This week my daughter Lily was given the assignment that all of us adoptive moms dread….The Family Tree.

The biggest problem was that it was given more as a “culture of origin” assignment, which meant she was to write about the foods and customs from the place where her ancestors came from.

REALLY?!?!?!

I understand that this is an English class and the teacher was just trying to get the students to find out about different places and write about them. He was not trying to make our family implode for a night, he was not trying to make a 16-year-old who is already struggling with identity question it even more. He was not aware that her perfectionism would make it impossible for her to just pick a country and do the assignment,  she needed it to be “right” and the way the assignment was written meant there really was no “right”.

I mean come on, even BIOLOGICALLY  there are 7 different cultures represented.

Please hear me, I am in NO WAY blaming this teacher, he has a very hard job and he was just trying to make a boring subject more interesting. It is not his job to help Lily with identity issues, it is ours.

At first, we encouraged her to just write about what her favorite foods in China were. This was NOT what we should have done…. She lived there for 10 years but has no “history” beyond that. She is a Ferrell and wanted to do the assignment as a Ferrell.

BIG TIME MAMA FAIL!

She was not a part of a family in China, Her FAMILY is US and her family tree is OURS. She is as much a Ferrell as any of us.

OF COURSE SHE IS.

Soooooo what is a mama to do with this kind of assignment? I don’t know that I have all the answers but this is how we approached it. I hope it helps.

I got a picture of a tree that had been grafted. Have you ever seen one?

I explained that even though she may not have started out growing as a Ferrell she was completely grafted into our family tree. Our root system is HER root system. Family is not biology any more than being a part of this beautiful tree is biology. Each one of the branches started to grow out of a different seed, but today they are ONE TREE. They share the same root system.

There has been a lot of “grafting in” in our family…..her sister Emma, her uncle Mike, her cousin Hannah, her brother-in-law Josh….All grafted in by our heavenly father who “gives families to the lonely” (Psalm 68:6)

We are family….Period.

So the next time your child who has been grafted into your family through marriage or adoption has a family tree project, do not fear! Just show them this picture, give them a huge hug and reassure them they are just as much a ___________ as anyone else on that family tree!