Unexpected References to Adoption in Children's Books: Little House on the Prairie

by Pam Connell | More from this Blogger

12 Feb 2009 12:33 AM

It must be the phenomenon that once something is close to you, you see it everywhere. My daughters and I find adoption issues cropping up everywhere, even in books and shows that aren't supposed to be about adoption at all.

The girls and I have been reading all of Laura Ingalls' Wilder's books --nine books written by Laura Ingalls Wilder about her life from age five through the first years of her marriage--plus a book written from Laura's mother's point of view, another from her daughter's point of view, and even one from the viewpoint of "poor little rich girl", spoiled Nellie Olson). I found sunbonnets on E-bay which the girls received last Easter. This Christmas they got dresses and aprons--which were actually Pilgrim dresses bought at clearance prices after Thanksgiving-all they needed was a change of bonnet. (For more ideas on frugal presents and playthings, see our Frugal Blog here at Families. Com.)

In the book Little Town on the Prairie, one of Laura's high school friends is Ida, who was adopted by the town's minister and his wife when she was a baby. The things I recall about this story line are:

--when Ida introduces herself to Laura, she says that her name is Ida Wright, but she is called Ida Brown. From this I infer that there were no legal name change papers required at the time, and I would also venture to guess that Ida had some hesitation about using Ida Brown if she mentioned her birth name while introducing herself.

--Ida next explains that her adoptive mother picked her out from on orphanage. She says something like, "I know I'm only an adopted child, but I think she must have liked me to choose me from all those babies, don't you think?" The phrase I'm only an adopted child felt to me like a hit in the solar plexus. I hope my kids never feel that way. (Laura's response: "How could she or anybody not like you!")

--Ida matter-of-factly explains that because she is an adopted child, she has to get home to help her mother with the housework and she has to wash dishes at the church dinners.

Ida is presented throughout as a very positive character, kind, smart, and always smiling. She becomes one of Laura's best friends, she is selected as one of two students to take a lead role in a school program where she must speak about history, and she later witnesses Laura's wedding.

I admit that I pretended to lose my place and deliberately omitted several words of these sections while I was reading aloud to my eight-year-old daughter. I'm sure she'll find them eventually, but I hope by then adoption is a normal enough part of life that she'll find the comments as jarring and out of place as I did.

Please see these related blogs: The Little House on the Prairie series -- Laura Ingalls Wilder

I'll Take that One

Book Review: Talking with Young Children about Adoption

Learn more about Pam Connell

Pam Connell is a mother of three by both birth and adoption. She has worked in education, child care, social services, ministry and journalism.

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centraloregonmom (295) 12 Feb 2009 05:43 PM

I know it's a little bit obvious, but Anne of Green Gables was one of my childhood favorites. I watched the PBS movies with my daughter a while back and found myself fielding questions, myself. I hadn't read the books or seen the movies in quite some time and had forgotten how blatant the story is at presenting the adoption of Anne as simply an opportunity for them to get some help around the farm. Similar to dealing with Ida (we recently read Little Town and had to deal with the same passage), I found myself giving a bit of a history lesson and talking about how times have changed... there are so many opportunities for that discussion through these books (even in how they get their food and keeping a gun over the doorway) that it was just another example to her. And I made sure to point out in the end (as you did with Ida) that, when all was said and done, a great kid was in a loving home. BTW, I have just as much trouble with losing my place and skipping stuff when they refer to the Native Americans and other minorities in these books, as my daughter is proud she is part "savage." Again, we try and use it as a teachable moment regarding history and leave it at that.

Pam Connell (2658) 15 Feb 2009 03:40 PM

Although Laura's Ma was quite afraid of the Indians, her Pa actually made some fairly enlightened comments in a few of the books.

The TV show, being more recent, generally portrays the Native Americans positively--I can think of two episodes in which white people who hate Indians are exposed as being bigoted and Charles strongly defends Native Americans and his family gets to know several.

I've usually just ended up saying, "Sometimes people are afraid of people who aren't like what they know. " in our case, I can say, "maybe you were even a little bit scared of me at first, because I don't look like most of the people you knew in Korea." I can also tell the story of my friend who went to an Asian orphanage and must have seemed rather intimidatingto the children--K is a large woman with a bushy mane of bright red hair.