Really ? Infertility Called You To Do This . . .

The image comes from from Natasha Metzler’s essay LINK>Adoption is Not a Fix for Infertility.

She writes – I can tell you, without question or qualm, that adopting did not and could not fix our infertility. It wasn’t a cure or a correction. Adoption is actually an entirely different everything from infertility. It has its own set of highs and lows, good and hard, beauty and trial. So if you’re ever tempted to say to someone who is struggling with infertility, “Why don’t you just adopt?” I’m letting you know that’s like telling someone who lost their minivan in a car wreck, “Why don’t you just get a Mack truck?”

I started into this topic after reading someone in my all things adoption group write – I made a post on my own wall about my frustration with the Christian belief that one is individually “called” to adopt via infertility.

My adoptive mother’s cousin (my cousin, who is one of my truly favorite people on earth and who I adore) commented. And, in typical traumatized fashion, I instantly reached for the most harmful cognitive distortion I could find: I assumed that if I told her what was true for me (that I am an abolitionist) that it would come back to my adoptive mother (with whom I’m currently living) and I’d be on the streets.

Now. It’s not like my cousin to spread things that could hurt other people, for one. For another, my adoptive mother knows I’m an abolitionist. And finally, even if she hadn’t and this “news” got back to her, she isn’t likely to throw me out — our relationship is better than that.

So the easiest way for me to avoid painful cognitive distortions like this is to avoid talking about adoption in public at all. When I do, I am always very careful to only say what is palatable for people whose lives are otherwise touched by adoption in other ways (including other adoptees who are still experiencing the cognitive dissonance we refer to as “the fog”).

The adoptees you know are the same, whether they are “happy dappy adoptees” or they are “angry adoptees.” I promise you they don’t tell you everything they feel about adoption and that the reason (whether conscious or not) is fear.

You will always come closest to a real understanding of adoption through adoptee voices. But you must understand that many of us are STILL holding back the truth of our lived experience and our reality as adoptees.

So when you think you know, and you’ve just begun to hate this industry as much as we do, know this: You still don’t know how bad it is for us because so many of us are terrified to tell you.

So I went looking for that post she referred to. She wrote – This post is going to offend some people who simply think adoption is a wonderful way to help children in need.

Here’s the first quote: “We have always wanted a family and after two years of unsuccessful fertility treatments, we feel that the Lord is leading us to expand our family through adoption!”

I have two problems with this. The first is that it took until after two years of struggling with fertility treatments for this couple to decide they wanted to adopt. This means that adoption is Plan B. It means that we, as adoptees, are plan B. (I’ve accepted this a long time ago.)

The second is that if God was calling you to adopt, would He truly have used your suffering, pain, and personal trauma to prompt you to follow a calling, or would He give you signs that didn’t require you to become so broken *before* becoming parents? (We know that broken people don’t make the best parents, regardless of the process they had in becoming parents.)

“We are open to any gender and we would prefer a newborn.” So God called you to become one of the 100+ couples waiting for each newborn who becomes available for adoption while hundreds of thousands of children wait in the American foster care system for permanent homes through adoption or guardianship — and many want to be adopted AND can consent to it? This is not a way in which God calls people to help solve a societal problem because there is no lack of homes for newborns, only a lack of newborns for homes.

“After much consideration and prayer, we have decided that we want to have a closed adoption.” So God answered their prayers about adoption and told them that the best way for them to serve Him is to sever a newborn permanently from their family tree of origin and then to make it as difficult as possible for that child to know where they come from. All so they can make the baby truly theirs.

She ends with this – As much as I cannot understand this mindset, I’m sharing this in the hopes that some of you who have never thought about what it means to adopted people to live with adoption might take a moment to think about how weird these beliefs are. I cannot imagine that God has called anyone to participate in family destruction for the purposes of family planning.

The Reality Of Not Knowing

Blogger’s note – Though I grew up believing my parents must have been orphans because they were adopted, I never thought their origin stories were fairytales. The image came from the International Association of Adopted People (IAAP) who noted that – Every time you asked about your biological family and received dismissive remarks, it was a trauma. Every time someone corrects you on who your “real parents are” It is another micro trauma.

One adoptee agrees – adoption is one of the most devastating things that can happen to someone. It’s unnatural and from the adoptee’s perspective, it can be extremely scary. I was terrified. And my fears were always realized. It truly is more like a horror story than a fairy tale.

One woman noted the effects on her life – Answering security questions for data access: Where was your father born? What’s your father’s middle name? What’s the middle name of your oldest sibling? Where were your parents married? As soon as I see these are the first options for security question my anxiety ratchets up and my hands shake. I’d say this is a trauma response. I found out at the age of 52 that my entire existence has been a lie. My colleagues suggested I just lie or make up an answer as who’s gonna know ? Me. I’ll know. I won’t lie.

For me, it’s always been the medical history. Sorry that you were lied to, I always knew I was adopted. That’s supposed to be less traumatic to know, even if you don’t know who, when, where or why. (Blogger’s note – it was a mysterious health problem that got my adoptee mom wanting to connect with her birth mother.)

Someone else noted – we are all aware that adoption entities encouraged and fabricated falsehoods in order to make their product for sale maximally appealing. (Blogger’s note – In fact, Georgia Tann absolutely did this regarding my mom – changing her birth parents ages and educational status to match what my mom’s adoptive mother had specified.)

Another noted – The worst thing about adoption is closed adoptions. The second worst thing is you cannot get your original birth certificate in some states. Secrecy, shame and religious politics rule. (Blogger’s note – both of my adoptee parents adoptions were “closed” because it was the 1930s. I also found it impossible to acquire original birth certificates from Virginia or California.) Though someone noted – for many adoptees there are things FAR WORSE than not having access to their original birth certificate ! (Blogger’s note – sadly I do know there are, I’ve read far too many accounts of such in an all things adoption group.)

Then someone else notes – A lot of these adoptive parent marriages are not fairytales either. (Blogger’s note – my dad’s first adoptive father was an abusive, raging alcoholic. His adoptive mother eventually threw the man out. I learned via Ancestry.com that he died young of cirrhosis of the liver.) I don’t know why they call an even possibly good marriage a fairytale anyway? I think that whole “you were chosen thing” is a joke too. Yeah, you actually have to pick who you have a relationship with but if you’re adopted as a baby, you’re not really chosen except for maybe basic things you don’t have any control over anyway.

And from my own experience of learning my actual biological, genetic roots I can appreciate what this woman shares – I recently identified my family and met my father months before he died. Knowing my origins has had an enormously positive impact on my mental health. I don’t have the constant questions going around my mind. I have brain space. This is what the kept must experience from day 1. The trauma continues because I can never be fully integrated into either family. However, now that all 4 “parents” are dead, the only word to express what I feel now is I am “free”. No more obligations to other people’s agendas.

It Is Hard To Do

From an adoptee – Coming out of the fog is hard. It’s a bit like jumping out of a building but instead of dying before you can even hit the ground, you hit it, hard, and break every bone in your body.

This is to say that coming out of the fog (losing the cognitive dissonance you’ve been living with your entire life) is first of all very painful and second of all takes a long time to heal. Then, even when it heals, it never feels quite right again.

This is only the effect of coming out of the fog and not a lifetime of adoption trauma.

Anger is part of the grieving process. We talk about grief in adoption in a relatable way: We grieve the loss of our first parents. That’s true, but it’s also true that as we come out of the fog, we begin to grieve the things we believed to be true.

Loving adoption, supporting it, and verbally confirming the societal bias that adoption is a loving way to support children who can’t live with their families for some reason, and then leaving that behind when the fog lifts is a huge change, and when huge changes occur in our lives, we do often grieve.

We grieve the person we are leaving behind, the assumptions that we once carried, and the comfort of the lies we told ourselves. (Blogger’s note – while not an adoptee myself, I’ve been greatly impacted by adoption – both of my parents were 1930s era adoptees. Learning who my original grandparents were, who who all deceased by then, had an unexpected but profound effect on me. I would assume I am still processing my feelings 6 years later.)

Anger is part of that grieving process, and each grieving process is different. Some people will always be angry. Some will spend their lives in denial (the fog).

If we are angry, there are a number of reasons but grief is an important part of it.

We are not (always) mad at you, as a person. We may be angry with adoptive parents, but more often than not this is not personal and not personally directed at you. When it is personal, it’s because you have triggered one of our privileged voices, often by gaslighting, demonstrating fragile behavior (cognitive dissonance), or you have challenged someone by calling their lived experience their opinion and justified your behavior by saying you’re allowed to have your opinion [on their experience].

Some people are angry with adoptive parents in general. You might not understand it, but there are points that I could make which would indicate this anger is justifiable. Most of us are angry with the adoption industry and an extension of that anger is that we are angry with the people who feed the demand that drives this industry. Without demand, there is no industry (and we already know there aren’t hundreds of babies waiting in an orphanage to be adopted).

Anger with people who participated in the system of oppression is natural. I’m not a professional therapist, just a life coach. Whether or not this anger is healthy or if it is merely a coping tool for trauma that masks other big emotions, I can’t say. Either way, anger is part of processing what has happened to us that we had no control over. When you see our anger, it is because we are hurt and we are healing.

Adoption is a multi-billion dollar per year industry in which people (infants, children) are exchanged for as much as $60k each. It’s really easy to overlook facts that don’t agree with your personal cognitive bias, especially when you benefited from this industry. If you paid an adoption fee, regardless of who received that fee or what they did with it, you exchanged money for another human being.

It might be hard to see yourself as having participated in human trafficking but you did. Even if money were not involved, we are still talking about the redistribution of human children.

You can see, no doubt, that the objects of that trafficking (adoptees) would be angry to have been trafficked. Or, if you cannot cognitively comprehend the word “trafficking” in this situation, you can understand that adopted people are goods that were exchanged from one bearer to another.

Being adopted is a lifetime of ongoing trauma and chronic stress. It doesn’t go away when we turn 18. It doesn’t stop when we meet our biological families. It doesn’t end because we are in therapy.

When you accuse adopted people of inappropriate anger, you are contributing to the ongoing chronic stress and trauma we experience as adoptees because you are asking us to perform for you. In order to feel “safe”, many adoptees will, and, this is SUPER important, so please listen! You’ll never know they’re performing for you, you’ll just think they’re better people for not “attacking” you. You should know, then, that we are, at all times, under a high-pressure situation. You might step on a landmine without knowing you were stepping on a landmine but it’s a landmine nonetheless.

Therapy doesn’t always help. Sometimes it harms. We promote therapy as though it is the panacea for all trauma. And many people, when facing opposition to their cognitive dissonance use therapy as a way to gaslight and abuse. “You need therapy!” as a response to someone’s heartfelt outpouring of emotion is arguably always abusive. (This leaves aside that it is always dismissive and used as a way to silence the person expressing themselves due to the need to protect themselves from further trauma/abuse.)

Most adoptees who have seen therapists have, at some point, encountered a therapist who didn’t have good training in adoption trauma (even if they thought themselves to have been trained). These therapists often follow the larger social narrative of adoption as “rescue” and further silence us by correcting our emotions (due to their own natural defensiveness and cognitive distortions) or they avoid the subject altogether, leaving the adopted client confused and gaslit.

Adopted people aren’t to blame for our trauma — adoptive parents are. Some of you are already thinking “Trauma happened because of the birth parents and I had nothing to do with their decisions!” First of all, if you adopted an infant privately (not through foster care), you did have something to do with their decision, even if indirectly (through a lawyer or agency). This is a matter of fact, regardless of any coercion you participated in directly — but a lot of you — especially the ones accusing adopted people of being “hateful” did participate in coercion directly.

The trauma of adoption is not a single event but a series of events that are ongoing throughout our lives. Those events are often facilitated by, or at least not prevented by, the adoptive parents. You can never protect your child entirely, but you can learn to support them better by increasing your emotional awareness and maturity. When you accuse adopted people of being angry, hateful, or blaming adoptive parents for their problems, you are in fact deflecting your own culpability onto the object of a contract to which you are the subject and therefore the beneficiary.

To put it simply, you accuse us of shifting our own blame onto adoptive parents because something in you has been confronted and you may be experiencing some form of rejection sensitivity dysphoria. Shifting the blame you hold for participating in an oppressive system onto adoptees and expecting us to solve the problems created by our adoptions — on our own! — is not the way you want to present yourself to the world.

Multiple Names Are Common

An adoptee writes – My adoption went through when I was almost 6 years old in 1969. I was born in 1964 (Just hit 60.). Has anyone else had multiple names?? I was born “Jacqueline Karen”. When I was relinquished at 2 days old, the social worker changed my name to “Lucy Allen”. She said that was common practice in those days to “Hide” the baby from the birth mother in case she came looking! At 5 months, I was placed with a potentially adoptive family who named me “Linda Jeanette”. They returned me to foster care just before I turned 4 and the foster family started calling me “Lindy”. This is the name I remember the most. About 6 months later I was as placed with the family that did adopt me and they changed my name to “Elizabeth Dianna”. For years, my adoptive mom told me my middle name was “Dianna” until one day, I was looking at my birth certificate and saw that she had actually named me “Elizabeth Dianne”! Clearly, it wasn’t about what I needed!! It was about what my foster parents and adoptive parents wanted! Who changes a child’s name this many times and why did the state allow it?? Ridiculous!! And then my adoptive mom couldn’t even remember my middle name! It definitely gave me some identity issues! I’m married to a Veterinarian (who is a great man-nothing against him), but I get introduced as “The Vet’s wife” all the time!! It gets under my skin!! Anyone else have their name changed this often??

Blogger’s note – Surnames in the story above removed to protect the poster’s identity. I read recently in LINK>The Guardian that “A new documentary aims to add depth to the story of the singer-songwriter (June Carter Cash) who was often just referred to as the wife of Johnny Cash.”

I (the blogger) replied to the woman above with my own family history – My adoptee dad had his name changed when he was 8 years old. His adoptive mother had divorced the man she was married to, when she adopted my dad at 8 months old from the Salvation Army. He was named Thomas (after the adoptive father) Patrick Swearingen, when they first altered his original birth certificate and a new one was issued. She re-married and changed my dad’s name to Gale Patrick Hart (each time after his adoption, his first name was also the adoptive “father’s” name). When that second “father” died (the adoptive mother died first), my dad found his adoption papers. His original name was Arthur Martin Hempstead – after his birth father, Rasmus Martin Hansen (an immigrant not yet a citizen, who was a married man who never knew his affair resulted in the conception of my dad). Hempstead was his unwed mother’s surname.

As an aside, because my mom was also an adoptee, when my dad wanted to tease her, he would call her by her birth name – Frances Irene.

Why No Contact

Today’s story (not my own) – My adoptive mother keeps telling me that if my biological family wanted to contact me, they would have done that already, so clearly they’re not interested. I did have my biological brother reach out to me on and off a few years ago, but ultimately, he ghosted me. While I do see the logic that if they wanted to contact me they would have already, considering I’m 38 years old, at the same time I don’t think that’s necessarily true. Because one could say the same of an adoptee not getting in contact with her original mother. And there may have been lots of reasons why I haven’t made contact with her yet.

Anyway, my question is, would it necessarily mean you didn’t want to be contacted, if you haven’t been contacted already, and it’s decades later? I kind of want to contact my biological sister, but my adoptive parents have said clearly they don’t want to hear from me. I am 38 and I know they all could find my Facebook account, because that’s how my brother found me. (If I did contact anybody though, I’ve decided not to tell my adoptive parents.)

One woman who aged out of foster care noted – An adoptive parent repeatedly telling you your birth mother is not interested in contacting you, would make me more suspicious that she’s told her to stay away. I personally would not allow her to set that precedent for you.

One adoptee noted – and then there’s the fear that you will pick your biological family over your adoptive parents.

One adoptive parent said – I personally think that it doesn’t mean they’re not interested. They may very well just not want to come to you before you’re ready. They could just be waiting for you to reach out and even hoping that you do!

Blogger’s note – When I met the daughter of my mom’s paternal step-sister, she told me that when they visited Memphis (where my grandparents married and where my mom was taken from her mother into adoption), they would search the phone book for the surname Stark, which was my grandmother’s maiden name (clearly they knew that much). However, there were so many in the phone book with that last name, they didn’t know how to narrow down the choices to even try.

One mom who surrendered her child 43 years ago (often referred to as MOL or Mother of Loss) and finally reconnected with them only 2 years ago – agrees, yes fear, insecurity & selfishness !!! She says, I can’t with these adoptive parents!! They trigger me – they pass these negative feelings onto our children, which makes them feel OBLIGATED to regard their feelings towards their adoptive parents above their adoptee feelings. This is the main reason our children are afraid to search for us or even talk about us. And that is why adoptees are so conflicted about reaching out !!

Another mother of loss says – As old as you are, your mother was almost certainly strongly discouraged from contacting you, even after you turned 18, and she may have even been told that she was not legally allowed to.

Which led another person to note the obvious – You are 38 years old, you can do what you want.

Blogger’s note – in fact, it is not uncommon for adoptive parents to infantalize their adult adoptees. I have come across precisely that concept before, so I did a quick google search and found this in Kindred+Co by Sarah Williams – LINK>How Adoptive Parents Can Empower Their Adult Adoptees. She says, “Something prevalent in adoption; especially transracial adoption is the infantilization of adoptees. Maybe it’s unexamined prejudices and racist narratives adoptive parents have told themselves but I am finding more and more adoptees struggling to articulate for themselves their hopes and dreams apart from their adoptive parents. They are the same; until they aren’t. I have had many conversations with adoptees who want to switch their career paths, come out as LGBTQ+, search for their birth families, learn more about their birth culture, but are afraid to out of fear of alienating their adoptive parents whom they feel “indebted’’ to. So much so, that adoptees are no longer living their life informed by their hopes and dreams but entirely controlled by their adoptive parents who feel as if they have the “right” to project and control adoptees’ lives.

3 Branch Tree

Symbolically, I like this tree showing 2 strong and closely linked branches with a 3rd one sort of off to one side. Donor Conceived Persons have a 3 Branch Family Tree. When a child is conceived via donor egg or in surrogacy, there is by reality some contributions made by the gestating mother, though difficult to pin down with any accuracy. I would not expect similar physical contributions when there is another father raising that child in the case of sperm donors. So, just my opinion on that situation.

I know that discovering my roots was an experience that has helped me understand how my ancestors, and myself as well, fit into American and world history. Some date their arrival in the United States to pre-Revolutionary War time. Others were immigrants not even naturalized yet. Feeling my Danish, Scottish, Irish and English roots, as well as wondering where that smidgeon of Ashkenazi Jew or Mali came from, these just add spice to my genetic mix.

So while pondering on such facts today, I tumbled on this man, LINK>John Vanek, who found out at the age of 28 that he had been conceived with the help of an anonymous sperm donor and what little documentation ever existed had been destroyed. He had been interested in genealogy and DNA since the 6th grade in public school.

Using all of his genealogical and historical skills to work, he reconstructed the blank half of his family tree from the trees of distant 3rd- and 4th-cousins and, by this method, managed to identify the anonymous donor. He has since met his biological father for the first time, that was in early 2016, and has subsequently developed a relaxed friendship with that man.

Because there are lots of people out there looking for unknown or anonymous parents, grandparents, or siblings, but very few with the skills and experience he possesses, he started LINK>GeneaLOGIC Family Research Services with the primary goal of helping such individuals. John regularly helps adoptees identify their genetic or biological parents and the children of sperm or egg donors identify their genetic parents (or other close relatives).

John describes 2 of the situations where he has assisted a client – One client was conceived in an adulterous relationship, in which the father never knew the affair had led to a child. (Blogger’s note – my dad was conceived in such a situation, when his young mother had an affair with a much older, married man – she handled the pregnancy without ever telling him.) Another was looking for information about her father, who had been abandoned at an orphanage as a newborn.

He reassures those seeking with this – “Whatever your circumstances, there is still hope.” (Blogger’s note – I agree from my own unusual experience of being the child of 2 adoptees that died knowing nothing about their origins. Within a year of their deaths, I knew what they never did, who all 4 of my original grandparents were.)

John notes his ethical core. He realizes that there are always possible risks and rewards of searching for one’s unknown past, through DNA testing or otherwise. You never know who or what you will find. Therefore, when appropriate, he is happy to refer clients to a family therapist or a law firm specializing in adoption, donation, and surrogacy.

He ends his “About” page with – I am here to help you.

The Adoption Mistique

Since I only became aware of this book today, I thought I’d share a bit about it. Below is an excerpt from the author’s website LINK>The Adoption Mystique.

I do not accept the notion that being adopted, like being Jewish or being female should restrict my rights as a citizen. I believe that adopted persons are entitled to full restoration of the rights that were abrogated. To me it is a matter of equality and social justice.

I am grateful to my parents for their patience, courage, openness, honesty, and empathy. Our family had no adoption secrets. A record of the date and story of my homecoming and the significant events of the first four years of my life were available to me at anytime. I was a curious kid. I asked many questions. They told me my birthmother was young. She ran off with someone. Her family annulled the marriage. “What was my name”? “Rebecca, maybe Roberta.” “How do you know”? They said they had papers for me in a strong box. I could have them when I was twenty-one.

The birth of my fourth child put me in touch with my heritage in a way not previously realized. This daughter had blue eyes. That meant I had to carry a blue-eyed gene. It was time to explore more fully my family of origin. It took seven months to find my birthmother.

It took ten years, however, “divine intervention,” and many false starts to complete a search for my birthfather’s side of the family.

Along the way, I found a review by Heidi Hess Saxton on WordPress – LINK>Anti-Adoption? Review of “The Adoption Mystique” by Joanne Wolf Small, MSW. She admits that “The complexity of the issues surrounding adoption, and that to seek reform in one area is not the same as wanting to eliminate the practice altogether.

She also quotes Joanne Wolf Small from a presentation titled “The Dark Side of Adoption”- “My personal experience as an adoptee was a positive one. In the social setting in which I grew up, I thought it was OK to be adopted. In later life I became involved in trying to establish my own identity, and subsequently worked with many others toward that end. We got, and still get the message, loud and clear. It is not OK to be adopted!”

One commenter on her blog wrote – Making a life-long commitment to an adoptive child is a complex endeavor. Part of it is honoring that child’s heritage. That child does in fact have another set of parents who made life possible. From a parental view it is much like a child of divorce, a step child. It does not serve the child to deny it’s other parents. In making a life-long commitment I would hope that adoptive parents would put the child’s reality and needs foremost. If the commitment is “truly forever” it must honor the origins as well.

Blogger’s note – Because there was so much adoption in my family (both parents were adoptees and both of my sisters gave up babies for adoption), I too thought it was OK to be adopted though I yearned to know about our cultural ethnicity. My mom yearned to locate her birth mother but was denied access to her adoption file, which I now possess. I also know now who all 4 of my original genetic grandparents were. I have steeped myself deeply into facing ALL of the realities around the adoptive experience since 2017 now. There seems to be no end of perspectives to learn and so I find topics for my blog here every day.

It Was Not What You Think

A Facebook acquaintance of mine, who is also an adoptee, delivered a made for Sunday sermon –

Here’s a serious question. Why is it so many couples who have experienced issues with infertility or unable to keep a fetus viable in utero, believe God is or has called them to adopt, only after they’ve spent thousands of dollars, spent years of time trying to have their own baby.

Seriously, if God was really calling you to adopt why didn’t he/she/they call you before wasting the time and money?

Also why do you think telling an adopted child about how much time and money you spent trying to get and maintain a pregnancy will translate to them how God chose you to be their parents when clearly if you had been successful you never would have adopted?

And how do you justify telling an adopted child it was God’s will for you to be their parents? Like isn’t this God powerful enough to put a baby in your barren womb?

Why is it not gods will for you to accept your struggle to conceive as god telling you you shouldn’t have children? But it’s the adopted child’s responsibility to believe it was gods will for them to leave their family of origin and become the child you couldn’t create or deliver?

100 years of propaganda, and Indoctrination.

Has convinced you that adoption is a way to build a family.

This is commodifying children.

Adoption was never suppose to be about finding infants for infertile couples. Adoption prior to Georgia Tann was about finding homes for orphaned children. (Blogger’s note – my own mother was a victim of Georgia Tann’s practices.)

Inquiring minds want to know.

Blogger’s note – searching for an image for today’s blog led me to this LINK>How Do I Know If I’m Called to Adopt? by Lauren Elizabeth Miller. Which led me to look at her “About” page. She says “My next greatest calling is writing and speaking about faith, motherhood, and adoption.” She is an adoptive mother of children from China. In her blog, I appreciate this line – “While all of us can do something, not everyone is called to adopt.”

Yet she also writes – Our family has always landed in churches full of adoptive families that have affirmed our family’s call to adopt. We temporarily moved to Franklin, TN right before we were old enough to start the adoption process for China. (China requires both parents to be 30 years old.) The first church we visited was filled with adoptive families and stories that re-affirmed our calling. However – You will have family members or friends who will question your call to adopt.

Blogger’s note – partly in answer to my FB acquaintance – Evangelical Christian churches play an outsized role in promoting adoption.

Your Way Or No Way

Today in my all things adoption group, a moderator notes – It pains (and confuses) me every time I see an adoptee in this group who is (currently) happy with their adoption state that they do not want to see adoption changed so that those who are *not* happy with their adoptions can have access to their records. Why should your contentment with not knowing mean that others shouldn’t have access ? Shouldn’t all adoptees have agency as adults to choose whether they want to find their biological families and get to know them ?

When she was asked, why do they say people shouldn’t have access? She replied – Because they never wanted to meet their birth families and therefore there should be no adoption reform. She added – Let me clarify. They do not think ADULT ADOPTEES should have access to their birth records because they don’t want it.

Blogger’s Note – I saw this in my own family. Both of my parents were adoptees. My mother searched, she wanted contact with her original mother because she said, “As a mother, I would want to know what became of my child”. My dad didn’t want her to search and had no interest in doing so himself, he cautioned her that she would open up a can of worms. She quit talking to him about her needs and desires and instead talked to me – thankfully. I know that learning who all 4 of my original grandparents were and something of their stories has meant so much to me and had more impact on me than I ever imagined.

One person put it clearly – My right to have my family does not interfere with your desire not to have a family in any way. Or the way another person put it – Having access doesn’t force one to use it. I don’t get the opposition. And of course, this is the contrast – members of certain groups nowadays think they should be able to impose their thinking/will upon everyone else.

Someone else noted – We need to understand that there are issues that affect others in this community which require a show of solidarity as a social justice movement. The first step is seeing the community more as a minority group, that we are members of a marginalized social class. For me, as an Asian American, I stand with the Stop Asian Hate movement, even if I haven’t experienced a hate crime. Hate crimes are as wrong as human rights violations, human trafficking, and other acts of commodification and dehumanization that happens to adopted people. It’s not about me, it’s whether I agree these crimes and wrongdoings should be stopped and am willing to stand by my people.

Another one noted – It reminds me of the women’s rights movement where some women were opposed to equality because they wanted to remain housewives. I don’t get why people struggle to understand that giving rights to others doesn’t mean rights will be taken away from you. If you’re content with your situation, nothing in your situation has to change by granting equality to another.

Openness

Source link> Lavender Luz

Today’s story from an adoptive mother – she asks, are there any adoptees out there who grew up with a lot of openness with birth parents ? She gives her background – My daughter came to me at 2 through public adoption, now 7.5. I thought I was well-informed. We have established a relatively high degree of “openness” – spend time with mom approx every two weeks… but especially whenever she’s having a hard time, I wonder if this is “enough”. Sometimes I hear the horror stories about adoptive parents who are abusive or even just unaware of adoption trauma, and it’s easy to heave a sigh of relief, that I’m not that bad, but really am I offering my (our shared) daughter enough of what she needs? I’d really love to hear from adoptees who grew up with openness about the benefits and any challenges that came with that.

One slew of suggestions came – it is good that they see one another as often as you describe. I think one thing that can get closer to what the child deserves to get from their parent is productive contact instead of visitation. Can she check her homework or help her study for a test for a half hour one night a week? Even via zoom? Can you ask her to make a list of things she’d like to teach her daughter over the course of a year like – how to braid hair, ride a bike, memorize her multiplication tables, cook a chicken dinner, bake a cake, sew a button, hem a dress, make mini furniture for a doll, build a model airplane, make a volcano that blows smoke, run a 10 min mile, do a cartwheel, do the splits, play an instrument – you know things she already knows how to do and wants to teach, or stuff they could read instructions for and learn how to do together during short scheduled visits on line or in person. You could offer to get the supplies they need to facilitate Mom’s lesson plan. It is kind of unnatural for children to visit with their parents and awkward for parents to observe their child and not be contributing to their growth. Ask mom to make a list of things she’d be teaching her at 7.5 years old; and then, help make it happen. The child deserves at least that from her mom. You’ll feel good for facilitating that too.

When she was commended for her suggestions, her reply was – I just pour the love of my heart out, praying that maybe one adopted kid will get a chance to interact with their mother or father in a way that kids should interact with their parents, not like visiting strangers but like as parents who are teachers, who are deeply concerned with growing their potential, rather than ‘catching up’ like strangers, outsiders with nothing to offer. If I lost my kid to adoption, I’d be dying every day and of course, I’d probably spiral into some drug induced pain numbing self destructive cycle. Who wouldn’t ? I just to like engage with these parents as parents, help them to know their role is growing their child’s world and maybe, the parent will grow some self worth too. Maybe the kid will have some really positive memories. Maybe the adoptive parent will be less resentful but shit, people get so jealous, like oh they lost their right to parent – they lost their right to custody and nobody but God can take away their parenthood, so why not help the kid have some good memories but people are such assholes usually, they won’t allow for anything but ‘visitation’. WTF is that to a kid ? uh oh, I ranted. Thanks for listening.

This woman is the child of an orphan (blogger’s note – not an adoptee herself, so not who the original poster was hoping to hear from but I feel this woman’s perspectives are helpful, so I decided to run with them), who having found her biological genetic family, started helping others. She admits – after finding that family almost 30 years ago, she got really mad when she read the laws. That caused her to become a loudmouthed activist after having reunited a few hundred families. She had found that they all have that same violation of the person’s kinship rights and identity. It made her cranky and want to stop the separation of families.

After being called out for not being an adoptee, she had more to say – I don’t believe in the concept of a triad, it’s a false construct by the adoption industry seeking to pretend that there is some kind equal stakeholders in a bid for the property rights to a human being. I provide information from a neutral position, given my 30 years of exposure to parents who lost their kids to adoption, who want to be doing lots more and contributing lots more than they are allowed to – it’s just bullshit. So, I took the opportunity to say what I thought. I had something to say. It is a topic I care a lot about – I spend most of my free time either helping people search or in advocacy efforts to educate people out of adoption. If an adopted person had posted and dictated parameters of who should and should not answer, I would NEVER have answered – this post was by an adoptive mother, they have a preference for who they want to respond, but I have been a listener and recorder of good information, given to me by families who have struggled to find each other.

One day I’m gonna die and I’m hoping to get that message to people who adopted or who are hoping to adopt. I’m not gonna write a book, create a youtube channel or a tic tock or an instagram page and I’m not gonna blog about it. Commenting in a few Facebook forums is as far as I take it because I’m not trying to draw attention to myself, only be helpful.

One adoptive mother shares – my son’s Dad takes him to boxing every week and then, out for afternoon tea before dropping him off at home. Works really well for us. I think it works for Dad because there is something pre-arranged to do, plus also more free time with the afternoon tea to talk or whatever. It’s also something my son wouldn’t be able to do if Dad couldn’t take him because I’m at work at that time. I am hoping to set up something similar with his Mum in future but it’s not the right time at the moment (she has regular contact, just in a different way).

To which the woman above responds – Productive contact ! Brilliant, frequent contact doing something, one small thing a father would normally do for his kid. It’s a tiny fraction of all the things parents are supposed to do but it is really healthy for a child to interact with their parent that way I think, instead of just visiting for an hour and what did you do this week ? I like that you set it up so it is productive for your household too. Very smart. Other things parents can do for productive visits are like have a kid pick a newspaper article to read and discuss – teach a kid how to read a map – start studying the drivers training manual early, describe a scene and each draw it in 5 minutes then swap pictures. Tell the kid a story from their childhood or culture, make a family tree, create emergency plans for different situations, safety topics like “what would you do if someone came to the door and wanted to use your phone saying they had a car accident?” What to do if the person taking care of you hits their head and gets knocked unconscious? Don’t throw water on a grease fire. Don’t try to give a cat a bath. Don’t use dish soap in a dishwasher.

Back to the original poster, she acknowledges the adoptive mother who appreciates her son’s dad taking him to boxing. This is a great idea ! They do spend alone time together for the past year. We are very different and it is often not things I’m super keen on (lots of tv time, phone time, and processed foods) but I have been working on letting go of trying to have control over what happens in their time together because it hasn’t always been well-received and I can understand that especially, in this situation, people don’t want to be micromanaged. She also acknowledges the one with lots of suggestions – her message about having meaningful parenting tasks to do is appreciated. Maybe finding ways to incorporate more of these would be helpful…. There is a possible opportunity for mom to take her to skating lesson this Saturday.