Adoptee Remembrance Day

Though I missed the date this year, now I know. The event is meant to serve several purposes.

It raises public awareness of crimes against adoptees by adoptive parents, an action that current media does not recognize. It also allows us to publicly mourn and honor the lives of our brothers and sisters who we have lost who might otherwise be forgotten. It raises awareness about adoptee suicide, shining a light on a difficult topic. Through these actions, we express love and respect for the adoptee community.

Adoptee Remembrance Day reminds others that we are their sons, daughters, parents, friends, and lovers. Adoptee Remembrance Day gives our allies a chance to step forward with us, memorializing those who have died too soon, and it also recognizing the loss all adopted people experience, before they’re actually adopted.

While this topic remains sensitive in nature, adoptees who are murdered by their adoptive parents is increasing around the world. It is a time to honor their legacy by setting aside a day just for them. While those who have passed away before us, are no longer able to speak and share their stories or voices, there are many adoptees today who are paving the way for the voiceless to become strong enough to share their voices and stories. We are the voice of the voiceless.

We also recognize that there are international adoptees who are living without citizenship and/or have been deported due to mistakes by adoptive parents, adoption agencies, attorneys, and ultimately, the U.S. adoption system. Some international adoptees must survive abuse and neglect, including in regards to their citizenship, from their adoptive parents. We honor the adoptees who did not survive or are struggling to survive their deportations to countries they left as children where they have no support network and limited access to support services, including mental health care, clothing, food and shelter. Lack of citizenship is a tragic and often unacknowledged issue facing the adoptee community.

I will seek to be more aware of this date next year and write about it again at that time.

Protecting Children

There has to be some kind of balance that safeguards a child without destroying family. We should care that children are loved, sheltered, clothed and fed and in some manner instilled with values beneficial to society. Money should not be the sole determinant of where the child’s welfare is best served and society really should do more to preserve a family’s ability to stay together.

Child Protective Services strikes fear into the hearts of many parents. When my sons were young and difficult to keep civil in public, sometimes requiring a strong response from me, I did worry some well-meaning person might misjudge what they witnessed, though I am certain that I pushed the envelope at times, I don’t believe I ever was entirely abusive. I did regret some reactions and there is one in particular my youngest son will never let me forget and that I more than deeply regret – though love was not destroyed and we remain very close. I suspect he also understands that one can push their parent over whatever boundary restrains them. I often think that if my children do not learn about going too far with me, who loves them, someone else could kill them someday for acting ignorant of their potential danger.

My grandmothers lost my parents (both of them) to adoption during the Great Depression (1935 and 1937) due to no other awful reality regarding their life’s circumstances than simple poverty. Sadly, in the modern times we live in, society discounts the importance of natural parents and thinks they’re replaceable, especially if they’re poor. This is something that is and should never be. In most cases, even flawed natural parents are better for a child than moving them into the home of someone totally unrelated (in the genetic sense).

Who among us, that has ever had the difficult and challenging job of parenting another human being, is pure enough to cast the first stone ? Yet some do precisely that with the best of intentions. I never try to judge another parent because I have not walked a mile in their shoes nor to I know all of the circumstances behind whatever behavior I may be witnessing. I’m not suggesting to stand there and do nothing if a child is being SEVERELY beaten. Discipline is a controversial subject in which parents are becoming more enlightened but for which there is no consensus.

Orphanage And Tourism

Two words – Orphanage Tourism – that should NEVER be linked together but sadly are.

I had no idea that this was a thing or problem. Lumos, a children’s charity founded by Harry Potter author, J K Rowling, is shining a light on a practice that is seen as contributing good but is actually causing the problem of family separation and child trafficking.

“Despite the best of intentions, the sad truth is that visiting and volunteering in orphanages drives an industry that separates children from their families and puts them at risk of neglect and abuse,” Rowling said.

“Institutionalism is one of the worst things you can do to children in the world. It has huge effects on their normal development, it renders children vulnerable to abuse and trafficking, and it massively impacts their life chances. And these dire statistics apply even to what we would see as well-run orphanages … The effect on children is universally poor.”

Huge numbers of volunteers, tourists and backpackers visit residential children’s institutions every year, creating a multimillion-dollar tourism industry that leaves children at risk for many forms of abuse, according to Lumos.

Children in institutions are 500 times more likely to take their own lives, 40 times more likely to have a criminal record and 10 times more likely to be involved in prostitution.

Most people are unaware that 80% of the 8 million children currently living in orphanages worldwide have at least one living parent. The children are placed due to reasons of poverty, disability, or to receive an education, and many have a family who could care for them, given the right support. Parents are told that their child will be fed and educated, yet schooling is rare and the children often go hungry – even as thousands of tourists visited the orphanage each year.

These children are not tourist attractions. They are not zoo animals to be viewed on an outing. They have lives and destinies. Children worldwide are increasingly being trafficked into institutions to attract donations and volunteers. Families, and their children, are being targeted by ‘child-finders’ who are sometimes paying them or otherwise encouraging them to give their child up to the orphanage for a ‘better life’, with education being one of the main reasons, usually because of poverty.

Supporting Mothers and Children

It is not surprising that more women are delaying motherhood in our current time. It can be difficult to find the kind of support that gives a woman confidence in becoming a mom. In my mom’s group, we also have women who chose to have children without a spouse, having given up on finding the quality of person they felt would be a supportive parent.

After I met my husband, I told my doctor that he was the kind of person I would be willing to become a mother again with and after ten years of marriage, we made the decision to add parenthood to our life as a couple. Previously, I had a child who I still adore and found there was no support for myself as a single mother after I felt compelled to divorce her father. So, I was understandably reluctant to go into motherhood again but this time it worked out. There are always bumps along the way in any relationship but we have made it through them so far and our two sons are almost grown.

70% of all moms are working mothers. 25% are the primary breadwinner in their family. Almost half of all two parent families find both parents employed outside the home. The realities of modern life are – it is difficult to support any family on one employment option. And our society only cares about the unborn and not children once they are born when a woman has to support her family without any financial assistance from a partner. That I think is a real tragedy.

In a Pew Research Center analysis – there were 9 million mothers living with a child younger than 18 without a spouse or partner. Solo motherhood is particularly common among black mothers (56% are in this category). By comparison, 26% of Hispanic moms, 17% of white moms and 9% of Asian moms are solo parents. (Solo parenthood is far less common among fathers: 7% of dads are raising a child without a spouse or partner in the home.)

For my own self, Pro-Life would be full support for parents raising children if the available resources fall below what is adequate to provide the basic necessities. Until then, I believe we fail the morality test as a society.