During this school year our second grader had a project related to social studies that included finding out your families ancestry.  She had worked on this project speaking with both her birth mother’s family and her birth father.  We learned from both sides she shared similar ancestry like being Scottish, Norwegian, Belgium and more.

Recently she and I were discussing what to have for dinner and the conversation turned into what you may eat if you are Chinese, Chinese food; Mexican, Mexican food; Irish, Irish food; etc.  I then explained that that may be true when living in your home country but you don’t have to be that ethnicity to eat that type of food.

Her response was well I eat Italian food and I’m Italian.  I looked at her thinking how I can respond to her as technically she is not Italian but I am.  I asked her if she remembered her school project from earlier this year and what we had learned about her ancestry.  She told me yes she remembered but that SHE IS Italian because I am.

I sit here today thinking about this conversation and being glad that our daughter knows where she comes from from the relationships we have with her birth families. It tells me she is not split on who her family is. She is confident in that she belongs to ALL of our families and we are all a part of her wholeness.