"How do you feel about being Chineese and being adopted lately?"

I have resumed reading all the adoption blogs i had followed earlier in the year and have added a few handfulls more. I'm not sure if i'm drawn to China adoption blogs because of my friend Sarah or if there are just an abundance of China adoption blogs.
I stumbled into one the other day, that i haven't been able to find again, Where the mother described a conversation she had with her 7 or 8 year old daughter. The mother frequently asks the daughter "How do you feel about being Chineese and being adopted lately?" to keep the conversation open and to allow her daughter to explore those feelings and thoughts that may be difficult to explore alone.

This is going to expose the kind of parent i've always been but it shocked me that the mother asked this question and then was able to navigate the following conversation.

In all my years of parenting older children, either my step children or the foster children who came through, i don't think i EVER ONCE asked a child how they felt about their situation in life. I don't remember ever asking. I don't remember discussing it at all.

Sam's emotional lay of the land was always littered with mines. Whenever we discussed his feelings about his mother it was nearly always either him sobbing about how much better life would be if he lived with her Or he was spewing hate about how horrible i was and how i could never be a real mother to him. As a 19 year old child, myself, THIS was a difficult enough conversation to have on a simi-daily basis being as i had NO IDEA what i was doing at the time.

When i was 21, Joe moved in with us and i remember asking him to tell me about differences between living with his Mother and living with us. I don't think we ever really discussed in any kind of depth as to why he had asked to move with us. I never asked how he felt about changing households. I never asked either of the boys how they felt or what they thought about sharing a home again after nearly 4 years living apart from eachother.

With all the foster children we had move through our home, i don't think i ever discussed with any of them as to why they were in foster care. I never asked how they felt about it. I never asked what their personal thoughts were on something they couldn't controll changing the course of their lives.

And i NEVER ever EVER asked Sam or Joe how they felt about having the foster children coming into and out of their lives.

By not asking, i truely have no idea how these children felt about their lives while they lived with me.

During that time in my life, it was all about getting through the day. Getting through the day was making sure every person in the household was doing what they needed to be doing, keeping up the house, and keeping up appearances. It was coping, basically. Coping for survival. This kind of living just doesn't make for a conducive environment for emotional growth or understanding. Even if i had of had the words to ask "How are you feeling about being You in Your Life lately?" I'm positive i couldn't have managed the conversation that would inevitably have followed.

When i look back on just how much of a mess I'd made out of every effort of parenting any child during that time, I'm positive that our decision to foster was not the best decision for our family or for the children that we eventually had in our home. It is horrifying to realize so many years later. It is heartbreaking to accept that so many of the fears that i trembled under during that time came true despite every choice i made that i thought would lead us away from them.

This has left me wondering, quite sadly, "How do I feel about being Me in My Life?"

And i'm still not prepared for the conversation that should follow.