Not Always Sunshine and Rainbows

From a foster youth’s perspective –

Hello all! I’m a 22 year old female that started my journey in foster care at the tender age of 4 years old. My parents were addicts which seems to be the case for most kids in care. Most children are set up to fail and they assume where they may end up will be much better then where they come from and thus sadly wasn’t my truth.

I luckily only ended up in two foster homes but one became long term until I was essentially kicked out at 17 because my foster mother no longer was getting benefits for me.. she will not admit that but it’s the truth.

She took in me and my bio brother, she had two golden children of her own and always made it a point at any given time to segregate us. Her children could do no wrong and me and my bio brother often got the brunt of things. Punishments often included cold showers, forced to eat food we didn’t like, public humiliation, physical and emotional abuse.. I remember a lot of name calling, threatening behaviors and often time ignoring my need for love and attention. I was often berated over my weight even though now looking back I was an average child along with my brother.

I was told around 9-10 that they would love to adopt us and make us “part of the family” only to turn around a week later and say “we decided we won’t be adopting you because the financial burden would be to much and we get money for you now”.

That always weighed heavy on my heart as a child, I felt like a pay check to them and never truly wanted.

Fast forward to my teens I began to search for my bio parents, with a failed attempt on bio moms side.. but found my father and started building a decent relationship.. it strange how I felt an instant connection even though I hadn’t seen him since I was 6-7. He passed away this past November and we were finally at a peaceful place in our relationship and I’m now dealing with another wave of grief and abandonment even though this time I know it’s not by choice.

My bio mother still remains a mystery to me that I hope some day I can figure out and fill that empty place in my heart. I just wanted to write this to let people know adoption and foster care is not always the sunshine and rainbows you see on tv and often times can leave children with scars that last way into adulthood.

Please protect us, protect the little girl I was, protect us at all cost and try to understand our hurt.

Choosing to Remain Child-Free

A conversation that came into my awareness this morning went like this –

I have a friend who recently underwent a procedure that will permanently sterilize her at 21 because she is certain she wants to be childfree.

Recently laws have passed that allow drs to deny this based on “good conscience”. It was already difficult enough to get it done.

What I’m surprised about is the different comments I have heard on this being said and the amount of uneducated people…

Some of the comments I’ve seen/heard –

“What about all the infertile women? You would never do that if you knew how many infertile women wanted babies!!”

“I can’t believe you would do that. What if you marry a man who wants children?”

“Sterilization should be illegal when there’s so many desperate good families hoping to adopt a newborn baby!”

Tell me – Why this is problematic ?

(I know why…I’m ready to protest it. I’m tired of laws going backwards. I’ve spent 2 years fighting with insurance over my own body just to have surgery because I’m at an extremely high risk for life threatening pregnancies.)

My body is not a political opinion nor is it my job or another woman’s job to be an incubator to push babies out for you because you’re infertile.

One woman shared – On Mother’s Day at my job I was asked if I have kids. I said no and I never want kids. Everyone acted like I’d just said something so heinous. One co-worker told me I should have babies and sell them. Like WTF ?!

She added – it really pisses me off how many stories I’ve heard about women who want to get this procedure and can’t because doctors say they need to have at least one kid already, they need a man’s approval, and/or they’re too young. Meanwhile, women have to put up with the side effects of birth control methods. It’s really belittling of women to think they can’t make these decisions for themselves. And misogynistic to leave it up to the husband to give his approval for the procedure. Or to not do it because there’s no male significant other to ask for permission. Like women can’t have their own bodily autonomy. As if we’re just possessions for men and only have value as breeders (a term that Georgia Tann used – dehumanizing).

One woman put it rather simply – If you don’t want children, you don’t marry someone who does. That’s basic compatibility.

Then there was this woman’s personal story – My older sister, now 40, still looks for a doctor to do a sterilization for her. She has never wanted a baby and asked at her first gyn appointment, when she was about 13, when she could have a sterilization. She never once wavered but it looks like she will never receive her desired treatment, because every doctor she asks, thinks she might change her mind. This so f***s me off! It’s her body, her decision, her money. Why does nobody give a f**k, when a man has a vasectomy??? Even childless men seem to be allowed to have one without questioning. That’s so biased.

My personal perspective ? It is our body, given to us to utilize however we want to while alive on this Earth. Every person’s decision should be honored as long as it is within legal boundaries – that includes abortion, sterilization, divorce, etc.

Modern Orphanages

From a generally anti-foster care perspective, a question was asked –

Why did the government move away from orphanages/group homes to children living with foster carers ? Bottom line is that it is about money. It is cheaper for the government to give foster carers a stipend than provide for the full needs of children in a modern orphanage or group home.

My mom spent a few months as an infant at Porter-Leath, an orphanage in Memphis TN. Her original mother took my mom there only for temporary care while she tried to get on her feet and estranged from her husband, the father of my mom, who was most likely tied up one state over fighting a SuperFlood on the Mississippi in 1937. He was in Arkansas working for the WPA and that was where most of his own roots and family were. That is how Georgia Tann got involved and my mom ended up adopted.

My family visited Porter-Leath in 2017. It is now an amazingly peaceful place and much changed but still provides some sheltering for runaways who need a safe place to go.

The discussion was not about orphanages of the past though. It was about facilities that are geared towards children’s best interests. A revamped system. An environment where the kid never has to become someone else to fit in with a family he isn’t related to. One that is very consistent and stable. That is vital for kids.

And no competition with a foster carer’s biological kids, or being made to feel like a burden or an inconvenience compared to the carer’s biological children. Modern orphanages are really structured. Everyone there is on the same playing field. It totally eliminates the foster vs biological conflicts. The experience of former foster youth is that biological kids are horrible towards foster kids. Full of disdain and resentment for these strangers being in their homes.

I was intrigued by the mention of modern orphanages, I found a link to an Atlantic article highlighting Palmer Home for Children in Mississippi that is fairly current.

Complicated Family Dynamics

In a family mix of biological and adopted siblings, how does an adoptee answer the question – how many brothers and sisters do you have?

Do you say only the number of siblings who you grew up with in the same home? What if some were adopted into different families, but you had contact with them?

What if there are some bio siblings that you never met, but you know they’re out there? Does it matter if some are “half” siblings or step-siblings?

Does your answer vary depending on who you’re talking to?

One interesting response to these questions was – I only have bios, 2 half on each side. Typically I just say I have 4 siblings but it can depend on the situation and who I am talking to. Sometimes (if I’m up for getting into the story) I’ll say I’m an only child but I have 4 siblings.

An adult adoptee answered – it depends on the situation. I grew up with one brother, also adopted, but so far have found out that I am one of 11 children, including all my half siblings…though there could be more I don’t know about yet. I mostly answer I grew up the youngest of 2 as it saves me getting further questions.

Another person answered – I have 8 siblings. No further explanation needed unless additional questions are asked. Then it’s just my truth. I always share that way. It is the truth of my story and feels amazing to be able to tell it. I have 8 siblings, 3 I grew up with in my adopted family, 3 I met 4 years ago and 2 I never met yet.

And then there is this – Even as an adult I don’t know what to say. It really depends who I’m talking to. It used to be easy when I only had one brother, also adopted, who I grew up with. In addition to him, I’ve found I also have a full sister, full brother, half brother, and two half sisters, kind of. To complicate things more my oldest sibling is only a half sister because she did a DNA test and discovered that my birth dad, who raised her and was married to her mom, isn’t her biological father. We also think my birth dad got someone else pregnant before meeting my birth mom, so there is likely to be another sibling out there.

There are many more but just to give you an idea of the complicated family dynamics that adoptees must navigate. In my mom’s case, she had one brother who was also adopted. After she died, I discovered that she was her mother’s only child but the 6th child her father procreated. My dad likewise had only one brother who was also adopted but had 3 half-siblings through his original mother but was the only child of his father. My daughter grew up in a yours, mine and ours family with her dad and step-mother but she also has two non-genetically related younger brothers due to my second marriage.

Inherited Adoption Trauma

~ Miley Cyrus ~

In an apparent case of inherited adoption trauma, Miley Cyrus shared that her mom was adopted. She believes that she inherited some of the feelings her mom had (I can believe that since my mom was also adopted). The feelings of abandonment are real. An adoptee, and at times this includes their children, has a need to prove that they are worthwhile and valuable.

Miley also shared that her dad’s parents divorced when he was 3 (same thing happened to my daughter – her dad and I divorced when she was that age). In Miley’s case, she says that her dad raised himself.

She goes on to share that she did a lot of family history research and found there a lot of addiction and mental health challenges. This was her effort to answer the question – “Why am I the way that I am?”

She firmly believes and I agree – that by deeply understanding the past, we understand our present and create a better future from that awareness.

Miley said – “It’s really hard because especially being young, there’s that stigma of ‘you’re no fun.’ It’s like, ‘honey, you can call me a lot of things, but I know that I’m fun.’ The thing that I love about it is waking up 100%, 100% of the time. I don’t want to wake up feeling groggy. I want to wake up feeling ready.”

Miley Cyrus has now been sober for 6 months.

A Womb-Wet Infant

I love this image because my youngest son actually had such an unhappy expression as he was pulled out of my womb via c-section. But that really isn’t the topic of my blog today.

So many hopeful adoptive parents only want what those in the adoptee community call “womb-wet”. I remember when my husband decided he wanted to become a father after 10 years of marriage, we once discussed adoption. His uncle had adopted a son. My parents were both adopted. Yet, not even knowing what I know now, we felt that adoption was not a good choice. So glad we didn’t go that route. The route we went was complicated enough but the results are generally satisfying.

So in my adoption community (which includes all variations from original parents who surrendered to adoption, to adoptees, to former foster care youth, to adoptive parents, to expectant single mothers and to hopeful adoptive parents) came this woman’s comment –

We are attempting to foster kiddos 0-2. We were basically told that we will most likely not receive an infant placement and that school age kiddos are where the need is. As a family, 0-2 fits our needs for many reasons. I guess I don’t understand. With as many kids in the system, wouldn’t they rather have a home ready for placement when the news arrives instead of fishing around when the need arises and there isn’t a home available? Please no hateful responses. Looking for advice as we are beginners.

The truth is that adoptees and former foster youth are given priority to express even their raw and unfiltered feelings in this group, hence the plea for “no hateful responses”. That doesn’t guarantee there will be none. For some members, it takes a bit of getting used to but I have learned so much being a part of this group.

The first response went something like this – “Am I wrong in saying she’s contradicted herself? When she says that there’s so many kids in the system wouldn’t you rather have a home ready….right after saying how the need is for home age kids…..? Also am I correct when I say fostering isn’t about your needs but the needs of the children?”

Another reply was – “Age 0-2 fits their family’s needs better…yeah right. I think the term they are looking for is blank(er) slate”.

There are MANY older children in foster care. Therefore, one person commenting rightfully noted – “Wouldn’t they rather have a home ready for placement? Translation – doesn’t want to be ready for children already in need.”

Another wrote – “I will literally never understand the baby thing. How do you decide to become a foster parent because babies are cute? I mean really . . . can “fit in/meet needs” or whatever weird phrase you want to use WAY easier than a baby who you can’t even begin to try and explain the situation to and therefore can’t even start to comfort or calm completely for weeks after they are placed.”

Another said – “Really sounds like a spoiled, entitled brat, who’s stomping her feet, pissed off that she’s not getting what she ordered, the moment she ordered it.”

I really urge all of you thinking about becoming foster parents or hoping to adopt someone else’s newborn baby to consider how you could use your resources most effectively and your passion to help families by focusing directly on helping families stay together. Sadly, fighting for reunification as a foster parent really isn’t enough. Sadly, for kids in foster care, the damage is already done.

What Matters A Name ?

A common practice in adoption is to change the name of the child being adopted. Often this name change is sealed from revealing what name that child was born with in the adoption records. If you were to ask a young child, who is yours genetically and biologically, growing up in the family that child was born into and you ask them how they would feel about changing their name, their answers might be something like this – yeah, that would be awesome, okay by me.

So when adoptive parents (who adopted older children but then changed the names they were born with) say – “She wanted to change her name.” or “He is excited about changing his name.” – it could be only that small children don’t know any better. Adoptees, when they are yet very young, can’t understand the ramifications of such a decision.

That said, more than one of my friends has allowed the child she is raising to make some change to their name, on their own initiative, once they have entered their teenage years. That is empowering – a decision made by their own self, without suggestion nor coercion. That is a different circumstance and is made consciously from a state of some maturity.

And in an aspect of today’s modern perspectives, these same adoptive parents who once rushed to change their adopted children’s names, will criticize natural parents for allowing their kids to pick out new names for gender affirming reasons. It is a kind of double standard perspective.

One person responding to the question in the first paragraph wrote – “I’m not adopted and haven’t had my name changed. But I had wanted to change my first and last name a lot growing up. I had the same name picked out for like 10 years. As an adult, I’m glad I didn’t get the name change. And I wasn’t even a small child who wanted the name change. It was from the ages of 7 through 17 that I had wanted it.”

Another shared her biological daughter’s perspective saying – “Every time the conversation of names comes up, she is adamant that her name is the perfect name for her and there is no other name in the world she’d ever want. She has asked what other names we considered, which we answered truthfully (because why not), but she is always relieved that her name is hers.”

And one adoptive mother wrote – “Therapists are no help either. My daughter who was five when we adopted asked to change the spelling of her first name. I loved the spelling but wanted to do what was right by her. The therapist told me how healthy it was that she wanted to have control over her life and this was part of her healing. 11 years later she doesn’t remember it was her idea and was mad at me for changing it. I’m so sad that she was thinks I would do that to her. I told her she could change it if she wants.”

In community with adoptees, this is one topic that is sensitive. The name changes have often been to obscure the fact that the child was adopted and is not the natural offspring of the adoptive parents. It is like taking possession of a human being. It can also make finding out one’s true origins that much harder. Names are a very personal issue with most people, even if they did not choose that name for themselves.

Systemic Constraints

Foster care is a system full of constraints. There are the legal ones and the social ones and the physical ones. Regardless of good intentions, anyone choosing to be a foster parent will have to recognize, acknowledge, work within, make the system fit their actual circumstances and do the best they can without ever being able to end the constraints. It is fraught with problems.

The foster care system is simply corrupt. As a foster parent, you can’t change it from the inside. There are those that would love to just burn it all down but it is too overwhelming and entrenched to make any difference. Better to acknowledge as a foster parent that you are not special nor are you are privileged enough to change anything.

No matter what you do, if you have a corrupt social worker, they can and will do whatever they want to. A parent should not have to fight Child Protective Services or the Department of Human Services to regain custody of their own kids. Foster caregivers should not have to fight these same large bureaucratic agencies. Those seeking a kinship solution for their young family members should not have to fight the system. But all of these do and often fail to achieve success.

One foster parent recently shared her own perspective informed by direct experience – These agencies had an premeditated, well executed plan in place, before they even let her know what was happening. They made it where she, the agency she works through and the kids’ parents have no way to stop the forward trajectory of that plan expected to culminate in adoption. And she has tried and pulled out all the stops in defense of this family.

She now has a plan to show up at the court house with these 4 kids and their parents in order to try to beg and plead with the judge to intervene. She acknowledges that at this point, the judge is the only one that can stop the removal of these children from their parents and the permanent termination of those parents’ rights to their own offspring.

She explains the damage she saw when she took the children to visit their parents. The expectation was for a long afternoon filled with swimming, music, cooking and fun. Yet the devastation in the parents overwhelmed the prospect of a joyful occasion. All she saw in the parents’ eyes were tears, sadness, worry, defeat, anger, hopelessness and confusion. These emotions infected the children. The mom, dad and brothers spent most of their time together crying off and on. These children face that permanent end to their natural familial relationships in only a couple of days. It weighed heavily on every one in the family.

It is a helpless, angry, sad, worried, and defeated feeling. This foster mom had to drive by the local Department of Human Services in her way back out of town after this visit. She admits to having felt so distraught that if she had had a lighter and some gasoline, she would have been tempted to burned the place to the ground.

She judges that none of this okay but that this is the foster care system – corruption, an abuse of power and the application of a kind of oppression that traumatizes the children and their parents. As a foster parent, she experiences a lack of support and compassion from the system. It is her feeling that they don’t care about families. She believes monetary issues based on a for profit adoption model are what matters in this case.

Admittedly, this is the story of a poor family with 10 children. The issue here is with the 4 youngest who are babies or toddlers. This age group of children is easy to place for adoption because there is more demand to adopt babies than a supply of such children.

Her feelings are such that she warns people thinking about becoming foster parents to just don’t. Do not be part of the problem. She warns that if you are, then you are participating in a corrupt system that intentionally tears families apart. Not to be deluded into thinking you will be one of the “good ones” who is going to change anything. The system doesn’t care about the foster parent and they have no power within it. The system will trample on a foster parent, just like it tramples on everyone else.

If there were no foster homes and child welfare agencies, then there would be billions of $$ available to create family supports for everything from abuse to addiction and everything in between. There would be no harm and resources would be plentifully available for struggling parents.

Need convincing monetary issues are involved in people becoming foster parents ?

Let’s suggest a realistic figure of $77/day/child for foster parents. $77 times 30 days = $2,121/month/kid. If there are 3 kids being fostered that is $6,363/month total. If the foster care lasts for a year then that is $76,356. And it isn’t unusual for a foster home to house as many as 6 kids for a year, netting these people $152,712 for that year. It is easy to see that providing foster care can be considered a good way to make one’s living. And this calculation doesn’t even begin to factor in the money the whole adoption industry makes providing children to hopeful adoptive parents.

The number of child welfare workers known to lie to kids and their parents, or withhold information from them, in the effort to prevent a reunification within the natural family, is appalling to those with direct knowledge. This is a system that needs to change but for which any change seems impossible to achieve.

Artificial Twinning

I didn’t know this was a thing – artificial twinning. Sadly, it often results in the family releasing the child to a second chance adoption (meaning the first effort has now failed). “Second Chance”… does this imply that EVERY adoption is basically just temporary and the first one is just your first “chance” at your “forever” home ?

As a Gemini, the idea of twins always fascinated me. My sister who was 13 mos younger than me was dressed like me for much of our youngest years. Eventually, she shot up and surpassed me in height and that attempt on the part of mother and grandmother ended. When my husband and I were utilizing reproductive technology to create our family, our first effort that produced a son came after a “vanishing twin” at the time my dad’s adoptive father died and I was 6 weeks along. With our second son, we definitely did not want twins because we felt that would be harmful for our older son. As it was, he was jealous and difficult in their younger years, but now they are the best of friends – thankfully.

Artificial or Virtual Twinning (as it is sometimes also called) is not a practice recommended by social workers. The conventional belief is that kids need their own spot in the birth order. Artificial or Virtual Twinning is having two siblings, that are not biological, within 9 months of one another. There are very valid reasons not to artificially twin. Reasons like sharing the first-born-ness [or whatever the birth-order], attachment-process being interrupted, being compared to one another like twins without the “benefits” of being twins, among other things.

Sometimes artificial twinning is done by adopting a child that is close in age to the child a family already has. Sometimes it’s done by adopting 2 children that are close in age, at the same time. The controversy about whether or not artificial twinning is a good idea rages on. The best recommendation is that families do not adopt 2 children at the same time, unless they are biologically related (in which case, unless they are naturally twins, it would not be what this blog is about).

Parents need time and resources to learn about their new child, help them adjust, and this is most easily done one at a time. Inevitable comparisons, and all the pitfalls of that, are inherent with raising artificial twins. Adopting a child with the purpose of creating a playmate for your child is never a good idea.

Finally, letting an adult adoptee who experienced this speak –

All my brother and I had as young children was each other. At six years old, our adoptive parents divorced over dad’s alcoholism, which had resulted in domestic violence. By all appearances only being able to conceive one much older bio son and then to adopt two babies so close in age was a desperate attempt to fix an already broken marriage.

My adoptive brother and I were as different as night and day in every way possible. Being forced to tell anyone who asked that we were twins but had different birth dates caused a lot of unnecessary gossip and confusion as we got older. I still have friends from Junior High who ask me on Facebook if we were really twins. There is no simple explanation as to why I wouldn’t have been telling the truth. Our identities were so closely meshed together that our individuality often got lost.

Tragically, after our parents divorced, my brother struggled for years with some serious mental health issues. Even as youngsters, I could see that he wasn’t and couldn’t totally bond to anyone in our family. The brother I had once thought I was close to has caused me a lot of shame and embarrassment with his repetitive bizarre behavior. I have felt those forbidden feelings of abandonment from a not so perfectly ideal adoption, as well as not being able to grieve over an absent adoptive father.

My birth siblings say I am just like my late birth mother in her mannerisms – right down to her laugh. My adoptive family could have certainly been a textbook case where nurture verses nature proved to be a fantasy. From my perspective, you fail as adoptive parents – if you try to mold us into that child you couldn’t have or somebody we are not.

The Blind Side

I have not seen this movie but after reading a critique of it in Robin DiAngelo’s book White Fragility, I won’t watch it. Sandra Bullock won an Academy Award for her performance. The Blind Side is a movie based on the true story of a Memphis family, the Tuohys, who take in a poor homeless black boy.

Sandra Bullock plays the surrogate guardian of Michael Oher, a real-life African American pro-football player for the Baltimore Ravens who escaped homelessness and found success playing in college. It is a “white savior” movie. Some critics are torn by its depiction of race. Many critics are drawing comparisons to “Precious,” a controversial film that explores the struggle of an obese, abused African-American girl. Opinions on “The Blind Side” are similarly mixed.

The film has been accused of pacifying Oher, molding him into an unrealistically noble and non-threatening “black saint.” In the movie, Oher takes on the trappings of a stereotype that emerged in the 1950s (when white, liberal filmmakers sought to change negative perceptions of African Americans). Ultimately that take is a patronizing one. He is never angry and shuns violence except when necessary to protect the white family that adopted him or the white quarterback he was taught to think of as his brother. In other words, Michael Oher is the perfect black man.

“Our films are loud, overbearing and ultra-violent or they are uncomplicated, heart-wrenchers, which jerk at tears in a manner which they have not earned,” judged Ta-Nehisi Coates. There are few black people shown in that middle space, in that more human world between the extremes, he concluded.

The kindest assessment is that The Blind Side uses a double metaphor – alluding to both a football player’s vulnerability and racial color blindness – to dramatize how people can overcome race and class barriers to achieve their fuller humanity.

I believe DiAngelo’s criticism was the dis-empowered way Oher is presented as though only this white woman could save him. I really can’t judge the Tuohys. Michael Oher, the NFL player who was portrayed in the 2009 drama, told reporters he feels that the film has negatively impacted his athletic career by putting extra scrutiny on him.

“I’m not trying to prove anything,” Oher said. “People look at me, and they take things away from me because of a movie. They don’t really see the skills and the kind of player I am. That’s why I get downgraded so much, because of something off the field. This stuff, calling me a bust, people saying if I can play or not … that has nothing to do with football. It’s something else off the field. That’s why I don’t like that movie.” At a media event just prior to Oher’s 2012 Super Bowl win with the Baltimore Ravens, he told reporters that he was “tired” of being asked about The Blind Side.