Takeaways
- Adopted children often experience grief related to their biological families.
- Grief can be an opportunity for attachment and healing.
- Open conversations about adoption are crucial for children’s understanding.
- Children may feel divided loyalties between adoptive and biological parents.
- Rituals can help children process their grief and loss.
- Understanding emotions and body language is essential in parenting adopted children.
- Grief is a lifelong journey that evolves over time.
- Adoptive parents should encourage their children to express their feelings.
- Children need to know they are loved and valued regardless of their background.
- It’s important to recognize the mixed emotions surrounding adoption.
TRANSCRIPT:
Brian Mavis (00:00.821)
Hello, welcome to the Foster Friendly podcast. I’m your host, Brian Mavis with my matriarchal co-host Courtney Williams. Courtney, you’re not quite matriarchal. You are not old enough, but I wanted something to go with today’s theme because we’re in the middle of National Adoption Month with this series of podcasts. So for the next few podcasts, it’s going to be focusing on adoption.
Courtney (00:11.934)
Yeah.
Pamela Bauer (00:14.881)
Ha ha ha.
Brian Mavis (00:30.697)
And today we have an amazing guest with us, Pam Bauer. And Pam is a mom to 14 kids, 12 who were adopted from Russia. Pam also has a master’s degree in biblical counseling and wrote a thesis on grief and adoption. And that’s what we’re going to be focusing on today. Pam, welcome.
Pamela Bauer (00:54.113)
Thank you so much. I’m happy to be here.
Brian Mavis (00:56.309)
So Pam, Courtney last week texted me and she said, I am so pumped about the next podcast. She’s never done that before. So I was really curious about that. And then she told me before he got on that you two had a long phone conversation and that Courtney’s also listened to you on another podcast that she says she shared a bunch. Courtney.
Pamela Bauer (01:06.125)
Thank
Courtney (01:06.126)
You
Brian Mavis (01:22.699)
claims that you have a lot of good wisdom to share. So I’m looking forward to hearing it.
Pamela Bauer (01:28.799)
I I don’t disappoint. That’s a big bill.
Courtney (01:28.942)
Yeah. Oh, you won’t disappoint. Yeah, it’s fun to have you on. Because like Brian said, I have shared a podcast you’ve done in the past with all my adoptive friends. Because I do feel like this is just such a really important topic. And it was we’re in the month of National Adoption Month. know. I mean, we at America’s Cause We Belong, we recruit families to be foster families, to be adoptive families. And then that happens. And then we often have families that are like,
crud, now we’re in the thick of it and we’re struggling and we need help. So hoping that this podcast sheds some light on that into the why behind that happens, what people can do and then even maybe gear them towards how they can look for counseling and therapy and stuff too if they’re at that point of we need help, you know, beyond listening to a podcast. So yeah. Well, give us a little bird’s eye view into being a mom to 14.
Brian Mavis (02:00.061)
Yes.
Pamela Bauer (02:28.236)
A 12. Number 12 showed up last week. There was always a drama going on. always believed we, Barnum and Bailey Circus didn’t have a thing on us. We had some drama going on. And many times my husband and I would look at each other and say, well, that one’s not in the parenting manual.
Courtney (02:28.654)
And grandma to how many? 12, okay.
Brian Mavis (02:33.291)
Alright, congrats.
Brian Mavis (02:45.067)
Mmm.
Courtney (02:45.304)
Yeah.
Pamela Bauer (02:56.138)
But there were also lots of fun times and crazy things you get to do when you have a big family that you don’t get to do with the smaller ones. So that was, that’s fun. Lots of good memories.
Courtney (03:07.912)
of it. You shared with me when we had a phone call that you found the 20s to be harder than the teen years. Why or how is that so?
Pamela Bauer (03:14.484)
Yes, it was was very.
Brian Mavis (03:16.523)
So I’m curious, what’s the age range of your kids?
Pamela Bauer (03:21.728)
My oldest is 44 and my youngest is 29. But when we first adopted them all, my oldest was 16 and the youngest was two. I hope all that math works out. But yeah.
Brian Mavis (03:26.229)
Okay, all right.
Brian Mavis (03:33.899)
OK, so you adopted your oldest at six. He was 16 when you adopted him, right? He or she?
Pamela Bauer (03:41.74)
My oldest two are my biological two children. when they were, wait a not 16, they were…
Brian Mavis (03:44.765)
Okay
Pamela Bauer (03:50.446)
13, 13 and 11 when we adopted our nine year old and then within a period of three years we had three different adoptions and ended up with 12 kids, 14 altogether.
Brian Mavis (04:03.401)
Wow, so in three years he went from two to 14.
Pamela Bauer (04:07.381)
Yeah, it was a huge change. Yeah, a huge change. There just there weren’t household systems set up to deal with so many. And then you add all the behavioral issues that came with it and the broken hearts between my kids. I think they’ve been through everything. So there was there was a lot going on. We had a wonderful support network. Our church was amazing. And so was our community.
Brian Mavis (04:11.273)
Really? Huh, okay.
Courtney (04:15.086)
Yeah.
Brian Mavis (04:26.783)
Mmm.
Pamela Bauer (04:37.129)
So we used to be on Saturday mornings, my husband and would take turns taking all the kids out to breakfast and letting the other parents sleep in for a little bit. we always went to the same little cafe thinking it was just a nice little local cafe. And pretty soon we would go to pay the bills and they would tell us there isn’t one. The people in the restaurant had been putting money in at the front desk. And they’re just like, who does that? So, but we just felt so much support from our community as well. And then our church was there.
Brian Mavis (04:49.589)
Yeah.
Brian Mavis (04:55.371)
Hmm.
Brian Mavis (05:04.459)
And that’s wonderful.
Pamela Bauer (05:06.391)
doing laundry and running errands and helping out with Christmas wrapping for hours and all kinds of fun things.
Brian Mavis (05:15.677)
OK, all right. Yeah, thanks for helping me understand your dynamics there. yeah, that’s amazing.
Courtney (05:15.95)
Yeah.
Courtney (05:22.973)
Yes. Yeah, so now I ask that question. Why do you say the 20s were harder than the teen years?
Pamela Bauer (05:28.949)
Yeah, so that when they’re little, younger than teens, you you can control the environment. You can’t control their behavior. Sometimes you can control where their behavior happens, but you can’t control what they do. In the teens, it’s scary because they’re out there a little bit on their own. And sometimes they make wise decisions and sometimes they make really bad ones. But still, they’re teens and they come under your umbrella of protection.
But in their 20s, they can disappear with no contact with you. You have no idea where they are. And they can get into all kinds of trouble. draw conclusions sometimes based on their still broken thinking and misconceptions that you didn’t know they left the house with. And things can just get a little bit more scary. And then they show up.
Brian Mavis (06:11.659)
you
Pamela Bauer (06:20.781)
at the most inopportune times because they’re ready to come back home and it’s like, well, I had 85 things going today and now we’re, now we’re stopping and doing kiddos. So it, it’s scary because you just, you don’t know if they’re going to make it or not.
Brian Mavis (06:34.879)
Hmm. Okay. So, okay. Let’s let, let’s dive into the core of this, this podcast. So you, while you were parenting 14 kids, as I understand it, you decided let’s go back to school and get my master’s degree. Correct.
Pamela Bauer (06:35.958)
So.
Pamela Bauer (06:52.013)
Correct, it was right after they’d finished homeschooling them. We were down to just a couple kids at home and then that’s when I went to get my master’s degree.
Brian Mavis (06:58.963)
Okay, and so your master’s degree in the broad category is biblical counseling and you, for your thesis, focused on adoption, specifically grief through adoption, correct? Okay, so tell us about that and what you learned.
Pamela Bauer (07:04.481)
Mm-hmm.
Pamela Bauer (07:13.153)
Right. Right.
Pamela Bauer (07:19.021)
So it was a process when you write a thesis, you cannot write on a topic another student’s written on. So they had some of the big categories already done, but they really wanted me to write on adoption. So I pondered it. And the thought that kept coming to my mind is that there’s something missing in the way we do adoption care with kids. There’s just like a hole in it and I couldn’t figure out what it was. Having been through some of the best therapy in the country on attachment work and trauma and post-institutionalized children,
felt there was something glaringly missing. And then one day as I was pondering all of that it occurred to me if the young woman down the street had her husband die tragically we would not show up six months later and say here’s a new man this is a new husband now you just go ahead and have your old life he was going to replace what you lost and just go forward with your life. But that is kind of what we do in adoption.
I thought if a couple lost their child, we wouldn’t show up on their porch six months later. Here’s a new child that’s going to replace the one you lost. And so go on forward with your life. And yet that was very strongly the message that my children had received coming out of an orphanage was that these are your forever parents. Your biological parents were not able to take care of you. These parents are going to take care of you. And so just go ahead and have a good life.
Brian Mavis (08:32.907)
Hmm.
Courtney (08:44.398)
Thank
Pamela Bauer (08:44.843)
And there’s no place in there for grief because what they were attached to was who they were born to. And as I thought more about attachment, I don’t think attachment is so much of a technical process like it’s described in some of the literature so much as we attach and bond to the people who help us with our greatest need. If you come in and really help me with something, I will be forever attached to you.
We see that with battle buddies in the military, right? So if the child’s greatest need is to deal with their grief, learn to trust, and learn how to live, then if you help them with that problem, they are most likely going to attach to you. And so instead of looking at their attachment as a problem, I instead look at their grief as an opportunity to help them. And I’m not afraid of grief because
Courtney (09:38.935)
Hmm.
Pamela Bauer (09:42.22)
Because I approach it through the lens of faith, I know I have a God who comforts, and I know I have words that will help them. And so then we can deal with grief. And then the other part of it is grief keeps circling back around as children age and mature and develop and they can think better. Then they circle back around through the grief issues again. So some of the parents that I have talked to and counseled with over the years through adoption have all said, well, we’ve had these conversations with our children.
Well, at what age? Well, we talked about it when we first got them. Well, now they’re nine and 10, and they understand abstract reasoning, and they’re starting to recognize what they lost. And we have to go through the grief conversations again at a higher level and address the issues that they bring up.
I have found that grief was a wonderful avenue for being able to help children through their greatest problems. And in the end, the people that I’ve worked with have said their children really have started to attach to them. And as I’ve gone back after the fact and talked to some of my kids about it, we’re finding a lot more peace in our relationship too.
Courtney (10:49.878)
Hmm. Yeah, for sure. I’m an adoptive mom. Adoptive mom to six and three of them are now out of the house and have flown the nest. And I definitely feel that the process of them understanding their adoption story and journey and healing has been outside of our house more than in our house. Yeah.
Pamela Bauer (11:05.687)
Yes.
Pamela Bauer (11:12.585)
Inside, yeah. You don’t look old enough to have kids that are clowned outside the house.
Courtney (11:18.67)
I’ve got four outside the house now, so. But thank you. But yeah, it is just interesting. And that whole concept of us, you know, I felt, I have felt, you know, we’ve adopted three through foster care, three internationally. And on the foster care side, things are a little bit different because parental rights are removed. It’s little different process. know, parental rights are removed and adoption happens. And
Pamela Bauer (11:22.423)
You
Courtney (11:46.625)
After the rights are removed, what we experienced was something called a goodbye visit. So they’re supposed to have this last goodbye visit, right? It’s the goodbye visit, their rights are removed. There’s no such thing as open adoption in foster care. It’s their goodbye visit. And when people would know, people would ask us, they knew court process was coming up. They knew TPR, the termination of parental rights court case was coming up. And people would ask us, hey, how did it go? And we’d tell them the outcome.
Pamela Bauer (11:52.397)
Okay.
Courtney (12:14.562)
we kept being told, congratulations. And it just, it was because we knew the birth mom, we knew her very personally, we loved her. And hearing somebody say congratulations, that this mom has lost her rights and these children are now going to be adopted. I mean, I know where it was coming from, right? It was coming from, they’ve seen us love these kids. They felt like the kids were better with us in a sense. And so they were telling us congratulations, but yet not recognizing what this mom was losing, not recognizing what our kids were losing.
Pamela Bauer (12:37.367)
Mm-hmm.
Courtney (12:44.95)
and how that was gonna affect them for years. And so I became an educator. I mean, I started educating people on, please don’t say congratulations to me because I love this mom and it is hard. And I don’t expect my kids to look at this like they want a better family or, you know, as something you’re winning. So how would you advise families who are going through this process? You know, maybe TPR just happened or maybe they were just told they’re able to adopt.
of keeping these things in mind where we need to keep the birth families in mind and keep these things, the loss that our kids are going through in mind and not just look at it as we’ve won in this situation.
Pamela Bauer (13:21.869)
I think it’s important that we recognize that adopted families and adoptive parents are looking forward. They’ve gone through the arduous work of getting through all the home studies and the court papers and whatever process they have to go through in particular for their adoption. And it is a long grueling process and there are a lot of people asking questions that frankly are none of their business and a normal.
if you just give birth to a child kind of way. But it’s a lot of work and it’s understandable that adoptive parents would be excited. And they’re looking forward. We’re looking forward to t-ball games and ballet lessons and recitals and graduations and family vacations and grandchildren. We’re looking forward to this whole life that’s going to open up. But our children are looking backwards on everything they’re losing.
and how they wonder, will my mom be able to find me? How permanent, what do they mean by permanent? Will my mom find me? Because some of them are afraid and don’t want to be found. They might be wondering about who else they’re losing. It might be a favorite grandma as well or an auntie. So the children are looking backwards. They cannot fathom the future that the adoptive parents are looking forward to.
And we never dealt with birth parents because our kids were already in an orphanage. But I imagine birth moms would just be shattered. And I don’t know how they can give up their child. I know it is a huge sacrifice for what’s for the benefit of the child at great cost to a biological mother. And I cannot imagine her agony.
So it is not a cause for celebration. And yet we know that adoption is an act of mercy to a child in need. And so how do we blend all of those together? And I think when we’re talking to our adoptive children, it’s acknowledging that today might be hard and scary, but I’m promising you that there is a future coming and someday you’re going to look back and this will make more sense than it does right now.
Pamela Bauer (15:37.037)
and I won’t let you go. I did have one of my little girls come to me. I got her when she was seven, I think she was nine or 10, and she came and asked if my birth mom showed up at the door and asked for me back, would you give her back to me? Would you give me back to her? I was like, what a tough question. I told her no, I’d fight tooth and nail.
Courtney (15:56.813)
Yeah. Yeah.
Pamela Bauer (16:00.303)
I imagine that’s exactly what she’d do too. There would be police involved. But I think for how to respond to other people is that I would just tell them it’s a day of a lot of mixed emotions. And you’re right, there is joy and there is congratulations to be had, but there is also sorrow and grief to be reckoned with.
Courtney (16:04.158)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Courtney (16:23.438)
Yeah, definitely. You touched on it a little bit, but let’s talk about like what are some of the things that a child loses through adoption?
Pamela Bauer (16:32.824)
So if I can back up just a titch before that, that grief is multifaceted. And so one of the kinds of grief is called ambiguous loss. And it’s the loss of things you don’t know about that might show up later in time. So you might have lost your mom and dad.
You might have lost extended family. If you think of it in concentric circles at the core, the smallest circle would be your biological family unit. But the next circle would be the holidays, traditions, customs, smells that you’re familiar with, textures of fabric, food that you’re used to eating. All of that goes. if you’re adopted by somebody,
else in your biological family, maybe an aunt, a lot of that stuff you get to keep. You still have the same grandparents, you might live in the same town, might get to go to the same school, but if you’re adopted by someone in a different town or if it’s a big town, a different part of town, you don’t go to the same school or the same church or the same community center. You’re just totally cut off from everything you knew before. You might lose your toys, your favorite pet,
a neighbor friend or a playmate that you really enjoyed. If you end up getting adopted internationally, which end cross-culturally, which is the most dramatic form of adoption, you lose everything about your former life, your language, your customs, the values that your country had. And you may only know them from being a little kid, but still.
I’m amazed at how much of the Russian mentality my children still have and I got the youngest ones when they were two and three years old. So you lose a lot. And then you add to that an aspect called disenfranchised grief, which is where there’s something about your grief that prevents you from getting public support.
Courtney (18:13.346)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Pamela Bauer (18:28.47)
And for the adoptive child, what blocks that support is the joy of their adoption. You’re the lucky one. You got adopted. But that’s the way the people that are not in the adoption world look at it. But it’s not accurate because that child needs a lot of support for the grief they’re going through, as well as at the same time being able to be grateful that they’re adopted. have a home and they have parents.
Courtney (18:35.341)
Yeah.
Courtney (18:44.334)
Mm-hmm.
Courtney (18:56.79)
Yeah, a lot to think about. For those listening, we lost our co-host, Brian. He messaged me and said that he’s got kicked off the internet. He has no internet right now all of sudden. So he might be back. He might not, but we’ll just move on. is missing, but he might come back. But we’ll continue. It also might be shocking for people to realize there are things that our adopted children think about.
Pamela Bauer (19:09.287)
dear.
Courtney (19:23.864)
that are biological children right now. And so for families who have both, there’s some things that we need to keep in mind. So what are some things that you’ve experienced in this of things they think about?
Pamela Bauer (19:33.582)
Well, as I had mentioned, my little one coming up and asking if I would give her back. My biological children never think of that. They know we would fight tooth and nail if anybody came to try to take them.
Adopted children really struggled when people at the airport would talk to them. When you’re a big family, you cannot be inconspicuous. You just stick out like a sore thumb everywhere you go. And so when we would travel and we would be at the airport and everybody would see all these little kids together, strangers would just come up and start talking to them. Now a family with just two kids, strangers don’t come up and talk to you. And many times my kids would wonder if these people were gonna take them away. Like we took them away.
from the orphanage because they didn’t see that as being any different. My one daughter came up to me one day and told me she was very worried that she wondered if I would decide that I just didn’t want a little yellow haired girl one day. I would never, that thought would never come into my mind. I think there was something wrong with me if it did, not something wrong with her. Our children, I’ve had,
ones in their 30s tell me I’ve ruined their life because I took them out of the orphanage and if I’d have left them there their birth moms would have come and got them eventually. It’s like it’s just a different way of thinking and you don’t know what they’re thinking. No matter how much you think you know you don’t actually know unless they tell you and confirm what you think you know.
We were on a vacation once, flying to Hawaii with a bunch of our kids. And we had one of the boys that we just had adopted a few months before. And he asked me where we were going. And I’m using the Hawaiian Airlines magazine trying to explain to him what a beach is and what sand is. I’m wondering, is he just seeing brown and blue on this paper, or does he see water and sand like I do? I don’t know. And at the end, he said, so when we’re done, where are we going? And so we’re going home. Back to our old house, he says. I said.
Pamela Bauer (21:36.269)
Yes, back to your old house sleeping in your own bed. All of us? I said, yes, all of us, every one of us. Even you, mama? And I realized in that moment he’d never traveled from one place to another location with his family intact when they returned home. That was a really sad moment. Yeah. So.
Courtney (21:56.896)
Yeah.
Courtney (22:01.805)
Yeah, we have our two youngest were adopted. They’re five and seven now. And then our oldest, so our three youngest and our three oldest are all adopted. But it’s been fun to parent, know, some of them we adopted as teenagers and the things they’ve gone through, the things they’ve thought about have been similar, but yet different than the little kids, you know, the little ones that were adopted from young ages and just the questions at different stages I found.
you know, going to school is a big step. And that’s where I feel like kids start asking a lot of questions. Then I feel like nine to 10, all of our kids, when they hit nine to 10, these questions come out. And then teenage years, like, I feel like there’s kind of these milestones in their lives where the thought of being adopted, the questions of being adopted really hit and they start to ask, you know, a lot of stuff. And so I appreciate you noticing and pointing out that there’s a different of the things they’re thinking about versus our biological kids and the things that we need to
Pamela Bauer (22:28.492)
Yes.
Pamela Bauer (22:38.316)
Mm-hmm.
Courtney (22:55.212)
be ready for, I’ve sometimes felt like I have to parent my kids all exactly the same, or I have to think of them all exactly the same, or I’m making them feel less than or not equal to. And it’s just not true. I mean, there are things that I need to recognize a mom, you know, that are going to be different for my adopted kids that are for my bio kids. There are things that are going to be the same, right? There are a of things that are the same, but there are a lot of things that are different too. And not seeing that as an adoptive mom of
you know, treating them differently, but more meeting them where they’re at and understanding their needs.
Pamela Bauer (23:26.612)
Even amongst our biological children, we treat them differently because we raise them according to what they need and their needs are different. Yeah.
Courtney (23:33.039)
Definitely. Yep. And even the connection with them, know, the connection, my oldest daughter was adopted at 15 and struggled with just connection to me because she felt and finally got to point of being able to tell me she felt like if she had a connection with me, that was disowning or not loving her birth mom, you know, and I kind of felt that, but I didn’t say that to her. let her eventually come out and say that.
Pamela Bauer (23:55.534)
Yeah.
Courtney (23:59.631)
to be able to have that moment of saying, would your birth mom want? Would she want you and I to have a close, healthy, loving relationship? Or would she want you to be so disconnected from me, not feeling like you have a mom at home? You know, I’m never gonna take over. She is your bio mom. She will always be your biological mom. And I’m not gonna, I can’t take over that role. I don’t wanna take over that role, but I wanna be your mom that you have in the house, the motherly figure you have here. So yeah, can you speak to that a little bit about the feelings too that they have and recognizing
those connections between your bio kids or adopted kids, it’s okay.
Pamela Bauer (24:32.148)
It absolutely is. And I’ll tell them, you know, do you feel closer to some of your brothers and sisters than you do to other ones? And then they can acknowledge you have relationships all have a different feel to them. And they don’t have to be worried about divided loyalties. I told them I don’t that place in your heart for your biological mother belongs absolutely to her and no one else. And I don’t want that place. My question is, is will you make me a place?
Courtney (24:59.63)
That’s good.
Pamela Bauer (25:00.202)
I said, just like I love my oldest daughter and there’s a place in my heart for her, as I’m speaking to one of my other girls, I have made a place for you in my heart and it belongs to only you. And I keep it full of love all the time. And so will you do the same for me? But the divided loyalty is an issue that happens for lot of children, children of divorce, children where…
Courtney (25:13.688)
Yeah.
Pamela Bauer (25:23.778)
Parents are just maybe never were married and are no longer together. And you just, you wonder when mom remarries somebody else, well, what does that mean about my dad? You what does that mean about my new stepdad? And those kind of, I just always ask those kids, is your heart big enough that you can make a new spot? And that seems to make a lot of peace because they don’t, they realize I don’t have to give my one parent’s spot in my heart to another parent.
Courtney (25:41.176)
Yeah.
Courtney (25:52.303)
Yeah. And in foster care, that’s so real as well because oftentimes kids will come and go from your home. If it doesn’t go to adoption, which is more common, they’re going to be reunited with their families. And I’ll hear that all the time from people. I want to foster, but I could never foster because my heart’s going to be broken or I’m going to love these kids. And it’s like, yeah, you should love those kids for as long as they need and be willing to be. It doesn’t need to be.
Pamela Bauer (25:59.055)
Yeah.
Courtney (26:18.69)
You know, now and not later. No, you can still love that child even though they’re reunited with their families or they’re back with grandma or whomever it is.
Pamela Bauer (26:27.4)
want the best for them and know that you were part of that story of what was best for them. Yeah, there’s a lot of hope there.
Courtney (26:32.013)
Yeah.
Courtney (26:35.798)
Is there research done on how often do kids think about their adoption or think about their biological families?
Pamela Bauer (26:43.534)
Well, there is a really good research project or research that was done on grief in general, and it’s called the Harvard Bereavement Study. And in that study, I’m trying to get to my notes so I don’t misquote it because I get so excited. often do that. Can’t find the notes in the second. They studied, I believe it was 125 school-aged children for two years that came out of 70 families. So lots of siblings.
Courtney (27:13.343)
Okay.
Pamela Bauer (27:13.866)
And they studied them if they had lost a biological parent that lived in the home with them. So they have one surviving parent at home, and then they have lost another parent. And they found that there was a lot of information in there that’s very significant for grief, but I think we can extrapolate from it some information that’s helpful in understanding adoption.
found out that some of the things that help children the most is if they’re free to talk about the deceased parent, especially with somebody who knew them. So if your mom dies, but grandma comes over every once in a while and you get to talk to grandma about your mom and she’s got pictures of your mom or maybe home videos that you can watch and you can hear stories about your mom, helps you stay connected and help those children survive the grief better. Our adopted children don’t have any of that.
Courtney (28:09.198)
you
Pamela Bauer (28:10.856)
It was also the biggest factor that would indicate how the children were going to do was the function emotionally functional, the emotional functional ability of the surviving parent. And while we may have very capable adoptive parents, there’s they are not a surviving parent who went through the same loss with the child. So they don’t have that either. And then part of that study also included how often do children think about their parents that they have lost. So
If you were part of the Harvard study, was a bereaved, a bereavement, but for adopted children, it’s the parent that you’ve lost through termination of custody rights. They found out that boys think about their lost parent five times a week and girls think about them multiple times a day, most frequently at bedtime.
Courtney (28:57.719)
Thank
Pamela Bauer (29:01.08)
When all the distractions of the day are over, the room is dark, your mind is starting to be quiet, all those thoughts you were able to block out with distraction and busyness of the day, all of that goes away and you’re left with your thoughts. So no wonder kids struggle to go to bed at night. I wouldn’t want to go to bed either if I knew I was going to go back to worrying about where my mom is. Is she cold? Is she hungry? Is my dad still beating her up or whatever the story was?
missing her very much and just laying in your bed at night by yourself. So I think one of the things that parents can do to help with that is have that intentional conversation because our adopted kids won’t bring it up.
Courtney (29:44.852)
Yeah.
Pamela Bauer (29:45.197)
They also have a loyalty to their adoptive parents. They don’t wanna hurt our feelings by saying, I’m really missing my mom because that communicates somehow you’re not enough as a mom. That’s what the child thinks that they’re communicating instead of no, you have two moms, you love them both. One of them’s not here and you’re missing her. It’s totally normal. I have communicated to my children how much I value their birth moms than…
Courtney (30:05.742)
Mm.
Pamela Bauer (30:12.108)
They coming from Russia, abortion is absolutely legal there. And there’s no social stigma or anything on it, even in the 1990s when we were adopting. And I said, you know, she had another choice. Being pregnant is not comfortable. Childbirth certainly is not comfortable. She had another choice and the choice she made was she chose life for you. And I am forever grateful to her for that.
Courtney (30:27.182)
You
Courtney (30:35.735)
Yeah.
Pamela Bauer (30:36.766)
And so yes, you’re free to love her. You’re free to miss her. Let’s pray together for her right now because we know God hears people’s prayers.
We also made sure that out of that Harvard bereavement study, they said another thing that was really helpful was if bereaved children could participate in the funeral or a ritual in some way to have a formal goodbye ceremony. So we’ve done that ourselves. Plant a tree that blooms or blossoms at the month that they were adopted or the month that they were placed in placement if we know when that was. Or planting a rose bush that happens to be
favorite color or putting a stone with the parents name on it and planning it in the backyard where they the child can see it preferably outside their bedroom window. We have been able to do annual letters like let’s write your mom a birth letter and tell her how good you’re doing this year because she would want to know and we don’t know how she would ever find this out or if she ever does but we’ll ask if somehow the Lord could let her know.
Courtney (31:35.202)
Yeah.
Pamela Bauer (31:44.493)
So I think having some of those kind of rituals that we can do, because most often times the children didn’t get to say goodbye and they will repeat that over and over. I didn’t get to say goodbye. Or I didn’t understand that day when she said goodbye, it was goodbye forever. I thought it was just goodbye. She was going to the store or she was going to work. I didn’t understand. And so being able to say goodbye, that I will love you forever. I will never forget you. I won’t waste this life that you’ve given me.
I’ll teach my children who you were. All of those kind of things would be really helpful for a child to be able to do.
Courtney (32:19.918)
Yeah. It’s a little different in foster care adoption because, like I said, at least in the state of Colorado, was no such thing as open adoption after foster care. But we have chose that. So parental rights are terminated. We got to no birth mom. We formed a relationship with her and we were sending her pictures. We were seeing her. We were spending birthdays together on holidays. Unfortunately, just a month ago, we found out that she’s passed away.
Pamela Bauer (32:31.245)
Okay.
Courtney (32:46.998)
Again, our kids are pretty little, so they’re five and seven. So just curious if you have any thoughts even in talking, whether it’s just about adoption or if it’s about, you know, death of a birth family, birth mom or parent, because I’ve heard that from a lot of families that, you know, that ends up happening after adoption and maybe the different ages. So thinking of like my kids, they’re five and seven versus talking to a teenager. Like, how would you talk to a five and seven year old about adoption or thinking with their birth families? Like, how would you go about that conversation?
Pamela Bauer (32:47.182)
Pamela Bauer (33:15.418)
I think it’s important to talk to children about being adopted as soon as you get them, if they are adopted, so that there’s never the day they heard the news. They always grew up knowing the news. Even if they don’t understand what the words mean, they can read.
repeat their story. And as they get older, those words start to have meaning for them. In the meantime, adoptive parents get to practice telling the child the story a few times when the kiddo is still young enough that you can stumble through and it’s okay because you know you’re going to tell them again next week. Just enough that they know it. Not that it becomes this is your whole identity, but this is the story of what happened.
as they hit the early school age years and we get to kindergarten and we all do the little plant, the little seed in the cup and the plant grows and the flower grows, then they start to be wondering where did that plant come from? Well, it came from the seed. It doesn’t take very long before the child’s asking, well, where do babies come from? Where did I come from? And we’re going to tell them the true story that you grew inside another mom’s womb and she could not take care of you.
And so she found a mom who could. And so I am raising you. And just as if you were my own, I love you like that, but you actually had another mother. When they hit about the nine, 10 years old, if her moms died, I would tell the child that their parent did die. And we don’t know, you know, we don’t know where they go or…
We may not know enough about them to know if they were someone that we think is in heaven or not in heaven, and it’s not our place to say, but to know that the Lord is watching out over her one way or the other. We can tell a child that confidently. And then as they get to that school age year, about the nine to 10 years that you mentioned, they start to understand cause and effect thinking.
Pamela Bauer (35:17.334)
So not only are they starting to figure out biology that something happened and something was created, there was the sperm and the egg and then there was me, but they also start to understand the cause and effect that children usually stay with their biological parents, but I didn’t. So 4 % of the children in the United States are adopted. I don’t know what percentage is in foster care, but it’s so it’s enough. There might be another child or two at your school. You’re not the only one, but not everyone.
It’s not half the population of your school, right? And then they wonder, well, what happened? But they won’t usually ask their biological, their adopted parents about it. They do all of this processing inside their own head, which is why it’s really important for us adults to have a conversation with them and to ask questions. And so what do you think happened? Why do you think? What would you think could happen that a mom would have somebody else raise her child for her?
And we do read stories about the little duckling and the dilly duck and some of those other adoption books. But generally what they come up with is, is I was a bad baby. And so we have to take care of that one, because that’s a lie. And I just tell them it’s just not true. Babies aren’t bad.
Courtney (36:25.902)
Mm.
Courtney (36:30.168)
Yeah.
Courtney (36:38.341)
Yeah. Yeah, it’s sad. I have shared this many times, but every single kid we’ve had in care in our home through foster care, every single one of them and all of our adopted kids, 100 % of them, by the time, you know, if they’re older, old enough to process these types of things, they have all said they felt like it’s their fault that they’re in care, you know, that they did something wrong or they weren’t good enough or they caused…
the substance abuse or whatever it might be, they feel a shame and a guilt of it being them.
Pamela Bauer (37:10.094)
Yeah, and it’s all a lie. And if it doesn’t get addressed, it plays out real badly in those 20s. The good news is a lot of the time in the 30s, the adopted kids come back around and settle down and they’ll say, well, I tried the rebellious way and I’ve just gone back to what you raised me with. Life works better that way. And I want to be part of the family again. So kind of you just have to hold out sometimes for those 30s.
Courtney (37:12.27)
Hmm.
Courtney (37:35.342)
Thank
Pamela Bauer (37:37.219)
But I would just tell them the truth, if they’re five or nine or whatever, that their parent died and that one of the biggest concerns for parents is what’s gonna happen to their children. And so it mattered a lot to your bio mom. It mattered to her that she would know that you were gonna be taken care of. And what happened to her, you had nothing to do with it. You were a blessing. Yeah, for the 15 year olds.
Courtney (38:01.782)
Yeah.
Pamela Bauer (38:05.484)
those older ones and we can talk more about about cause and effect issues because sometimes the decisions are a little bit more complicated. Sometimes if we have a high risk lifestyle, the incidence of death occurs at an earlier age and it’s a warning not to waste the life that you’ve been given.
And also to know that decisions, choices have consequences. And that doesn’t make your mom a bad person. It’s just the consequences got her. Sometimes it’s just violence that happened and they died. again, it’s your mom would be so relieved to know that you’re being taken care of, that we love you, that we want to help you, that you’re doing well in school, that you have a future ahead of you. And I think that she would be so proud of you.
and helping them that way. So acknowledging that grief circles back sometimes on anniversaries. There might be times that are a little bit harder. There might be my one son got married a few years ago and his wife, her mother had died a few years before that and it came time to make the montage of childhood pictures and she just said I can’t do it. I just
I’ll be a puddle on the floor. Could you just please go through and pick out some of these pictures for me?” And so I picked them out for her. I picked her childhood pictures to put in her wedding movie because it was just too hard to watch the pic. She said to see the pictures of her and her mom and to realize again all she lost and which mother was not there at the wedding that day. So there are days when it’s harder and just to recognize that.
Courtney (39:43.138)
Yeah.
Courtney (39:47.873)
Yeah.
Pamela Bauer (39:48.707)
And then another thing with teens is sometimes that those crazy thoughts they think, right? They’ll think, well, I’m not a child anymore, so I’m not adopted anymore. Now I don’t have anybody. I was like, no, it’s a life sentence. You’re stuck with me. So we’ve had to have that conversation too. We’ve had the conversation about why when I’m an adult, I have to move out and I can’t stay home and have you take care of me.
Courtney (39:56.899)
Wow.
Yeah.
Pamela Bauer (40:16.658)
well you’re not a child your whole life and at some point you’re to if you’re not going to school then you’re to be working and starting to earn your own way it’s called growing up it’s not being kicked out of another family.
One of my boys when he was in high school got very angry at me. We had a big argument. His practice was to go for a walk. So I knew he was going to be our towns. I don’t even know if it has a crime rate. It’s really pretty safe place. And he was out there walking around. He finally came home at night. And he looked at me and goes, you are not going to confess nor ask for forgiveness first. I get to go first this time. I said, OK, what do you want to tell me? And he says, I’ve done the math. He said, if
I let you in, by the time you’re 80, I will be 40 and I will lose a second mom. It’s just better to keep my heart hard and not get hurt again.
So who knew that was going on in his head? I thought we were arguing over football practice. I was completely clueless to what the real issue was. So again, creating that environment where they can talk to you freely about whatever. And a lot of that happens at bedtime. You get those soft lights on, especially if they’re in a room by themselves. Soft lights on, asking them what their thoughts for the day are, what thoughts are running around your head tonight. And just plan on.
Courtney (41:15.767)
Yeah.
Courtney (41:28.931)
Yeah.
Pamela Bauer (41:41.42)
It’s going to take an extra half an hour, 45 minutes before you’re back downstairs or whatever, or ever.
Courtney (41:48.623)
Yeah, I found that bedtime and car rides are where would kids want to talk kids, teenagers. I think the car rides, sometimes, you know, when you’re not face to face that if they feel like you’re there, but they don’t look you in the eyes. And then I started a journal with all my kids and they were about nine and just to this is a place where we can write back and forth and I leave it on their pillow and then they leave it on my pillow. And some kids love it. Some kids have written, you know, but I have found with our older kids who are adopted.
Pamela Bauer (41:53.195)
Yes.
Pamela Bauer (42:00.621)
Right.
Pamela Bauer (42:09.613)
Good idea.
Courtney (42:16.866)
they wrote the really hard questions in the journal. They didn’t bring it up face to face. They didn’t bring it up in the car. They bring up other things. Like had a very open relationship, but the things about adoption were often on paper. Like I’m thinking of my birth mom and if she would want me to do this or if this would make her happy or whatever it would be. The journal was just about safe space and a safe space for me to write them back and then say, you if you want to talk about this face to face, I would love to, I’m open to that. And usually,
Strangely enough, they wouldn’t choose that. They would still choose to write back and forth. But it’s just been a sweet thing for my older kids and to see them develop. Our daughter, she’s 23, she was homeless fall and sitting on the couch one day and she made a comment to our biological daughter saying, you know, when I have kids someday, I won’t bring them back here as much as you will bring your kids back here. And I was kind of listening and I was like, well, why would that be? You would just choose not to? And she said, well, no, I just feel like
Pamela Bauer (42:48.515)
Hmm.
Courtney (43:16.174)
You you and dad, you would want to see your biological grandkids more than you would your adopted grandkids. And I was like, what? Why? know, why? But I thought she’s thinking that she’s 23 years old and she’s processing these things and in a serious relationship, you know, thinking about kids probably for the first time seriously. And, and it’s just those things that again, as adults that they’re processing and thinking about and that we just have to be, like you said, willing to have the conversations, open to have the conversations and creative and how we can have those conversations if
Pamela Bauer (43:46.007)
Yeah, because it’s surprising what they think of. It’s truly stuff I would never think of. Yeah. I don’t think they really appreciate how much they’re loved.
Courtney (43:46.774)
if they aren’t comfortable. So yes. Yeah. Yep.
I also heard you.
Pamela Bauer (43:59.659)
It’s like they have a lens of rejection on and they just don’t appreciate how much they’re really loved. And sometimes they’ll act like little toads for an extended period of time. every day you’re like, here we go again. And they might think, my mom doesn’t really love me. And it’s not that, it’s I don’t love the lying. I don’t love the stealing. I don’t love the rebellion. I absolutely am crazy about you.
Courtney (44:14.094)
you
Courtney (44:26.243)
Yeah.
Pamela Bauer (44:28.216)
They just, they get it very confused. Lots of conversations.
Courtney (44:30.702)
Yeah. Yes. And reassurance, that was reassuring words and conversations of… Also, lot of our two out of our three that are now adult adopted children, they don’t understand emotions the same way. And so, you know, if mom’s mad, know, kids can walk in and they can tell mom’s mad. These kids can’t tell. Like, the body language isn’t there. They’re reading a body language.
Pamela Bauer (44:35.927)
and reassurance.
Pamela Bauer (44:51.766)
Right.
Courtney (44:58.102)
And so that goes for the negative things like mom’s upset right now. I have to say I am upset right now and this is why, you know, but also the positive things, you know, like mom absolutely loves you and I have to say those things more and I don’t think it’s because they need it. I think it’s because they really just don’t feel it from me the way. Yeah.
Pamela Bauer (45:11.458)
Mm-hmm.
They don’t see it. They are kids came with very they had no facial expressions. I think we would call it flat affect. There was just nothing. You’d pick them up and their little legs would hang straight down. They did not occur to them with with their legs encircle you and hang on like a little koala bear like like little kids do right. They just hang flat like a fish.
And then their ability to read a room, read body languages, read facial expressions. They had none of that. So it wasn’t that they couldn’t tell I was mad. It was like I had to be happy or I was mad. There was nothing else. If I did, you know, the little frown because you’re trying to think or ponder, oh, she’s mad. Don’t ask her for anything. She’s mad. It’s like, I’m not. I’m thinking. And I can’t think all of this all the time. Sometimes I just have to like what? So that’s what we had to.
Courtney (46:05.602)
Yeah.
Pamela Bauer (46:11.842)
really intentionally work on what body language was, what facial expressions were, what emotions were, and gradations of emotions. And just because somebody’s irritated or frustrated, yes, that is a form of anger, but it’s way on the low end that just says, hmm, this is inconvenient, like having a little rock in my shoe. It’s inconvenient, but it’s not harming me, and I’m going to deal with it in a second.
Courtney (46:34.924)
Yeah. Understanding the whole set often looks mad, but you know, for the kids, but also from the parents, they read it that way and not the understanding.
Pamela Bauer (46:39.5)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Courtney (46:45.904)
I also heard you say that grief is like a backpack. What do you mean by that?
Pamela Bauer (46:50.67)
Oh, in many instances, I’ve talked to children about grief, some that had nothing to do with adoption. And they would talk about how grief just felt like it was going to smother them. And I would tell them it’s like a backpack, but it weighs 150 pounds. And when you’re eight, you cannot pick it up by yourself. It is yours to carry. It’s your grief. But when you
When it’s too much, we get people around to help us. But as you get bigger and you get older, it’s still gonna be there, it’s still gonna weigh 150 pounds, but you’re gonna be stronger. You’re gonna develop muscles to carry that backpack. You’re gonna learn how to stand up so you can get it off the ground. You’re gonna learn how to change your gait so you can walk and carry it. And eventually, you will not feel the weight of it, but just barely. And…
Kids that have come back to me a couple of years later have said, yeah, I have learned to live with this. It doesn’t go away. It’s not something that you get over a loss. It’s that you learn to live in spite of it. And there are times when it appears on your horizon or right in the middle of your day. And there are times when you don’t notice it so much. They’re always amazed that they can still have so much joy at the same time that grief is present.
lots of good memories that come back and seem to lighten that little backpack for a little while.
Courtney (48:23.31)
Yeah, yeah. So thinking about that, thinking about our role as adoptive parents, what would you say, how would you finish the sentence, what youth who are adopted really need is?
Pamela Bauer (48:40.588)
They really need to know that there is a safe place they can talk to you about anything. They don’t even have to have all the words right or the tone of voice right. They can say anything and you will listen and take them seriously. The issues that a child has in their heart at any age are the same issues in an adult’s heart. We all want to know that we matter. We all want to know who we are.
We all are trying to make sense out of what’s going on in our life. We’re all looking for hope. We’re looking for love and to be loved. And we’re looking for help with our problems. Those are universal for all people.
And so to be able to listen to a child and to care for their soul, I think is the greatest expression of love we can have for them. To know that I not only care about getting you to soccer, which is your joy of today, I not only care about your education, which is going to help you with your future tomorrow, I care with the inmost part of you, the eternal part of you. And I want to help you.
Courtney (49:48.495)
Beautiful. Yeah, thank you, Pam, for sharing your wisdom and sharing these things. If somebody’s listening, an adoptive mom, dad is listening and they’re saying, I get these things, but my child is really struggling with adoption, with attachment, with grief and through adoption. What would you suggest they do if it’s kind of like beyond their scope of understanding or feeling that they can help within their home?
Pamela Bauer (50:06.104)
Thank
Pamela Bauer (50:15.325)
Pamela Bauer (50:20.674)
Well, I’m part of a group of biblical counselors, so we’re trained to work with children in that area through the gospel and through scripture. And I find there to be a great amount of hope for kids there because I worked with one little guy who was 11 and he was so brilliant. I kept thinking, I’ve got to go back to watching educational TV, not so much masterpiece theater in order to keep up with this little kid.
But I was talking to him about where his life began and who has the recipe card for how to make you. And he came up with, God, he’s the creator. He’s the one who made me. And I said, yes. So where did your life begin? And he said, it began in the mind of God. I said, it was so much bigger than who your biological or your adoptive parents are. You have a story so much bigger.
And then he looked at me and he goes, and one day it will end before the face of God. And so I need to live in a way that pleases and glorifies him. And I said, yes, now we’re on the right track. And so I think it was really helpful for him. I think, know, reading what you can, there’s a lot out there that’s confusing and sounds wise, but I don’t really think it pans out in my experience of having been through years and years of therapy with my kids.
some of those issues dealing with their shame that sometimes they feel like they’re just not as valuable as other kids and it’s not true. Where do you get your value from?
You know, if I have a hundred dollar bill and I always use that with the little kids because they always think that’s a big deal and I’ll hold up a brand new hundred dollar bill, how much is this worth? And they’ll be like, that’s a hundred dollars. And I’ll take it outside with them and we’ll stomp on it and rub it in the ground and get it wet. And it’s all gnarly looking. I how much is it worth now? Well, it’s still a hundred dollars. Yeah, its value hasn’t changed. Life’s been hard to it, but its value hasn’t changed because somebody else determined its value. Who determines yours?
Pamela Bauer (52:26.85)
And that sparks good conversations that really go to the core of what they’re talking about when it comes to identity and value. And then what they’re learning about themselves is they’re going through hardship because every single life has hardship. And they’ll tell me, but I didn’t pick this. And I’ll say, do you think the child born blind picked it? Or the child born in a refugee camp picked it? None of us pick our life.
Courtney (52:48.184)
Mm.
Courtney (52:53.238)
Yeah.
Pamela Bauer (52:56.194)
but we all are accountable to live it well. So when it comes to resources, I would go to biblicalcounseling.com personally and look for a biblical counselor.
Courtney (53:00.726)
Hmm.
Courtney (53:09.708)
Yeah.
Yeah, I often tell my, again, without sharing too much, I have a couple of kids who I feel have, they’ve struggled, but they have accepted and sovereignty, just who they are as adults, who they are as people, they’ve accepted their adoption as their story. And I have one child who just really does not seem like they have accepted that yet. And the exception is going to, their outlet is going to
people who are negative about adoption and negative about their stories on Instagram and social media. And so I’m always sending the opposite. I think there’s a health, a healthy thing in talking with other people who have been adopted if you’ve been adopted. But there can also be a danger in that if it’s all just negative voices and if it’s not positive, like this is the life that you have been given to live, like you said. And now you have a choice. You have a choice to.
Pamela Bauer (53:58.431)
Exactly. Yes.
Courtney (54:08.774)
And it’s not saying we don’t have empathy, sympathy, compassion for them. It’s not saying just get over it. But it is like you have to at some point not want that to define who you are and what your future is going to be. And if you’re letting it, then it’s going to go on for years. And that’s kind of what we’ve seen.
Pamela Bauer (54:14.008)
No.
Pamela Bauer (54:25.602)
There’s no help in a lie. There’s no help in a lie. It’s only if they get the truth that then they can start to move forward. There’s a scripture in the Bible that says God set places the lonely in families. And a child left alone is a lonely person. They have no help at the age of four or five or six. They’re not equipped to go out and function in the adult world. And they need help.
And I told my kids adoption is God’s act of mercy to you. You have received mercy from the Lord. I’ve received mercy as he’s given me you to care for.
So it is very hard when they won’t accept the adoption. They really do have to adopt you back and say, okay, you can be my mom. And sometimes it’s just, can I just be the mom that you have right now? Could we just not fight today about who’s gonna be in charge? Can we not, can we just not argue about everything today? Yeah. Will you just let me love you?
Courtney (55:40.672)
It is, and the motto behind America’s Kids Belong is we want kids to feel that they belong. We want them to feel that whether they’re in foster care, whether they’re in, reunited with their biological families or whether they’re adopted, we want them to feel that they belong, because that’s a feeling that we all want. We want to feel accepted and that we have belonging. thanks.
Pamela Bauer (55:52.078)
Yeah.
Pamela Bauer (55:58.626)
I think that’s a real calling of every human heart is where do I belong? And to know that you are displaced from where you think you belong has got to be a very frightening feeling. But if there’s people there that are willing to help you, to hold you, to encourage you, to listen to you, to provide you with the things you need so that you can learn and grow and go forward and point you in a path forward, I think in the end,
Courtney (56:01.986)
Yeah.
Pamela Bauer (56:28.044)
You will love them and be grateful to them and attached to them as people who really spoke life into me at my darkest time, even if I was only four at the time.
Courtney (56:38.67)
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Well, great things for people to think about. Again, it’s National Adoption Month. And so would just encourage people to consider these things, think about these things, be willing to have these conversations with your kids because they’re thinking it. So if you don’t have it, they’re going to be figuring it out on their own or asking other people if you’re not willing to go there to have these conversations. So thanks again.
Pamela Bauer (56:54.412)
They are thinking it.
Pamela Bauer (57:00.748)
Yeah. And it’s a wonderful bonding time with them. They’re sharing their deepest heart questions with you. They’ve let you in. And a lot of those times, I just ask more questions instead of providing so many answers right away because they’re open and they’re vulnerable and they’re not defended against trying to keep all of their secrets on the inside. They’re really willing to share. So yeah, talk, listen, ask questions.
Courtney (57:28.11)
great things to think about. So thanks again, Pam. We enjoyed our conversation with you.
Pamela Bauer (57:31.235)
Thanks Courtney. Absolutely my pleasure.
Courtney (57:34.627)
Yeah.
