Liam approached me a few weeks back with an interest in changing his name. Yep his first name, the one we gave him with much thought and debate. Chris and I have two of the most common names of the 70s. I didn't go a single year in school without another Jennifer in my class and usually there were at least 4 of us. In choosing our children's names we decided to go less common. Seamus is not too different but certainly he is not likely to meet too many in his life, Eoin is a pretty common name with a less common spelling. The name Liam though has become quite popular and if he were in school he would no doubt be the one of a few "Liams". His issue though is not that his name is too common or not common enough but because he likes the other name better.
What name does he want, you ask? He would like to use the name William. Wait let me rewrite that in case you miss it, Wil-LIAM. I am not sure how putting the "Wil" infront of "Liam" makes it better but he feels that it suits his personality better. Maybe it sounds older to him? Being older is something that has been his focus since he was wee. We used to joke that we had a 2 year old teenager. Liam has always wanted to be beyond his years. William definitely sound 'older' than Liam.
So what do you do when your child wants a different name? ...........Are you waiting for an answer? No that was a question, I am asking you! What do you do when your child wants to change his name? I can't figure it out.
Chris has tried this past week to fill Liam's request and has called him "William" a number of times. It just sounds weird. I have tried but goodness I can't say it feels right. We have done a lot of talking about what a name means over the past couple years in terms of adoption and how important birth or given names are to a child's identity and here our child by birth is wanting to shed the name we gave him and identify with something else.
I am pretty sure it won't last long but we are doing our best to help him try it on for a while. If he had asked us to call him "George" or "Dustin" or anything other than a longer form of his given name we would have balked a bit more about the name change no doubt. I think it is time though to pull out a book that we have called "Josephina Hates Her Name" by Diana Engel. Maybe together we can figure out what's in a name.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Saturday, June 2, 2012
A small issue of trust
Trust has to be earned. This, I am re-learning.
When my boys were born we met their needs through touch, nutrition, nurturing, and providing a safe environment. In fact we took that job pretty seriously and chose a parenting path in which trust was fundamental. If our babies cried we picked them up, if they cued me I fed them. They often didn't have to ask twice when they were wee. Most times they didn't even have to ask as we were already meeting the needs in anticipation. As they grew their trust in our care developed so that when we couldn't meet their needs immediately they believed in us, we were their rock and they knew that we would not let them down.
Through the years I have taken those early steps for granted. For me being mother means being 'the stuff', the go to girl, the name up in lights, star of the show. The crowd chants my name every night wanting encores. Even if I had made different early choices as a parent the biology alone would have created some level of connection and trust. I would have had to work at creating a distrust with the boys.
Most recently I am learning what it feels like to nurture a child who does not have that trust in me. I have nurtured many children before her, my career path pre-parenthood was in early childhood development. The nature of the job required me to care for children 8+ hours a day 5 or more days a week. Those children always had parents or caregivers to go home to, the people that they trusted. I am sure I developed a trust with those children but it is not the same as being a mother.
I am becoming 'mother', interim or otherwise, to a child that has yet to develop that trust in me. I haven't earned it yet. I can't pick her up and put her to breast when she is sad, hungry, hurt, tired. We can't share our bed with her to let her know that we are there both day and night. Even if I could the trust that goes along with that wouldn't be there right away. Being good at motherhood doesn't mean anything to her...........yet. The skills I have gathered over almost the last decade and a half do not apply, or at the very least don't matter to her in terms of her trusting me now. Those skills may get us there one day but I can't even say that will be soon.
On top of parenting a child who doesn't fully trust me I will be parenting the child who is grieving the loss of her first foster parents. This is not a simple loss for her but a deep one. My heart breaks for her loss and theirs. Even though we went into this process 'knowing' it was one that was filled with loss and grieving it doesn't make it easier to bear.
I am willing to be patient. I will share what she will accept when she is ready and believe that the patience will pay off in trust. The trust will be earned just as it was with my boys, we will just have to follow a different path.
When my boys were born we met their needs through touch, nutrition, nurturing, and providing a safe environment. In fact we took that job pretty seriously and chose a parenting path in which trust was fundamental. If our babies cried we picked them up, if they cued me I fed them. They often didn't have to ask twice when they were wee. Most times they didn't even have to ask as we were already meeting the needs in anticipation. As they grew their trust in our care developed so that when we couldn't meet their needs immediately they believed in us, we were their rock and they knew that we would not let them down.
Through the years I have taken those early steps for granted. For me being mother means being 'the stuff', the go to girl, the name up in lights, star of the show. The crowd chants my name every night wanting encores. Even if I had made different early choices as a parent the biology alone would have created some level of connection and trust. I would have had to work at creating a distrust with the boys.
Most recently I am learning what it feels like to nurture a child who does not have that trust in me. I have nurtured many children before her, my career path pre-parenthood was in early childhood development. The nature of the job required me to care for children 8+ hours a day 5 or more days a week. Those children always had parents or caregivers to go home to, the people that they trusted. I am sure I developed a trust with those children but it is not the same as being a mother.
I am becoming 'mother', interim or otherwise, to a child that has yet to develop that trust in me. I haven't earned it yet. I can't pick her up and put her to breast when she is sad, hungry, hurt, tired. We can't share our bed with her to let her know that we are there both day and night. Even if I could the trust that goes along with that wouldn't be there right away. Being good at motherhood doesn't mean anything to her...........yet. The skills I have gathered over almost the last decade and a half do not apply, or at the very least don't matter to her in terms of her trusting me now. Those skills may get us there one day but I can't even say that will be soon.
On top of parenting a child who doesn't fully trust me I will be parenting the child who is grieving the loss of her first foster parents. This is not a simple loss for her but a deep one. My heart breaks for her loss and theirs. Even though we went into this process 'knowing' it was one that was filled with loss and grieving it doesn't make it easier to bear.
I am willing to be patient. I will share what she will accept when she is ready and believe that the patience will pay off in trust. The trust will be earned just as it was with my boys, we will just have to follow a different path.
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