Nicole … its meaning is "people of victory" - Think Baby Names

The baby name Nicole is of Greek origin and is the feminine form of the baby name Nicholas. The baby name can also be spelled Nichole.

The baby name Nicole first appeared on the charts in 1942 at #947. After 1955, the baby name skyrocketed up the charts, moving from #901 to the Top 100 in only 14 years. The baby name Nicole was a Top 10 name from 1979 through 1988 and just dropped out of the Top 100 in 2008, where it ranked at #106. See Popular Baby Names.

A reader found Adoption Under One Roof seeking the answer to the question of whether “being a hoarder” is child abuse. First, let’s define what hoarding is. Hoarding is a subset of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) in which the person manages his or her anxiety by “hoarding” particular objects. For example, I have shared before that I used to hoard pens. I had to have five pens plus a spare in my purse at all times. If I dropped below this magic number, I would suffer from a panic attack. (I now recognize that this tied into my fear of being “silenced” as an abused child.)

I think we can all agree that the number of pens I choose to carry around in my purse is hardly going to create an abusive environment for my adopted child. So, hoarding, in and of itself, is not going to qualify as child abuse, and a judge is certainly not going to remove a child from a loving home just because a parent is a hoarder.

A reader found Adoption Under One Roof seeking the answer to the question of whether you can love a baby conceived by rape. The short answer is absolutely yes. A baby is not responsible for his or her conception, and the moment of trauma that resulted in the baby’s conception does not define who that baby will become. I cannot tell by the inquiry whether the question was posed by a woman in crisis pregnancy or a hopeful adoptive parent, so I will address the question from both angles.

Crisis Pregnancy

If you are a woman in crisis pregnancy after a rape, I am so sorry for all that you have suffered. I, too, have been raped (although I did not conceive a baby), so I understand some of the trauma that you are suffering through. I strongly encourage you to enter into therapy to help you work through the many emotional aftereffects of rape.

The fact that the baby you are carrying was conceived by rape is understandably distressing (to say the least). Try to remember that the baby is also yours, and the baby did not ask to be conceived. The baby had no control over its origins, and he or she should not have to suffer for the terrible crime committed by the birth father.

A reader found Adoption Under One Roof seeking the answer to the question of whether a child can be traumatized by meanness. The answer is yes, depending upon the level of meanness. However, the level of meanness that I, as an adult survivor of child abuse, think of, is probably much “meaner” than what the average person thinks about as “meanness.”

Meanness is relative. My adopted child would tell you that I am “mean” when I take away his Nintendo DS for bad behavior. I tell my son that it is my job to be “mean” sometimes as I help him learn the differences between appropriate and inappropriate behavior. Being “mean” by enforcing rules is not traumatizing. However, there are levels of meanness (referred to as emotional abuse) that can be extremely traumatizing.

A reader found Adoption Under One Roof seeking the answer to the question of whether you can adopt a child if you have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The short answer to the question is yes. I know because I have PTSD and adopted a child. I was also approved to adopt a second child but chose not to pursue adopting again for completely unrelated reasons.

People can develop PTSD for a number of reasons, but the two most common causes are child abuse and war. In both situations, a person experiences extreme trauma and uses dissociation as a tool to survive the extreme trauma. While the trauma is happening, this dissociation is an amazingly adaptive way to survive. It is only when you are removed from the trauma that the dissociation becomes maladaptive.

As you are ready to heal from PTSD, you might experience flashbacks. Flashbacks are not an indicator of being “crazy” (although you might feel that way!). Instead, they show that you are ready to stop dissociating the trauma, face it, and heal it. So, as terrible as flashbacks are, they are actually a sign of health rather than “sickness.” Thankfully, those who are in the position to approve your home study (social workers) are knowledgeable about this and will not wrongfully presume that having PTSD will make you an unfit parent.