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Dedicated to my son
By Vlada Sergueyeva
Translation by Tanya Yurlova
Excerpts
… I am convinced that you have to set limits from the very beginning and be firm about enforcing them… I know from experience that an orphanage child with certain behavioral stereotypes is difficult to control because he doesn’t have the initial understanding of the family discipline and obedience. He has fear, which has nothing to do with obedience, let alone understanding of what’s appropriate and what’s not. At the beginning, only the fear of punishment can stop him. The very first day of our life together, I wanted to stroke Alyosha on the head. He covered his head with his hands and tensed. He was hit on the head not stroked! He remained fearful for a very long time but he kept ignoring my requests and the simple word “No”. No one ever told him that he could not climb on the couch in dirty shoes – he’s never had a couch in his life, so he could not figure out why I was angry. Why must he sit in the bus? Why isn’t he allowed to run around? He’d tear himself away from me and would fall when the bus stopped. He would arrive at the pre-school all dirty and I would be mad. But, he’s never ridden a bus before and it took Alyosha a while to figure out how to behave in it.
And how many toys he broke and how many books were torn apart before he understood the meaning of “mine”. You normally take care of your own things. But an orphanage child who never had anything doesn’t know to take care of them. If you don’t grab a toy, another child will. Someone else plays with your favorite car and breaks it. So, it’s OK for you to break a toy too, at least you got to play with it. It took Alyosha a long time to realize that he had his own home, and his – only his – mama. When I would come to pick him up at the pre-school, he wouldn’t let me dress him. He was too busy informing all the parents and children, “My Mama! This is my Mama!” And when we arrived at the door of our apartment, he would ask, “Is this my door?” It would surprise and delight him that he had his own plate, cup or slippers. “It’s mine!” he would proudly announce to our guests….
What can you say… At three, Alyosha didn’t know the simplest things. At first, he used the word Mama to address not only me but also all my friends, the pre-school caretaker and even the women in the bus! He didn’t know what Mama really meant, thinking that this was how one addressed all women. He didn’t know what it meant to go visit friends. And what a birthday or New Year was. And who Santa Claus was. He would ask, pointing to a potato, “Is this an apple?” He thought every round fruit or vegetable was an apple. He would rush into the traffic right in front of the moving cars because he had never seen them and didn’t know it was dangerous. … It took me a long while to teach him to listen while I read to him. First, I taught him to look at the pictures in the books. Then, I would describe to him what we saw in the pictures. And only after a year or so did he learn to listen to me as I read to him.
He didn’t even know how to kiss! His first caress was as formal as all his previous life: in about a week of our life together Alyosha… stroked me on the head. And when he first kissed me, he just pecked me with his nose a few times, not even knowing to touch my cheek with his lips. It turned out later that he was very affectionate and loved to kiss and hug and be kissed and hugged in return. He craved love and affection, which he hadn’t received in his early childhood.
Because there were no strollers in the Baby Home, Alyosha had an overwhelming desire to ride in them… A couple of times he had this opportunity and it turned out that he was too big and sitting in a stroller was way too uncomfortable, so he decided not to do this anymore. Sleds were a different issue. At the age of 9, he still asked his grandma to pull the sleds while he was sitting in them. Grandma would grumble (“Look at you, you’re big enough to marry soon!”) but pull the sleds nonetheless. He loved to sit in my lap until he simply couldn’t fit there any more. Even now, the minute I sit on the couch, he is there, putting his head in my lap and ordering: “Stroke me.” I swear if he could, he would be purring like a cat…
This stroking and the thumb sucking are signs of hidden anxiety. On a very unconscious level the feeling that he was abandoned never leaves him. American psychologists say that adoptees live with this feeling all their lives. This is a trauma that cannot be totally cured, not even with the strongest and most dedicated love.
When I adopted Alyosha, my life changed dramatically. I was constantly playing catch-up, fell behind with my work, the weekends flew by in a split second and I still had the same amount of things left to do after they were over. Once, six months after adoption, Alyosha woke me up very early on a Saturday morning. All these months I slept little and was totally exhausted. I couldn’t open my eyes but got up and started feeding him. He whined, misbehaved and got on my nerves. And I lost it… I sat in an armchair in the middle of the room and wept loudly. I felt that I would never be able to control him, and that nothing good would come out of me as a mother. This child was not mine, and he’d remain that way. I’d overestimated my strength, I didn’t need that… I was sitting and weeping, and, all of a sudden, Alyosha came over to me, climbed into my lap, hugged me tightly and… started crying with me. He clung to me, stroked my head and repeated between sobs, “Mummy, don’t cry! Mummy dear…” He felt sorry for me! And he understood how I felt!
This was the moment when we became one – mother and son.
Just a few days later I woke up because Alyosha was standing near my bed crying and calling for me, “Mummy!” I turned my head – there was no one there. I got up and went to his bed, and at this very moment he started whimpering in his sleep. He had fallen ill. And I had felt that even before he himself had reacted to the fever. I had an unconscious connection with him now – just like all mothers and children do!
This book was published in Russia in 2004 with the financial support of the Children’s Hope Foundation. It is the fist Russian book on adoption written by an adoptive parent.
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