The Good Orphanage and Never Never Land!

It has been so interesting being a mother to all of my children but especially my 3 children from Africa because they constantly challenge me to look at things from a different perspective. I guess before going to Africa I had a very cinematic view of how children perceive their orphanage experience and their life in an "underdeveloped country" (using quotes because that is how many people will view Africa). All I can say is that I have learned that we place our judgment on their lives totally from a capitalistic vantage point. I believed that my kids would be extremely grateful and anxious to be taken out of their poverty and difficult surroundings and catapulted into a life of luxury and civility. But what I have learned is that my kids totally never viewed their life situation as poor or less than perfect. Even with their parents passing away they adjusted quite well to their orphanage and never thought their life before that was anything but great. For example, we were swimming in Florida and Grace was remembering her swimming experience in Africa very fondly ...she said they would wash their clothes in the water, the animals would be washed and they would swim. She said it was really fun. Now my mind automatically goes to the place of "EW but the animals could be going to the bathroom and you could get sick." But because she had never studied science and never been told about GERMS per se she only remembers the fun time swimming. Her Florida swimming experience in a fully chlorinated pool on the beach with inflated pool toys didn't necessarily rank higher than her Africa (pool hole) experience.

So, also recently we have noticed that Jared is just now starting to grieve and feel a sense of loss not of his mother, father or parents but of the orphanage that he lived at for 18months. Again, one would think "but now you have a family . Isn't that great?" If you were a 3 year old boy and slept in a room with 8 other 3 year old boys, were fed with those boys, played with 100 other kids everyday and got to run freely in a safe compound having a life situation where you have to make play dates can grow exhausting to you. We are tracked out from school for 3 weeks and Jared is constantly saying "i want to go back to etiopia and don't want family." He has been here a year and hasn't expressed his feelings like this. We ask what he misses and he says he misses the kids at Layla House and the pancakes and injera....So, the lesson learned and important info to impart to adoptive parents is to realize that what you perceive to be a 'better life" may take awhile to translate into their little hearts. Also, if we are being honest there were some amazing aspects of living in the countryside of Africa that they miss. They were able to just leave their house and come home by sunset. Not the case here. They could be outside all the time. Not the case here either. Every sunday all of the kids in the village would play while the families would create a sunday meal. We do the same but not to the same extent with an entire village of people...So, we are dealing with Jared's grief and likening it to Peter Pan in never never land. When Jared can't play with multitude of friends because they are busy he freaks out. When he has to abide by a rule or recognize that being in a family means having some responsibilities it isn't so easy.....still we know better that life in a place like never never land or in a good orphanage can also take its toll as you start to watch all of your friends move on to their forever families....He knows now that things at Layla are not the same as when he was there because the children are mostly in new homes in american and he wouldn't know the new kids. Still, he grieves for a little moment in time that he holds fondly as the first home he really really remembers and we are grateful that our agency Adoption Advocates International did such a good job in making our kids wish that their lives would always be about being surrounded by good friends living in a place inside 4 walls where the world couldn't cause them any more harm than they had already experienced..THANKS AAI...