Real Life Help for Adoptive Parents

HIGH HOPES 

Jon and Robin Hitt married in their early 20’s and waited a few years to have a family. For some unknown reason, Robin wasn’t able to conceive. Both were checked by a doctor, and in time they tried infertility treatments – but still they had no baby for years. Though Jon was open to the idea of adoption, Robin was not. She had always hoped to have Jon’s children, and doubted she could love another child as her own.  

Eventually, after ten years of unfulfilled hopes, and feeling shamed by infertility, Robin changed her mind on a mission trip. As a registered nurse, she went to the Dominican Republic to serve in a medical clinic, and a little boy there stole her heart. “Our eyes met, and he smiled the biggest white-toothed smile I’d ever seen. I said to him, ‘I could take you home in a New-York minute and love you until the day I die.’ And then I knew. No matter what our obstacles were, I wanted to be a parent. I knew I could love another’s child, and it would be easy to do so.” Soon they started the process.  

“Adoptive parents are an army,” Robin says. “Currently, there are roughly 100 million Americans who have adoption in their immediate family, whether this includes adopting, placing, or being adopted.” In the early 90’s, the Hitts were thrilled to adopt a little girl. “We were so enchanted with this little life. I stared at her in her crib for lengthy periods because I didn’t want to miss one bit of her life.” Three years later, they adopted another baby. “I felt full to the brim – so completely content. I couldn’t imagine being any happier ever again.”  

With high hopes for a tight-knit family, Robin says their early years with the girls went very well. “We took trips together, read every day together, prayed together, and talked about the world around us.” When the girls reached junior high age, though, some issues started to emerge. “We noticed the usual angst associated with puberty. They were testy, sometimes a bit willful, and sometimes downright cantankerous. There was jealousy. Rivalry increased, as did sour attitudes toward each other. While this bothered me, I chalked it up to normal teenage development,” Robin explains.

One of the girls really tested her. “She was relentless in exerting her will, and I didn’t understand why. She would ask to go places she knew I wouldn’t want her to go.” After the girls had graduated from college, one of them entered a relationship with a young man that became a major problem for the family. “His manipulative and controlling behavior met the profile of an abuser. To date, this is the hardest thing our family has ever gone through in that it threatened our very existence and, we felt, her life.” When the Hitts intervened to save her, their actions were very unappreciated and the relationship with their daughter remained tenuous. Today, their relationships with their grown girls are very strong.     

THE DIFFERENCES

Years later, when Robin diligently studied adoption issues, she realized what had been going on in those earlier, troubled times. It all begins at birth with something called a “primal wound,” she says. “While in the womb, the child learns the birth mother’s tastes, smell, voice, and essence. When born, this child expects to meet this mother. Instead they are handed off to someone they’re unfamiliar with and the voice, the smell, and the taste are all different from that they experienced in the womb. The child is grieving but has no way of expressing it. The brain knows something happened and doesn’t have a way of telling anyone,” she says.  

Robin also learned that mistrust and hurt typically aren’t expressed by children until years later. “As young children, they are often obedient – the perfect children. But something happens as they near puberty. They frequently become argumentative and oppositional.” While admitting that many teens display this kind of behavior, there’s a different cause in adopted children. She explains that it comes from a deep sense of shame and the belief that they don’t belong or aren’t worthy of love; they see life through a lens of rejection. “They poke, prod, and push parents in ways that test their parents’ love because that’s exactly what they want to know. ‘Will you leave me too?’ Intellectually, the adoptees understand the difficult circumstances of their birth mom, but emotionally, they are unable to justify the reason they weren’t raised by them. It always gets back to the emotional belief that somehow their intrinsic worth is at stake. To know that we are at war with their lack of understanding of their intrinsic worth is first and foremost,” she emphasizes.   

Robin adds that adopted children who are under 40 years old today have some additional challenges. The first, she believes, is that American society decades ago had a “God-conscience,” a more commonly-accepted agreement on and adherence to Godly priniciples of right and wrong. Another factor, she says, is the rampant social media of our day, which fosters comparison in children.  

STRATEGIES FOR ADOPTIVE PARENTS    

Robin offers great hope and help for adoptive parents, those considering adoption, and even grandparents and other relatives of adopted kids, to better understand the dynamics at play. Some specific strategies she suggests for parents are:

•    Find community with other adoptive families. You need to be able to relate to and support each other, both parents and children. 

•    Practice self-compassion. Robin says 99% of adoptive parents feel like failures. She says they need to be kind to themselves and remind themselves of all their good parenting.

•    Get therapy for both children and parents with an adoption-savvy counselor. There are intricacies of the adoption dynamic and reactive attachment disorder (RAD) that both need to understand. 

•    Read good books on adoption, and view adoption-themed movies. Robin provides a list of resources in her book.  

Purchase Robin Hitt's book, "Open-Eyed Adoption," and find more resources on her website: robinhitt.com.