If you arrive here and are confused about my purpose or agenda, this is the blog that I have best described that overall – What’s Done Is Done.
I do NOT have first hand experience as an adoptee. The experience that I do have is as the child of TWO adoptees. Both of my parents. The experience that I do have is as the sibling of two women who also gave up a child to adoption and my reunion with those now adult children. I make no apologies for having an observed perspective. Beyond that, I have read extensively all sides of the adoption triad. And I knew 4 adoptive persons as my grandparents.
To be honest, I had NO opinion for almost 65 years. It was simply a FACT OF LIFE in my family. My parents died knowing nothing about their original parents. Within 1 year of their deaths (they died 4 months apart and were high school sweethearts married over 50 years), I knew who ALL 4 of my original grandparents were. Sadly, I will never be able to know them in person but I am in contact now with cousins and one aunt who did know them.
I never intended to become an advocate for adoption reform. It was an unintended consequence of trying to understand the impacts of adoption on my own family. I am grateful to have a more complete wholeness now. It came by my personal effort, not by accident.
Other issues that concern me are daughters who lost their mother to death at a young age (since both of my original grandmothers suffered this). Because of an expanded awareness, I also care about any time mothers are separated from their children, most recently as part of this United States immigration policies. My heart breaks for the long term damage being inflicted upon these innocent children.
I am interested in the scandal that was Georgia Tann and the Tennessee Children’s Home Society in Memphis Tennessee since my mom was adopted from there. I am interested in the Salvation Army’s homes for unwed mothers, since my dad was born in one at Ocean Beach (a suburb of San Diego), California. My grandmother was subsequently hired as an assistance at the Women & Children’s Home operated by the Salvation Army in El Paso Texas. She traveled from California to El Paso with my infant father but was eventually pressured by them (I believe) into giving him up for adoption.
Missing Mom 