A while back one of my fellow bloggers wrote a post about the "dreaded family tree assignment." (I cannot remember who, so please speak up so I can link to that post!) From what I remember (please correct me if I'm wrong - you know who you are!), that blogger said that although she knew that many adoptive parents objected an assignment that asked students to create a family tree or talk about their personal history, she didn't see what the big deal was. Her child would just create a family tree showing himself as part of the family, because that's what he was.

At the time, I thought: Yeah, why not? And if my son wanted to, he could also include his Russian family on it, too. What's the big deal?

Well, the conversation on EEAC's PEP listserv over the past couple of days has enlightened me. One mother wrote in and explained that her son had been given an assignment on Friday, due today (so no possibility of talking to the teacher) of filling out a poster called "I'm a Star!" (or something like that). In this pre-printed poster, it asked for baby pictures, information about where the child was born, early milestones, etc. etc. The woman's son was adopted as a toddler and did not have much of the information needed for the poster; in addition, he had been teased the year before about his adoption and didn't want to bring it up again. New school year, start fresh - that sort of thing.

Here's what I thought: Hmm. Well, for that kid I understand that this type of assignment is a sensitive issue. But that's his problem. He needs to deal with it. I think most kids would just roll with the punches!

Hey - nobody said I'm a sensitive person! Sometimes I need things spelled out to me, veeerrryyyyy sllooowwwwly, for me to understand.

More people wrote in and said that they didn't think it was a big deal, or maybe the kid could make stuff up, or they told about their own rotten family tree/geneaology type story that was dealt with or not by their kids' teachers.

Hmm, I was thinking. I hope I don't have to deal with this. But if I do, we'll make it work. La de da de da.


But then Beth Waggenspack, a communications professor at Virginia Tech, an adoption writer, and an adoptive parent, wrote an amazingly clear post about the real problems with this type of assignment. She has been kind enough to allow me to repost her piece in its entirety.

This is part 1 of this series.
To read what Beth said, go here for
part 2 of this series ,
here for part 3, and
here for part 4.