Nine months is not enough time to heal from so many losses
By Shauna Major
I am three months into my adoption probation, and my children—aged four and two—and I barely know each other. To look at our situation from the perspective of the kids: they were brought to a near-stranger’s home, in a totally unfamiliar city and expected just to get on with their lives—as if they hadn’t just lost all the people and places they knew before. How could they act like any other kids their age under those circumstances?
The truth is, nothing about what they’re going through right now is normal. I try to normalize their lives with routines; I try to be patient and work through all their issues of trauma, loss and neglect. But the thing is, I’m trying to do all of this in nine short months, because after that, this single mom has to go back to work.
Being able to stay home allows me to grieve alongside my children, because I feel their trauma, every moment I spend with them. The thought of having to return to work in less than a year, while my children are still struggling to get to know a stranger, who they now call Mom, causes me such anxiety that even now, with six months to go, I am worried.
I worked while caring for traumatized children for three years as a foster mom, and I burned out. I know how hard it is to meet the needs of both an employer and of kids who are adjusting to multiple life changes and trying to learn to trust.
Adoptive parents need a longer parental leave—at least as much time as biological parents have with their children—because the barriers we have to overcome so our children can attach are far greater. Our children are healing from things they went through before, we even knew them.
The opinions expressed in blogs posted reflect their author and do not represent any official stance of Adopt4Life. We respect the diversity of opinions within the adoption, kinship and customary care community and hope that these posts will stimulate meaningful conversations. Our #timetoattach campaign continues with the aim to adapt public policy to introduce 15 weeks of parental leave (attachment leave) for adoptive parents and kin and customary caregivers. As we, along with Western University and the Adoption Council of Canada, have worked to bring awareness to this important support required for families and children, it has been so important to share the real experiences of parents and their children as they sought to form healthy and lasting attachments. Find out how to share your story.