Cindy Probst, social worker for the FCC/NE Lifebook Project, gave a lifebook session for FCC San Francisco in the fall of 2000. The following is a report from a parent who attended that session.

Telling Her Story, Not Ours: Notes from an FCC Lifebook Workshop

by Lori Dair

One summer morning, just before she turned three, our daughter Madeline rediscovered Happy Adoption Day on her bookshelf. A gift from her Aunt Ann when we became a family in early 1998, the book is a charmingly illustrated version of a song by folksinger John McCutcheon. We had only read it to Madeline a few times, many months ago. Suddenly, however, the book held great interest after she heard a recording of the song and realized it was the same as the book. As she twirled excitedly around the room with the book, belting out the words at the top of her lungs, and cheering "hip, hip, hooray" and "happy adoption day," I couldn't stop my tears from flowing.

We have always talked matter-of-factly with Madeline about adoption, and China, and how we became a family. We celebrate Family Day--just the three of us--with a special meal and a gift from our store of small items brought back from Chengdu. She has seen photographs from our trip, and we are starting to watch portions of the videos. Her referral picture–mounted against a backdrop of the Yangtze River--is still the "wallpaper" on our computer screen. She knows that she was born in China, Mama was born in California, and Daddy was born in Michigan.

Madeline often talks about being a baby in China, and regularly uses the word 'adoption.' Recently, when I asked what it means to her, she jumped up on a chair and exclaimed, hands clasped over her heart: "Love! Heart! Family! China!" Often, when I ask her to tell me about a drawing or painting she brings home from preschool, she tells me "it's about adoption ... family ... love ... forever." I know that we are still in the honeymoon period most young children have, where everything about adoption is wonderful and joyful and happy, but my heart is heavy in anticipation of the questions I know will come soon.

We have read a lot about adoption, and how to talk with young children about adoption. Madeline has many books about China and adoption and related themes. Invariably, though, we find ourselves editing them as we read them aloud, not always comfortable with the language, and frankly, not quite ready to talk very much with her--or even each other--about birthparents and abandonment. My plans to write her own story for her always seemed to remain on the back burner.

As the months flew by, I grew increasingly convinced that it was time to take our conversations about adoption to the next level. Madeline will soon want to know more about how she came into the world and then--five months later--came into our world. Her best friend's mother is pregnant. The baby is due on our third "Family Day." Rob and I are also expecting another child, in about a year or so--we just shared our fingerprints with the INS. We'll soon have a reunion with the families with whom we traveled to China; some of the girls are older, and further along in their understanding of birth and adoption. With so much going on, I expect there to be many teachable moments in the coming months. If only I were ready to teach.

Fortunately, at about the the time my anxiety reached its peak, an FCC workshop on lifebooks was scheduled in San Francisco, and I jumped at the chance, hoping it would give me the push I needed to grapple with my fears and start putting words onto paper.

Led by Cindy Probst, a Massachusetts adoption specialist, social worker, and FCC mother, the mid-October workshops were attended by 25 parents, split into two groups. In the afternoon session, twelve of us sat in a circle, drinking tea and eating fortune and almond cookies. Our children range in age from 20 months to 4 years. About half of them, coincidentally, were adopted from the orphanage in Chengdu. Some of us are making plans for a second adoption, and want to have lifebooks for our first child before we go back to China. Some parents had already created scrapbooks or diaries, others had started lifebooks and wanted assurance that they were on the right track. Many of us were thinking about the same issues. How do I tell her that she was abandoned? What if you don't have any information at all? What if you don't trust the information you do have? Do you have to use the words birthmother and birthfather?

It's Her Story

By far, the most important lesson I took away from the workshop was that Madeline's lifebook should tell her story. It is meant to assist in her self-understanding and build her self-esteem. Our daughter's life did not start when we came on the scene. A lifebook presents the facts of our children's early lives, beginning before they joined our family, and it is told from their perspective, not ours. It's great to have diaries of our feelings and our travails along the road to adoption, and scrapbooks of our trip to China, but that's our story. Photos and memories of her life since we became a family are wonderful, too, and will no doubt be treasured, but they are no substitute for a lifebook.

What Belongs in a Lifebook?

As we learned from Cindy, a lifebook should begin with our daughter's birth (or even earlier). Our meeting with her also has its place in a lifebook, but it is not the centerpiece of the story. In general, while there is much room for variation and personal style, Cindy suggests that lifebooks for our daughters include some explanation of the following:

• Her birth. She was born, just like everyone else. She did not come from an airplane, although we may have inadvertently given her that impression.

• Her birthparents. Like everyone else, she has (or had) a birthmother and a birthfather. Even with very young children, it's good to start using these words. She will identify with her birthparents at some point. It's important to try to create some depth for them, to make birthparents real for them. Our daughter is left-handed, for example, so we could suggest at some point that perhaps this trait came from one of her birthparents.

• Backdrop to circumstances. She needs to understand why she isn't with her birthparents. A lifebook should explain China's population policy (two children or one son), and gender preferences, and abandonment. There are ways to talk about abandonment, even with young children.

Some Tips

In addition to this broad outline, Cindy offered many other useful suggestions about the content and format of lifebooks:

• Provide as much detail as you can. Every little fact you can include is incredibly important to your child. You may think that you don't have any details, but if you dig deep you will find some. For example, you might find out what the weather was like on the day she was born, in the region of her birth. These details help her visualize her early life and "prove" she had one. Details make the story more tangible to her. Try to individualize it, with details of who she is, what she ate, liked, was wearing, etc. But also universalize it. Facts are so grounding, even if they seem insignificant. Without facts, when there is too much uncertainty, children will fantasize. We need to make it as real as possible for them.

• Stick to the facts. Remember to put in facts, not our feelings about those facts. Don't sugarcoat. It is tempting to embellish the story with things we hope are true. We want our children to feel good about China, but some parts of the story are hard and we can't change that. Make sure you qualify anything you don't know for sure.

• Reframe events in a positive way. For many workshop participants, one of the most welcome--and also most challenging--suggestions was the notion of reframing the facts to emphasize our children's resilience and strength. Our children are survivors, and although we don't necessarily want to use that word with them, we can convey their strength in our choice of words. For example, you might say "you have such a brave character, that probably helped you when ..."

• Abandonment can be reframed as a caring act--our children were placed somewhere safe because someone cared. If your daughter's story includes some facts that are particularly painful or hard, you may want to do some brainstorming with others about how you could reframe them in a positive way. Cindy encouraged us to work with other parents while contemplating and composing our children's lifebooks. After our workshops, many of us exchanged e-mail addresses and made plans to hold follow-up sessions to help each other work through some of the more difficult issues.

• Use positive adoption language. Don't be afraid to use adoption language, in lifebooks and in everyday conversation. Use the words 'birthmother',' birthfather', 'birthparents'. Say "they were not able to parent or raise" (rather than keep) her. Your daughter was "placed" (rather than left) "beside a bench at the train station." She "arrived home" or "we became a family" (rather than "we got her").

• It doesn't have to be a work of art. The words are much more important than the design and materials you use. Write the words first, and then decide how you are going to assemble the book. Many people use 3-ring-binders and plastic sleeves, so pages can be easily inserted, edited, or embellished later. This is a book you hope will get a lot of use, so you don't need a fancy cover. Make it accessible, so your child can pull it out when she wants it.

• Keep in mind developmental stages. Up until age 5, most children have pretty positive feelings about adoption. At age 10, kids are thinking a lot about identity, and are grappling with different issues. When you write a lifebook, think about how it will sound in years to come. Don't just wait for kids to ask questions, you are planting seeds for later discussions. Your child's lifebook should grow in complexity as your child grows older. You can do this by re-writing the book from time to time, or by writing an "older" version and then reading only the parts she is ready for. You will know when she is ready.

The process of creating a lifebook is for many of us a difficult and painful one, but it offers many rewards. One of the great benefits is the chance to practice talking to our children about their story. Working on a lifebook gives us an opportunity to think things through. With all that hard work behind us, we'll be ready--or at least more ready--for our children's questions, and for those of their friends and schoolmates. Our attitudes and reactions to these questions, and how we tell her story, have everything to do with her feelings about herself and her beginnings. Our children our strong and resilient. They can deal with the hard, painful stuff, if we help them.

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Thanks to Amy Klatzkin, Debbie Davidson, Wendy Robushi, and Helen Archer-Duste for their efforts in for arranging these workshops with Cindy Probst. Also, thanks to Kenneth Rhodes and Debbie Asano for their donation of frequent flyer miles for Cindy's trip to California.