Like A Sick Joke

Some adoptive parents want to celebrate what is generally a sad day for most adoptees. I read this comment from one adoptee – People are just out of touch with reality. Why would an adoptive parent send treats to school, so their adopted child can celebrate “Gotcha Day,” even after the child has beg them not to ?

From a mother who surrendered a child to adoption and also adopted one – This poor child. I never use that term with my daughter and honestly that is because I know the pain and trauma of being coerced into giving my baby away. In my home, we acknowledge the pain and trauma of adoption, the reasoning behind her adoption (ours was private with acquaintances) and I’m happy to give her compassion and hugs and a lot of love. I also am happy that the people who adopted my daughter never celebrated the “gotcha” day. That would be extremely painful for me as well.

On a website titled LINK> Considering Adoption, I found an article titled The Controversy of ‘Gotcha Day’.

How do you feel right now after seeing “Happy Gotcha Day” in my blog photo ? The debate is contentious, and it can get heated. Reactions vary wildly across the adoption community. For some, the language is highly problematic. For others, the entire concept is an issue. Still others have only good feelings about “gotcha day” and celebrate it annually with their children.

The goal in my blog today, is not to ignite a fiery debate, but rather to share a better understanding of the positions some hold. Gotcha Day is believed to be a celebration of the day a family adopted a child. Some families decide to mark this anniversary on the day of placement; others celebrate on the day the adoption was finalized in court. The name of this day and even the existence of the celebration has become a point of controversy for several different reasons. Let’s look at the most common positions.

The language we use when we discuss adoption must be sensitive and respectful. We’re talking about an adoptive family, the original mother and the adoptee. We have to choose our words carefully to ensure we respect the full dignity and autonomy of everyone involved in the process. Language that commodifies the adoption process is a problem. Adoption is not buying children. Children are not the product.

“The most basic aspect of it — its name — is also the disturbing aspect of it… There is also the fact that G-Day, like re-homing, has its origins in the pet rescue lexicon because it implies caught or trapped. Is this really what we want to model?” ~ author Mirah Riben

The other side of every adoption story is that an adoptee “lost everything” connected to their family of origin. From Sophie, who was born in China and adopted by an American family when she was 5 years old: “It’s been said that adoption loss is the only trauma in the world where everyone expects the victims be grateful and appreciative… Gotcha day feels like a day of fake smiles if we don’t acknowledge that it’s also about loss, not just gain.” Having a celebration intentionally denies that loss.

Adoption is acknowledged to involve loss at some level for every adoptee. The felt impact is understandably different for each. There are often confusing questions about heritage and identity for many adoptees. It is important to allow space for both any joy in general and any felt loss when it comes to an adoptee’s day of having become adopted.

Every person is inherently, and without qualification, deserving of respect. Each member of the adoption triad is living a unique story. Each has their own struggles and challenges.

One adoptee shares – I hate the phrase gotcha day. It feels patronizing and inhumane. It’s also not ok if the child is embarrassed or doesn’t want to. My adoptive parents celebrated my Adoption Birthday. Kids were jealous of me that I had 2 birthdays. I just laughed and rolled my eyes – No one wants to be adopted. I enjoyed my 2 “birthdays” and knew that other people really didn’t understand. Gotcha days and whether the adoptee consents are huge issues.

Another adoptee admits – I HATE “Gotcha-day” if you want to celebrate the day you became a family, I think that’s great, but should be family, you should discuss adoption and how the process went (similar to a mom who tells her child about their birth). It should not be a day to praise these “wonderful” people for taking in this child that “no one wanted”. And it sure as hell shouldn’t be gotcha day. That’s what they say at the animal shelter !!!

Yet another said bluntly – I was forced to have this. It embarrassed me and I hated it.

Tony Corsentino

I only just became aware of this person and thought I’d share that awareness. It was said “His posts critical of the adoption industry are thoughtful and should be amplified.” So, my first awareness was this graphic.

Finding him on Twitter, I found this LINK> Substack post – titled “Why Is That Controversial?” with a subtitle “Adoptees have a stake in the fight to protect abortion rights” by him which I will give you below some excerpts from.

He writes – “adoption services in the United States and other industrialized countries commodify children, treating them as social wealth that is transferred from the less resourced to the more resourced.” That is certainly the truth of the matter. Exploitation of the poor.

He goes on to note – I am a product of a closed domestic adoption, for which the reigning justification remains, even now, the idea, developed during the “Baby Scoop Era” (1945-1973), that relinquishing an infant under circumstances of secrecy solves several problems at once: a child gets a loving home; hopeful parents get a child to raise; and a “mistake” is “erased,” allowing the birth parent another start at making a better life.

I totally agree with him on this point – “There is an enormous moral difference, however, between relinquishment and adoption as intervening in a crisis situation for which there is no better alternative, versus instituting a de facto social system in which people are coerced into producing children for transferal to other, unrelated families.” The first responds to the death of the child’s parents (growing up, I actually did think my parents were both orphans – had no idea there were people out there that we were genetically related to) or in serious parental circumstances like unrelenting drug addiction. The social system we could find ourselves in now looks like it could become a regime of forced birth and subsequent child trafficking.

Women who relinquish children carry a lifetime of emotional impact. I read about that time and again. Here’s one comparison of both having an abortion and relinquishing a child to adoption – “It’s hard to convince others about the depth of it. You know, a few years after I was married I became pregnant and had an abortion. It was not a wonderful experience, but every time I hear stories or articles or essays about the recurring trauma of abortion, I want to say, ‘You don’t have a clue.’ I’ve experienced both and I’d have an abortion any day of the week before I would ever have another adoption—or lose a kid in the woods, which is basically what it is. You know your child is out there somewhere, you just don’t know where. It’s bad enough as a mother to know he might need you, but to complicate that they make a law that says even if he does need you we’re not going to tell him where you are.” ~ Ann Fessler from an interview for The Girls Who Went Away.

As adoptees, we simply cannot accept Amy Coney Barrett’s proposition (who is herself an adoptive parent) that relinquishment reduces “the consequences of parenting and the obligations of motherhood that flow from pregnancy.” It shifts the consequences, transforms them. To invoke the desires of hopeful adoptive parents, to say that forced birth-plus-relinquishment meets an unmet demand for the opportunity to parent, is to say that pregnant people, and the offspring they create, are to be pressed into a social experiment of incubating and transferring the raw materials for making families. Clearly, hopeful, affluent adoptive parents are a powerful political constituency.

Relinquishment is catastrophic. It is a failure to preserve the bond between a parent and their child.

Fundraising To Facilitate Adoption

Until my FB friend, Laureen Pittman, author of The Lies That Bind (a book I’ve read and reviewed in this blog), posted about this, I was unaware of an adoption agency known as The Cradle. It turns out they have existed longer (since 1923) than Georgia Tann did and have facilitated more adoptions than she did (having placed more than 16,000 children), including internationally and including celebrities (just as Tann did).

As my friend points out in her blog, the film related to the trailer above – is NOT only a Hollywood produced film about adoption meant “to capture 99 years of [The Cradle’s] work through emotional, inspiring stories of adoption.” It’s a polished, obviously professionally produced and edited documentary-style film. But to say it’s “about adoption” is terribly misleading. What it’s really about is fundraising – to facilitate adoption.

The Cradle is a private adoption agency that’s been around for nearly a hundred years. The film is presented and stylized as a celebration of The Cradle’s work by showcasing several “successful” adoption stories from the perspective of the heroic savior adoptive parents and the counselors employed by The Cradle. The fairy tale-like stories portray adoption as something “magical,” and The Cradle as someplace where “dreams come true.” Lofty words and phrases describing The Cradle and its work, such as “destiny,” “meant to be,” “special place,” and even “divine intervention,” are sprinkled throughout the forty-five minute campaign.

She asks – What’s missing? It’s obvious to adoptees. Whether we’re “well-adjusted” or struggling, in the fog or out, wrestling with identity issues, facing secondary rejection, muddling through a reunion, or fighting against the powers-that-be in a closed records nightmare, the emotional turmoil of the adoptee is sorely missing from The Cradle’s fables of the adoptive family.

Laureen caught my attention, and caused me to go looking yesterday, when she wrote –

I’m so proud of my peers and friends in the adoption community: adoptees and many birth mothers who are brave enough to share their voices in the face of the evil, backwards for-profit adoption industry. We recognize that the adoption industry continues to commodify children and when we are witness to such blatant money-grabbing emotional-pandering as seen in the documentary-cum-fundraising film, “Stories From the Red Couch,” we band together. The 45 minute video is here – https://youtu.be/Gze92CxOOEA.

Laureen writes – This video comes on the heels of my last blog post, written as a review or reaction to the film. Apparently, and thankfully, I wasn’t the only one offended by the film and the continued, age-old tactics of The Cradle to promote and facilitate adoption and discourage (putting it mildly) family preservation. The voices in this rebuttal video are only a handful of the brave adoptee-voices (and one lovely birthmother) who had something to say regarding the “Stories From the Red Couch” video regarding the questionable practices of The Cradle. Be certain to read some of the comments below the YouTube video.

Laureen adds that you can tune in to the National Association of Adoptees and Parents‘ Adoption Happy Hour on Friday, April 15, 2022, to join in the discussion. Their happy hour is every Friday at 7pm Eastern. Replays of their interviews are also posted on YouTube.