Musings

I want to share with you a poem that was included in a packet of information from our adoption agency.  It speaks volumes to the goodness of adoption, and the broad spectrum of what it means to be a parent.

You cannot change the truth. 

These are your children, 

but they came from somewhere else. 

And they are the children of those places 

and of those people as well. 

Help them to know about their past

and about their present. 

Help them to know that they are from extended families, 

that they have only one...set of parents, 

but that they have more mothers and fathers. 

They have grandmothers, Godmothers, birth mothers, mother countries, mother earth. 

They have grandfathers, Godfathers, birth fathers, and fatherlands. 

They have family by birth and by adoption. 

They have family by choice and by chance. 

Childhood is short; 

They are our children to raise

They are our children to love; 

and then they are citizens of the world. 

What we do to them creates the world that we live in. 

Give them life. 

Give them their truth. 

Give them love. 

Give them all that they came with. 

Give them all that they grow with. 

Your children do not belong to you, 

but they belong with you. 

You cannot keep them from what is theirs, 

but you can keep loving them. 

You do not own your children, 

but they are your own. 

--Joyce Maguire Pavo

Taylor and I are blessed with so many children in our lives.  In many ways, we are parents to all of them--from the teeniest baby we hold to the grad students we have over for dinner.  Not that we are raising them, of course, but in opening our marriage to Love, we have to invite people in.  Those people are like children to us, if our marriage can be of some good for them in their lives.  

Here's to parenting, in all it's many and varied forms :)