Picture a wall. It has a lot of bricks and on that wall is a picture of your face. That wall is your identity. It's the wall that you've built up over the years and will continue building for the rest of your life. Now, you add to that wall throughout your life but the most important parts of that wall are built when you are a young child. They are the foundations on which the rest of the wall is built.
Children who have been in care, foster care or through adoption struggle more than anything with identity. "Who am I?" is a massive question for them. They have had so many changes in their short lives that it must all seem like a whirlwind to them. They live here with these people. Now they live here with these people. And now these other people and this other town.
Think about your early life and think about the consistency that you probably had. Same house. Same parents. Same siblings. Same friends. Same school. Same city. Same name.
For them? Not so much.
Fairly soon, Mrs and I will be applying for an Adoption Order for Mr Man and Little Miss. It will mean that very soon their names will be changing. Out of all of the constants that have been removed from their life the one thing that has stayed consistent is their name and now they're going to lose that too.
We have brought the subject up with them over the last few weeks and there is definitely a fair amount of confusion and even some hostility to the change. Little Miss said that she doesn't care if we change her name she's still going to use her old name. Over the weeks she has started getting used to the idea of the name change and it is important that we, as parents, make sure that she doesn't forget her old name and her old life, or at least the parts that aren't too painful for her to remember.
Mr Man is a bit more confused by the whole thing. The concept of names; of first names and surnames is all a bit baffling for him. He knows who he is and what his name is but isn't really sure why, which makes the fact that this will soon be changing all a bit strange for him.
All we can do is be there for them as this massive change happens in their lives and support them through the difficulties that they will undoubtedly face. It doesn't help that the kids haven't told the children at school that they have been adopted. They are still struggling to accept that being adopted doesn't make them abnormal. They still feel this is maybe something that they should be ashamed of. It's something we're working on. When they go back to their school after the summer holidays, quite possibly with a new name they will have a lot of explaining to do!
That being said it's important that we don't do damage to their identity. We are all the sum of our experiences, whether they be good or bad and everything that has happened to us goes some way into shaping our identity, our sense of self. They will be fine and we will add a beautiful new brick to their wall, but we have to make sure that by putting our new brick on the wall we're not damaging the wall that is already there.
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