Adopting a child is a special moment for parents but it also comes with responsibilities as well as questions that the child may have in the future. It can be hard for the child to trust his new parents and it can be harder for parents to love him in a way that would not feel patronising. While there might be a number of negative stories about what adopted kids go through at foster homes on social media, there are also children who have found loving families. One such healthy relationship was seen in a TikTok clip posted by the account called @happiestofficial.
The video shows an adopted boy’s birthday celebration posted by his mom, with the overlay text “Watch my adopted son realize how loved he is.” The video opens with a lovely little boy and his family with a huge bowling-themed cake being presented to the child with others singing “happy birthday” in the background. The adorable golden-haired boy chuckles at the sight of the cake specifically crafted for him and it's clear that he is enjoying his birthday very much. As he blows out the candles, the rest of his loving new family cheers for him in the background.
The heartwarming video went on to amass more than 5 million likes and won over thousands of users who left comments. People praised the mom for raising the boy with love and care, while others reflected that not all adoptees are sad and miserable. @lindakamal11 commented, “Seeing these types of videos, I don’t understand why nowadays people say adoption is a horrible thing to happen to an adoptee.” @ _.e_b_o_n_y._said, “Adopted or not, this little guy realizes that you are his real parents. The ones he was always meant to be with.”
Image Source: TikTok | @hotstreakk
The video was also reshared by u//CherryBlossom0408 in the r/MadeMeSmile group, where it received over 40,000 upvotes. “Kiddo deserves a family that will love and care for him unconditionally and I'm glad he now has it. This is the sweetest and really amazing moment. Loved this,” commented u/Stylish_assembly. u/elizabeth11511 said, “It’s so heartbreaking realizing there is kids that never get to experience love like this in their life.”
Image Source: Reddit | u/forrest1777
Adoption might sound scary, but as this boy’s reaction shows, it isn’t always the same for everyone. In fact, according to NPR, extensive national data collected on adopted children and their families in the United States revealed that over 88% of adopted children are happy, emotionally sound, and in good health. “That's contrary to the negative stories that capture media attention, about adoption,” said Sharon Vandivere, a researcher for Child Trends, a nonpartisan Washington research group. The survey demonstrated that parents of the adopted children show them lots of affection, even though these children may require assistance with mental health, as they are prone to suffering from depression and other psychological conditions.
You can follow @happiestofficial on TikTok for more wholesome family content.
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Pictured: A healthy practice?
Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.