I so get the we are adopted by God thing. That's Biblical and true. There is also a human experience to human adoption. As a child therapist who specializes in child and family therapy and attachment trauma, an adopted person, and a parent who has adopted a child, let me encourage and strongly caution you with a perspective you may have not considered. The adoptive parent answering with only "I am your parent" (while unintended) can be received by the child as ignoring the question and/or invalidating their experience. It may be helpful to ask if the child is asking about biology, and/or celebrate the fact that God allowed another person to grow her and for you and your wife to raise her. That's part of her testimony and her identify. You can't just whitewash her experience with spirituality. It's okay and acceptable and healing for her to know the full story in an age appropriate manner. She obviously looks different, and trying to ignore/ deny that could be considered gaslighting from her experience. OR she could understand her looks and your refusal to talk about it as rejecting / unacceptable. She became YOUR daughter, but to her, you became her adoptive father- even if she considers you her "real" father. Ignoring and/or denying her beautiful, unique story conveys shame, whether you mean it to or not. Celebrate her ethnicity. Respect where she came from. Allow her to explore and embrace similarities and differences within your family. Just like we are all called a new name after being adopted by God, we don't identify as the old self. It's not who we are. Also, God does not erase our memory. He does not force us to forget where we came from. It's part of our redemption story. Thank you for reading and I wish your beautiful family the very best.
I so get the we are adopted by God thing. That's Biblical and true. There is also a human experience to human adoption. As a child therapist who specializes in child and family therapy and attachment trauma, an adopted person, and a parent who has adopted a child, let me encourage and strongly caution you with a perspective you may have not considered.
The adoptive parent answering with only "I am your parent" (while unintended) can be received by the child as ignoring the question and/or invalidating their experience. It may be helpful to ask if the child is asking about biology, and/or celebrate the fact that God allowed another person to grow her and for you and your wife to raise her. That's part of her testimony and her identify.
You can't just whitewash her experience with spirituality. It's okay and acceptable and healing for her to know the full story in an age appropriate manner. She obviously looks different, and trying to ignore/ deny that could be considered gaslighting from her experience. OR she could understand her looks and your refusal to talk about it as rejecting / unacceptable.
She became YOUR daughter, but to her, you became her adoptive father- even if she considers you her "real" father. Ignoring and/or denying her beautiful, unique story conveys shame, whether you mean it to or not. Celebrate her ethnicity. Respect where she came from. Allow her to explore and embrace similarities and differences within your family.
Just like we are all called a new name after being adopted by God, we don't identify as the old self. It's not who we are. Also, God does not erase our memory. He does not force us to forget where we came from. It's part of our redemption story. Thank you for reading and I wish your beautiful family the very best.