Advocating

What I try to do with this blog is advocate for a change in the perception of people who are involved in adopting children or providing foster care for them. It is a small effort on my part to write something, anything, each day to keep the conversation going. Sometimes it gets noticed by someone and validates the effort.

One adoptee voice that I appreciate is Tony Corsentino who writes on Substack. His most recent post is LINK>Political Orphans and he makes a strong case for his perspective.

I saved some of his paragraphs for my own self –

“Many of us advocate on behalf of the adopted children of today: to change the legal and social landscape for them, to open the opportunity for a future that is better.” I thought, YES, this is what I am trying to do with the blog I write.

I found this fact sad – “Not even the country’s foremost civil liberties organization, the ACLU, recognizes adoptees’ rights to their original identities and genealogical histories.”

Being a Tolkien fan, this touched my heart – In politics, to paraphrase a wise old Ent, “I am not altogether on anybody’s side, because nobody is altogether on my side.” Many adoptees understandably feel this way.

Tony says, “Political change in the direction of justice for adoptees is maddeningly slow. . . . Powerful interests, mainly religious groups and the adoption industry, are opposed to justice for adoptees, because justice for adoptees is perceived to clash with their goals of providing clean-slate babies with minimal baggage from as large an infant supply pool as possible.”

It caused quite a stir when Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito added a footnote, to his draft opinion overturning Roe v Wade, from a government report on the demand for adoption in the U.S., which used the phrase, “domestic supply of infants.” Though it’s inclusion is often misunderstood and misattributed in social media, it originated as a footnote to the Supreme Court draft opinion and was a direct quote from a 2008 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the decades preceding the report, societal changes led to a decrease in the number of children available for adoption. This is a fact. There is more detail at FactCheck.org – LINK>Posts Misattribute Phrase ‘Domestic Supply of Infants’ in Draft Opinion on Abortion.

One commenter, Jamie Scott, on his blog writes, “. . . real objection is that the adopted person is daring to challenge the myth that society adores, ie, that adoption is a wonderful thing. To suggest that adoption is less than wonderful is like suggesting Jesus was just a nice Jewish boy.” She also goes on to note – that whole “birth mothers were promised secrecy” thing is BS. I feel sad for her when I read, “Despite hearing me talk for years about the anguish of losing my child, . . . numerous friends and strangers tell me what a WONDERFUL thing I did in relinquishing my only child.”

I also write for the mothers who lost a child to adoption – both of my sisters are one of those – and both of my parents were adoptees. I have plenty of reason to participate in the effort to make things better for both adoptees and the mothers who gave birth to them.

Phantom Parents

An adoptee found a clipping from 1985 about “Talking to children about their unpleasant past.” What jumped out at more than one person who saw this was the part about “phantom parents.” The quote from the clipping read like this – “birthparents mean something symbolically to children. At some level the child is attached to these phantom parents. An attack on the parent is an attack on them.” Someone noted – It’s written as though this is a fact but also a mystery.

When I went looking for an image, I actually found where an adoptee, David Enker, had written a memoir titled LINK>”Phantom Parents” released as a paperback in May 2023. It is actually a collection of short stories and illustrations. He is a writer and designer living in Haarlem, which is a city in the Netherlands, with his wife and son.

David was unofficially adopted as a baby, so he decided to use that experience to explore the world from a unique perspective. He lived and worked in London as a freelance designer, taking him to many places and companies across the city, using the experience to write short stories and create photographs and graphic novels with deep personal and contemplative, often humorous, components.

Since there wasn’t much there, I kept looking and found a piece on Medium – LINK>Phantom Parent Syndrome. It is not related to adoption but the definition was helpful – There is a phenomenon known as phantom limb syndrome. This is when someone who has lost a limb still feels its existence through pain in that area or other sensations. There is a tug of presence, pain of loss, and irreversible change of life and connection to others.

So, interpreting this concept related to adoption, yes, I can believe that adopted children feel the existence of the parents who are not raising them. In that context, it makes sense.

Psychology Today has a piece on LINK>Phantom Families. Elinor B Rosenberg feels that while adoption meets real needs of kids, birth parents, and adoptive parents, she feels that it also denies deeply held wishes. Their longings often go underground, driving behavior and feelings in hidden ways. Adoptive parents wish they could have borne the kids they are raising; adopted kids wish the parents who bore them and raised them were the same; and birth parents wish the circumstances might have been such that they could raise the child they bore. Rosenberg has found that adopted children have greater identity struggles and that they launch later than their peers. Adoptees build a more grandiose “birth-parent romance” based on shards of information given to them by adoptive parents. They use the fantasy to explain to themselves why they were adopted, who their biological parents were, what kind of children they are now, and what kind of adults they will be.

Rosenberg says “It’s a narcissistic blow to be given away. They must come to terms with it.” It is honest to note that Rosenberg is also the mother of two adopted daughters (so there is that) as well as a clinician.

Cobbled Together

True, the one is very dangerous and does not apply to all cobbled together parent/child relationships, which is what adoption does. However, there are frequently cases of abuse that make it into the news and the natural parent usually has love that stays their worst potentials, whereas an adoptive parent would not have an equal bond. And, I do know a thing or two about severed origins. All of mine were severed – all 4 grandparents lost to me – I only rediscovered who they were and something about their families and histories, after I was well over 60 years old and they were long deceased.

One adoptive parent commented in my all things adoption group – When I saw this I really didn’t look at it from the perspective of being zapped, it was more like natural fit verses cobbling something together, yet the world pretends that they are equal. One is designed to fit and the other is like “let’s see how we can make this work” but it should be abundantly obvious that they aren’t the same. (blogger’s note – thanks to her, I had a title for today’s blog.)

One adoptee notes – there is no “bond,” only attachment. A bond exits more through deep secure connection and unconditional love, attachment is developed through trauma and having expectations and conditions. As an adoptee, it took DECADES to understand the difference.

There can be trauma bonds. Emotional bonds with an individual from a cyclical pattern of abuse, perpetuated by intermittent reinforcement through rewards and punishments. The concept was developed by psychologists Donald Dutton and Susan Painter.

Googling “Adoption Severs Origins”, I arrived at a site – LINK>The Ex-Puritan and saw this – Imagine learning the word “adoption” at the same time you learn words like “mother,” “father,” “home,” ”birth,” or “safe.” (blogger’s note – How confusing, I think.) It continues, other words you learn are “abandoned,” “given up,” “loved,” “wanted,” and “adopted.” You learn that the one who gave birth to you is a parent, that you have a mother but she gave you up. You learn that the people looking after you are also your parents, a mother and father, who took you and kept you. You are not related to them, but you are. They could not have babies of their own, so they adopted you. You are told your biological mother wanted to keep you, but couldn’t because she was too young. You are told that she loved you, and that you are wanted, yet you know you were still given up. You must reconcile the fact that you have no power to choose for yourself, that these people you find yourself with are your parents, and that you may never fully know who or where you came from. You don’t remember a time where you weren’t told any of this.

More at the link above, if you are interested in reading further into that story.

Financial Compensation Truth

Some suggestions in my all things adoption group today from a former foster care youth, adoptee and mother who lost her own child to adoption –

What I want to discuss is the financial compensation foster and adoptive parents often receive (not always). If you are a Foster Parent or Adoptive Parent – listen: Do not try to hide the fact you make money from this. Communication and transparency is important, regardless of age. Express that it’s THEIR money, earned for them.

Example: “Our family receives this check to help support you. You’ve been growing so big and I think it would be fun to use this money on new clothes! What do you think? We could also put it into your savings account.”

Don’t downplay it by expressing how it’s ‘not enough’.. Of course not, no government assistance ever is. But at the end of the day you are being paid money to parent another person’s child. That is an unnatural concept and can make a child feel dehumanized, like an item to be bought and sold.

Do you know what it feels like to look around and realize your family is being paid to love you? If you think “Pft nooo we LOVE them! my FC/AC would know it’s not like that–” then you clearly need more time listening to the broken hearts of stolen children. Sometimes all the love in the world can’t cure that “I was paid for” feeling. It takes therapy.

For me, I never knew people profited from my custody. I was a foster youth, adopted at 12, and then my adoptive parent died when I was 15. I down spiraled and by 16, I was raising my premature son in a shelter/group home. A month in, staff hands me a check for $1.7k with my name on it. My legal guardian on paper (the ex-husband of my dead adoptive parent) had been cashing these checks every month, despite not having lived in our home for two years. I was told by my social worker that they’d last until I was 21 and she helped me open a savings account for my son. I used my final checks for a down payment on my first apartment. I was a homeowner by 25.

Moral of the story is that it’s wrong to hide from kids that the foster or adoptive parent receives compensation. Yes, the aid ‘isn’t enough’ to help some struggling families, but IMO those people should have stabilized their situations prior to fostering. You shouldn’t depend on subsidies as an income; The child is not there to support you. You wouldn’t give birth to a child and expect them to somehow contribute financially to the family, right?

Financial literacy is such a vital skill to learn and this is a great opportunity to teach it to them from a young age. Begin a conversation. We deserve it!

Reality. Finally this from the LINK>Foster Parent Journal – Foster-to-adopt parents are entitled to continuing support after the adoption. This may include a monthly per diem subsidy, medical insurance, reimbursement for expenses, a federal tax credit, and help later with college tuition.

In some cases, the reality is it IS about the money and NOT about the welfare of a child. Some of these people are not saviors but opportunists.

Encompass Adoptees

Thanks to a mention by a friend, I learned about LINK>Encompass Adoptees. I had not heard of them before and so I wanted to share the awareness. This is what they write about their mission – Encompass provides resources and services for individuals of all ages with adoptive, foster, kinship care, (AFK) or similar adverse childhood experiences, as well as their families. Encompass has recently expanded to include services for donor conceived people (DCP) with the understanding that DCP have started to speak about having some similar and overlapping issues related to their donor parent. Our goal is to help create bridges to encourage awareness, facilitate discussion, provide educational resources, and build community among individuals with these experiences, within families, and throughout the local Columbus area.

Regarding their logo, they write – The whydah bird is one of several birds that always lay their eggs in another bird’s nest. Since the whydah does not raise its own young, we have chosen this element of nature as a symbol of adoption and foster care for our organization. Adoption is a difficult thing to put an image to. Encompass Adoptees makes every attempt to honor and acknowledge the adoptees who are adults as well as those who are children. Therefore, we chose an image that would not reflect the adopted person as an eternal child.

They also write that their commitment is to “lived experience” is a unique feature of Encompass: we offer programming designed by those with lived experience (adoption, foster care, kinship care for those with lived experience). This approach is evident in our programming, resources, and outreach efforts. While we seek to honor adult AFKD voices in key leadership positions and programs, we also believe that in order to best serve them, we must include the voices of as many constellation members as possible. Additional services for other constellation members, such as spouses, siblings, extended relatives, and professionals, are some we hope to include as we grow.

Back Together Again

Image is not the people in today’s story from my all things adoption group –

When I was 6 weeks old, my biological mother abandoned me. My grandparents got guardianship of me and ended up adopting me when I was 6. My biological mother, that same year, gave birth to my brother. She and his father end up abusing him, so my grandparents become his legal guardians. Unfortunately, my grandparents chose not keep us together and so adopted him out. The family he was adopted into could not have kids at the time he was adopted but then, later on they ended up actually having 4 biological kids of their own.

The adoptive family were racist people ! They abused him mentally, financially, and physically. They had cut all ties with me, claiming I was a bad influence because I would call him my brother, which was confusing their other kids. Fast forward, when he was 13-14 years old, they locked him out of the house due to a physical altercation. His adoptive mother claimed he was the cause it happened but the only person that was beaten up was him. He was told to “go find a new family, that he was not wanted anymore”.

The first person he called was me ! My grandma and I drove for 10 hours overnight. We contacted a lawyer and went to see him (he was at a friend’s). That started a long, hard, 3 year battle in court to get him away from them.

This situation really shined a light for me on how messed up the system is ! I’m happy to say my grandparents won ! We all won !! Today marks the 2 year anniversary of us becoming brother and sister legally again !! I am happy to say he is thriving since getting away from those people. Our bond throughout the years never wavered !

Why I Count My Blessings

Given that being adopted or giving up a child for adoption was the most natural (or is that normal ?) thing in my childhood family, it was not until I finally learned my original grandparents stories that led to both of my parents ending up adopted in the 1930s, that I truly realized the minor miracle of my own life that I was not also given up for adoption.

I was conceived when my mother was a junior in high school. My father had only just started his university studies in a nearby city but in another nearby state. I don’t really know how I came to be there in my mom’s womb but I guess it happened either just before my dad went away to college or during some brief visit home.

One of the joys of my discoveries was a letter a friend of my mom and dad who sent a letter to my dad when my mom died. He was also a good friend of my mom’s adoptive older brother. In it, he described taking her to a party and that after meeting my dad, the two of them left the party, leaving him bereft of a date.

My parents were married for over 50 years after their hastily arranged marriage to confer upon me legitimacy. Still considering they both had adoptive parents who must have believed in the value of babies given up for adoption to other people to raise – it will always amaze me that I was not given up as well (both of my own sisters ended up giving up babies to adoption).

The author, Barbara Bisantz Raymond, of the book The Baby Thief (about Georgia Tann who was involved in my mother’s adoption) found this blog. In a phone conversation with her, she said, “I’ve never met anyone with so much adoption in their family tree.” It’s true, there is a lot of that. Even so, I had a wonderful childhood with good enough parents and siblings. Therefore, I will always be grateful I didn’t end up with that fate of being adopted as well. The unhappy ending stories I’ve absorbed about adoption go very far towards making me exceedingly grateful for my own good fortune.

You Can’t Fix This

A woman writes about her adopted son. He is now a teenager. She adopted him at age 6. She asks, “Has anyone else felt that their adopted child is still greatly affected by their past despite begin adopted in a healthier home ?”

His genetic mother was her sister-in-law and she is aware that his mother had mental health issues. Her adopted son had what she describes as extreme behavioral problems

blogger’s note – which really isn’t that uncommon in adopted children due to adoption trauma.

He was diagnosed with autism and ADHD. She says he is defiant.

blogger’s note – I get that. I have 2 sons – one was defiant and one was compliant.

She does recognize that now that he is older, his behavior is drastically better (though she credits school and church, and of course the environment she brought him into).

blogger’s note – Well, my “defiant” son is much easier now in his older years than at 6 as well and since he was educated at home and we don’t go to church, I think it just comes with adapting and maturing.

One commenter noted that from the adoptive parent’s perspective – all of his good traits are due to her parenting and all of his bad traits are due to his genetics.

A transracial adoptee commented – I feel so much for adoptees in homes like this. As a child who was labeled “bad” for having trauma responses and trouble forming healthy attachments, I know this kind of treatment from an adoptive parent only makes it harder for an adoptee to find healthy footing later in life. Really hope this kid finds a good, empathetic support system that lets them know that their trauma is valid.

Adoption Is Not God’s Plan

Personally, I do believe in accepting “what is” in life. In my all things adoption group today I read –

I see this frequently on adoptive parent’s Facebook pages – Adoption was God’s plan for them. It is what He wanted and placed on their hearts. Their “baby” was meant just for them despite growing in another’s womb. So IF God gets all this credit, if a major loss for baby and family was your answered prayer, blah, blah, blah. Their loss was your blessing, etc.

So you know, God caused all this pain and destruction because it was “meant to be.” Then wtf is infertility? How can your “blessing” and another’s loss both be “meant to be?” Your adopted baby was meant for you. Created in the womb for you by God, and all that baloney. Does this mindset only not apply to infertility because it doesn’t benefit you. Could it not be said that maybe, just maybe it wasn’t “meant to be” for you to be a parent at all?

Thank goodness we have a billion dollar a year industry that preys on poor families. Thank goodness we have a government with ridiculous income limits for financial resources. Too bad God can’t get the ratio right – to benefit all the infertile people who want to be parents. There are at least 50 hopeful adoptive parents to every newborn given up for adoption.

One admittedly non religious person commented – I often wonder about our modern day problems (society within the last 200 years of western civilization), and how many of them would be solved by living in close knit communities with strong values in collectivism, as our ancestors did. If infertile women had strong, daily roles as alloparents to children in their community, sometimes providing more individual care than a natural parent. Would they feel so inclined to adopt? I feel like the need and desire for adoption would be drastically diminished, if people lived that way…

blogger’s note – I do believe in an over-arching, life force Presence – some call that God, others Spirit. There are many names for what people sense spiritually. I simply would NOT exist, if my parents (both of them) had not been adopted. It is “what is”. I believe I did not end up adopted myself (my mom was a high school junior and my dad a first year university student), so that I could reconnect the threads of my family’s genetic identity that had been broken by adoption (my destiny or purpose here). Something my parents were not able (my mom) or did not want (my dad) to do. While I believe there is something that responds to me, I also believe we are not controlled by God. We are left alone to discover what this thing called Life is all about, while we are yet here physically.

Abandoned in a Cardboard Box

In looking for an image to illustrate today’s story, I was surprised at how common it actually is for parents to use a cardboard box as a bassinet. The story I read in LINK>The Huffington Post isn’t actually about this. The story by Shari Leid is titled – “I Was Found Abandoned In A Cardboard Box As A Baby. All My Life I’ve Been Searching For The Truth About Who I Am.” The subtitle is – “Now a mother myself, I often think about the emotions that must have swirled within my birth mother during her pregnancy.”

She writes – In the bustling streets of Seoul, South Korea, my life began at Chapter 2 with a cardboard box in a nondescript parking lot. There was no Chapter 1; the scant police, hospital and orphanage records offer no clues about my birth name, birthplace, or birthdate. My birth story is shrouded in mystery. It was 1970, a time when adoption, especially international adoption, was navigated with less understanding than it is today. Concepts like the significance of bonding between a baby and its mother during the first year of life were not as widely recognized or prioritized.

She goes on to note – Attachment, the emotional bond between a child and their primary caregiver, is now known to play a pivotal role in shaping our relationships and emotional well-being. My early life was marked by a series of caregivers ― from a birth family to a police station to a hospital ward to an orphanage and finally to a foster home ― before being escorted to the United States by representatives of an adoption agency to meet my adoptive parents. This early experience laid the foundation for the complex web of attachment issues I would grapple with throughout my life.

Not for the first time have I read this from an adoptee – the school project that I hated the most was the Family Tree assignment. It was a stark reminder that I was like a grafted branch, awkwardly attached to a tree that wasn’t originally mine. And the thing with grafts is, they don’t always take ― sometimes they stick out, not quite blending in, or they might not even survive if they don’t heal right.

She relates the effects of her attachment issues – In those tricky teen years and my early 20s, I struggled with trust in my relationships. I was continually searching for assurance, for tangible signs that the people in my life would remain steadfast, that our connections would endure the inevitable storms. Looking back, I recognize this was a dance with fear ― the fear of being forgotten, of being alone. Unintentionally, I placed those around me under the microscope of my insecurities, seeking constant validation of their affection and commitment.

Then she describes how becoming a mother affected her – Now a mother myself, having experienced the profound journey of pregnancy and childbirth, I often think about the emotions that must have swirled within my birth mother during her pregnancy. I can’t help but wonder whether she, too, grappled with a sense of emotional detachment ― an act of self-preservation, knowing she couldn’t keep me — and if she transferred those feelings of detachment and anxiety to her unborn child.

She notes that there is a profound power in having a birth narrative. Hers came by way of a psychic at a friend’s party. She was given the gift of a reimagined beginning. It is interesting that after marriage, she and her husband adopted a girl from China only to discover that this woman was already pregnant. This happens more often than you might think (an adoption brings with it a pregnancy). Her son was born a mere seven months after they returned from China.

She notes – We adoptees are not just the sum of our adopted family; we are the continuation of a history, the carriers of genetics, and the embodiment of potential that stretches back beyond our memory. Our birth families, with all their mysteries and absences, are still a vital piece of our identity, a narrative thread that is ours to weave into the story of our lives.

There is a lot of attention to Korean adoptee stories these days – 112,000 Korean children were adopted by US citizens over the last 60 years. The story author writes – In 2020, the South Korean National Police Agency began offering a service to overseas adoptees of Korean descent that provides a way for us to submit our DNA and register it with foreign diplomatic offices, in the hopes of reconnecting with our biological families. I provided my DNA sample, but to this day, there has been no match.