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Dedicated to my son
By Vlada Sergueyeva
Translation by Tanya Yurlova
Excerpts
… I decided to adopt a girl though I had always wanted a boy. Talking to the official of the Department of Education - a haughty and well-groomed lady - I explained to her that I was not going to marry, and raising a boy without a man around ... well, wasn't such a good idea and that was why it would be better for me, as a woman, to adopt a girl. All of a sudden the lady lost all her haughtiness and said with a voice full of wisdom and experience, "Trust me. Boys attach to mothers quicker. If you had a husband then a girl would suit you more, but it will be easier with a boy". Word for word it was repeated by the Baby Home Doctor, who added that she knew many families where fathers meant very little, and some families would have been better off without any fathers. And still everything was fine with their sons.
Baby homes' directors can attest to the fact that most adoptive parents would like to have a little girl rather than a boy. However, the myth that an abandoned boy is doomed to become a criminal or an alcoholic has absolutely nothing in common with reality. Psychologists and caregivers try to convince parents that male mentality is more amenable, boys are quicker to accept family rules, and they are more sincere and open than girls.
Another misconception is to think that the younger the child is, the better. Older children have a great advantage - their genetic heredity has already revealed itself, as well as their personality and character. An infant is full of unknowns, everything that is to know about him will become evident only at the age of six or seven years. People want to adopt babies because they are afraid that an older child will forever be a stranger in the family. Not so! At five, eight or 10 years of age a child is ready to respond with love to parental love and to accept his adoptive home as a gift from God. The child's psyche is more unstable than the adult's, but it is also more resilient. Every child feels lonely, unsafe and insecure without a family. His instinct of self-preservation snaps into action as soon as he gets a chance to be protected by adults. At the age of eight - 10 years the child understands a lot, and, unlike an infant, is ready to do more to please you, to make you feel you need him and to win your love. It is not difficult to win his gratitude. It is more difficult for us, the adults, to understand that a child is our biggest success in life, and our biggest treasure.
…. When I was formalizing my adoption, the officials offered to change Alyosha's birth date to make him one year younger. They said that many adoptive parents did that. I refused saying that, since there were no problems with my son's intellect, he would quickly catch up with his peers. Alas, no one told me that intellectual and emotional development are two very different things, and that it is much easier to catch up intellectually than emotionally. I myself understood this only when Alyosha began to attend school.
At seven my son was still a five year-old. He easily passed all the tests in the first grade confirming that his intellectual development, memory, and logical thinking were normal. But sitting in class for 30 minutes in a row, listening to the teacher, behaving himself … Try to make a five year-old attend a first-grade class: he will fidget, stand up, and talk out of turn. And this is how Alyosha behaved. All this extremely annoyed his teacher. His wonderful memory, his intellect and imagination did not save him - by the end of the first year he was labeled the weakest student in class. This is when I understood that having an extra year before school would have been really helpful.
… Throughout his 11 years of grade school I had to prove to the teachers that my child was intelligent and wonderful, just not assiduous. … The reality was that having fallen behind in the first grade, he could not catch up. It was impossible to make him do his homework the first two or three years. He was smart and quick-witted, which helped for a while, but when complicated math, physics and chemistry began, he started getting F's. The most difficult subject was the Russian Language. Even though he has a vast vocabulary and easily converses even with adults, Alyosha writes with horrible and numerous mistakes. …The teacher of Russian Language in the 11th grade explained that dysgraphia might result from childhood psychological trauma (didn't I know what trauma it had been!), and the only time to correct it would be in the first grades of school… If only some one knowledgeable would have explained this to me at the beginning, I could have saved so much worry, time and money - mine, as well as other's!
I blame myself for not having done anything to help my son overcome his infantile behavior. In the 7th grade, he'd still fall asleep sucking his thumb. Even in the 11th grade he still would suck his thumb occasionally… He is very naive even though he is smart and sensible. At 16 he was still a 14 year-old emotionally. And at 18 he'll be a 15 year-old!… Well, this is something he could probably deal with. We all know of many men who have not grown up emotionally.
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