The life of an adoptive parent is really simply the life of any parent. Adoptive or not, we are all joined by the fact that the parenting lifestyle can be hectic, but oh so worth it! It is easy to think from media portrayals that adoptive parents are somehow cut from a different cloth or follow a different set of rules. However, parenting is parenting is parenting. No parent is perfect, including adoptive parents. We are all just trying to get by some days while thriving in others and, as any good parent attests, recognizing the blessing that children can be.
I have five children. FIVE CHILDREN. I’m really just over here drowning in children. We aren’t the Duggars, but sometimes it feels like that mini bus would be a good life decision. My eldest is my step-son, my two middle boys biological, and my youngest two, a boy and girl, were adopted. The adjustment for each required equal amounts of love, time, patience, and coffee. Once the paperwork is done and the ink has dried on the finalization, there is really no “adoptive parent lifestyle.” It is simply a parent lifestyle.
It does not go without saying that you will encounter situations that a strictly biological family would not, such as the relationship dynamics of an open adoption or questions that you wouldn’t encounter otherwise. There may be cultural and racial differences to nurture. If you adopted an older child, the bonding may certainly look different than it would had a child been yours biologically or since birth. These things, however, do not affect the lifestyle. I have a shirt that reads, “I didn’t choose the Mom Life, the Mom Life chose me.” which I find ironic as adoptive parents LITERALLY CHOSE the “Mom Life!” It does however state my feelings on the lifestyle of a parent. A parent, a nurturer, a guardian, we are all part of the parent lifestyle of loving our kids, dealing with the day to day, and trying to make it go by a little slower.
Lita Jordan is a master of all things “home.” A work-from-home, stay-at-home, homeschooling mother of five, she has a BA in Youth Ministry from Spring Arbor University. She is married to the “other Michael Jordan” and lives on coffee and its unrealistic promises of productivity. Lita enjoys playing guitar and long trips to Target. Follow her on Facebook.