Tag: Adoption Knowledge Affiliates

Adoption Knowledge Affiliates

I stumbled on this organization, LINK>Adoption Knowledge Affiliates AKA, today and am just passing along some information about them in case it is useful to anyone who reads these blogs.

AKA recognizes that adoption is a lifelong journey. If you have listened to adult adoptees at all you know this. They realize that only only people with a direct connection to adoption can really understand how wide reaching being adopted is. They are inclusive of the foster care and donor conceived community as well. They are a community of people who understand that the feelings connected to separation, identity, and loss can come up again and again for any member of our community.

Their site includes a blog. I found the most recent addition there useful – LINK>The Big Empty (But Don’t Talk About It). It was written in support of the theme – “Disenfranchised Grief and Ambiguous Loss.” She goes on to define what those two terms mean when she encounters them. The term “disenfranchised grief” refers to not being socially entitled to grieve. Ambiguous loss refers to those left without answers, without closure. 

She mentions that “I heard those terms bundled up like a two-fer and applied to members of the adoption constellation. Loss is the foundation upon which adoption is built, sometimes forged atop unresolved infertility grief. Birth/first parents are told to move past what little grief they’re permitted. Adoptive parents are told to act “as if” this new child had always been theirs.”

“And adoptees… Well, we’re left to live in that house constructed by everyone but us and, for the most part, don’t question what it’s made of. And we darn sure don’t peel back the wallpaper. Okay, enough with the house metaphor. You get it, right?”

More at the link above.

Abandoned at the Playground

Short on time today, so I am sharing this essay from LINK>Severance Magazine by Akara Skye.

My mother dropped me off at an empty public playground without a goodbye or a promise to return. I reluctantly and dutifully got out of the car. The playground and I drew a heavy sigh. We were alone together.

I shuffled over to the swing set determined to make the best of it. The hot wind kicked up, covering my face with a dusty film. For a moment, it clouded my vision, and I wondered if it might be better to not see clearly. To not see the truth of the matter; that everyone will leave me. What did I do to deserve this?

If both the mother I knew and the mother who relinquished me at birth could leave me, it would be easy for others to do the same. My birth mother didn’t come back for me, but went on to a brand new, shiny life including children, the ones she kept. Now my other mother has left me. Would she come back?

Hours passed, and the sun began to set. No other children had arrived and neither had my mother. I wondered if this would forever be my landscape. Dusty, dismal, and deserted.

I saw her car coming up the road just before dusk. I couldn’t read her face. Was it full of dread and desperation, or maybe it was full of joy and excitement?  Had she done this with her other daughter, the biological one?

Put on your game face, I told myself. Act grateful. Don’t ask questions. The car rolled up. No honk, no door swinging open. I got in, and we drove off. The forever silence between us.

On the way back home, I was already worrying when, not if, this would happen again. What if she didn’t come back the next time? 

I do remember another place. A happy place. I would ride my purple Schwinn bike with the flower basket and plastic streamers, to a neighbor’s backyard, two miles from my house. I was alone, yet it was my decision, so it didn’t feel like punishment. Their backyard was unfenced and sloped down to a creek. The surroundings were calm and peaceful, shaded and cool, nothing like the dusty dry playground. The breeze rustled through the leaves of the protective trees which bent over the water. The water lightly danced over the gray, brown, and white stones and pebbles. An occasional flower petal gently fell onto the sprays of water.

I was proud that I could sneak in without being detected. Little did I know that the neighbors were watching me, much like they might watch a stray cat who appeared at their back door.

Regardless, I was happy there. The place was the opposite of the disparaging playground; even though I was alone at both places. But perhaps I should get used to it. Everyone leaves.

Akara Skye is a domestic, Baby Scoop era, closed adoption, late discovery adoptee. She is estranged from her adoptive family and unacknowledged by her birth family. Skye is on the executive board of directors of AKA, LINK>Adoption Knowledge Affiliates. She hopes to increase awareness that adoption is not all pink, perfect, and polite but is layered with trauma for all involved.