3 Perspectives on Biology

In honor of November being National Adoption Awareness month, 

here are three perspectives on the same topic:  

B I O L O G Y ~ bi·ol·o·gy /bīˈäləjē/ 

from all three sides of the adoption triad:

- the adoptee - the birth family - the adoptive family -

because adoption cannot exist without each voice

in the complicated, messy, beautiful, hard, life-long relationship it is

1. From an adoptee - 

In recent years, #Biology has occupied a different set of thoughts. I’ve always thought of Biology when filling out family medical histories, during the DNA unit in Sophomore bio, and I always notice the traits my friends have from their parents. But recently I had the realization that I’ve never looked into the eyes of somebody who’s shared the same DNA with me...I’ve never been able to look at somebody & know where I got my height, my nose. I couldn’t guess my height based off of how tall my parents were. I could be blind sided one day when I find out I’m pregnant with triplets because I don’t know if it runs in my genes or not 🤪. 

People often say “Biology Doesn’t Matter”

But it does... Biology IS important, but it isn’t more important. When you adopt us, you also adopt our Biology, our birth families should become an extension of your family, because they’re our family. Let our Biology be apart of us. Let us know our bio families( when possible), let us see our bio families (when possible) because trust me we’ll long for them & think of them always. 

If they’re 3 hours away, try & make it a monthly thing, if they’re 3 days away, make it an annual thing. But please please don’t keep it from us. 

I love my birth family equally as much as I love my family. I so wish that they could both have an equal presence in my life. 💕 

Biology doesn’t matter in regards to love, but that doesn’t mean we should forget it.
@kiana.bosman

2. From a birth mother -

I am a word person, always have been, which has only increased tenfold, the older and wiser I become and realize how little I really know. 🤷🏼‍♀️ A little word lesson for the day: Biology comes from the Greek words ‘bios (life)’ and ‘logos (study)’. So, when you are discussing biology, the study of life, it’s only fitting that you would have to address the creation of life in order to study it. We all know that it takes two people to create a person. And those two people can be known or not known to the person made up by them. But the very fabric of their, of your, identity, is made up of those two people, as well as each person biologically linked to those people down the line. Think about that for a second. That. Is. Powerful. We are each made up of not only thousands of years of dna, but also of new, individual cells, unique to only each of us individually. When I think of humanity from that perspective, it brings tears to my eyes. We are all the same, but so vastly different, but the main basis is, we are all connected, somewhere, to more than one someone, whether we meet them in our lifetimes or not.

Biology matters, y’all. It matters so incredibly much, and yes, there is love, and that is so crucial, and yes, there is the parenting and raising of children into adults and through adulthood, in that love, which is essential. But biology should absolutely never be discounted, ignored or placed on a back burner. It is the foundation of who someone is. Hiding any part of that from an adoptee, in any way, shape, or form, can end up causing far more damage than love given to excuse it can heal. If biology is unknown, and wants to be known, what steps can you take to help someone in that who wants answers? Even if it’s your own child and those questions may stir deep insecurity or trigger you or make you uncomfortable?

There was an extremely important moment, for me, in the show This Is Us, this past week, where Jack, the white adoptive father said to his black adopted son, Randall, that when he looks at him he doesn’t see color, to which Randall responded that meant he didn’t see him. 

Let’s even set aside, for a moment, how incredibly powerful that being talked about will be for hopefully further opening the discussion of such in transracial adoption, and just see how invaluable it is for someone’s identity when we truly choose to SEE them. And, in order to truly see people, we have to be willing to see all of them, that includes where they come from, who makes them up and the biology that is innately part of who they are. Honor that biology, even when it’s difficult to do so, even when hard, age appropriate conversations end up having to take place; each person’s biology deserves to be celebrated because it makes them uniquely themselves, someone no one else on earth or beyond will ever be again, the incredibly intricate, not remotely random or coincidental, combination of cells that compile each individually created human.

 @adoptioneducationkeys

3. From an adoptive mother - 

There is something so heart-achingly beautiful in knowing that when my boys look into the faces of their birth mothers, their souls are getting a sense of belonging that they don't get in the same way when they look at me.

There is something uncomfortable in knowing that your own children understand that they don't share what most kids share with their parents--their looks. Those kids have something tangible and genetic that says "I belong to you" that my boys and I don't share and it takes work to bridge that gap to the less obvious ways we belong to each other.

To be able to look into someone's face and see yourself staring back at you secures for many of us a sense of belonging that we easily look over. I know my family biology is something I always took for granted before realizing I wouldn't be sharing my DNA with my kids.

In my heart of hearts I know that where we belong in this world is not just a function of the blood in our veins, it’s a choice. Belonging, acceptance, connection—This is a gift we give each other.

But the more I look at life through the eyes of my kids, the more I see how important it is to make space for the truth that their DNA and genetic codes connect them to who they are in ways that love alone cannot do.

Love makes a family and DNA makes a family. Both truths can and should exist together in the same heart.

As his mother I can still give my child the gift of DNA. Even though it won't be mine, I can offer him the freedom of loving and knowing his biological family. To let him travel straight into their resembling faces at all of the “might have beens” for as long as he needs, knowing I’ll still be right here when he returns. 
@born.from.my.heart