It has taken a long time in his school career, halfway through high school, but my adopted stepson has finally been assigned the most dreaded school project of all for adoptees, the family tree. We had thought that we were lucky enough to escape dealing with this particular project, when he had been assigned to make a timeline of his life, during grade school one year. We had wiped our brows in relief, thanking our lucky stars that we had gotten that project instead of having to do the family tree, but alas, it has finally reared its ugly head.

We only found out about the project this week, and it was due back in November. I am not sure why the teacher would pick the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas to assign a family tree project, but she did, and as far as adoption related issues are concerned, she really could not have picked a worse time to dole it out. We were discussing his grade in the class when he told me about the project, and the first question that I asked him was how he felt about doing the project, and if he wanted to do it, as I figured the teacher would let him do something else if he didn't want to, or couldn't rather, do the family tree. He told me it was fine, he didn't mind doing it, he just didn't want to have to make it all complicated with the adoption stuff, and asked if he could just leave his birthmother off, and use my picture for the mom spot. I told him he could do it that way, or if he wanted to include her on there, I was pretty sure that I had seen a template online for how to do a family tree when the family has been created by adoption.

He declined, he didn't seem to want his poster to look any different from anybody else's, even though I reminded him that I was sure that everyone's family tree was probably going to at least have some sort of step-family member in there somewhere, so all of the projects were going to have a special story in there somewhere, for one reason or another. After letting me finish, he once again reassured me in his abrasive, I'm done talking about this, teenage way, that he was fine with doing the project, as long as he didn't have to include _________in it, and you would be inserting the name of his birthmother in the blank.

This is something new for him, calling her by her first name. He had bounced back and forth between mom and attaching mom with her name, either before it or after, but lately, for about the last year, give or take, if he is speaking about her he is calling her by her name, and nothing else. I'm not sure why the change has occurred, but it has.

Even though he says, insists, that he is fine with doing the project, I doubt if that is a true statement. After all if he were fine with it wouldn't it be completed? Then again almost all of his work has been late in this particular class this year, as the teacher does not punish the students with points off, as long as the work makes its way to her desk by the end of the quarter. So maybe he really is okay with doing the project and just being lazy, like he has been in her class all year? Ahh, aren't adoption issues fun?