I Really Like This Poem

You cannot change the truth,
These are your children,
but they came from somewhere else.
And they are the children of those places
and of those people as well.

Help them to know about their past
and about their present.
Help them to know that they are from extended families,
That they have only one parent or set of parents,
but they have more mothers and fathers.

They have grandmothers, godmothers,
birth mothers, mother countries, mother earth.

They have grandfathers, godfathers,
birth fathers, and fatherlands.

They have family by birth and by adoption.
They have family by choice and by chance.

Childhood is short;
They are our children to raise;
they are our children to love;
and then they are citizens of the world.
What we do to them creates the world that we live in.

Give them life.
Give them their truth.
Give them love.
Give them all they came with,
Give them all that they grow with.

Your children do not belong to you,
But they belong with you.
You cannot keep them from what is theirs,
but you can keep loving them.
You do not own your children,
but they are your own.

Taken from Joyce Maguire Pavoa's book "Family of Adoption"