"Their Real Children": One of Many Choices in Phrasing That Makes me Uneasy

Truth be told...I'm kind of an unpleasant person, in a lot of ways. I mean, I'm polite, and try to please people because I do want others to be comfortable and happy around me, and I also can't stand contention (particularly when I know I'm wrong)...but some of it I know is just a pain. Case in point: I can be ridiculously particular.

Example: when I was 12, my 6th grade teacher had this August calendar on the wall.  The kind that each day of the month is pinned up individually? He never changed it, and it became kind of a funny joke.  And then I couldn't stand it one day in March, and changed it. Because I'm that person.

Or, I corrected a Biology teacher for his spelling in college once. Not to put him down and show my superiority, though he felt this was what I was meaning to do and immediately made me look stupid in front of the class for it. This bewildered me: I hadn't thought it through at all. I was just being accurate. It's wrong, let him know. Eh?

It's not OCD, it's not obsessive (I think)...but I do like things to be correct, as far as I understand them. Accurate. I don't know why, but I do. (Jori does, too, actually, but that's a different story.)

And one way this is definitely true is in people getting the appropriate credit they deserve. And me not getting credit I don't. (Not even in a humble way, honestly; for whatever reason, the prospect of being praised for things I didn't do makes me exceedingly uncomfortable. I'm all for credit when I did something, but when I didn't, I always have this image of the truth coming out and people, shocked, snapping their heads to look at me with shock and utter betrayal in their eyes...what the heck, Ariel's psyche.)

ANYWAY this is all to lead up to say, sometimes things people say bother me. (Don't stop talking, I don't want you to walk on eggshells with your choice of words around me...but I like reflecting, in an effort to be more considerate to people who might be different than me. That's all I'm going for, here.)

One of these is the phrasing people choose to use, in regards to adopted children or children who were raised by some that were not their biological parents.

I don't say this to discredit birth parents. Honestly, I've always been pro-life, but have also always been very pro-adoption. But it is true, with the more I learn about abortion, the less judgmental I become of the 17-year-old who decided to keep her baby. My first thought is often now "Thank you for not killing it while it was still inside of you," rather than "It would have been so much better off if you'd given it up for adoption." I truly can not imagine the agony it would be to grow this life inside of me, and then say good bye to it. It would be such a challenge.

So I try not to blame them for keeping it...and those who DO give it up, I see as heroes. Honest-to-goodness, incredible examples of Christ-like love. What a selfless act.

They will always be the birth parents. They deserve that recognition, that the life started with them.

BUT. Children can be absolutely, 100% 'yours,' even if you had nothing to do with their conception. And just because a pair of people were what began a child's life, does not make them the 'real' or 'actual' parents. No.

What makes a parent a parent is raising a child. This can be a grandparent, a set of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, strangers, even biological siblings. Where the baby came from does not make them any less a part of the family that they grow up in.

I know! This is dumb. I've used this phraseology myself. 'Real' or 'actual' parents. I probably will again, and soon. Call me out on it, if you so desire.

But when I DO think about it (as I tend to do, overthink things)...it seems like a discredit to the adoptive parents. Like their contribution is lessened, because they didn't grow the baby themselves.

I just think, these parents deserve so much credit and recognition, too! Bringing in a child to their home, to try to give it a better life than it may have otherwise had. Being responsible for the care and nurturing and...EVERYTHING, of that child. I'd say for 18 years, but as I'm about to turn 27 and my parents are still constantly taking care of me, I feel more comfortable saying it's forever.

Giving some the label of 'actual' parents, and it not going to the ones that are with that child through thick and thin...it just seems inappropriate, somehow.

Perhaps some of this is spurred by Sam's oldest sister and her husband in the process of adopting a down-syndrome baby from near Russia. Perhaps part of it is because I'm due with my third child in six weeks, and have been talking with the kids about how babies come into this world. It could also be because facebook-clicking lead me to a dear friend's ex-husband's account, and how he now has all these pictures up of him doing service in third world countries for orphans...but he was and is a terrible father to the children that he, biologically, fathered. I don't know.

But families can be created in a multitude of ways, and I think the ones who've given up the life they knew before to raise human beings in love, sure deserve a pat on the back. Y'all are awesome.

Oh, Sunday Morning...

Have you ever seen this? It's called "Sunday Morning."

This was pretty much us two weeks ago. I really do think 9:00 church is awesome, but apparently because we made it so easily the week before I underestimated how long we'd take that morning. 

It really made me realize what is essential and what is just...fuss, on a Sunday morning. Fancy hairstyle that takes half an hour for Jori? She was lucky it got in a ponytail. (If it did...I can't remember. We might have played the 'wavy' card, to justify the tangles.) German Pancakes, our usual Sunday morning tradition? Atticus had cereal, and Jori a banana and toast in the foyer of the church. Even somewhat coordinated clothing on our four-year-old? No time! I had to be glad she was in a dress! Sunday shirt? Apparently Atticus didn't think this was necessary, and even this we forewent to get over there. Atticus wore a too-small-for-him sweater jacket thing, bare chested underneath. Even walking to church, which we almost always do because we only live about a block away, was out. We drove. With the kids sitting on the floor of the van because I didn't want to strap them in for a block's drive and I'm dangerous.

We finally puffed in about seven minutes late, when they were singing the sacrament hymn. 

But. Even with all the chaos that reigned that morning, our later-than-it-needed-to-be-start, and late arrival...I couldn't help but feel so grateful to be there. So glad we made it in time to take the sacrament. Because we were so close to missing it, it made me all the more grateful for it. 

I often think of a story that you can read about in this talk,about Joseph F. Smith in a dream he had with the prophet Joseph Smith. In it there's the phrase "I'm late, but I'm clean! I'm clean!" 

Love that.