlling adults and it makes her unhappy but she just can’t help but doing it. It’s sad. The child care workers thought that Mom and I were total bitches because all they could see was a little girl having fun, then Mom or I coming and squelching it.

Parenting an older adopted child is SO DIFFERENT than parenting a child you’ve had since they were infants. High structure, high nurture is the method most advocated and trust me, IT WORKS. Unfortunately, “high structure” looks to others, and sometimes even feels to myself, like overly excessive control of a child but after living with Ella for 4 months, it is exactly what she needs and what makes her feel the safest. An example of this is when she would play with bubbles. The stimulation and uncontrolled nature of the event was just too much for her. She would start to “freak out” over bubbles and Mom would just grab her and hold her until she could pull herself together . This would of course cause her to cry (causing others to shoot reproachful looks at the joy killing Granny and sympathetic ones to the poor little child who was just having fun) and fight, then cling to her Granny. But this would give her some time to collect herself, then she could continue to play. Other children, especially her age, are mature enough that they can simply have fun with bubbles and they don’t make them flip out with hysterical excitement. Ella does NOT like losing control of herself like this (it makes her agitated and unhappy which makes her want to control YOU because she is out of control herself – vicious cycle) so even though she does nothing wrong, needs to be stopped and helped get herself under control again. PEOPLE DO NOT COMPREHEND THIS, which makes me SO THANKFUL that my Mom does! I am not trying to be a hard or mean parent. I have nothing against bubbles or my child getting excited and having fun. IT’S FOR HER OWN GOOD and I know my daughter better than anyone else does!
Just letting your child “have fun and explore” also does not work with a child like Ella. It’s not fair because she’s not emotionally capable of it, just like a younger baby isn’t. But most people do not realize this and think that because she was in an institution for three years she needs to catch up on her fun and exploration. BUT SHE’S NOT READY FOR IT. And Ella is an EASY child – the difficulties she has are so common to older adopted children and are not extreme at all. My fear of others misunderstanding me is just a sign of my own immaturity and is something that I am continually working on…


Another interesting reaction that Ella had at the beginning of the week to me abandoning her (even if it was with her Granny) is that every time I would come back to get her she would start to cry (didn’t want to come with me), then get a strangle hold on my neck, sobbing. Now this really makes you feel loved, but rather than take it too personally I would just get her and hold her until she could pull herself together. A couple of times she almost bit my neck – not because she’s a mean child AT ALL but because I think she was just frustrated. “Don’t bite Mommy!” is not something that I heard the other mothers telling their children… ;) We (me, my mom and neighbor, Kathryn) think that this reaction was just like we get when we are waiting for someone to come home and are getting a little worried about them. By the time they show up we’re mad at them for being late or worrying us. Makes sense when you think of it that way, only I’ve never been tempted to bite someone on the neck before, no matter how long I waited for them to come home!

Anyway, all of that to say that my Mom was able to help Ella and by the end of the week L was able to function like a normal 18 or 20 month old kid. Not bad! Not to mention that she can function like a NICE 18 or 20 month old kid who can talk really well, is potty trained and is just as stinking cute as can be J. She is a VERY easy child to fall in love with and was the favorite in the nursery.


What Ella’s Mom Learned:

Obviously I learned a lot about my daughter (above). I was also given a taste of what it’s going to be like to be the single mother of a black daughter in a Christian, missionary community.

Being a “missionary” is not easy I’m finding. It’s not about living in a different culture on a different continent that’s difficult, it’s learning how to fit in with the other missionaries, especially the ones in this organization. It’s like a whole different culture with different cliques and unwritten rules on roles and behaviors that are expected of certain groups of people. These range from organization to organization – they are each different. In the branch of my organization the term “family” means a mom (whose sole job is usually to stay home with the kids and cook for the husband), a dad and several children, all who are the same race (Mom + Dad + Children-who-look-like-them = Family). Single women usually live with another single woman or with a missionary family (as described above) and work all the time. Work is WHO THEY ARE. They are not expected to lead normal lives within the community although making friends with other missionaries in other organizations is sometimes acceptable. As is having a few token “national” friends. Transracial marriages are NOT common and often looked upon with suspicion and/or raised eyebrows.

Then throw a happily single Grace and her Ugandan daughter in tow, into the mix. Throw a highly sensitive single Grace and her new daughter into the mix for a week and imagine the kind of week that she had J. Imagine the variety of reactions that they got. Imagine the hurt when the picture of Grace’s precious little daughter was CUT OUT OF THEIR FAMILY PHOTO that Grace had sent in for the poster of all the families in the branch. Grace’s family does not equal Dad +Mom+ Children-who-look-like-them so it is not seen as a “real” family I guess L. It was a real eye opener into the many different views that people (yes, Christian people) have of adoption, race, and families.

It also made me start some preplanning into how I’m going to help Ella deal with things like this as she gets older and begins to notice. My first reaction is to simply keep her away from people who think and act these ways but that is not practical, nor is it real life. I have determined that I will use such people and situations as good examples of “bad examples” of people who are not Christ-like and see people or families only for how they look, not for who they are. Also, how it hurts when we are judged for being “different” and not to do it to others!

The diverse nature of our friends and their families will hopefully be a good example to Ella on how diverse God makes people and families. He loves diversity and we don’t have to feel weird because we are not part of a Dad + Mom + Kids-who-look-like-them family. We are in good company. Our life here in Entebbe is made up of all kinds of different types of friends and families. White couples, black couples, our good friends and neighbors, Gift and Kathryn, who are a transracial couple and expecting their first baby in September, single mothers – some with kids who look like them (Ugandan) and some who don’t (Lisa and her kids, us), and white couples with both white and black kids. No single fathers or black singles/couples with white kids yet J. Must find a white baby for my friend Prossy to adopt…

Many people did express their congratulations and support of our family at conference and it was neat to see the people who did. My favorite was a single gal in her 60’s who had been a single missionary her entire life. She congratulated me and/or mom over Ella just about every time she saw us! It was sweet.