Christianity’s Role In Adoption

Today’s story –

3 years ago we went to an interest meeting for Bethany Adoption Services. 20 minutes in to that meeting and we confidently knew these were our people and this was our agency. Now we’re ALMOST to the finish line of the adoption process and are waiting {as patiently as possible} to become parents.

This has been quite a ride, no doubt. I sit here today thinking, praying, reflecting and can’t deny a sense of grief over our journey. Through teary eyes I type this out, that sometimes it hurts to be reminded how long our journey to be parents has taken. It’s not all rainbows and roses everyday. The joy and sorrow continue to go hand in hand.

BUT GOD. There is no denying and no getting around God’s faithfulness through this process and the peace that comes in knowing His plans > ours. The things we have learned about ourselves, our marriage, parenting, and mostly the kindness, the absolute sovereignty, and undeserved love of the Lord is worth every single hard day and tear.

Please pray for us as we wait. Pray for our future child’s birth mom to be comforted and at peace with her decision to choose life and choice for us to parent her child. Please pray for us to wait well, to prepare well, to finish this leg of the journey strong and expectant of what’s next. We are very excited and very ready and can’t wait to bring home Baby C!!

In general, the whole thing was triggering for many in my adoption group. I’m bypassing some of the comments with stronger language. Here is one of the tamer ones.

I hate using God’s plan as some justification. Like God’s plan is for a woman to give away her baby ? Same with God protects/watched out for. Like some God doesn’t? It’s all bullshit.

And the perspective from this side – Think they’d mind if I prayed for baby C and her momma instead? *sigh*

To which someone else replied – I believe in the power of prayer, but I also do not believe you pray selfishly or for someone else to be in pain. If she really believed in the power of prayer, why doesn’t she pray to get pregnant instead? I pray for the life and health of this young mom and her unborn child.

When we insist that God wants exactly what we want for our self, we are recreating God in our image, not the other way around.

My apologies for not getting this posted yesterday and I am going to have to cut what I am sharing here short. Things have been complicated in my own life the last 24 hours. Finally, last night there was forward movement again instead of battling strong headwinds and finding it difficult to make much progress. Later tomorrow or maybe not until tomorrow – there are always opportunities to say more. I wish you happiness and love in your own lives.

One Can Only Do So Much

A woman writes –

I have a teen in my care for whom reunification is not an option. One parent was not able to parent and has recently left the country. The other parent is an offender. No other bio family in this country. I am fictive kin, case plan is adoption. My foster son is 15 and has started to express feelings like this home is not his and never will be. He feels like an outsider, etc. Home is just myself and my two children, who are biological siblings. I have validated his feelings, reinforced that its OK to miss Mom and want Mom, acknowledged that this situation is not ideal, etc. There are plans to visit Mom abroad in the future. I expressed that its OK to feel this way, but that he is wanted, welcomed and loved in this home and that there will always be a place for him here.

Is there anything else I can be doing? I don’t want to minimize or ignore the fact that he wants to be with his mom and that this whole scenario isn’t what he wants, but I also don’t want him to never feel like he can settle in and get comfortable. This is his home, he’s been here for well over a year, how can I help him feel at home? I just finished re-doing his room and making it really nice and really reflective of him, but I think that just added to his feelings because having a really nice room is such a stark contrast to what his reality used to be. He’s in therapy, what else can I be doing?

Going to live with mom would not be in his best interest. He has mental health concerns as a result of the abuse and neglect that occurred with his mom due to issues out of her control. She is now being cared for by her family. In the country of origin, there would be issues of poverty, education and opportunity. He would not be able to get an education and would be put to work instead.

Some of the responses –

Maybe he is afraid of losing his connection to his mother if this begins to feel like “home”? I would reinforce his feeling of ambivalence as being normal in a very ambivalent situation.

Do you have a hallway where you hang family pictures? Hanging pictures of his mom might be good – and if you don’t have this sort of thing yet, you could have him help pick out photos, frames, a fresh wall color, or piece of furniture to put the frames on.

Adoptees will never feel like they are home. You can’t force or foster that feeling. Home is mom. And when mom won’t be home, there will never be home again. This is an entirely emotional thing he’s expressing. An emotional emptiness, a hole which cannot be filled. In my case, I now don’t really even feel home with my natural family. We lost too much time. Once the connection is severed, it’s severed. You can build a new bond, but you can never have back what you lost. What he does need is therapy with someone who is an adoptee. Anything else will not do.

The original woman admits – I struggle with wanting to “fix” everything – I know that I can’t. I want him to feel comfortable and at home but this is the ugly side of adoption and its possible he may never feel at home anywhere and will always be “homesick” no matter where he goes. Its heartbreaking. Thank you for sharing.

The previous woman added – As adoptees we struggle a LOT with what we should or shouldn’t feel. He “should” feel at home with someone who cares so much, but he doesn’t. He “shouldn’t” miss someone who abused and neglected him, but he does. All of this makes us feel even more wrong and broken. I can’t stress enough the importance of an adoptee therapist to help him work through the complexities of those feelings! It must be an adoptee, no one else can even begin to understand – and this is the very basis of what we need: someone to understand that we are suffering something so unnatural it literally doesn’t happen anywhere else in nature, and we’re expected just to acclimate. We need to talk about it, over and over and over, to someone who understands, so that someday it won’t hurt so much.

Another suggestions was to connect him with other people from his country. It won’t help the loss of mom but might help with feeling connected to his culture.

Finally these words of wisdom – You can’t fix him. This is a really an adoptive parent issue because it’s hard to parent a child when you can’t help them, fix what hurts them. Acknowledging this and knowing you are never going to be enough is key. You have done several things right seeing that he is able to verbalize to you how he feels about you and his mom. That’s a really positive thing for an adoptee to feel safe to do that.

It’s going to take time. He is grieving. He is confused. I am sure he feels conflicted and guilty. Let him connect with other kids and adults from his exact culture. That will help him feel a connection to mom and his extended family. Try to leave “but” out of the conversations. “It’s ok to miss mom but you’re welcome and loved” leave that out and just keep validating his feelings.

Ask if there is anything you can do different for him. Just let him continue to express his feelings, get him in therapy with a adoption competent therapist and just walk beside him no matter what he says or does. You’ve mentioned education and opportunity a few times. Please do not assume this is the better life for him due to his country of origin being poverty, lack of education and opportunity. Those things are things YOU think are important for someone, but he may not. Being taken from your culture, your family, it’s pretty hard to think you are getting a better life. Education and opportunity is what America pushes. To assume that makes someone happy and/or successful is inaccurate. Many people living different lives from us are happy and deem themselves successful. It is not for us to judge what’s better.

One Reason Why . . .

Today’s story from adoptionland –

Tonight our 9 year old daughter (we adopted her this year from foster care, has been in foster care since she was 4) was preoccupied and withdrawn at bedtime and I asked her if she wanted to talk. She said that she was just so confused and trying to understand why her birth mom “didn’t care about her enough to keep her and why she didn’t want her or love her”…and by the end of that sentence she was sobbing.

I just held her, rubbed her back, and held space for her. I’m just asking for…idk…input about how to best help her process her feelings? I did assure her that her birth mom DID and DOES absolutely love her, want her, and care about her, but at the time she was struggling so much with drug use (she had already been told all about the drug use in previous foster homes and we don’t know if she’s currently using or not) that she wasn’t able to take care of her and her brother.

After four years the mother consented to our daughter and her biological brother being adopted (before they came to us) but her rights were going to be terminated by Department of Child Services, if she didn’t consent regardless. We have open communication and contact with biological grandparents but not with the birth mom at this point (per her own request and the recommendation of the grandparents) but my hope and prayer is that some day we are able to establish a relationship with her and facilitate communication between her and the kids.

She has been in therapy for years (albeit a new therapist with every new foster care placement/move) and has been seeing a great one for EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) for the past year. We see therapy as a healthy part of life and don’t really see an end date so to speak.

How do I help our daughter process the feelings of being unwanted, unloved, and abandoned by her birth mom?

One woman who responded wrote this sad perspective honestly – it never really helped me to hear that my birthmom loved me. I don’t think she knows how to love me as an adult and as a child it confused me more until I realized “oh yes, when people love you, they abandon you. That’s love”.

Another answered this with – I have zero adoption experiences to relate to, but when I left my very abusive ex-husband I remember the moment I realized he loved me as much as he could, and it just was not enough for me anymore because it hurt and it was unhealthy. I don’t know how that could be discussed with a child about a parent, but I just wanted to say I relate to what you are saying about having confusing feelings about loving someone who hurts you.

One insightful commenter wrote – If she isn’t with a adoption specialized therapist, now is the time to find one. It is good she feels safe to communicate with you.

I have also used this Nuggets video with my kids. At the end I will ask them- do you think the bird could focus on her baby chicks in her nest? What was she able to focus on? Do you think she wanted to stop feeling bad? Do you think she would have wished she could do it over again and make different choices?

That’s sometimes how people who have addictions feel. They can’t focus/take care of/on us because they are trying not to feel so rotten. But they often wish they could do it over again, and love on their chicks and tell them that. Drugs cloud your world. It is hard though to not feel angry or sad or jealous that mommy couldn’t see you. That is about her, how she feels about herself because of the drugs. Maybe we can write mommy a letter and tell her how you feel. Or here is a picture of mommy, I can leave you alone and you can talk to her and tell her how upset you are. And then I will be right here for you when you are done. Because this is hard.

I also have scheduled to do something fun the next day to ensure they had some sort of time of short mental relief. Even if it was to go to the playground. Get that out.

Then, there was this sad personal story – I was adopted at 3 but my mom is very much still a drug user. And I’m dealing with the same issue with my husband’s niece even though she was adopted within her family. She’s 14 today and because I’m adopted also she comes to me and asks me why her mom doesn’t want her but has other kids. My mom had 4 total and all 4 of us were taken away. My 3 brothers were able to stay together with their dad whom tried to adopt me but due to my health from her drug usage, I needed more attention than he could give me (being the oldest) and having 3 younger boys to care for. My adoptive parents had the funds and support to care for me.

Yet another suggested this perspective – trying to make sense that the bad parts are bad. And sometimes there are bits of good. And those moments are the parent too. However brief.

And I do agree that honesty is always best as this adoptive mother shared – It is really important to REALLY hold space, and NOT give in to the urge to try to make her feel better. In reality you don’t know if her mom loves and cares for her – you are not in contact, and the mother has never told you this. We WISH it is so, we hope, we assume… But it is not truthful to pose it as a factual reality. Also, as another response said, if someone “loves her and cares for her” then love and care means abandonment and no contact. Not a great association. I wish you all the best. Sitting and grieving with another’s pain is so hard. Try not to turn away, or deflect with untruths to try to make her feel better. It hurts, that sucks – and nothing you say can make it better. But she needs to feel it, and grieve it and process it.

And another adoptive mother shares this as well – My kids were older adoptees and for good or bad have many answers others do not. I refuse to fabricate and project to “fill in gaps” and “make them feel better.” Saying the “right” thing often comes off as bullshit. My best answers are “I don’t know.” “How can I help?” And sometimes, “Let’s punch something!” Negative feelings are valid and don’t need amelioration; they need to be expressed. It’s our natural impulse to want to make people feel better, but sometimes, it’s only through feeling bad, that we can begin to work through and heal. This is their journey; I’m on the sidelines supporting not dictating plays.

What Child Is This ?

The Christmas story, is to me, a story of mothers. It is the story of a man caring for a pregnant woman and finding her a comfortable place to birth her baby. It is about protecting the mother and child from political danger and about immigrants. Christians make it about much more than that but to me, that is really what the Christmas story is about.

It is about a Census that required the pregnant woman to ride a long distance on a donkey to be counted in the birthplace of the man. It is about a town so crowded there was no room in a decent inn. It is about being forced to birth a child in a stable full of animals.

It is about hearts drawn to the baby and the wonder of birth that keeps the human race going – whether lowly shepherds sensing a significant event or kings traveling with expensive gifts from afar. It is about the Star of illumination shining for all to see.

It is about a narcistic and power hungry king who feared a little child could unseat him from his throne and so proceeded to kill many young children trying to protect his own self. The grief in the mothers of these children (if they weren’t killed along with them trying to stop the slaughter) had to be enormous.

What child is this ? It is every child. Every child should have their own mother who gave birth to them and then raises them with love in her heart. Every family should be supported and helped with the challenges of parenting and providing for the basic needs of their family.

These are what this season reminds me about.

Abandonment Part 1

Abandonment is a common, often unconscious, trauma issue in adoptees. However, there are many variations. When parents divorce and when one or both of the original parents of a child re-marry, it is not uncommon that the parental relationship of either the mother or the father suffers. More often it is the father, in my case in the mid-1970s, I was the absentee parent though I never thought of myself as having abandoned my precious daughter, she may have had experiences of that because at times I was not accessible to contact due to the partner I was living with.

Today’s story isn’t my own but another one where the abandonment behavior was even more extreme and where the original mother is considering adoption because her daughter wants a sibling (and many times after my divorce, my daughter did express to me the same desire for a sibling). In her case, her dad remarried a woman with a daughter from another marriage and then they had a daughter together. A yours, mine and ours family. Quite a bit later in time, I conceived and gave birth to two sons with my current, second husband. Here’s that story from a woman who has joined my adoption community.

I’m a 38 year old married woman with 2 children. 20 year old female stepdaughter and 14 year old bio daughter who is not my husbands. I had a hysterectomy 4 years ago and was devastated. My hubby and I don’t have any children together. I was invited to join this group because we have seriously been considering adopting. I wanted to learn as much as possible before starting the path.

Here’s my realization and questions. My 14 year old is amazing. Her bio dad and I had a great relationship until he met his now wife. Once she came into the picture his relationship with his daughter started to change. He saw her less and less, skipped visits, ignored me, etc.. then one day when she was 9 he served me papers and wanted to sever his custody. I was shocked. I didn’t understand. His daughter loves him. We never had any issues, I didn’t even ask him to ever pay a dime in child support. I have only just wanted them to have a relationship. There was no talking to him or his wife. They made up their minds. I refused to sign off.

They wanted my hubby to adopt my daughter and even though my hubby would do it in a heartbeat I refused. I wanted my daughter to be able to go to him one day and have the right to know why he gave her up. So I have full legal and physical custody and he has waived all visitation. I told my beautiful 9 year old girl that her daddy just needs a break from being a dad. That he has a lot of work and I’m sure he will see her soon. Yes I lied. I was hoping he’d come to his senses. So far he hasn’t.

During this time I have really tried to foster a relationship between his parents and my daughter. Also his sister and her kids. I WANT my daughter to have a relationship with her family. They really don’t know why he did this other than to say that his wife doesn’t want kids, did not like that her husband and I were on friendly terms (I am happily married, just wanted a good relationship with my ex for the sake of my daughter), and gave him an ultimatum… his daughter or her. He chose wrong.

Over the years the relationship with his parents has gotten strained. I have to be the one to reach out to them. They always mail birthday and Christmas gifts but don’t ever ask to see her. I offer to drive her to their house and pick her up, really everything to keep peace and give her a good relationship with them. She’s 14 now and hasn’t seen her dad since she was 9. She does know the truth behind his abandonment now.

We have been through YEARS of therapy. A suicide attempt, partial hospitalization, etc… she has a lot of issues in regards to this. We work on it every day and let her know how much we love her and that she is not worthless. She just doesn’t know/understand why her dad would do this to her.

Anyway, that’s my back story. So here is my other situation. I want to adopt. I want to be able to give a loving home to a child who may not have one currently. I’m not delusional in thinking that adopting is this sunshine and rainbows situation where there wouldn’t be trauma and issues. Seeing how my daughter has suffered with abandonment I have some insight.

Yes, I know it would be different because my daughter still has one bio parent where an adopted child possibly wouldn’t. I’m also completely open to having an open adoption where the child would have a relationship with their parents. I’m not going to lie to you all and say there isn’t a selfish component here. Yes, I DO want a child. I have grieved over the loss of being able to have any more children biologically. I just feel that we have a lot of love and support to offer.

I am going to leave it here for today and not go into her questions or the responses because this is long enough.

Women Behind Bars

Women’s incarceration has increased 800 percent over the past thirty years. The incarceration rate for black woman is double that of white women. Woman are more likely than men to be imprisoned for drug-related offenses. 62% of women in state prisons have minor children, many of whom are forced into foster care or left with relatives who scarcely have the financial resources to care for them.

The separation of families is now widely understood as a human rights crisis also at the Mexican border, yet comparatively little attention has been paid to the destruction of black families in the era of mass incarceration. One in four women in the United States has a loved one behind bars, and the figure is nearly one in two for black women. When men are locked up, the women who love them are sentenced too. They suffer from social isolation, depression, grief, shame, costly legal fees, far-away prison visits (often with children in tow) and the staggering challenges of helping children overcome the trauma of parental incarceration. When loved ones are released from their cages, it is often women who are faced with the daunting task of supporting them as they struggle and often fail in a system rigged against them.

~ from The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

According to The Sentencing Project, my state of Missouri had the 3rd highest rate of female imprisonment in the United States in 2017. Thirty-eight percent of youth incarcerated for status offenses (such as truancy and curfew violations) are girls. More than half of youth incarcerated for running away are girls.

Case in Point

Dorothy Gaines’s life changed when Alabama state police raided her home for drugs. Police found no evidence of Gaines having possessed or sold drugs, yet federal prosecutors charged Gaines with drug conspiracy. Gaines was a former nurse and devoted mother living in Mobile, Alabama. A self-described “PTA mom,” she always brought snacks to the football field where her son played on the team and her daughter was a cheerleader.

She did not know that her then-boyfriend was dealing drugs. Though the state dropped all charges, federal prosecutors charged Gaines with drug conspiracy eight months later – charges that she disputes to this day. She refused to plead guilty or provide testimony against other defendants, and so, was convicted and sentenced to serve 19 years and 7 months.

She says, “My son jumped in the judge’s lap at sentencing and asked not to take away his mother.” Leaving her children, Natasha, 19, Chara, 11, and Philip, 9, parentless, Gaines was accompanied by marshals to federal prison – her first time on an airplane.

Dorothy explains, “I was always a mother that never, ever went anywhere without my children. I missed taking my children to the park, going to their school, while I was in prison. They wrote me and told me those were the days that they missed, too. Phillip and Chara’s father died when they were two and three. That’s why my children were so distraught: because all that was taken away.”

Thankfully, in December 2000, Gaines received a commutation from President Bill Clinton. Gaines’s advocacy work includes using her own resources to help youth see their incarcerated parents. “My going to prison has not been in vain,” said Gaines. “I will fight until everything has been changed.”

A Common Enough Story

I’m having a really hard time with my feelings. I am in a reunion with my son who was given up for adoption. Here is a recap of my story.

I was 15 years old when I had him. My parents forced me to give him up for adoption, after a visit to an abortion clinic told us it was too late. My parents pulled me out of school. I was basically hidden away until I gave birth to him.

I was so happy when I was pregnant with him but I had nowhere else to go. I was terrified of making my parents angry. So, I cried and cried after leaving the hospital without him. All these years and I continued to think about him every day, but never about his adopted parents. I had to grieve for him at such a young age. I was never in therapy, was never asked how I was feeling about it all. I was just expected to act like it never happened (how is that even possible?). I was always searching for him. Then the miracle, he found me in May.

We have spoken every single day since reconnecting. I struggle with my own emotions when he talks about his adoptive mom. Of course, it is natural that he does and probably natural that it is hard for me to hear it. On his own initiative, he started referring to her in our conversations as his “parent”. I never asked him to do that. I did admit to him that this was something I personally had to work through and that I would never want him to be uncomfortable talking about anything with me.

Truth is, it’s not getting easier. It’s getting harder. Today he asked my opinion about something. After I told him my answer, he came back with, “well my parent….”. Honestly, it broke me. It isn’t unexpected that her view might be the opposite of mine. And, honestly, it wasn’t even in anything important. I am ashamed because I feel like I’m completely upset over nothing really. I now realize that these incidences make me feel those feelings I felt when I surrendered him – like I have been discarded.

It probably isn’t surprising that he views me as a friend. He doesn’t seem like an emotional person. At the age of 23, he still lives at home, has never really had a job, his adoptive parents coddle him (in my opinion) because they pay for everything, and he isn’t going to school.

I want to handle myself in these situations better. It really is so hard for me to control my emotions. I don’t want to make this sad story only about myself. And I really don’t want to project my feelings towards his adoptive parents onto him. I feel like I need help. I don’t want to hurt him or his feelings. I need to know how to accept the fact that just being in his life now is really a blessing. Whatever that is going to be like.

How can I respond or communicate better with my son?

I thought this advice was from experience and practical –

I am an adoptee and an original mom (meaning she gave up a child for adoption). He’s been raised. That’s over. Stop trying to compete with his adoptive parents and simply be his friend. In time that friendship may grow into a true mother /son relationship. Give it time. Adoptees often have trust issues, abandonment issues, identity issues, etc. so please don’t add to anything he is already struggling with. Work through your issues as an original mom separately – not through your relationship with him. (I don’t even want to touch upon my own issues because it’s still terrifying for me too). I do understand.

A Difference In Perspective

Within adoption reform communities, there is a deep commitment and ongoing effort to do adoptive relationships in a manner that is focused on the well-being of the adopted child, who through no choice of their own is not with the parents who conceived nor the mother who gave birth to them.

So, here’s the story of two conflicting perspectives on “doing it right”.

My husband and I live in West Africa with our 5 children. We recently adopted twin 4 year old girls in December. These children were being raised by their single Aunt who could not take care of them any longer since she was also raising 6 additional children (her own and also from other siblings), so she surrendered them to an orphanage because their mother had nothing to do with them since they were 1 year old. Unfortunately, this is a pretty common scenario here in West Africa.

We talk often about their “first mom,” allow the twins to miss her and express sadness, assure them they are loved and wanted. We keep in contact with their Aunt and have recently developed an online relationship with their mother. I send pictures and video to their family several times a week so they are able to know how the twins are doing. The twins have been able to talk with their aunt, cousins, and mother on two occasions. My husband and I had hoped to keep this relationship alive so the girls always had a connection to their African family.

Recently I received very harsh criticism from an adult Native American adoptee who was adopted into a privileged white family at birth. She has no connection with her biological family and claims she has never had any questions about them because “her parents did it right.” She insisted that the way we are referring to their mother as “first mom” and the ongoing connection we are attempting to foster will create an identity crisis and undermine my parental authority as their adoptive mother. We are a Christian missionary family (as is she) and she also told me that she believes our behavior and language will cause them to question God and fall away from their faith because of the uncertainty we’ll cause. In her opinion, we need to “squash” the connection with their mother and start referring to her as “the woman who gave birth to you” and to me as your “only mom.” She was also concerned that the girls have “romanticized” their memories of their mom, making her seem better than she was to them.

There is so much attention now being paid to issues of racial inequality and identity that I am not surprised that the first comment was somewhat harsh but here goes –

You are the definition of white saviorism. The very fact that you are missionaries in another country trying to recruit locals to your culture and belief system is white colonization. I find it disgusting and harmful. As to your adoption, it’s sad for all those involved, especially for the twins.

And the original woman’s response –

I teach at an American Christian school for North American children who have parents living abroad either as missionaries, humanitarian workers, or for business. We actually do not interact with locals in the manner you are assuming. But, let me educate you on what happens here in West Africa to children whose parents cannot take care of them…. the lucky ones are given to “schools” that use these children as slaves, abuse them, and force them to beg on the streets for money usually shoeless and hungry. Others are taken out to remote villages and left to starve or sold as human sacrifices or into human trafficking. The fact that you make such a bold statement without knowing anything about what happens here just shows your own ignorance and first world privilege.

The criticism was gently affirmed by another woman –

What was brought up is a valid point. I think your heart is in the right place, but you should always be mindful of how your actions have potentially negatively affected your adopted daughters’ natural family.

In adoption reform circles, financial and other resource support for natural families and keeping children within their birth culture (which means ending transracial adoption, which is not the same is a mixed race family birthing mixed race children, to be clear on this point) is the direction that reformers are seeking in an effort to end the need for removing children from the biological and genetic families.

And finally, an adoptee shares –

As an adoptee ALL I wanted my entire childhood was to know who and where I came from. Since I had no answers I would make up stories about how my first mom was a famous actress etc etc. I found out later in life that many adoptees made up elaborate stories about their bio families. It was literally torturous to not know. I feel now that SO much was straight out stolen from me as a child. And for what purpose???

Since I had no answers about my own parents’ origins, I “made up” stories. My mom was half African-American – she was not. My dad was half Mexican – he was not. I would have preferred the reality and an opportunity to know those persons who I was genetically related to. My parent died without ever having that opportunity. Since I have recovered the knowledge of my genetic origins, I am thankful also to now know people I am actually related to by blood. It has healed to wholeness something that was previously broken within me – without denying the grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins I knew as a child due solely to the adoptions of my parents.

Corky Jane

I do want to be very clear from the beginning – I do not recommend you turn to this wannbe celebrity preying out there in adoptionland. She cares more about raking up followers on TikTok than about the families torn apart by adoption. And she is everywhere.

Someone wrote in a FB group called Hopeless Adoptive Predators – “Why do so many narcissistic adopters blog about adoption like they are some type of saint? She claims to “help adoptees” but then blocks them after they comment. My expectations were low, and they were met.”

Another woman asked a logical question – “So I have no idea how tiktok works but how is she choosing her audience? Is she focusing on her videos on pregnant women?” Count me among the TikTok clueless. All I know about them is that our president hates them. They have a lot of company in that regard.

Here’s the answer – TikTok’s user base is younger. Like many of the users are teens compared to other social media sites, such as Facebook. “TikTok has really hit the nail on the head when it comes to engaging with the youngsters of the world. It might be a bit of a head scratcher for the older generations, but TikTok is no news to the teens of the world. 41 percent of TikTok users are aged between 16 and 24 (Globalwebindex, 2019)… To start off, the popularity of TikTok with the younger generation could be explained by the fact that the app creators decided to choose under 18 as their target audience from the very beginning.” Yep, I am “older” – like 66 – no wonder I’m not “into” TikTok.

So the issue isn’t focusing Corky Jane’s content on pregnant women but more that she’s using a social media platform that is primarily for younger people and especially teens, meaning she is essentially being predatory and trying to find pregnant teens/young adults.

I went to her website (something easier for an old lady like me). First of all, she cluelessly uses the term Birth Mother in a “Dear” letter. Women who conceive and give birth to a child are that child’s MOTHER. Period. “Birth” when added to “mother” is viewed as a derogatory term by many woman who have lost their child to an adoptive couple. I didn’t know that myself, until I began educating myself about all things adoption. So, right there this woman loses all credibility with me as some kind of “informed” source.

These are the arguments often used by the adoption industry with expectant mothers to pry their baby away from them – “You are strong, you are brave, you are unselfish.” All to make her feel better about the worst moment in her life which will haunt her for the rest of her lifetime. Good ole’ Corky Jane goes on to admit that she worries about the woman when she doesn’t hear back from her, “I don’t know if you are grieving, or busy, or what the reason is, but I will always reach out to you until you ask me not to.”

It is an awful catch 22 for the mother. Reminders of the child she isn’t raising. Triggering grief and regret. It is like rubbing salt into the poor woman’s wounds. She probably ought to tell Corky Jane not to reach out to her but the morbid fascination of what is happening to her precious child won’t let her not look. My heart breaks for her but not for Corky Jane.

Losing My Grandparents

My Granny, My Dad and My Granddaddy

Both of my parents were adopted. So the grandparents I grew up with in my childhood were never actually related to me. They were influential though. The two people shown above often cared for me and my sisters over weekends. I think mostly to get us into their church, the Church of Christ, as contrasted with the church our mom was raising us in, the Episcopal church. My dad didn’t go to church at the time. He worked shift work in a refinery, often double shifts, and so was mostly asleep when he wasn’t at work, except for meals. Maybe he would watch a little TV or read a news magazine or the local paper.

My mom conceived me while she was still in high school and my dad had just started at the university out of town. I think these two people shown above made certain my dad quit his dreams of a higher education and married my mom and went to work to support his young family. Not that he didn’t want to marry my mom. They were married over 50 years until death did them part and they died only 4 months apart. My dad’s adoptive parents insisted I have a biblical name to save my damaged soul because of my illegitimate conception.

All of my grandparents had already died – and in fact my parents had already died as well – when I went in search of my original grandparents. Though I doubted I would ever know who my dad’s father was because his mother was unwed and he was given her maiden name at birth. I do now know who ALL 4 of my original grandparents were, their names and their ancestry. I didn’t expect, that in learning who my original grandparents were, I would in effect “lose” my grandparents (those people who adopted my own parents as infants).

But I did.

Though I know I have a “history” with these people who adopted and raised my parents, they no longer feel like my grandparents. And my true biological and genetic grandparents have taken their place in my heart and imagination, even though I have scant knowledge (but some) of these people whose genes are in me and helped create who I am at the level of physicality. I have connected with some cousins who share the same original grandparents and what I know of my original grandparents is thanks to anything they have shared with me about these people.

I don’t love the people who raised my parents any the less but they are so far back in my own past now. Though I had occasional interactions with them up until their deaths, as living people they are receding for me. They are fading . . .

My original grandparents didn’t lose my parents due to anything worse than poverty and a lack of family support. That doesn’t say much for my parents own original grandparents, who did not seem to care about my parents very much. I’ve only heard that my mom mattered to her dad, which was a happy surprise for me and quickly warmed my heart towards that man. My dad’s father probably never even knew he existed. His mom was self-reliant and he was a married man, so she just handled it alone.

It is strange. I was robbed of my original grandparents by the Great Depression, Georgia Tann and the Salvation Army. Both of my grandmothers eventually re-married. If they could have been sustained somehow, I know they would have raised their children because every indication is that they loved their babies and mourned their loss until they died.

Nothing makes up for these losses really but at least, I do know where I came from – which is more than my parents knew. They died completely ignorant of who their own original parents were. And that is very sad.