Many of you may know that we are in the process of adopting a fourteen year old girl, but you may not know what adoption is like from a guy's point of view. I'm not a man of many words nor do I talk about my feelings very much but I'll try to shed some light on how a man's brain might process adoption.
When we first starting talking about adoption I thought, sure that might be kind of cool, but didn't really think much past that at the time. Men are not as emotional as women are so when Jamie would send me the links to the children online that were available for adoption I kinda skimmed through the link and that was about it. But Jamie would look at the pages and cry for them. Maybe it's because she more has more empathy than I do.
So there I was just going along with all the classes it takes for the adoption process, waiting for something to freak me out enough to not want to go through with it. Jamie and I said at the beginning if either one of us became freaked out we would stop. Looking back I now know that God was taking care of us. Because I'm a man of few words, Jamie would ask me all the time if I was still ok with adopting. She wanted to know that I was still up for it; I told her that we were doing the right thing and if I thought that changed I would tell her.
There were people that would ask "why would you want to take on someone else's problem". I didn't get mad at the time because when I was asked that question, we didn't really have a child in mind that we were going to adopt. But the children in foster care are not the problem. They had no control over what they had been through. I don't think that men's brains work the same as a women's when it comes to hypothetical scenarios. Men are problem solvers and have to see what needs to be fixed before they can wrap their mind around it.
But now if some one asked me why I would want to take on someone else's problem, I would take it very personally because now they are talking about my girl. I know God brought her into our lives and I feel like she is already my daughter.
When we first starting talking about adoption I thought, sure that might be kind of cool, but didn't really think much past that at the time. Men are not as emotional as women are so when Jamie would send me the links to the children online that were available for adoption I kinda skimmed through the link and that was about it. But Jamie would look at the pages and cry for them. Maybe it's because she more has more empathy than I do.
So there I was just going along with all the classes it takes for the adoption process, waiting for something to freak me out enough to not want to go through with it. Jamie and I said at the beginning if either one of us became freaked out we would stop. Looking back I now know that God was taking care of us. Because I'm a man of few words, Jamie would ask me all the time if I was still ok with adopting. She wanted to know that I was still up for it; I told her that we were doing the right thing and if I thought that changed I would tell her.
There were people that would ask "why would you want to take on someone else's problem". I didn't get mad at the time because when I was asked that question, we didn't really have a child in mind that we were going to adopt. But the children in foster care are not the problem. They had no control over what they had been through. I don't think that men's brains work the same as a women's when it comes to hypothetical scenarios. Men are problem solvers and have to see what needs to be fixed before they can wrap their mind around it.
But now if some one asked me why I would want to take on someone else's problem, I would take it very personally because now they are talking about my girl. I know God brought her into our lives and I feel like she is already my daughter.
