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.”

I’m Not Your Daughter

Expectations. When couples adopt, they have certain expectations of the child. They expect the child to be something that maybe the child is not. It is way too common. Today I read – “Anyone just want to look at their adoptive mom as scream I love you but I’m not your daughter!!” This really touched a nerve as it brought over 100 comments. I’ll share only a few.

The very first comment came from an adoptive mother (no surprise). I would ask myself whether she did any of the things mentioned below… If so, she’s taken on the role of mother and you’ve taken on the role of her daughter.

1. bring up (a child) with care and affection.

2. look after (someone) kindly and protectively, sometimes excessively so.

You mentioned above that you love her and I’m sure you also appreciate her. But what does her not being your birth/first mother have to do with the situation? Is she trying to help you in a difficult situation and you don’t want her help? Is she being nosey into an area that you prefer she stay out of??? I’d say that’s how most moms are. And it’s because they care.

Another adoptive mother responded to the above – I’m horrified that you would invalidate this adoptee’s feelings. It is not her job to make her adoptive mother feel like a mother.

And yet another adoptive mother said – Your comment was tone-deaf and demeaning. It’s unsurprising yet somehow still bizarre that you would try to introduce the perspective of an adoptive parent over the voice of an actual adoptee. It feels like projection and it’s so yuck.

Finally, an adoptee responds – your comment just made me feel gross and burdened just like everyone else does. It’s always about how it’s my job to be gentle on my adoptive mom and all adoptive mother’s feelings. It’s my job to make her feel better about not being my mother. All at the expense of my own feelings. You basically said Oh hush now you mean ol’ adoptee…don’t ever hurt your adoptive mother, she is fearful and she just loves you and cares about losing you. That is why you should never say how you feel as an adoptee. The cardinal rule in my life as an adoptee has been that my (or any) adoptive mothers feelings matter more than mine. Adoptive mothers are the victims and it’s my job to worship them and never ever hurt their feelings by saying being adopted hurts. I feel this damaging belief is what keeps adoptees in the fog and from getting the support they need.

Another adoptee shares her experience – My adoptive dad acted like I was committing a crime against my adoptive mom when I found and initiated a relationship with my birth mother. I was over 30 years old. They’d never offered to help me find or contact her. I did it myself and he spoke to me as if I were a naughty child disregarding her feelings.

From the original commenter – this is not just “I’m upset with her”. I also don’t need advice on what to do. She is NOT my. Mother period. I didn’t choose to be adopted. I will not be gentle. I’m tired of having to cater to others over something I had no choice in. I will not be quiet.

This morning I was reminded of this song by Karen Drucker which I have always loved.

She Just Got Lost

Amanda Deza with daughter Veronica

A sad story today by way of The Guardian LINK>DNA used to identify California mother whose body was found 27 years ago. There is a clearer, better photo at The Guardian article. Her daughter, Veronica Tovar, contributed the DNA sample. Veronica was removed from her mother’s home at the age of three along with her other siblings. Her mother did want her children to stay together and the three were eventually placed in the same adoptive home.

Veronica says of her mother “She loved her kids even though she wasn’t here with us. That feeling never left me. She did the best she could with what she had. For me, for what I feel and the memories I have, it’s almost like she just got lost. I think she didn’t have the support she needed to thrive.” As she waited to hear back from police, she pored over details of the case and the reality of what her mother endured began to sink in. “I sat on pins and needles until I found out. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, I couldn’t stop reading about her case,” she said. “It is so unfair, so unjust, the brutality of how she was murdered.

She remembers being able to sense her mother’s struggles. “Before I was taken I do remember feeling sadness from her,” Tovar said. “I remember my mom was really sad.” Tovar is the only one of Deza’s children involved with the case. Her brother and sister are not up to taking part, she said. They were removed from her mother’s home before her and none of them know why. “We still just don’t know. On top of the not knowing we didn’t know what happened. We didn’t know why she never contacted us.” She adds, “I remember her playing with me in the sand one time. I remember her loving me. I can feel that. She did love me. She was sweet.”

Investigators believe she disappeared at the age of 29. She was last seen in 1994 with a man she had met at a rehab facility in the city of Napa, nearly 80 miles from where her remains were eventually found. Authorities said there was never a missing person report filed for Deza, who they described as experiencing “challenging times” before she died. On a spring day in 1995, a group of recyclers scavenging along a northern California canal made a grim discovery – the remains of a woman bound and gagged inside a partly submerged refrigerator. Authorities believed the body, described as being that of a woman between 29 and 41 years old with strawberry blond hair, had been underwater for several months.

Twenty Things

I saw this recommended in my all things adoption group – “For adoptive parents: my adopted daughter asked me to read this recently. It has been really helpful to me, but also to our relationship. It gives us a framework for talking about how she feels and what she needs from me. I’ve learned so much, but there’s still so much to learn.”

Found this review in an interesting place – LINK>”nightlight Christian Adoptions.” Not a place I would normally think to look for any adoption insights. The review says that the author is an adoptee herself as well as a speaker and adoption trainer. She has written a book specifically about what adopted kids wished their parents knew. This list will give you amazing insights – whether you are an adoptive parent, an adoptee, or are considering adoption … and these insights can also apply to kids in the foster care system and foster parents.

Here’s the list of the 20 things –

1. I suffered a profound loss before I was adopted. You are not responsible.
2. I need to be taught that I have special needs arising from adoption loss, of which I need not be ashamed.
3. If I don’t grieve my loss, my ability to receive love from you and others will be hindered.
4. My unresolved grief may surface in anger toward you.
5. I need your help in grieving my loss. Teach me how to get in touch with my feelings about my adoption and then validate them.
6. Just because I don’t talk about my birth family doesn’t mean I don’t think about them.
7. I want you to take the initiative in opening conversations about my birth family.
8. I need to know the truth about my conception, birth, and family history, no matter how painful the details may be.
9. I’m afraid I was “given away” by my birth mother because I was a bad baby. I need you to help me dump my toxic shame.
10. I am afraid you will abandon me.
11. I may appear more “whole” than I actually am. I need your help to uncover the parts of myself that I keep hidden so I can integrate all the elements of my identity.
12. I need to gain a sense of personal power.
13. Please don’t say that I look or act just like you. I need you to acknowledge and celebrate our differences.
14. Let me be my own person, but don’t let me cut myself off from you.
15. Please respect my privacy regarding my adoption. Don’t tell other people without my consent.
16. Birthdays may be difficult for me.
17. Not knowing my full medical history can be distressing for me.
18. I am afraid I will be too much for you to handle.
19. When I act out my fears in obnoxious ways, please hang in there with me and respond wisely.
20. Even if I decide to search for my birth family, I will always want you to be my parents.

Not everyone (especially adoptees) are fans – “Eldridge is not an ally of adopted people! On one of her disturbing Facebook pages, she regularly deletes comments by adoptees, and blocks them if they dare to point out the nonsense she’s been sharing. I can see why adoptive parents would like her content.

It’s Not A Couch

I’m in a natural birthing group and a woman who’s 30+wks pregnant has been married for over 5 years. Both the woman and her husband come from a conservative community where procreation is expected, even though neither of them felt drawn to parenthood. They decided to give it to God. After so many years of marriage, they are expecting and neither is excited nor do they feel connected to the baby.

The amount of COMMENTS FOR ADOPTION in that group were INSANE. She didn’t come for that suggestion. She asked if anyone else had issues before delivery with feeling attached to their child – if anyone wasn’t really a kid person – if those feelings changed when they delivered their own child, etc. She was looking for emotional and mental support from a group THAT DOESN’T UNDERSTAND THE HORMORMAL AND BONDING PROCESS and YET, people were STILL SUGGESTING IF SHE DOESN’T FEEL IT, JUST GIVE THE BABY AWAY! The poor mother hasn’t even had the bonding chemicals come into play yet. This “give the baby away” suggestion was WELL LIKED .

(blogger’s note – what is written above and below this is NOT my own story but because adoption is encouraged in evangelical circles, the above really does NOT surprise me.)

The woman writing about this incident is a former foster care youth and adoptee. She continues – Y’all I freaking LOST IT. I told them to NOT suggest TRAUMA to a mother, which will last throughout her LIFE as well as impact their baby, when the couple just needs the TOOLS TO HELP THEM PARENT.

Boy did I get attacked. I was actually quite nice about it all, and people told me I was shaming her (I didn’t, I actually told her I also struggled with bonding and attachment due to the ADOPTION AND FOSTER CARE INTERFERENCE) and wasn’t being harsh with the woman at all. I was harsh with the insane notion that before birth, these folks who are supposedly seeking to help, are just like – “oh, don’t feel attached ?, oh well, just give it to someone who wants it.”

It’s not a couch that you got that didn’t fit though the door and you’re pawning it off on your neighbor. It’s a child, who will look for you one day (most likely) and wonder why they weren’t wanted.

Progress in Washington State

Washington House Bill 1747: “Keeping Families Together” would encourage guardianships over termination of parental rights when possible. Black and Brown families are especially vulnerable — in Washington, Indigenous children are 2.7 times more likely and Black children are 2.4 times more likely than white children to experience the termination of both parents’ rights. This bill would help to reduce racial bias and inequities in the child welfare system.

Jamerika Haynes-Lewis who wrote an op-ed, LINK>HB 1747 Offers a Pathway to Keeping Families Together, for the South Seattle Emerald a year ago in January 2022 write – I think of my own experience as a foster child in the system. My world completely changed at 5 when I stepped into my first foster home. Though I had relatives and other people that could have served as guardians, this option was not considered. Instead, adoption was the only choice. This event led me to moving from the Eastside of Tacoma to becoming one of few Black children in Poulsbo, Washington. Away from my family and community connections, I suffered immensely from racism and an identity crisis. And I had to experience this alone, on my own.

I am unable to determine the current status of HB 1747’s effort. I did also find Washington House Bill 1295 at The Imprint LINK>Hidden Foster Care, which would guarantee legal counsel for hundreds of parents ensnared in “hidden foster care” — informal placements arranged outside of court oversight. In a practice deployed to varying degrees nationwide, social workers with the state’s Department of Children, Youth, and Families offer parents the option of voluntarily handing over their children to friends or family. In exchange, parents can provide input on where they would like to have the children stay without the dictates of a formal foster care placement. Legislation introduced by Rep. Lillian Ortiz-Self (D) would provide public defenders for those parents, who currently face separation from their children through contracts with the child welfare agency known as “voluntary placement agreements.” Such arrangements have been criticized by social work scholars and child welfare advocates, who say they can be coercive and strip parents of their due process rights.

“When you look at representation for such a critical decision in your life — whether or not to place your children in the care of the state — we just want to make sure that parents fully understand what they’re stepping into and what their options are,” Rep. Ortiz-Self said in an interview last week.

Optimistically, I believe that activists will continue making progress and will endeavor to remain informed as well as sharing what I learn here.

Messy Complicated and Beautiful

The joy and heartache of friendships. We love our friends and they can break our hearts – just being the messy, complicated and beautiful human beings we all are. That said, some lives are much more challenging than ours. And when our dear friend has such a life, out of love, we do our best with the reality. This is one such story.

I’ve adopted two little girls from a childhood friend. They are ages 5 and 3. The five year old, I brought home when she was born, her mom was very ill at that time. The 3 year old came to me through the foster care system, when she was 9 months old at her mom’s request. My friend had stage 4 cirrhosis during both of the pregnancies, as well as substance abuse and varying illnesses and had been homeless most of her life, was suicidal and with a history of violent behavior. She was in and out of jail. She passed unexpectedly in December two years ago.

I knew the girls had 3 older sisters who were adopted out by the state years ago. I had promised their mom I would look for them but today, they found me. They are 16, 18 and 19. They were looking for their mom. They asked me point blank if their mom was still alive. I answered that and a few questions. I did let them know that she loved them and missed them and thought of them every day and wondered how they were doing. She had hoped to connect with them again. I let them know they had little sisters We exchanged photos.

I just don’t know how to navigate this. I don’t want to give them a negative image of their mom. I’m thinking of just letting them know that she had had a lot of trauma that led to her addictions and illnesses, kind of a negative spiral she got caught up in but that she was a beautiful, amazing person with a big heart and a brilliant mind who was funny and creative and one of a kind….

Some responses to this sad story about life’s more difficult realities.

You tell those sisters that she was a human being that battled a war. With her self, her world, and still loved her children. Even while she fought. There’s something terribly strong and loving about that.

Let them know the truth as much as age appropriate for them to grasp. The real truth is people are messy & complicated & beautiful all at the same time, and that’s something they can grasp at any age, regardless of depth of details.

Please tell the older girls everything – the good, the bad, the ugly. They can handle it and it’ll be valuable information as they navigate their own trauma and mental health issues (and questions about their lives).

The woman replied – I’ve talked to two of the older girls and answered their questions. I sent them videos of their mom telling her life story, about her paintings and stuff.

This Is So Wrong

Ukrainian Kids

From LINK>The Guardian – At least 6,000 children from Ukraine have attended Russian camps aimed at re-education in the last year, with “several hundred” held there for weeks or months beyond their scheduled return date, Russia has also unnecessarily expedited the adoption and fostering of children from Ukraine in what could constitute a war crime. Children as young as four months living in the occupied areas have been taken to 43 camps across Russia, including in Moscow-annexed Crimea and Siberia, for “pro-Russia patriotic and military-related education.”

In at least two of the camps, the children’s return date was delayed by weeks, while at two other camps, the return of some children was postponed indefinitely. Russia’s effort has been to provide a pro-Moscow viewpoint to children through school curricula as well as through field trips to patriotic sites and talks given by veterans.

Videos published from the camps by the occupying regional authorities show children in the camps singing the Russian national anthem and carrying the Russian flag. In separate videos, teachers, employed to teach the children, talk about the need to correct their understanding of Russian and Soviet history. Children were also given training in firearms even though here was no evidence they were being sent back to fight.

Russia is seeking to deny and suppress Ukraine’s identity, history, and culture. Russia has systematically used a government-wide effort to permanently relocate thousands of Ukrainian children to areas under Russian government control via a network of 43 camps and other facilities. In many cases, Russia purported to temporarily evacuate children from Ukraine under the guise of a free summer camp, only to later refuse to return the children and to cut off all contact with their families.

Maria Lvova-Belova, the presidential commissioner for children’s rights in Russia, is quoted as saying that 350 children had been adopted by Russian families and that more than 1,000 were awaiting adoption. The number of children sent to the camps is “likely significantly higher” than the 6,000 confirmed. Ukraine’s government recently claimed that more than 14,700 children had been deported to Russia.

A Different Kind of Love

It’s Valentine’s Day and the mind and heart turn naturally to discussions about love. So I went looking for adoption related articles (having slept late today and having a long day away from home today) to create a blog for such a special holiday. I found this 2007 The Guardian piece – LINK>A different kind of love by Kate Hilpern.

It begins with a question that I often see come up in my all things adoption group. Does a mother love a child she has adopted in the same way as she might love a birth child? And why is it such a taboo to ask?

One adoptive mother answers – ‘If something tragic happened to my adopted daughter I’d be devastated, but I wouldn’t die. If something happened to either of my two boys who I gave birth to, I feel I would die,” says Tina Pattie. “I don’t love my daughter any less, but it’s a different kind of love. With my sons, my love is set in stone. It’s that ‘die for you love’ that would never change, no matter what. With Cheri, it’s a love that develops and grows. It’s more of a process than an absolute.” And to my own thinking, that might be why a love for the child too often fails in an adoptive situation.

The article goes on to note – Ask most adopters whether they think their love for their children is any different than it would be if they had their own offspring, and you can generally expect a resounding no. Very likely, they’ll be offended it even crossed your mind. But in families such as Tina Pattie’s – where there are both biological and non-biological children – it’s a question that is put to the test. It’s a question that gets to the very heart of what it means to be a parent.

“I don’t care how close you are to your adopted son or beloved stepdaughter, the love you have for your non-biological child isn’t the same as the love you have for your own flesh and blood,” wrote Rebecca Walker in her recent book, Baby Love. “Yes, I would do anything for my first [non-biological] son, within reason. But I would do anything at all for my second [biological] child without reason, without a doubt,” added the estranged daughter of the renowned author Alice Walker. Understandably, her comment has attracted a lot of controversy.

Tina had always wanted three children, so when she was told it could jeopardize her health to have a third baby naturally, she persuaded her husband to adopt. Her preference was for a baby, but there were none available and they were offered a little girl five weeks off her fourth birthday. “I was totally and absolutely shocked to find that in the early years, I felt no love at all for her,” recalls Tina. “It didn’t even feel right to say she was my daughter. The word ‘daughter’ describes a relationship, a connection – things we didn’t have.” There was no one point at which Tina began to love Cheri, now 17. “It was a drip, drip, drip kind of process. Now, I love her a lot. I’m really proud of her and close to her, but it has taken time,” she says.

Tina has spent a lot of time “unpacking” the disparity in her feelings for her children. “I think there are several things going on. First, she wasn’t a newborn baby, like my sons had been. There’s nothing quite like a newborn baby. Second, when you get a stranger in your house, you’re not going to love it straight away, you’re just not. Then there was the fact that Cheri was a hugely damaged and difficult child. Even now, I wonder that if she’d been sweet and easy instead of angry and violent whether it would have been different. Instead, I turned from a calm, patient mother into a monster. I’d never felt rage like that, ever. But even in the blackest moments, when there was no connection between us at all, there was never a question that I would give up.” This is not at all uncommon, adoptive children have trauma, it is unavoidable.

There is more with other stories on a related theme in The Guardian article, if you are interested.

Grieving Many Times Over

Today, I share a piece by LINK>David B Bohl, who is an author, speaker and addiction & relinquishment consultant. It is titled On Grieving Many Times, And Many Times Over. I was attracted to this because yesterday was my deceased, adoptee mother’s birthday. I don’t suppose we ever get over the grief. I don’t think she ever got over the grief of never being able to communicate with her birth mother, who Tennessee told her in the early 1990s was already dead.

David writes his adoptive mother’s death was the fifth death of a parent he’d had to go through. He explains that he – hadn’t learned of the first two until much later after they’d occurred. The first one to go was my birth father, who died 32 years before I learned about it, the second one my birth mother whose death I did not learn of until 8 years after it happened (very similar to my own mom). Then there was my adoptive father 12 years ago, and now, Joan Audrey Bohl who died twice —first when the dementia robbed her of her mind and memory, subsequently rendering me a stranger when she would fail at times to remember who I was and why I was visiting. There she was another mom who had no idea I was her son. In those moments, in a most sinister coincidence, she was like my biological parents who relinquished me and existed in this world without any specific knowledge of me.

He wants us to understand “What all of this means to someone like me—a relinquishee and adoptee who now has two sets of deceased parents–is that I must face twice(?), five times(?) a yet-to-be determined amount(?) of grief and confusion. Add to that losing my adoptive mom to dementia, and there is plenty to process, a great deal of loss, and certainly much to grieve. I am, of course, not blaming any of my parents for dying or getting sick, and I’ve made peace with my biological parents for giving me up a 62 years ago. But it would be disingenuous to say that I am no longer affected by these losses and that my mother’s recent death doesn’t trigger some new layer of grief where all of those people who contributed to my existence must be acknowledged in how they shaped my life. And so, I think about mothers. The mother I knew and the mother I’ve never met. And then the mother I knew who no longer knew me. I think of fathers, the one who had never even met me, and the one who raised me and provided me with a life filled with opportunities. And I of course, as a father, I think about my children.”

When I try to talk about my own family, my youngest son says to me – you have a very complicated family. It is true. And it is true for adoptees as well. As I have learned who my original grandparents were and have made contact with that novel new experience of genetic relatives that never knew each other existed – it has actually given me a new sense of wholeness – while at the same time totally messing me up with the adoptive relatives and the feelings I have (and still have) and each of them. Very complicated indeed.

There is much more in his very worthwhile article – see the LINK.