When choosing to make part of our story public, I really struggled. As much as I know that sharing a boat with someone else makes your struggle somehow seem less awful, I also know how it can be deeply embarrassing to share the down-sides of family life. I am not especially easily embarrassed, but I am aware that I am sometimes going to be telling the experiences we have with some of our children’s most difficult challenges.

We are an often-as-is-reasonable-clothesline-drying family, and I have cringed at the idea that my kids would feel embarrassed as an unannounced neighbor strutted into the backyard while undies were literally flapping in the wind. Perhaps the unphased nature of my kids, and their lack of social graces is what brings us here today, and what also allows them to allow me to share parts of their stories, stained undies and all.

Deep into the adoption process we’re hit often with the idea that the adopted child can choose to share their personal stories when or if they choose and with those to whom they want to share it. To that end, we’ll continue to let our adopted child maintain the privacy of his history, in most respects, only sharing what he allows or has already been publicly shared.

Though God put this seed in our hearts for several years before Out of Our Minds was able to really grow, once it did, our boys were fully on board, excited to share and let their experiences help other families. We asked their permission to write about them, and each freely gave me their permission and signed into my journal their young signatures. We tell them often that with social media, blogs, and other ways online we share with care, consideration, and permission as soon as they are old enough to give it. We value their decision to be a part of what gets shared here.

I will not sugar coat it- we have had some deeply ugly days, weeks, and seemingly unrelenting seasons. That is why we feel so strongly that sharing techniques, resources, and stories that are applicable and helpful to those deep into the trenches of hardship are invaluable. The stories of our real and difficult moments are valuable.

What about their names? We have chosen not to freely share stories with our children’s names every time, nor to have a consistent pseudonym for each member of our family. There are times we might refer to them with a nickname, superhero name, or initial. We might refer to their ages at the time, birth order, or other defining characteristic. We know one of our kids really, really does not like pet names or nicknames, so to honor him he might get his real name more often than siblings.

We do ask, that if you know our family in real life, to please refrain from mentioning their real names in comments on social media if the post did not mention it.

Signatures of privacy