Really Missing The Point

This graphic image was posted in another group than the one indicated. It was posted in a group for all people who have an experience of adoption. I have learned a lot there. In the beginning, I didn’t know squat. I will admit it. Both of my parents were adoptees, both of my sisters gave up babies to adoption and even in my own life, I unintentionally lost physical (but not legal) custody of my first born daughter. All of this, I have learned, is at least somewhat, if not directly, related to my parents having been taken from their original mothers in the first year of their life.

So I did come into this particular group believing that adoption was a good thing. I got smacked down right out of the gate in getting to know this group. I shut up and started learning. One adoptive parent who adopted the children in her family out of the foster care system system, admits similarly – “There are a lot of things in this group that are hard to read. I will admit that my feathers were ruffled at first and thought I should leave. I’m so glad I didn’t because I have learned a lot that I hope will make me a better adoptive parent. The truth is spoken here. Sometimes the truth hurts but maybe that just means we need to learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable.”

One adoptee said – You know what pisses me off the most – about how they claim how “mean” adoptees are? The adoptive parents and foster parents that think that they can just “erase” the fact that the child was not born to them. Then, they think that when adoptees correct them, and say that our past SHOULDN’T and CAN’T be erased, we’re being mean. Like seriously, you want a “beautiful and life changing” relationship, but when somebody that has experienced what adoption is, and explains how to change it, it’s met with closed ears and we’re told “not every adoption is traumatic.” It’s absolutely infuriating. We’re trying to educate you, but honestly, you just want to continue to believe the stereotype and stigma that “adoption is all butterflies and rainbows” and it’s not. It’s just not.

One says – the anger is being treated as the minority opinion among adoptees, a voice that doesn’t matter and shouldn’t be as loud as that of grateful adoptees, because it is abusive to adoptive parents or hopeful adoptive parents.

To which one adds this clarification – I am more than my anger, and my anger doesn’t mean what I say is just out of anger. Calling people angry paints them as emotional and irrational, claims they see the world through a distorted lens or may make rash decisions. Being “angry” is a intentional mischaracterization.

No, when I’m angry, it’s because the research shows adopted people are suffering but “oh it’s just angry adoptees who had bad experiences projecting their trauma.” I’m angry because adoption in the US is a multibillion-dollar industry that commodifies the wombs and children of people in crisis, but hopeful adoptive parents don’t want to hear how they contribute to the demand for a domestic supply of infants. I’m angry when arrogant adoptive parents seem to think their kid’s experience will be the one that escapes trauma but they sound EXACTLY like my parents, and they don’t want to hear that.

I’m angry when people think there’s a magical formula where their kid will never have any hard questions for them, never develop any complicated emotions about adoption, never want to know where they came from. I’m angry when people assume any curiosity about our roots means SOMETHING about how we feel about our adoptive families. I’m angry when the people who could have a direct impact on the quality of an adopted child’s life come in here – expecting they won’t be told they have to learn and grow and change.

blogger’s note – A book consistently recommended in the all things adoption group (and one I have read myself) is Nancy Newton Verrier’s – The Primal Wound. What makes her unique is firstly – she is the mother of two daughters, one adopted and one her biological, genetic child. She also has a master’s degree in clinical psychology and is in private practice with families and children for whom adoption is a major component of their reason for seeking her out. She has both – heard much and experienced much – directly.

I Just Want To Know Why

The story of LINK>Penelope Cumler from the Right To Know website.

She was the youngest of 6 children – her father an ordained minister and her mother a housewife, then a teacher, then a nurse. Her parents “fought a lot. There was little affection, considerable distrust, and a general sense of chaos and hopelessness. Resentments and anger always seemed to simmer close by. Financial hardships that didn’t make sense for educated, middle class parents, and the shame of this that must be hidden.”

At 32, she begged her father to tell her why he didn’t like her—had never liked her. He became angry. He denied that he treated her differently, and told her to grow up, adding “What’s wrong with you, anyway?” And then, her father dropped dead of a heart attack, and then she was blamed for “causing trouble”. She just wanted to know why the whole family shunned her. It never seemed to be about her, about who she was, or her behavior. It was just her existence. Her presence.

Ten years later, she remembered visiting a cabin by the sea and playing with a little boy who was 3 years younger than she was. She asked her mother, “who that man was that we visited at his cabin by the sea. Why did we visit him?” The first time, she said he was just a family friend. “But…”, she began to say. And then something entirely unthought came out of her mouth before she could even consider it. “Was he my father?” Without meeting her gaze, her mother answered, “Why would you think that? That is crazy. You’re crazy.”

Several years later, she was in her fifties by now and her mother was in her 80s. She tried asking again but this time her mother surprised her by how strong her reaction was – “You’re abusing me! Stop abusing me!” Before leaving her after that visit, she couldn’t even look at her mother, couldn’t give her a hug goodbye. Then her mother died.

Then, she shares how she finally got her answer – Four years later, working in the garden on an autumn day, the name of the son of the man in the cabin by the sea, with whom I had played as a little girl, fell into my head like the whisper of a ghost in my ear. Within minutes I found him on social media. Within hours he responded. Within ten sentences sent back and forth he asked, “Can I be honest with you?” and then, “You are my half-sister.”

All she had ever wanted was the truth, a truth she had the right to know, a truth consciously and aggressively denied her. She notes – The universe seems to be tapping more frequently and insistently lately, “Tell your story, tell the truth, get it out there…and let it go.” She admits – “I feel surprisingly unaffected by the shame my parents must have felt. I attribute this to the sense that I never felt cared for and didn’t trust them and, because they showed me no mercy, I have no sympathy for how their reputations may suffer.” She believes that finally knowing the truth has in many ways saved her life.

Please Don’t Make Me Stay

This is how an open adoption can become really tricky. I read this morning about a situation where the biological child is allowed to sleepover at their original parents home every other weekend. What is happening is that at the end of the weekend, the child does not want to return to the legally adoptive parents.

Now the adoptive parents are mad and are blaming the biological parents for the situation. They are insisting that the child choose between the two sets of parents. If the child does not, they will sever the adoption.

After the adoptive parents insisted on the child being returned early, which the biological parents complied with, now the child is screaming and crying that their biological parents should come and get the child. That this child doesn’t want to be there anymore.

Not surprising, the adoptive parents are blaming the biological parents for causing the child to behave that way. They also blame them for now breaking up what had been in their own minds a happy home.

It is clear that they ALL need to go into therapy. The child should be seeing an adoption trauma competent therapist. The adoptive parents also need to see a therapist to help them understand the child’s behaviors and triggers. While in therapy, the adoptive parents should also work through their own fears and insecurities. And the biological parents should be in therapy as well. It is difficult to explain to their child why they cannot legally come and get her without the adoptive parents permission.

These are the kinds of wounds MOST adoptees are all too familiar with. Once the child is surrendered (not a decision that child made for their own self) and the adoption is finalized, then the living with this situation begins and for the adoptee, the processing of this reality will consume their entire lifetime.

That is why the adoption group I am a part of is always counseling mothers and/or their partner to try to raise their child before taking this permanent step (and as the case above reveals – can be terminated – which is how some children end up in second adoptions, which just compounds the trauma for the child).