The Fam-A-Bam on Labels

Today’s story (not my own) – Topic: labels

I am the maternal aunt of my niece whom we adopted 9 months ago. (There has been a Termination of Parental Rights for both parents.) She is now 8 and first came to stay with us at 4. So we have always had that familial label of her calling me her aunt and me calling her my niece.

Since adoption (and a bit before) she has been switching her labels describing us. It’s aunt or uncle, my parents, my mommy and daddy. Which is 1000% fine. We told her she can call us whatever she likes, whenever she likes. We all know who we are, we’re the fam-a-bam no matter how you call it. And she’s totally happy and we are totally happy to roll with her daily.

I think I’m tripping over myself, over how she defines us to others, when I’m not with her. She’s always been my niece longer than she’s been adopted by me. So, of course that’s what I automatically say. But I feel like because of the adoption I SHOULD be calling her my daughter ? That makes it feel like a society rule that meets actual legal reality. But that doesn’t feel exactly right, because she’s my niece, ya know? And I’m sorry if that sounds off, that’s the best way I can describe it in my head.

I guess I’m wondering, if it’s okay for her to switch off like she does (which she doesn’t currently mind) or if it would be better for her stability to have a set label coming from the adults ? She’s been through so much in her life already, I don’t want to be adding more pressure or anxiety by doing something “wrong”, that could maybe be so grounding as a consistent family label. I know she’s proud of us and I don’t ever want her to feel like I’m (we’re) not proud of her.

Some thoughts from an adoptive parent – my friend raised her grandchild. She had raised her since the age of 1 (guardianship) calling her “Mom”. Her granddaughter always knew she was a grandchild but neither wanted to keep explaining to everyone what had happened to her parents. She is now 16 and still calls her grandmother “Mom”. Her other grandchildren call her by a grandma nickname. That is fine because she can be a grandma to them but the relationships are not the same as with the child she cares for, in a mom role. My niece, who came into care at 9 and was adopted at 12, has always called my sister Molly and my brother-in-law, Ted. Mine was adopted at 9 months and has always called me “Mom” but knowing what I know now, I wish she had called me Gretchen. She reunified at 16 and has no idea what to call anybody. We are working on this with her therapist. Your niece knows her story and society is nosy. Kids just want to fit in. My mom was “Boofa” but on Grandparent’s Day, another young niece introduced her to all her friends as “Grandma” because she thought the other kids would laugh. Let her lead.

blogger’s note – I went through a period of relationship confusion myself. Both of my parents were adopted and those who I knew as my grandparents were actually my parents’ adoptive parents. So after my parents died, I had the good fortune to actually discover the identities of all 4 of my genetic grandparents (though ALL of them were deceased by then, it did open the door to a genetic aunt and some cousins). For awhile, that threw me into emotional confusion. By then, I was already into my 60s and I eventually worked through my emotional discomfort. My son has said to me that I have a very complicated family. Truth.

Evolving Perspectives

I know that my perspectives have evolved since I began learning about my own genetic roots. I don’t know how many of these blogs I have written but they do in some way reflect my own journey to understanding adoption trauma. Ass the child of 2 adoptees, I understand how not knowing anything about your own family history feels. And what a struggle it is to find some peace with the relatives I grew up with who are not actually genetically related to me.

Today, I read a lament from a woman about what her perspectives were in the past before she learned the realities of the adoption marketplace. She compared her thoughts in 2013 (my evolution began in 2017) with what she understands today. She writes –

In the past, I never understood the entitlement that people had, which allowed them to adopt babies. I didn’t understand why pro-lifers weren’t fostering or adopting children who already had their parental rights terminated. The story that was on the radio broke my heart. I heard older children in foster care talking about wanting a family, so they had somewhere to go for Christmas and Easter – or just to celebrate life with, as they grow up into adulthood. And I used the term unwanted baby – not even realizing that an unwanted pregnancy doesn’t mean that the baby wasn’t wanted. I didn’t know anything about how Child Protective Services would try and terminate parental rights for babies, so that the people who were fostering to adopt could get the babies they wanted.

Now I look at my old post from 2016 and think how insensitive and dehumanizing it is to bring adoptees into the abortion debate. I wish every kid had a home that was safe and loving. And more than that I wish that every home had the ability to be safe and loving. I wish first families had the resources that adoptive and foster families are given. I wish people didn’t look at parents facing poverty and tell them they should never have had children, instead of making a social safety net available to every family.

Her wishes are my own (this blogger’s) wishes as well.

A Black Hole of Identity

Today’s story is very much like my own dad’s perspective –

My Dad is an Adoptee (from birth). I knew this growing up and he knew his whole life as well. I know as much as he does about the circumstances of his adoption. And I never thought too much of it until I was older (teens) and he made a comment to me about me being his only blood. He never met his Parents, he never had a desire too (as he has stated). He was not kept from doing so and knowing my grandparents they do not seem like the kind of people that wouldn’t have allowed him to, if he had wanted.

As far as my Dad’s side of the family it was filled in with his Adoptive parents and adoptive family which made sense to me (and him). Here is where I am struggling. For a few years now, I’ve been very curious about my actual bloodline and where I’m from essentially. I know nothing about 3/4 of my ancestry/bloodline. Is it weird to have such a desire to know? I mean I can respect not knowing or seeking out people my parents have no desire to know themselves but I’d love to know where I’m from (I hope I’m saying that right). I’ve considered doing an Ancestry DNA type thing. Not sure if it would fully answer my questions and satisfy my curiosity. Am I being selfish being curious in the first place? I in no way want to disrespect my parents or trample on any trauma they have…which is why I haven’t yet to express this curiosity/desire to either of them.

Does anyone who is the child of an Adoptee or Adoptee with children have thoughts on this? Would it be wrong even bringing this up to them? Would it be wrong to do something like Ancestry DNA (should I tell them or just do it?)

blogger’s note – I responded. This is as close as I’ve gotten to anyone with a family history like mine and none yet with the same circumstances.

I am the child of 2 adoptees and my dad was a lot like your dad. It is not weird to want to know your heritage. After my parents died and I was already well over 60 years old myself, I finally uncovered ALL 4 of my original grandparents identities. I have connected with a few genetic cousins and one aunt. It has been an odd journey that did affect how I felt about my adoptive relatives. After several years, I believe I am somewhat reintegrating who they were during my childhood with the complicated understanding that I was never genetically related to any of them. HUGS. I do hope you find the information your heart is wanting to know. Regardless of how it has complicated my feelings, I am grateful to finally feel whole, without that black hole of not knowing anything about our heritage, just who my parents were.

PS I did BOTH Ancestry and 23 and Me. They were very helpful in my own journey. Go for it. You don’t need anyone’s permission.

Our Missing Stories

My friend, Ande Scott, does a podcast called LINK>The Adoption Files. The Adoption Files seeks to provide a place for adoptees and allies to discuss the laws preventing adoptees from accessing their identities, and the emotional and physical challenges adoptees face in the process of dealing with the obstacles we face. I was once a guest on her podcast. Ande is also a late discovery adoptee – which means she grew up never being told that she was adopted and only found out much later as an adult. Today, she shared something so poignant, I needed to bring it here to reach others who might not be her friend on Facebook. Here is what she wrote –

As adopted people, we are severed from our stories. Along with photos, the greatest treasures I have received from family members are the few stories I have been told. My grandfather who testified against the mob, my other grandfather who walked back to allied lines after his bomber was shot down. The great-uncle who ran away to Australia.

My youngest expressed to me the loss he feels when he sees the photos, hears the stories, sees the traditions that thread together the strands of his friends lives.

I wish I had those things to give to him, that the false narrative had been the true story. Not the fantasy that was torn away from not just me, but my children as well.

I probably make my grandkids a little crazy, bombarding them with the stories of trips to the museum and days spent in Lego architecture and how I used to take their dad and uncle for “walks”; me on my quad skates, their dad in rollerblades, their uncle on a skateboard. How we would take turns carrying the eight pound dog when she was worn out from keeping up.

I want them to have stories to fill in at least a little of the void that stretches out behind them just two generations back.

Because being lost to family isn’t just about the adopted person.

It’s about everyone who comes after, as well.

blogger’s note – I was recently in contact with Barbara Raymond (author of The Baby Thief) which is about Georgia Tann, who looms large in my own mother’s adoption story. She said – you have more adoption in your family than anyone else I have heard of. It’s true. Not only were BOTH of my parents adoptees but each of my 2 sisters gave up a baby to adoption. That makes 4 adoptees in my immediate genetic, biological family. Long ago, as I was uncovering my actual genetic, biological grandparents, my youngest son said – you have a very complicated family. That is true and I’ve been doing my best to come to terms with that and integrate it into my own understanding of what family is. All 4 of my adoptive grandparents were “good” people who treated us well as genuine grandchildren. Learning the truth of my original genetic, biological grandparents did shatter that a bit for me personally. I’ve been doing my best to put ALL of the pieces back together again.

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.

Simply Thankful

So often in this space I am focused on all of the things that are not quite right in adoptionland or within the foster care system. I do care about how adoptees feel about their state of being which began involuntarily and those complex feelings extend to donor conceived persons, especially those who may not have known about their origins until much later in life. I believe we can ALL do better and many who are similarly educated by the realities of life are now speaking out – to help the rest of us understand that the truth is complex and diverse but usually not the fairy tale narratives that adoption agencies prefer for everyone to believe.

My education about all of these related aspects has been brief and intense since my adoptee parents (yes both of them were) died in late 2015 and early 2016 (just 4 mos apart after over 50 years of marriage) and I made my own roots discovery journey. I am certainly grateful for what I learned that made me feel finally “whole” and for the genetically related family I am now acquainted with. They are all precious to me and totally human with flaws and positive attributes like we all are – myself included. And I still have a love in my heart for my adoptive grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins because they were the family I knew and grew up with. They are who I often celebrated Thanksgiving with throughout my childhood and early adulthood.

The thing I am honestly most thankful for is that I was NOT given up for adoption. It is my own personal “miracle” because adoption was so common in my family as to feel natural to us (though I now understand that it never was “natural”). My mom was a high school junior, unwed. My dad had just started at the University of New Mexico in Las Cruces. Yet, I was preserved in the family in which I was conceived. This may explain one of the reasons that family preservation is so important to me personally. I had a good enough childhood. Sometimes we were a bit financially challenged. Sometimes my dad’s anger was a bit too short fused. My mom was unhappy enough at one time to contemplate suicide. My youngest sister ended up homeless. My other sister lost her first born to his paternal grandparents in a court of law and my own daughter ended up being raised by my ex-husband and his second wife. Even so, I am thankful for every CRAZY experience of my own life because it has made my understandings of human nature so much deeper and more reality based.

May you too be counting your own blessings this day.

Refusing To Choose

I get notifications from Tony’s substack – LINK> “This Is Not A Legal Record – Irregularly timed dispatches from my travels in the world of adoption.” Tony recently got married.

He writes – “I invited him (his adoptive father) and my biological aunt and uncle to my wedding not to force a reckoning—neither to heal a wound nor to inflict one. I did it because they were among the people I wanted present. And I did it as a protest against the expectation that I would have to choose who my “real” family was. I was conscious that no one in the world was asking for this convergence of souls. There are no cultural expectations or rules governing it, no script to follow. If anything, the co-presence of my adoptive and biological families signaled a breach in the covenant that we assume closed adoption to represent: that the family of origin shall disappear from the life of the adoptee, who shall be “as if born” to the adopting family.”

I say – good for him, pushing back on expectations !! He goes on to share –

On his last night in town, as I was driving him to his hotel, I told him that not only was I thankful for his kindness to my biological family, but it healed something in me to see him in a literal embrace. He replied with what I later learned he had also said to my aunt and uncle that day: that he was grateful to them for giving me to him. This remark, generously intended and deeply unsettling (I am no one’s gift; they had no role in it; my birth mother did not relinquish me for his sake), reminded me that my father will never grasp the nettle of adoption.

He concludes with this thought – “The legacy of the trauma and secrecy of adoption is that I remain isolated in my freedom.” I understand from my own sadness. Learning the truth about my parents origins, while answering lifelong questions, left me bereft. Not fitting in with either the adoptive or biological families – in truth. The ties that bind get cut and like Humpty Dumpty can’t be put back together again. Sadly, this is the truth about it. He notes that “Every move is risky.” regarding reconnecting and risking alienation from the people who raised you.

Of course, he is right about this – “There is no such thing as the successful resolution, or closure, of an adoption.” And closing with “There is still much that I cannot say, hurts that I dare not inflame. There is still no inclusive we. There is only me, standing in particular relationships to the particular people I care about. It’s a kind of paradox: the further I go along the path of reunion, the more fully I perceive this atomism into which adoption fractures the idea of ‘family’.”

A Sacred Duty

In discovering my original grandparents, I’ve learned to be a part of both the adoptive and original families. This may be disconcerting to some of my adoptive family, aunts, an uncle and some cousins but I don’t love them less. I recognize we share life experiences that I can never actually share with my original family relations no matter how much I learn about our history – and I have learned a lot.

Though I’m not an adoptee, I have experienced some degree of “reunion” and it has been much more than simply restoring a connection that was lost, it is about trying to become acquainted with “new” family members and nurturing relationships that will continue for me until the day I die.

There are reforms taking place within the practice of adoption today that haven’t stabilized but are allowing for more flexibility within the unique family system in which the adoptee is the center. Whether they opt for an open adoption or not – every adoptive parent needs to be aware that the possibility an adoptee will seek reunion fundamentally exists.

Closed adoption enforces a rigid boundary upon adoptees by automatically excluding the original family from the adoptive family’s boundaries. That was the case for my adoptee parents. Thankfully, that has not been the case for my niece and nephew (both given up for adoption by my two sisters). Not that theirs were open adoptions, they were not.

What changed is their adoptive parents accepted it as a sacred duty to assist these adopted children in discovering their original family members when they were ready to request that for themselves. Thanking all that is good.

Clueless Questions

Quite a long time ago, I learned not to ask potentially embarrassing questions. In fact, I rarely ask what could be defined as a “personal” question. If someone wants to tell me about whatever, it is their prerogative not my right.

So I was reading about some of the clueless questions adoptees sometimes receive –

Where are your real parents ?

Couldn’t your parents have their own kids ?

Are your adoptive parents angry you reunited ?

“Was your birth mother on drugs ?”

In the book The Declassified Adoptee, she gives those who just have to know better ways of asking these kinds of questions. She suggests that “Good questions are strengths first, person first. They consider the feelings of the person answering a question first, above the necessity for information.”

She adds “It is ALWAYS important to validate an adoptee’s membership within ALL of the families that she identifies with.”

As the child of two adoptees, who after 6 decades of life, has only recently discovered my biological, genetic relations (mostly cousins and one aunt), I get it. I love the adoptive families I grew up with and have shared life experiences with. I love that I now know people who share my DNA. I love them all, differently, for different reasons but love is love.