the LOSS I wasn't even aware of

Sweet Tyler Shea

​“I say the knife, Professor Plum, Billiard Room,” Tyler proudly announced. Ty played his first game of Clue last week, deciding that he could read well enough to play by himself.
 
The funny thing was, he had seen the card for Professor Plum (who was his sister) so knew the good Professor wasn’t the killer. He just decided he liked annoying his sister by preventing her from getting anywhere she wanted to go. He literally called her into every room he entered. Every time he called Lillie into a room, she would shriek and he would howl with laughter. Ty was not playing to win. He was playing for fun. What a concept, one that most of us need reminding of. To her great delight, the purple scholar rolled a six, escaped into a nearby room, and made a guess that won her the game. But in a way, Tyler was the winner. I would play Clue again with Ty any day.

Here's Ty playing Chess with Jack-Jack. He doesn't play to win. He plays to have fun.

 
​However, Tyler has yet to meet a donut or video screen he doesn’t love, and want more of. When we enforce any sort of boundaries, such as, “No, you’ve already had ice cream today,” we get met with, “Why do you hate me?” If we say, “No more time! You’ve been on Roblox for an hour already,” he replies, “I want to kill myself.”
 
Where is he learning this? We try to rationalize and reason and explain to no avail.  Man, parenting can be hard. I was venting this to my friend Barbara (herself adopted), and she suggested I attend a free monthly zoom webinar for adoptive parents. Desperate, we tuned in.
 
Thankfully, we were the only ones on the zoom, so we were given a whole hour with the adoption counselor.  We had been through mandatory counseling when we adopted Tyler, but it focused on how to parent, never mentioning how adoption plays into parenting.
 
Nothing we said surprised her. “He’s suffering from loss,” she said matter of factly. “And he’s probably not even conscious of it.”
 
“But what did he lose?” I asked. “Afterall, his birth mother wasn’t even quite sure what his birth father’s first name was. He’s the product of a drunken one-night stand. And through us, he gained a family that he never would have had.”
 
“Absolutely true,” she agreed. “But he doesn’t look like anyone else in your family. He doesn't know his heritage. And there’s always a sense of loss with any adoption.”

​She recommended a book about the seven core issues of adoption. “There’s always a sense of loss with adoption,” she emphasized, as she shared this screen.

The circle explains a lot. It was obvious that “Why do you hate me?” questions this feeling of rejection, kind of an “I’ll call you out on rejecting me (for not giving me what I want) so I don’t have to feel this alone.”
 
Likewise, he suffers tremendous body shame, refusing to swim without a shirt, refusing to change clothes if anyone is nearby.

His manipulation/control issues center largely around food. “Oh FOOD!” the counselor shook her head. “We polled adoptive parents as to what issue they most want us to cover, and the number one issue was…..
 
 HEALTHY EATING!”

Wait, I thought we were the only ones to battle daily with Tyler over when to eat, what to eat, how much to eat....

Don’t they say that most eating disorders are about gaining a sense of control (which is part of the above circle)? Other friends who were adopted spring to mind, as a few also have interesting diets.
 
As for intimacy, Ty’s the boy who loves everyone. When you ask him who his best friend is, he replies that he has so many, he can’t name them all.

The circle closes with grief and identity, issues we all engage with sooner or later.
 
I grew up without this shadow of loss, but perhaps that made me as a youth callous, careless and centered largely on myself. Loss found me, as it does all of us at some point. Loss has been a powerful teacher. It has broken me, opened me to others’ pain, and gifted me a sense of gratitude for all that I still do have. I have befriended my loss, and I hope to help Tyler to do the same.
 
The loss that comes with adoption is not for us to judge. Recognizing it only means that we can acknowledge and work with it for what it is. As the saying goes, it’s not bad, it’s not good, it just is what it is. With abortions becoming harder to obtain in our country, adoptions will inevitably increase. We can only hope that there are more people open to seeing the joy in expanding their families this way, and to have the willingness to explore this loss with their kids.
 
As for my little guy, this loss he cannot verbalize lives inside him next to a fierce loyalty and kindness. His teachers have written home how they love having him in class because he stands up to bullies. He loves to referee disagreements between his sisters (much to their annoyance) because he loves peace. When he grows up, he still wants to be a firefighter, the profession he claimed as soon as he could talk. He wants to rescue cats from trees and save other people. He remains unaware that he has already saved his family members in ways he cannot begin to fathom.
 
He turns 8 on Friday.  Happy Birthday dear Tyler.