Neglect Is A Vague Term

Today’s blog started with a news item. A Black couple traveling from Georgia to Chicago for the funeral of the mother’s uncle were stopped in Tennessee for having a “dark tint” on their vehicles windows and for “traveling in the left lane while not passing.” Yikes, I often drive in the left lane, feeling it is safer as cars in the right lane are exiting or entering. If a car approaches behind me, I move over to the right to allow them free space to go on ahead. Upon searching their vehicle a small amount of marijuana was found. Currently, recreational marijuana is now legal in 21 of the 50 United States – though not in the couple’s home state of Georgia or the state of Tennessee, where they were stopped.

The father was arrested and the mother followed with their 5 children to await his release on bond. During the time she was waiting, state officials arrived to take custody of the four children ages 2-7 and the couple’s four-month-old baby, who was still breastfeeding. The Tennessee’s Children’s Services Department (DCS) had received an incorrect report that both parents were arrested. Had that been the scenario, it would have required the involvement of DCS to ensure the children were cared for. An emergency custody petition was obtained based on the allegation that “the children were neglected and there was no ‘less drastic’ alternative to taking the children from their parents.”

Court records related to the removal show a state case worker brought in after the stop had “discovered only the father had been arrested.” Since then, the parents have been subject to multiple drug tests as they seek to reunite their family. Their children are in foster care and they travel frequently from Georgia to Tennessee to visit them. The children are incredibly distressed by the separation. Their mother says they “cry when she speaks to them on the phone, and grab onto her when she ends her visits with them.”

US child welfare services have a historical pattern of separating the children of Black and Indigenous families on the grounds of alleged neglect and abuse. Racist stereotyping influences the way child welfare workers and policymakers approach the investigations of families of color, finding that one in 10 Black children are forcibly removed from their families and put into foster care by the time they are adults. More than half of US Black children would face some form of a child welfare investigation by the time they are 18, while fewer than a third of white children would.

Tennessee’s DCS is not doing a good job taking care of the children they have already taken away from their families. Children are subjected to poor living conditions with some children sleeping in offices and staffing shortages. Millions of parents and caretakers who have been placed on state-run child abuse registries across the country. “Neglect” is often cited but it is a vague term for which there is no fixed legal definition. Being placed on a registry can cast a decades long shadow, ending careers, blocking the chance of getting hired for new jobs, and people of color (especially if they are living in poverty) are several times more likely to be placed on these registries and suffer the consequences. People can be placed on these registries on the sole judgment of a caseworker and a supervisor from a child protective services agency, without a judge or similarly impartial authority weighing the evidence.

Feeling Rooted In Ireland

This St Patrick’s Day, I am happily feeling my roots. It is something I was denied by both of my parents being adopted, until I was able to discover them thanks to my own efforts, when I was already well into my own 6th decade. The “advice from a flower” in the graphic above certainly suits the experiences of some adoptees necessitating that they grow through adversity.

My dad’s name was changed from his birth name, Arthur Martin, to Patrick (plus more than one adoptive father’s name for his middle, as his adoptive mother divorced an abusive alcoholic and later married a WWII veteran, who adopted my dad for the second time in his life at the age of 8). Turns out that my dad’s grandmother was full blooded Irish. My dad’s adoptive parents were poor and I remember stories of him almost starving to death as a youth in New Mexico while they staked a prospector’s claim near Magdalena New Mexico hoping to strike it rich – they did fail.

St Patrick’s Day always reminded me that my dad’s birthday would be on the following day. He also liked to drink beer but not the green kind LOL. Lately, I listen to the calm, relaxing music of Tim Janis while do my 6 blood pressure checks. If I can totally quiet my mind (not always possible but good practice), I can get my blood pressure down. Today I chose his Celtic Country offering with images from Ireland and flute music. I managed to get my blood pressure down 14 points over the 6 readings.

We used to go to a neighbor’s house for Corned Beef and Cabbage on St Patrick’s Day. She made the best and her parents came from County Cork so it was in her genes. She was a tiny elf like lady but often drank too much (maybe a cultural tendency) and was not patient with the arrival of our oldest son as he became a toddler, so we quit attending. After her husband ended up in a nursing home, we hiked up to their house. It was located up the perennial creek that flows by our own home and so we arrived to visit her, staunchly holding down their home base next to a lake.

We don’t eat beef anymore and potatoes are strictly a no-no given my blood sugar issues. Sigh. We won’t really be doing anything to celebrate “the” day this year (though quietly in my own way, I am). Even so, as I listened to Tim Janis’ music, I was able to feel deep into my Irish roots. What a wonderful feeling it is to know I have very old and deep roots. It will always be wrong in my own heart’s understandings that adoptees are robbed of this knowledge. There can be no good excuse and many adoptees are working to change that issue.

Kidnapping as a Act of War

My family just finished watching 8 episodes of The Last Kingdom on dvd from Netflix. I was reflecting on how kidnapping is a genocidal strategy of war. Most recently, we’ve seen Ukrainian children taken to Russia. I’ve seen some adoptees refer to their adoptive parents as kidnappers and really it is not far from the truth. Georgia Tann who was behind my mother’s adoption believed in taking children from poor families and unwed single mothers and placing them with wealthier couples would improve their outcomes and in some small way the human race.

In the movie we’ve been watching, a Saxon boy witnesses the killing of his father by the Danes (and of course, having recently learned that I am 25% Danish, it interested me). As the movie depicts, the Danish culture becomes part of the movie protagonist, Uhtred’s personality. I’m certain that is in Putin’s mind as he seeks to erase the Ukrainian people who he does not see as legitimate and instill a stronger Russian identity in these children.

In 2008, it was estimated that 40 percent of child soldiers worldwide were in Africa, and that the use of child soldiers in armed conflict was increasing faster than any other continent. Additionally, average age of children recruited as soldiers appears to be decreasing. Children’s greater psychological malleability which makes them easier to control, deceive and indoctrinate. The majority of child soldiers are forcibly recruited either through abduction, conscription, coercion, or by being born into an armed group. Many no longer have the protection of family having witnessed the murder of their loved ones before being taken.

The seizure by kidnapping or hostage-taking places a heavy psychological burden on all involved. The seizure affects not only the individual or individuals who are abducted, but generates an anxiety in a larger group of people as the location and welfare of the abducted are unknown, as demands and actual intentions of abductors are in doubt, and the prospect of rescue is hazardous at best. If “terrorism is theater,” kidnapping and hostage-taking can be imagined as drama. However, children raised in a foreign environment will be impacted for life, regardless of whether they are returned to their place of origin or not.

In the battle between good and evil that many in the evangelical and pentecostal religions believe they are engaged in, adoption is one way to increase the flock of believers and insert their beliefs into the young. That is why so many become adoptive parents, regardless of issues of infertility or simply a desire to do good. The strategy of taking children from their original parents and raising them within a different family ethic or even different cultural context is very old and not likely to change entirely anytime soon. Even so, adoption activists seek to make a tiny dent in the number of children taken from their biological family by encouraging even financially challenged single women to attempt raising their baby rather than panicking and surrendering them to adoption.

Some Origins Aren’t Happy

Being a domestic infant adoptee is hard enough but image that you met your biological mother but were told that you were a product of rape and that she wouldn’t go into any more detail about your biological father. This adoptee would rather know the truth than always wonder. Therefore, she asks what other adoptees have done when faced with a similar situation. Did they just let it go or bet a DNA test ? She admits that her biggest fear is that 50% of my DNA is monster and that now she has passed that on to her own children.

Some responses –

I wouldn’t condemn yourself for the crimes of your origin. There’s been several studies on the impact of nurture vs nature. The best way to deal with some things in life beyond our control is to just acknowledge them. You don’t need to accept it, you don’t need to approve it. Just know it and understand what that information means to you and what you will do with it essentially.

Another shared – A very dear friend was always told she was the product of incest. She did DNA testing for other reasons and has found a whole other family that never knew she existed. It’s been difficult for her to navigate but she is glad to be in reunification. The stories we hear about us form our ideas about the world and as the stories evolve sometimes our identities and the world we see changes too.

Then there was this – I’m an admin of a large adoptee only group, and this narrative is sadly not uncommon. Now, your mother may well have been abused, however many women are so heavily shamed that they were left with invent a story that makes what they did (have sex!!) appear more socially acceptable, to them and their (judgmental) family. It’s actually more common than imagined. That said, I’d highly recommend having a trusted therapist in place before exploring – to guard your mental health no matter the outcome. Personally, my mother won’t even say my father’s name. He was a major player. AND I have a relationship with his side of the family, which I value. Take your time.

Another adoptee admitted – My biological mom told me I am the result of rape also. And I’m inclined to believe her, because that’s a heavy burden to carry and I want to believe she wouldn’t lie about it. She did, however, give me his name and I found and spoke to him, and naturally his side of the story was very different than hers. I don’t know where in the middle of both of their stories the truth is, and that will probably eat at me for my entire life.

Then this one – While my mom didn’t say she was raped, she did tell me that my father was a pretty shitty human. They started dating when she was 15 and he was 21. Two years later she got pregnant, thought they were headed to get married, but instead got blind sided by him telling her that he was already married with an infant and a pregnant wife, and that he was also heading to prison for armed robbery. I did do DNA tests and found his side. He passed about a year before I found him. I’m still back and forth on whether I wish I’d had the opportunity to meet him or if I’m relieved I don’t have to make that decision. I did find both of those siblings, along with another younger brother (yet another mom) and a bunch of nieces and nephews. As big of a surprise I was to them, they have all been wonderful and welcoming. I don’t know if this helps but I don’t regret finding all the answers.

Some more encouragement – It’s okay to feel like you deserve answers, because you do – even if the answers are uncomfortable or hard to hear her give you. DNA testing helped me find family and get a few more sides to my adoption story than the one I had initially. Your mother may absolutely be telling you the truth, and I’m absolutely not saying to doubt that. I’m also very much a “believe all women” type. But if you feel a nagging that there’s more to the story than you’re aware of, it’s okay to seek answers. Good luck.

More about the potential realities – My biological mom will not tell me any details, although I do believe her that it was rape now. It’s frustrating not to know details of who this person was, but it’s painful for her to talk about it and she said she will never tell me. I’ve done a DNA test, not specifically to find him, but I didn’t get any additional information by doing so. At the moment, I’m just letting it go.

Doing The Hardest Work For One’s Self

This really does make me think of my mom’s life with her adoptive mother . . . and then there is that painting of me . . . the story below is not my own, though at the bottom is a snippet about me as well.

It took a near death experience (21 days intubated for covid pneumonia while pregnant) and the loss of my 3 year old the very day I came home from the hospital for me to admit I even needed therapy. Though the therapist accepted me based on my grief trauma, most of our time has been spent discussing my childhood.

So many pieces finally fell into place this week. It’s like I wasn’t even aware I HAD all the pieces I needed, much less did I know where to put them. I did some sleuthing to try to get a clearer picture of my very early childhood, because my story was withheld from me and only presented in a very fragmented way.

The messages and calls to the courthouse, the man listed as father on my birth certificate, my sister, her stepmother, and finally the man who raised me yielded little in the way of real answers. The woman who physically abused me caught wind that I was digging and contacted me. She sent FOUR PAGES on bullshit which started off as a sideways apology and ended with her basically saying it was my fault she tortured me. I was 2.

“Dad” (guy who raised me, my sister’s uncle) came the closest to answering my questions of them all. We hadn’t talked for 3 years prior to this. Even when I nearly died, he wouldn’t reach out to check on me. He included in his message a sappy story about how much he sacrificed for me. He insinuated I didn’t care about my sister’s pain, and he closed with a reprimand about how I should feel sorry for HIM because he lost a grandchild. He only met my son once, by his own choice.

My first few years with them were a fantasy. “Mom” hand made my clothes. I looked like I belonged in a magazine. My hair was brushed and arranged until it was glossy ringlets. There were ribbons, bows, ruffles, tights, pinafores, and patent leather shoes. My bedroom was fit for a princess. There was a 4 post bed with a canopy. It was white with burnished gold accents, as was the matching vanity and stool. The bed covering was white and pink ruffles, and the canopy was tailor made to match. Christmas, Easter, and birthdays looked like the toy store exploded into our living room. I had it all.

Once I reached that awkward, gangly phase, it was over. By then they had their own daughter and son, and I was a nuisance. No longer a doll they could dress and pose. I could sense their disappointment. Their delight in me was gone. So I tried harder. I won more awards, I practiced music longer, I earned higher scores in school. The more I tried, the more disgusted they seemed.

I looked back over all the big milestones that mark the transition from childhood to maturity. In my high school graduation photos, he looked angry. In my wedding photos, he looked sick. When my children were born, he didn’t want to see them. When I chose a path for how I would spend my life, it wasn’t good enough. When I chose to move to a new state with better opportunities, I was being foolish. When he finally came to visit my first house, he literally became ill and vomited all over my bathroom.

I failed them. By growing up, I failed them. They treated their children like people, and they celebrated them appropriately in both youth and adulthood. I finally put it all together this week and realized I’ve intentionally kept myself small in my mind, because somewhere deep down I knew that only as their little princess could I feel their love.

I dug through my old pictures and found so many of me paraded in beauty pageants. But this is the one I settled on. It was taken the month after they got custody of me, in their home. I told her – little Sandi – that her work is done. It was never her job to make me palatable to the parents who stole me. I understand why she did. Her life was an exercise in terror, and these white knights were her ticket to salvation. But it was never her job to earn their love, and that isn’t her job now. So she has my permission to rest peacefully. I grew within the soil where they planted this little seed. It’s my turn to do the work of deciding who is worthy of my best efforts.

From the blog author – As a young child, my mom’s adoptive mother dressed and arranged me for a large oil painting portrait she wanted to do of me but now having read today’s story, it speaks volumes. And my mom did have a princess bedroom with a four poster bed. I know that my mom had a very “challenging” relationship with her adoptive mother. She really didn’t share many details of her childhood with me. That probably means something significant as well.

Not Actually An Orphan

War is hell but imagine being sent far away from your native home and told you are an orphan but you are not. That is the story in The Guardian about 1,400 still seeking to learn who their parents were. LINK>‘I couldn’t love her’: the last UK child migrants to Australia on the long, lonely search for their mothers by Susan Chenery.

Michael Lachmann had always believed he was an orphan. There was no childcare during WWII, unless you were rich. Much like my own maternal grandmother, his mother was doing what she could to provide care for him, while his father was away fighting in the war and she was working. Instead of being available for her to pick him up at a residential nursery, he was shipped to Australia at the age of 5 and placed in the Castledare Boys Home, run by the Christian Brothers, where numerous boys were starved, beaten and subjected to sexual abuse.

Between the 1910s and 1970, 7,000 children aged between three and 14 were transported to Australia as part of Britain’s child migrant program. Promised a better life and loving families waiting to adopt, most were instead delivered into institutions where large numbers suffered abuse. Often their names or birth dates were changed, erasing their links to their families of origin. Very few were adopted or fostered.

Even in their 70s and 80s all these people want is to find their mother, to know who she was. Two years after he was sent to Australia, Lachmann was adopted by a middle-aged Catholic couple, making his situation better than it was for some. Now 80 and living in Perth, after reading a newspaper article 10 years ago, he contacted the Child Migrants Trust. “I had no identity for my own children. It is terrible not having a family history, it is like being in the universe alone.” Thirteen years ago then British prime minister Gordon Brown gave a heartfelt apology to the former child migrants. “Your cries for help were not heeded.”

That apology came after decades of work by Margaret Humphreys, the founder and director of the Child Migrants Trust, who advocates for and seeks to reunite family members after a lifetime of separation. In addition to forensic work in finding mothers who had often kept illegitimate births secret, she took on governments, the power of churches and the establishment to uncover the injustice suffered by these children.

Humphreys had been a social worker in child protection in Nottingham in 1986 when she received a letter from a woman in Australia. “She said that at four years old she was put on a boat with lots of other children. She said ‘my parents are dead, I have no birth certificate, I don’t know who I am. Can you help me find my mother?’” Humphreys thought it was “preposterous” but investigated it, “as social workers should do”. She found the mother was “very much alive” and had been told her child was dead. Very similar to how Georgia Tann operated (she ran the agency my mother was adopted from), many of the children came from single mothers who had put their children into care, until they could get back on their feet. That is how my maternal grandmother lost my mom and my grandmother was married but for reasons I’ll never know, my mom’s father had abandoned them before her birth. So often, when the mother arrived to collect her child where they had been left for care, the child was gone.

There is much more to this heartbreaking story at the link in the opening paragraph.

It’s OK to Ask for Help

It may be rough going but it is OK to ask for help. Today’s story –

When I was first pregnant, I was terrified and reached out to an adoption agency! I just turned 20 weeks (today) and have mostly changed my mind but still unsure.

Today, the adoption coordinator has been harassing me! It’s been a few weeks since I have decided to reach out but I haven’t felt the need, have been busy working (I work 3 jobs to save up for birth, etc) and also need space! I also HAVEN’T signed anything. Today, she sent me a text, had the prospective Mom send me a text, called and sent an email. I’m feeling a little trapped at the moment, already feel guilty.

I have most things ironed out, other than my living situation and expectations and arrangements with the dad (we’re not together and he was emotionally abusive when together) which also weighs on why I don’t have a solid decision yet.

Some encouragement from someone who has been there and made it work –

I was homeless and moved 4 times while pregnant and 3 times since having my son – I was a waitress during Covid (he was born in 2021) and my hours were very low/tips were bad. We had a 1 room basement bachelor apartment. I didn’t have a car until I was over 20 weeks along.

We managed to make it. He is 2 now and thriving with me. I do think that a lot of people, had they known the extent of my situation, would’ve absolutely pressured me to put him up for adoption or called Child Protective Services on us. But I was determined to be his mom.

A lot of my success was due to the kindness of other people – who passed down hand me downs, baby clothing, furniture, etc. Don’t be afraid to ask for help and accept free stuff.

Forgiving Parents

It occurs to me that not only adoptees (who have a multitude of reasons) but probably most people has some issue with their parents that they would be better off forgiving. I know as much as I loved and valued my two parents (both adoptees) some of the discussion points in the graphic above would apply. One of my Facebook friends shared this and I immediately recognized it as relevant to the adoption related issues I cover in this blog and to my own experience of being parented.

My own parents most likely had unresolved trauma – whether they were aware of it or not. My mom seems to have been somewhat aware of her own adoption related trauma. My dad seemed to block it out of his consciousness and believed he probably didn’t want to know the truth about how he ended up adopted (he referred to my mom’s search as potentially “opening up a can of worms” – fisherman that he was).

When my mom married my dad, she didn’t know how to cook or keep a house clean. Her adoptive mother just didn’t have the patience to teach her. Therefore, she was determined to teach her daughters the skills that my dad taught her and that she refined over many years. We had chores to contribute to keeping the house clean, including sometimes washing the dishes and sometimes cooking the dinner. She also worked full time outside of the house and so was tired at night.

My mom was a very warm and loving person but her mother was a bit distanced, as indicated by my mom having to call her “mother.” I was born on my maternal adoptive grandparents wedding anniversary which helped to soothe whatever upset my mom conceiving me out of wedlock while still a high school student may have caused them as my were socially active as a banker and his wife. My dad could really trigger me and his anger was frightening, even though he never laid a hand on us. He was outgoing and sociable. Turns out his genetic father was too.

Certainly, my parents did the best they could with what they knew and the limited resources they had. My dad’s adoptive parents were poor and so we always had this extreme contrast with the wealth of my mom’s adoptive parents. My dad’s were very influential in my life, even into my adulthood. The cultural norms when my parents were adopted in the 1930s were sealed records, name and birth certificate changes and presenting one’s adopted kids as if born to the adoptive parents. To my adoptive grandparents credit, both of my parents always knew they were adopted but not much beyond that. The deaths of my adoptive grandparents revealed only some names but those gave me my start in reconnecting the broken threads of our cultural/genetic origins.

To my understanding, any parent who manages to get their children to adulthood relatively “intact” physically, mentally and emotionally has fulfilled their duty as a parent. Anything extra is grace and/or luck.

The Entire Family Is Responsible

I have blogged about this before. A ruling related to the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) is still pending before the U S Supreme Court with Brackeen v Haaland. There is a lot more about the history preceding this at George Takei’s LINK>The Big Picture. Excerpts below but please do read the linked article.

Family fostering is the norm in Indian Country, but states don’t recognize that fact. Your father’s brother is also your father, not your uncle. His children are your siblings, not cousins. Your mother’s sister is also your mother, not your aunt. Her children are your siblings, not cousins. Everyone you share blood with or who marries into the family is your cousin with no distinction between first, second, third, etc… Older cousins as well as your father’s sisters and your mother’s brothers are your aunties and uncles.

At any time for any reason, an Indigenous child can go stay with any one of their family Elders, other fathers or mothers, aunties, uncles or cousins. No advance notice or permission is required because it’s understood the entire family is responsible for child welfare, not just the birth parents.

White-centric standards are applied to evaluations of Indigenous family dynamics, living situations and cultural practices by a dominant culture with a long history of defining their own culture as “normal” and any deviations as unacceptable. The original purpose of ICWA was to address the harm caused by the federal government’s assimilation efforts—the removal of children from their culture. But assimilation was viewed by the majority White population as a benefit to Indigenous peoples because it dealt with the supposed savages humanely.

“I’m sick of White Christians adopting our babies and rejoicing. It’s a really sad day when that happens. It means the genocide continues. If you care about our babies, advocate against the genocide. Help the actual issues impacting Indigenous parents, stop stealing our babies and changing their names under the impression you are helping. White saviors are the worst!”
~ Minnesota Indigenous Democratic state Representative Heather Keeler [Yankton Sioux]

The survival of Indigenous peoples in the United States is always dependent on the next generation. The tribes have survived—against overwhelming odds—a series of government sanctioned genocides. It’s time for the weaponization of foster care against Indigenous peoples to end.

Unfair Standards

Sharon Stone married journalist and editor Phil Bronstein in 1998. After multiple miscarriages, they adopted their son Roan in 2000. That is a common reason I’ve seen many times for adoption. Bronstein filed for divorce in 2003. Stone requested full custody but was denied in 2004 and she has good reason to believe it was because of starring in the movie Basic Instinct. She says, “The judge asked my child, my tiny little, tiny boy, ‘Do you know your mother makes sex movies?’ ” Actors are sometimes unfairly conflated with the people they portray.

Stone was allowed visitation. The judge reportedly found that Stone had a tendency to “overreact” to Roan’s various health issues, and that Bronstein was better able to provide consistent care. She describes this line of questioning by the judge as an abuse of the legal system. Because of this, she believes, “I lost custody of my child … It broke my heart. It literally broke. I ended up in the Mayo Clinic with extra heartbeats in my upper and lower chamber of my heart.”

She writes about that custody loss in her 2021 memoir, “The Beauty of Living Twice,” that she was “punished for changing the rules of how we see women,” and that she “slept every afternoon” and “couldn’t function” for years. In a podcast interview, Table for Two with Bruce Bozzi, she notes Basic Instinct “… ended my dating world. I think that men didn’t want to date a woman that other men thought of like that. And that’s also a failure of the male reality. I can’t wade through that.”

Roan legally changed his name in 2019 from Roan Bronstein to Roan Joseph Bronstein Stone. Stone had apparently worked hard to keep a close relationship with Roan, even through the turbulent times. She adopted two more times – another son, Laird, in 2005, and then Quinn in 2006. Stone has been a single mother of three for over 10 years. “I find that it creates such an incredible meaning and such a compelling sense of intimacy and understanding that it’s hard to relate to people that don’t have children.”