I recently went to a school meeting for ds7 and one of the attending therapists commented, “I don’t have to ask whose mother you are because ds7 looks so much like you!”

His teacher, knowing that he’s not my biological child, smiled and asked me in an undertone, “Should I tell them?” I shook my head no.

That’s not the first time that’s happened. When I went to the meeting for all mothers at the beginning of last year for ds7, his teacher was guessing who each mother was as they walked in. I was one of the first mothers to arrive and as I came in to the room, she said, “Let me guess…you’re (ds’s name) mother! He really resembles you.”

In that case, I did laugh and tell her that I’m not his biological parent, which shocked her. (I don’t walk around telling everyone but as his primary teacher, she needed to know.)

When the twins joined the family, my oldest daughter was the first of our married children to meet them. She commented to me that if someone had to guess who dd6’s twin brother was, she thought ds7 looked more like her than ds6, her actual twin. Interesting, right?

Though obviously the twins get their features from their parents, there are enough similarities to our family members that no one who doesn’t know would guess that our foster children weren’t born into the family. I think that ‘matching’ a foster/adoptive family is an extra benefit for a child who isn’t born into a family that helps him feel he belongs. It’s not easy to look visibly different from everyone else in your family, and in fact I’ve learned that this is a painful issue for many in the adoption world.

During Chanuka I took the kids to a local holiday event when a woman came over and asked me if I was a foster parent. I looked at her and her children, and immediately understood she was a foster parent. She told me we have the same social worker and had been keeping her eyes open hoping to meet me. How did she guess who I was?

She obviously put some clues together; she was the person that dd6 was going to be placed with initially so she knew about the twins.

How she definitely didn’t guess who I was, was based on the appearance of our children, whereas with one quick glance at her blond hair and her children of Ethiopian extraction, it was obvious she wasn’t their birth parent.

I don’t see having very different features as a bad thing, but it undisputedly takes away some of a child’s anonymity and privacy. They don’t get to choose who knows that they are in foster care/adopted. Everywhere they go, it’s obvious to everyone who looks at them.

I don’t want that extra attention on me, and I definitely don’t want that extra attention on them. I want them to be able to feel as fully as possible that they have a home and family where they belong, not to have attention drawn to their differences, and not to constantly be questioned as to their relationship to us.

Recently, ds6’s teacher called me to tell me he’s begun to tell his classmates and teachers that we’re his abba and imma (Hebrew for mother and father). Originally when talking to them he referred to us as his Mommy and Daddy; the Hebrew terms were reserved for his bio parents.

He’s also begun to call himself ‘(name) Werner’.

In the first six months whenever the topic of family belonging came up, I told him he’s part of the Werner family and also the ‘(his bio last name)’ family. But now I just let it be. I’ve said it enough and don’t have to continually remind him. He clearly sees himself as a Werner, and I’m glad he feels that he belongs here, because he does.

Obviously ‘matching’ an adoptive or foster family isn’t the most important criteria, but it’s definitely a nice plus!

Avivah