World Adoption Day is November 9th. To raise awareness you are supposed to draw a smiley face on your hand and post it to social media. I did a smiley face on my hand and posted to my media sites. I then began to ponder what that could mean. Why a smiley face? Why not a picture of your kid? There are some pictures of families with their adopted/biological kids with a smiley face on all their hands. Why? I tried to research the meaning and did not really find one. So here is my take. My soon to be child is still in foster care. She is officially a ward of the state. The rights of her biological parents have been terminated. She legally belongs to the state. They will make all the decisions for her until we adopt her. Thankfully we have had her in our care from the beginning and our experience with our social workers and CASA workers have been fantastic! However, as a foster kiddo, she is not allowed to have her picture posted for any reason. We used to be able to post pictures of her from behind. Pictures of her far off where you can not tell who she is. The laws have changed to the point where we are no longer allowed to post anything. It may seem strange but if you had your child in foster care would you want to see her face on social media? Would you want to see her life without you? It makes sense. In respect to the biological parents, posting is a big no-no! We are sort of in limbo land but still not allowed. As much as I want to post pictures of her first day of PreK, K and 1st, I could not. Yes, she has been with me that long. As much as I wanted to post her picture of opening the Power Wheels Jeep she got last year for Christmas, I can not. Video’s I have of her playing the piano, singing, saying the movie lines along with the movie Frozen, I can not. So instead I will keep these memories safe until such a time is I can brag to the world how great this kid is. I will keep my phone loaded with videos that she can watch when she wants. Pictures I can show my friends and family instead of the outer friends on social media. To those mom’s and dad’s proud of your kid…post away! I love seeing smiles and love of life. But watch out for picture overload when those adoption papers are final! #WorldAdoptionDay
Our family has been blessed by adoption as well – we LOVE the smiles and joy these special blessings bring to our lives. I did not know about the smilie-in-the-hand thing, but I’ll be more aware now.
Merry Christmas to you and yours!
(stopping by via Thoughtful Thursdays blog hop)
In my opinion , there is to much “red tape” around adoption .
I totally get the reason behind not posting on social media – I don’t post many personal pictures anymore, maybe it’s because I have been blogging over 10 years and realised some moments I just want to keep to us. That do you can post freely though, that will be the best day as it will mean adoption day and so much more! Big hugs x Sim x #TrafficJamWeekend