The 31st Annual APC Adoption Conference, 11.20.11: Reflections on a Sunday in Brooklyn

By Anne Malavé, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist and APC Member

Once a year the APC community makes a great effort to create a successful annual conference.  After months of behind the scene preparations, volunteers from around the tri-state area get up at the crack of dawn (or before!) to make their way to the conference site to prepare for this event. Participants, including repeaters and many new faces, also make their way to the conference site, accompanied by their fears and dreams.  

For those familiar with these conferences, there is always a great feeling about this day.  It is well known that many families are formed only after people attend their first conference.  For many this event signifies a shift in focus, a change in course, which results in the development of new adoptive families.  The ‘before and after’ is quite palpable, and extremely powerful.   I would like to explore some of the reasons why this is so.

It is well known to those in the adoption community that there are common misconceptions about adoption, usually known as ‘myths and fears’.  Besides the usual concerns that children who are adopted will reject their adoptive parents and turn out badly, there is a concern that there are no longer any children to adopt.  People who know little about adoption generally feel as if they know “too much” about adoption even before they do any research. In my opinion this approach is not unusual. The unknown is hard for us all; so hard in fact that we tend to “fill in the gaps” and find a way to act as if we actually know something we do not know.  For those unfamiliar with adoption, the differences far outweigh the similarities.

The conference provides a good deal to the attendees, including resources and information and access to adoption professionals.  But I would argue that the most important thing it provides is hope.  What I hear over and over again from people who attend for the first time is that the adoptive parents seem happy with their choices, and that parenthood finally seems possible.  It is not as though the presentations present a one-sided picture of adoption; indeed there is a wide array of topics including the difficult ones.  But I think that the fact that so many “regular” looking people have taken this path and seem positive about it makes a huge difference.

Adoption is parents finding their children and children finding parents.  This can be dressed up as altruism, but it is for the most part nothing so complicated.  Instead it is about ordinary, unremarkable people trying to make their way forwards in life, doing what most people do.  The conference shows the attendees that this does happen, that this has happened, and that this can happen.

Parenting is about the cycle in life.  Conferences occur because people need what they have to offer.  Volunteers fill this need because everyone could do with some help in life.  The circle comes around and completes itself when the person who previously crossed the threshold in fear welcomes new faces coming through the door.  Hope is alive.