I Try To Stay Humble

Before I began to know who my original grandparents were (both of my parents were adopted) – adoption was the most natural thing in the world. How could it not be ? It was so natural both of my sisters gave up a baby to adoption. So, in only the last 3+ years, my perspective has changed a lot. I see the impacts of adoption has passed down my family line, ultimately robbing all three of my parents daughter’s of the ability to parent. Though I did not give my daughter up for adoption, finding myself unable to support myself and her financially, I allowed her father and step-mother to raise her without intrusion from me. To be honest, I didn’t think I was important as a mother. I thought that a child only needed one or the other parent to be properly cared for. Sadly, decades later, I learned that situation was not as perfect as I had believed. My sister closest to me in age actually lost custody of her first born son to her former in-laws when she divorced their son. He has suffered the most damage of all of our children and is currently estranged from his mother’s family, viewing us all as the source of his ongoing emotional and mental pain. I love him dearly and wish it wasn’t so but it is not in my control nor my sisters.

I realize that not every adoptee has the same experience. We are all individuals with individual life circumstances. Right and Wrong, Better and Worse – such exactness doesn’t exist. Everyone heals in different ways. We all begin where we begin. I began where I was when I started learning some of the hard truths and realities about the adoption industry as it operates for profit in this country. I also know that the adoption practices of the 1930s when my parents were adopted are not the same overall in 2021. There are only a few truly closed adoptions now and many “open” adoptions. I put the “open” into quotation marks because all too often, the woman who gives birth and surrenders her baby for adoption because she doesn’t feel capable of parenting, just as I didn’t feel capable in my early 20s, discovers that the “open” part is unenforceable and the adoptive parents renege on that promise.

Those of us, myself included, have become activists for reforms going forward. Society has not caught up with us yet. Certainly, there are situations where the best interest of the child is to place them in a safe family structure where they can be sufficiently provided for. No one, no matter how ardently they wish for reform, would say otherwise. The best interests of the child NEVER includes robbing them of their identity or knowledge of their origins. In the best of circumstances, I believe, adoptive parents are placeholders for the original parents and extended biological family until their adoptive child reaches maturity. Ideally, that child grows up with a full awareness and exposure to the personalities of their original parents.

Any parent, eventually reaches a point in the maturing of their child, when it is time to allow that child to be totally independent in their life choices, even if they continue to live with their parents and be financially supported by them. It is a gradual process for most of us and some of us are never 100% separated from our parents until they die. Then, regardless, we must be able to stand on our own two feet, live from our own values and make of the life that our parents – whether it was one set with a mother and a father or two sets of mothers and fathers (whether by adoption or due to divorce) – made possible for us as human beings. I do try not to judge but I do try to remain authentic in my own perspectives, values and beliefs. Those I share as honestly as I can in this blog with as much humility as I have the growth and self-development to embody.

Glad I Was

I almost didn’t know what to write today. It seemed as though I had said it all in the last few days. But then an exchange with my mom, not long before she died, came back into my mind. She gave me editing privileges on her Ancestry account. She had done the family tree thing but it was all based on the ancestral lines of her adoptive parents and my dad’s adoptive parents. She admitted to me she just had to quit working on it. It wasn’t real, she knew that deeply, not in the sense Ancestry is meant to record. But quickly, she added, “you know, because I was adopted. Glad I was.”

What else could she say ? She didn’t know anything but her adopted life. Scarcely knew anything beyond her parents names of Mr and Mrs J C Moore – that doesn’t tell a person very much, though it proved to be accurate. She knew her name at birth was given to her by her mother as Frances Irene. Oh, she tried. Tennessee would not give her her adoption file even though she carried a deep certainly all the way to her death that she had been “inappropriately” adopted. Such a careful way she worded that. She knew Georgia Tann was involved and she knew about the scandal. She actually learned about it when it came out in the newspapers in the 1950s while she was yet a school girl.

She was devastated to learn from the state of Tennessee that her birth mother had died. Closing the door to her ever being able to communicate with that woman who gave her the gift of life through her own body.

It is that “Glad I was.” that haunts me today. I didn’t know about adoptee fog until recently. In fact, when I first entered my all things adoption Facebook group, wow, was I ever in it !! Adoption seemed like the most natural thing in the world to me. It was so natural that both of my sisters ended up giving up children to adoption.

What I want to say clearly this morning is – Adoption is the most UN-natural way for a child to grow up. Having one’s birth certificate altered to make it appear that total strangers actually gave birth to you when they did NOT. Having your name changed to suit the desires of your adoptive parents ? It is a fantasy. A pretend life and adoptees feel it keenly, as my mom clearly did “it just wasn’t real to me”.

The thing my mom could be glad for is that she had a financially comfortable upbringing and some perks such as travel along with her adoptive mother. She also suffered some coldness and harsh judgement because her natural body structure would never be lithe and thin as my adoptive grandmother took such pains to make her own. I know, I suffered a humiliating embarrassment in a public restaurant in London from her over the sin of taking a piece of bread and putting some butter on it.

My maternal adoptive grandmother was an accomplished and phenomenal woman. I grant her that. But I am convinced she bought her children when she found she could not conceive. I am no longer a believer in adoption and until I run out of things to write about – I will continue making an argument for family preservation and an end to separating babies from their natural mothers. I will defend allowing such children who are unfortunate enough to be adopted to keep ALL the ties to their identities – their genuine birth certificate and their name (unless and until, it is their choice to change that).

Fake News

My all things adoption Facebook group is all about reforming the practice. The first step is waking people up. When I first joined this group, I was just beginning to learn who my original grandparents were (both of my parents were adopted). Because adoption was the most natural thing in the world in my own family, I was totally in the adoption fog, even though I was not adopted myself. It was so normal in my family that both of my sisters gave up babies to adoption – one did it as her intentional choice, the other one wanted to keep her daughter but could not access the support to do so. Unbelievably to me now, my own mother who was actually troubled or at the least conflicted about her own adoption (believing she had been stolen from her birth parents by Georgia Tann) pressured my sister to relinquish her daughter to adoption.

So today’s story speaks to me of how society’s perspectives on adoption are based on illusions. Here it is –

I joined the group because I have always wanted to adopt a child. In my head (because of media, and various stories I’ve heard elsewhere) there are hundreds of thousands of children, maybe even millions, out there suffering and in desperate need of a loving home. I was SO convinced this is true that I believed having my own child was selfish. I’m not infertile or anything….I just had visions of helping a child… or even multiple children. I joined the group hoping to learn more about the adoption process and how best to help a child through the process. Boy – was I naive. Thank you ALL for your sharing your stories and providing an education that I never would have gotten if it wasn’t for this group. Seriously. Thank you. I am now no longer interested in adoption in the way the current system is run. But – it has left me with a deep wanting to help children and moms who go have to go through the system. It seems like poverty is the main reason children are pulled from their homes. What is the best way to be helpful, reunify, provide resources (what resources?) help the birth mothers, etc.?

One commenter wrote – I’ve realized the best way I can help is at the source. If through the foster care system I am fostering pregnant and parenting teens to make sure the cycle won’t continue and help them keep their own babies. If it’s outside of the system same idea. Help at the source without removing the child. Offer babysitting, a room in your house, groceries, transportation, professional clothes and a hair dresser for interviews, etc. to do it right the focus is on the parents and supporting the parents.

Some more advice –

If you learn of a mother to be who is – for whatever reason – struggling/considering adoption for her baby/vulnerable take her under your wing and offer to help her educate herself and find balance, so she can focus.

Saving Our Sisters will educate and offer guidance and assistance.

Safe Families may have resources but be cautious as some factions are related to adoption agencies and highly religious.

The Family Preservation Project is a great site for education and resources.

Promote preserving the family….both in foster settings and vulnerable pregnancies. Our society loves to takes babies from parents who are “less than” (pffffttttt) and give them to the almighty “better than” (no, nope, nada)!!!!! Change in this area is an uphill journey but the more we speak of how critical it is for the children to be preserved in the family they were born into, the sooner THAT message will begin to drown out the child snatchers!

It’s A Matter Of Being Supported

A woman in my all things adoption group writes – I have seen a lot of hopeful adoptive parents lamenting recently how agencies are turning them down as clients, foster care in some states has stopped licensing people and generally that adoptions are down.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this past year has brought many low income families greater financial resources by way of government assistance. When I share this, there is always a plethora of “well that’s only temporary and what are they going to do when the stimulus, credits and extra unemployment stops ? That’s when we will see more kids available for adoption.”

This is how they pacify each other – yet they fail to see this for what it is. Money matters !!

Why is this not a waving RED FLAG for them that finances are a major reason women place or lose their children. A lump sum as many have gotten could be the down payment on a home. It could be rent for months, while they get on their feet. It could be replacing an old car with a more reliable one or getting a vehicle when they did not have one.

Any of these things that most of these hopeful adoptive parents take for granted could be what makes the difference between someone keeping their children or losing them. But no, they are unable to see the truth of this.

They cry that families are not being separated, so that they can create a family of their own. We should be rejoicing about this change in the old status quo. We should be recognizing that this reduction in children available for adoption during the past year plus means that helping families with real support IS an answer to keeping families together.

Those who wish to adopt don’t want to hear that though because that does not meet their selfish goals of acquiring someone else’s child.

Disrupted

Perspectives from a thwarted adoption . . . .

“Just experienced a disrupted adoption. Mom changed her mind after signing the paperwork. I will forever treasure the few days I had with that little girl and hope her and her mama stay safe on their journey to independence. I’m sure I looked like a crazy lady walking through the Dallas/Fort Worth airport carrying a diaper bag, car seat, and duffle bag of baby items with no baby, just sobbing on and off. TSA definitely gave me some weird looks when I got randomly selected to have all my luggage searched and I just kept crying as they took items out. Luckily the winter storm and rolling blackouts in Texas meant there were fewer than normal people at the airport to witness my sob-athon.”

The most obvious question is – Why wouldn’t she just give all that stuff to mom?

The most obvious answer is – They’re expensive and she wants them for the “next time”.

What does a genuinely nice reactions look like ?

One couple went to Target and bought mom and baby boy everything they could possibly need and gave these to the mom with a card congratulating her and expressing their understanding related to her decision. They had that little boy’s needs set for his entire first year. They were really respectful of mom’s decision and didn’t try to talk her out of it in anyway. PS this was a black couple, comfortable financially but not wealthy, and they always behaved well and offered things if mom chose to parent.

And to treat the hopeful adoptive mom in this story with consideration – her being sad is understandable. I think its ok to be sad, even if the baby wasn’t hers in the first place. She wished them well and doesn’t seem to have been angry. She never referred to the baby as “hers”, no display of entitlement nor was she angry.

It is so easy to criticize and judge. Every one of us needs to reach into our hearts for a sincere understanding of the place other people are seeing things from. Often their personal experiences are coloring their perceptions.

Limited Perspectives

I was thinking yesterday evening that the same mindset causes both adoptions and abortions. It is the limited perspective of the pregnant woman about what she believes she is capable of. In my adoption group there comes occasionally a pregnant woman who is trying to decide whether or not to surrender her baby to adoption. Not all adoptees say they are happy their mother didn’t abort them. It is a sad commentary on the experience of some adoptees and others feel they had a good enough life and accept that their mothers did the best they could in that moment for the higher good of all concerned.

So in the adoption group, when a pregnant mother shows up and hasn’t made a decision, the group always recommends several courses of action to her. The main one is – don’t decide right away. Don’t allow prospective adoptive parents to be at the hospital with you. Don’t sign the papers in advance. Spend some time with your infant. You can always make that choice – weeks, months later. Hopefully not years later when it may be even more traumatic. Give your infant some time with you. In these modern times, there are groups who will try to help you with the necessaries, at least in the short term.

I was reflecting recently on the fact that each of my parents were with their original mothers for about 6 to 8 months as infants. I take some comfort in knowing they had that forward development time not separated from the woman who gave birth to them. All a baby knows at birth is that mother who birthed them. I do know my dad’s mom breastfed him. I don’t know about my mom’s mom. Certainly once she was taken to Porter-Leath orphanage in Memphis, she would have been fed a bottle of formula (what was considered a formula at the time).

Most of the women who chose adoption or abortion do not believe they are capable of raising a child. Society’s willingness to financially help such women does not have a good track record. When I ran out of birth control while driving an 18-wheel truck cross county and quickly became pregnant, I knew that if I went through with that pregnancy, my partner was not going to be there for me. He said as much but he left my decisions up to me, if it can be called solely my decision under the circumstances. I already had struggled to raise my daughter following a divorce when I received no child support. Her father and a step-mother were raising her by this point. I chose an abortion. It was early in the pregnancy, the procedure was safe and legal and I’ve not regretted not being tied to that family by a child. I have struggled with the morality of it thanks to the vocal efforts of the Pro-Life contingent but it is a done deal.

As I have learned more about the subconscious trauma of babies being separated from their mothers for adoption, I am also glad I didn’t inflict that on my unrealized baby. I already had done enough damage to my daughter, though at the time I thought her circumstances were better than they were. Both of my sisters gave up babies to adoption. One always knew she was going to do that and went about it rather methodically. The other explored abortion but was too far along. She tried to get government assistance but was rejected because she was living with our parents and their financial resources were the grounds upon which she was denied (which I will always judge as very wrong of the system). Our mother, an adoptee herself, coerced my sister into choosing adoption. My parents were unwilling to take on the financial responsibility that potentially would have fallen upon them. We’ll never know what the alternatives would have yielded.

The point is that in my adoption group, time and again, I’ve seen a variety of outcomes. In some the young mother does wait and finds resources and decides without regret and great joy to try and parent her baby. Some make some other arrangements, either for temporary help or for an open adoption, that fail in some manner and it becomes a legal battle to get their child back or to know how the child is developing when as often happens, the adoptive parents renege on the open part.

It is said in a song – you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need. And I think generally speaking whatever we get, actually is what we needed, because the reality is, that is what we got. Hasty decisions can lead to a lifetime of regrets. I’ve seen that too in women who relinquished their child. I’ve been told that was the case for both of my own original grandmothers. Both remarried. One went on to have other children.

Foster Care Abuses

While some foster care abuses are extreme, some are more minor but still critical, like using the stipend for reasons other than directly related to the child. A book I read, Foster Girl (and reviewed in this blog) had some stories like that. The girls went through several foster homes over the years until they ended up in a wonderful one with a caring, mature single woman.

In the movie Just Mercy, the convicted white felon, Ralph Myers, who’s false testimony has put a Black man’s life in jeopardy of the death penalty, admits to the attorney that he grew up in foster care. While in a foster care, he was placed to sleep in the basement where the furnace blew up and his pajamas caught on fire for a frightening few minutes leaving him scarred for life. In attempting to coerce the false testimony that he had been unwilling to agree to at first, he was placed on death row where he was subjected to the smell of burning flesh that triggered for him a reaction that left him in a fetal position in his cell and willing to do whatever the authorities wanted of him. The damage of spending his childhood in foster care derailed the remainder of his life.

The inspiration for today’s blog came when I read about the untimely death of Victoria Spry as she was only 35 years old when she died. She is known for the horrendous stories of her sadistic foster mother. This is admittedly an extreme example of abuses suffered while in foster care.

She was abused by Eunice Spry for almost 20 years. In 2007, a court heard how her foster mother beat her and two other children with sticks and metal bars, scrubbed their skin with sandpaper, and forced them to eat lard, bleach, vomit and even their own feces. Eunice Spry was a Jehovah’s Witnesses. She was punishing the children because she thought they were possessed by the devil. Once she even kept two of them imprisoned, naked and starving, in a room for a month.

How was it that welfare officials failed to pick up on the abuse ?

Spry was convicted of 26 charges including unlawful wounding, cruelty to a person under 16, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, perverting the course of justice, and witness intimidation. Justice appeared to arrive for Eunice who was 62 years old when she was imprisoned for 14 years. However, her sentence was reduced to 12 years on appeal. She was freed in 2014.

Victoria wrote a book titled Tortured and then spent her short life working to improve the system that had failed her. Apparently not allowing anger to be her focus but helping other children involved with the foster care system.

As a society, when will we learn that supporting struggling families at risk is preferable to removing them from the families they were born into and placing them with strangers in foster care ?

What Is Wrong With Being A Single Parent ?

I believe in a two parent home but it doesn’t always work out that way. In my mom’s group, we have several mom’s who are single parenting their children and every one of them is awesome. Some became mothers without a partner because they wanted to parent and gave up hope on marriage. Many two parent homes become single parent homes when one of the parents dies, as happened to two of the families in my mom’s group.

So, the reality is that many kids grow up in single parent households. Every parent starts out with zero parenting experience and babies do not come with a how to manual. Today, I read about a 6 month old baby with a loving relative.

In the situation I am reading about, there is no empathy being expressed for either the deceased mom or her brother. The brother has lost his sister. The child has lost his mother. His nephew is probably one of the few things this young man has left of his sister.

Actually, this is a very sad story but unfortunately not a totally rare problem. Thus warned, here goes, sigh –

The baby’s original, biological, genetic mom was heavily on drugs during pregnancy. She told the social worker she had no family. Therefore, the baby was taken into foster care at birth. Then, the baby’s mom committed suicide and left a list of relatives. Hence the complication now.

The foster parents have grown attached to the 6 month old boy. He does have some challenges (both mentally and physically). The foster parents really really do love this boy. To their own perspectives, he is their son. He honestly knows no other parents and he’s apparently very happy with them.

Both foster parents have an adequate education. The foster dad works and makes a great income. The foster mom stays home with the baby and devotedly transports him to physical therapy 2 times a week, etc etc.

Now the baby’s uncle wants to raise this baby. He’s 29, single and has a steady occupation and therefore has the financial means to raise baby. However, he has no previous experience with children. It really isn’t his fault that he didn’t know about this baby until recently. He never knew his sister was pregnant because she was estranged from her family at the time. To date, he has not made an effort to see or have contact with the baby.

The foster parents really want to adopt this baby. It will crush them, if this baby is uprooted and turned over to someone who is effectively a stranger the baby doesn’t know. The baby is in a loving two parent home that meets his needs. Is it the right thing to send him into a single parent home ? It could be a struggle for this young man to meet the boy’s physical and mental need for expert therapies.

As a young man, the uncle doesn’t have the life experience to understand the trauma he will cause, if he takes the baby away from his foster parents. He doesn’t understand what he doesn’t know about parenting.

What do you think is the right outcome in this very complicated situation ? Generally, I’m in favor of genetically related family – always. I’m in favor of reform that prevents people from fostering simply in order to adopt a baby. This is a complicated case with no easy answers. I am glad I don’t have to be the one to judge.

When Abuse Is The Reason

It is sometimes misunderstood when a reform of adoption and foster care come up that those who support these issues don’t fully grasp the problem of child abuse. That isn’t true.

One of the books I read early on in my own effort to educate myself about such issues is Etched in Sand by Regina Calcaterra. You can learn more at her personal website. She lived it all – from surviving an abusive mother who often left them alone to fend for themselves with inadequate resources to foster care. It is not an easy story to read. From her website blog about the book –

“The middle of five children, Regina, and her siblings, Cherie, Camille, Norman and Rosie were born to the same mentally ill abusive and neglectful mother but all different fathers. Their mothers mental illness, and fathers abandonment, contributed to the families instability. They would constantly move quickly shifting from houses and apartments to trailers, homeless shelters, cars and the streets. Regardless of where they lived, the older siblings would work to make each place they lived a home for the younger siblings. Through Regina’s experiences Etched in Sand chronicles how the siblings lived on the fringe of society as they struggled to survive. All the while avoiding the authorities by keeping a pact that it was better to stay together on their own then be separated and placed in foster homes.Through Etched in Sand Regina shares the scrappy survival instincts, mishaps, adventures and bonds of a group of essentially parentless siblings.”

There is a lot that is broken and wrong about how society deals with cases such as hers. This morning I read a heartbreaking accusation of a group I am part of that seeks reforms –

“I see a lot of you are against adoption… as if it’s some horrible thing… I see many people in here wishing they were not adopted or wish they were with their birth family…. etc. etc. I’ve seen people say adoption isn’t love. It’s bad. It shouldn’t happen. And I even see some of you discouraging others from adopting or give up their children for adoption.”

“Why on earth would you guys want me to be with my molester/abuser. The person who poisoned me with drugs as a child… aka my birth mom… or any other children kept with their abusers? I suffered with her for 4 years of my life being sold as a child prostitute by my own mom. I was drugged by her, in poverty and beaten repeatedly by her and then another 3 years in foster care I was abused until my bones were broken…, why would you guys want this for people? Or maybe I just don’t understand. Because adoption saved my life. I was left for dead by the person who supposedly ‘loved me’.”

“So why should children be forced to remain with their abusers or left with unfit parents???”

While I’m not highly active there nor do I read there every day, I do get a lot of ideas and am exposed to important information, which I often share here in my blog – including today’s (at least I feel it is important to my general mission of educating people about adoption and foster care from those who live it). From our group administrator comes the clearest answer, with which I agree since I’ve been in this group since late 2017.

“No one here advocates for ANY child to be abused. To insinuate that we do simply because we promote family preservation first is pretty horrible. Supporting moms to parent their children, helping them with resources and helping them see the value in themselves and the value for their children is not supporting ANYONE to remain in an abusive situation. No, we do not support that and ANYONE that has read in here long enough would know this already.”

And furthermore, just as I would say my own parents had a “good” adoptive life, the administrator added this (which I share to help clarify my own stance on these issues) –

“I am glad you had a great adopted life. I too had a great adoptive life, but that does not negate that adoption is not and should not be first choice. Moms that want to parent should be able to parent with the right supports. It is not necessary nor should it ever be necessary to seek adoption when you are unsupported, financially lacking, dealing with mental health issues, etc. These are all things that can be helped and should be. I have great relationships with my natural family too. The majority of my story is what adopted parents wish for when they adopt. Still, I am against adoption without a child’s making an informed decision and most certainly when moms just need help. The overwhelming majority of moms that seek adoption do so for financial reasons, which is ridiculous.”

That was the reason my grandmothers lost my parents who were both adopted. It is definitely the reason one sister gave up her daughter to adoption. The other sister just viewed adoption as a totally natural choice for a single, unwed mother. However, in her case, severe mental illness and a period of homelessness, plus the awesome way her son has matured into a fine and upstanding person, makes us glad she did give him up.

There is not a one-size-fits-all answer to the well-being of any child or family situation. The group I belong to advocates protection under guardianship because adoption is a commercial, for profit system. Better is a model of “village-care” which is natural in many societies (though not in the US which is so individualistic). On the positive side is this perspective –

“What we would want to see is that you could maintain your original birth records & medical history while being under the protection of your current guardians. What we would want to see is that your family grows, not shrinks. Instead of cutting off branches (the ENTIRETY of that side of your family for your abusive parents actions), we would want to extend your family outward. More care. More kin. A wider community of care.”

It Just Isn’t True

We really should congratulate people who have enough self-awareness to make an intentional choice not to have children.

A woman posted in a Facebook group that she is indifferent whether she and her husband ever have kids but she is feeling pressure by family (this is not all that uncommon). Someone in the group advised her to foster so she can “try parenting out and see if she likes it”. It saddens me that foster kids and adoptees could ever be considered a parenting experiment or an afterthought.

The world actually has enough people. It is time for society to move away from the idea that a married couple must have kids. It is an outmoded idea that has been instilled for generations. It is time to rethink that.

How many children does the human race really need to keep humanity going. How many are sustainable ? Isn’t it better that every child is wanted, loved and financially supported ? Truth is every woman does not have to give birth to children. As in life, parenting people come in all shapes and sizes.

Some people have children because that’s what they’ve been told they are supposed to do. This needs to change beginning with the current generation of parents.

Some people have children because they had unprotected sex (and protected sex isn’t 100% effective either) and find themselves having conceived a child. Okay, so it does happen. Let us then consider it as something to deal with – whether by elimination or by supporting the woman in a crisis pregnancy to keep and raise her child. It is the woman’s body and what she does about this situation should always be a decision to be made between her and her doctor. This is a bottom line value for my own self. If she does want to raise her child, then society needs to accept that for the well-being of the child, financial resources should be generously supplied – one way or another.

Some people have children because they truly want to be parents. You could say that this yearning is a real need for these kinds of people. If they can conceive, they are on their way. Medical science is also able to make miracles happen. If it is a true desire, then by all means, have children.

Some people do not want children. Do not harass them about what is honestly their personal decision to make.

There are plenty of other variations, I’m sure there are, that I haven’t thought of in today’s rush. There is nothing selfish about any of these scenarios. Selfish people can and do have children all the time.

I would hope that no matter your reason for having a child – educate yourself going in, so that you can be a good and decent parent, one who loves their child and doesn’t see them as an unwanted burden or interference with whatever else you would rather be doing.

And is happening to me too often these days, short on time – and so a short one for today.