I asked this question to my best friend Stacy. She is the mom of 2 gorgeous kids that were adopted from Guatamala. Stacy has been my best friend for over 20 years. She blogs about her family and their daily happenings at The Falone Family. She was recentlytelling me about another family, The Riggs Family and the terrible situation they are in right now. Their daughter has cancer and they are documenting the journey online. A nasty comment was made on their blog and it got us talking about other people’s views in adoption and being a parent. Here is Stacy’s answer to that question.
I did not feel my children move inside of me, I did not go into labor and feel the pain of delivering them. I did not feel the emotion that must be felt the first time you hold your child minutes after they are born. But I did fall in love with the idea of them first, then I fell in love with their pictures, then I was lucky enough to meet my children, to hold them and smell them and to know their cries and see their smiles and the love was immense after that.
Of course I can say I am a parent because I am there in the middle of the night with cries, fevers, illness, I have experienced many sleepless nights. I am there to provide and care for my children. I am there to teach right from wrong. I want only the best for my children. I want them to succeed, to be happy, to have wonderful lives. I pray for them to be healthy and to grow to be loving, caring, kind people. So I guess you can say I want what every parent wants for their children.
I can state every cliché out there. I would take the pain from my children, I would jump in front of a speeding car for them. I stay up some nights and worry that I wasn’t a good enough parent that day because maybe I was to harsh, or didn’t have enough patience with them, that I was maybe a bit to preoccupied with email, tv, the phone, that I did not spend enough quality time with them. So I guess what I am is saying that there are hundred’s of reasons why I can consider myself a parent but the most important reason to me is that I am a parent because I love my children with every fiber of my being and it is love that connects and bonds me to my children.”
