National Adoption Awareness Month

I’ve been pretty much “out of it” this month as regards my blog here. My apologies. With the month almost over, I’m just now learning that it has been National Adoption Awareness Month. What I might wish for people to have an awareness of – is that there is always an aspect of trauma associated with adoption. My suggestion would be to listen more to adoptee voices and less to the rainbows and unicorns narratives of the FOR PROFIT adoption industry.

One adoptee suggested a topic – what is something you should NOT do / say to an adoptee ? One example was – you should never use the way an adoptee was conceived (in this case, a one night stand) against them. It was further pointed out what should be obvious – “we didn’t ask to be here.”

Another – Never say “she loved you so much that she gave you up.“

Or this – “We *chose* you”. I don’t even know what this means, other than *she* did not…? Or that other parents were stuck with their kids ? Like they don’t have a choice…? Or that they looked at others and picked me…? It’s insincere… and untrue. It alludes to picking the ripest fruit or something… we were in the market for a kid and we chose you. As I got older, it felt much more cringe when they said it. (Especially given their treatment of us.)

“Have you ever thought about finding your birth parents?” Immediately followed up with “What do you mean you (want to/don’t want to) find your birth family?” From another – Never tell your adopted child to “go find your real parents”.

Never tell adoptees that they are “lucky” for being adopted. It certainly doesn’t feel lucky to be sold to the highest bidder. Or, you were chosen. To which this adoptee said – No, I was stolen and used for a lonely woman to project her own twisted maternal fantasies onto. To which one noted – “oh, you must feel so lucky that you got picked to be apart of such an amazing family !”

From yet another – I get sick of people saying that this was designed by God for us to be put in our adoptive families because that means that God made a mistake by putting us in the wrong womb. As a transracial adoptee, it was always who are your real parents ? Why do you not look like your parents ? Also, how much did I cost ? It’s also a hard question to process for us to know that we cost people money and in turn feel that we have to live up to that cost in someway.

An interesting story then got shared due to that cost question – I don’t know if this is “better” or “worse” but I know my adoption was very inexpensive, just a couple hundred dollars in court costs back in the 80’s. I remember telling a ‘friend’ of mine what the amount was in high school (don’t ask why, I don’t remember) and he figured out how many bottles of Fruitopia I was “worth”. It’s probably the only time I personally felt shame about being adopted and the only time I felt like a “commodity”. I was/am fortunate to have a good relationship with my AP’s, but that memory will always hurt….

One notes – Using my adoption as a talking point about your pro-life stance. That’s a MAJOR pet peeve of mine. Assuming how I feel about either set of parents…. ugh. I hate the use of the term *real parents*. Assuming my race is annoying.

One responded to that with this – In response to the “pro life prop” – it’s not like we had any say or choice or memory about coming into existence ! At nearly 40 years old, I’m just recently (as in the past couple of months) understanding that some of the feelings I’ve held for decades are actually trauma responses. Seeing other people that are scarred similarly has been triggering and painful, but it’s also really helped validate some of these emotions and is helping me realize I’m not alone.

Another adoptee shares – You had a better life. You should be grateful. At least your biological mom didn’t abort you. You look just like your parents (the adoptive ones). Happy “gotcha day”! She goes on – Not recognizing the loss of an adoptee’s biological family and anyone making ANY comment about them to an adoptee in a negative light. Other people telling MY story. It’s not your story STFU. My adopted parents commenting about how my life “wasn’t that bad” when I talk about how traumatic my life has been. Minimizing our loss or our trauma. Any comment that includes “I know someone who’s adopted” or your cousins adopted etc etc. If you don’t know anything about the subject matter, just move along. I literally could keep going.

A birth mother says – It’s not adoption APPRECIATION month.. it’s national adoption awareness month. Big difference. We don’t want to appreciate it, as it sucks. Nor do we wish others to grow in this appreciation, as that’s the false narrative. We want them to be aware of the realities.

Some adoptees are trying to take this month back, as national adoptee awareness month. Since adoptees are the most affected by adoption, their voices should be the ones heard.

How Do You Respond ?

One said – “It’s rough out there.” And shared a quote from Marian Keyes – who is an Irish novelist and non-fiction writer, best known for her work in women’s literature – “I think there is pressure on people to turn every negative into a positive, but we should be allowed to say, ‘I went through something really strange and awful and it has altered me forever’.”

One adoptee wrote – My friends don’t post things like this. I don’t feel safe with people who promote adoption, so we aren’t friends.

One person noted the heart/word image above is “the Narcissistic view of adoption.”

Another person notes – I typically say something like: This is one viewpoint, which can look really beautiful, but we can’t forget how it looks for others on the opposite side of the adoption triad – which is loss, separation trauma, and a lifetime of questions and possible deep hurting. Then she says, it typically gets me blocked or unfriended, but I don’t care. I’m tired of the fairytale narrative.

Ending November

National Adoption Awareness Month can mean an adoptee feels heard. Or it can be an opportunity with the spotlight shining on adoption to discuss the trauma of being adopted. Some adoptees prefer to share what they feel are the positive things and people being adopted brought them. Every adoptee has a different story to tell but maybe the greatest relief is knowing there are others out there with the same experiences, that we are not alone. Less than 10 days left in this year’s adoption awareness month.

Mardi Link writes in the Traverse City Record Eagle on Nov 20 2022 – LINK> Happy National Adoption Month – “Being adopted isn’t just for babies, it doesn’t last for a single month and the brief burst of celebratory attention lavished on an institution designed to ‘save’ people like me feels jarring.”

She acknowledges – The press releases, celebrity baby adoption photo spreads and international infant rescue stories leave no space to narrate the lifelong complexity of a system which often provides adoptees with no agency over their own lives. For example, I’ve been on a 30-year mission to obtain every page of my medical, adoption, foster care and genealogical records. I’ve had some success at this mostly because I haven’t stopped asking after being told no.

Mardi notes – As a baby, I spent months in foster care before I was adopted. Somewhere, there are records and I want them. They’re mine. If National Adoption Month was really meant to raise awareness about the lifelong requirements of adoptees, the folks behind this celebration would have developed a mechanism for us to use to access our records.

She affirms – We’re also not going away. I’m still filing Freedom of Information Act requests on myself and I’m still writing polite letters. We have to be polite — we can’t ever appear angry or even conflicted about a system everyone else seems to celebrate.

This is the kind of reality that is an every day occurrence for adoptees – Last month, an Michigan Department of Health and Human Services adoption analyst responded to my latest inquiry with a copy of a typed telephone message delivered to the Children’s Aid Society in December of 1961. “Booth hospital telephoned to report Patricia delivered a baby girl at 8:15 a.m. Birth weight six pounds and seven ounces.” That baby was me. Until last month, I didn’t know what time I was born or what my birthweight was.

In my going nowhere efforts with the state of Virginia where my adoptee mom was born, that is the kind of information I would have liked to have received – the hospital’s name, the time my mom was mom, what she weighed. But alas, no. Not without a court order and that means an expensive legal representative and no guarantee of success. Sometimes, we just have to let some details be unresolved. Like why my grandfather abandoned my grandmother and baby mom. Like why my grandmother was sent away from her family in Tennessee to Virginia to give birth to my mom. When she left Tennessee and when she arrived in Virginia. Where she went to wait out her pregnancy until my mom was born. All I can do is make up stories.

Mardi ends her article with Happy National Adoption month. I question whether happy is the right word to attach to it – unless you are an adoptive parent who got what they wanted – someone else’s baby.

Adoption Halloween Theme

I just knew there had to be something somewhere that tied an adoption to the Halloween holiday. Sure enough. From LINK> Good Morning America dated Nov 2 2021.

Day care owner, Angie Sheppard (already the mother of 5) first met Shyla when she was 6. Two years later, on her Oct 29th birthday and dressed as a bailiff, she banged the judge’s gavel at the end of each of 15 adoptions finalized that day. The adoption ceremony was called “Home for Halloween.” All the kids were dressed in costumes for the event.

According to Jenn Petion, president and CEO of Family Support Services of North Florida, ceremonies like “Home for Halloween” are not just fun celebrations but important tools to help kids who are newly-adopted move forward, especially around the holidays. “The holidays can be a particular particularly challenging time as they remember the family that they didn’t have and the pain of of not being able to be in a safe and loving home,” she said. “So to have a finalization event that’s tied to a holiday really starts to change those memories and allows them to symbolize the start of forever, the start of something new, and that they really can have that wonderful happy ending.”

Seeing some of the kids dressed up as superheroes was especially memorable for Petion. “I always think of our foster kids as superheroes, because they really have been through some of the most unimaginable things in their young lives. They are always superheroes in disguise.”

Angie Sheppard said she never expected to find herself in a courtroom adopting a daughter. “She is the life of the house now. Everybody just fell head over heels in love with her.” Shyla had actually asked Angie to be her mom.

National Adoption Awareness Month is recognized annually in November and is intended to bring attention to the more than 400,000 children are in the foster care system.

National Adoption Month and Teens

It’s that time of year again. Yes, November. National Adoption Awareness Month.

From Child Welfare dot gov – National Adoption Month is an initiative of the Children’s Bureau that seeks to increase national awareness of adoption issues, bring attention to the need for adoptive families for teens in the US foster care system, and emphasize the value of youth engagement. We have focused our efforts on adoption for teens because we know that teens in foster care wait longer for permanency and are at higher risk of aging out than younger children. Teens need love, support, and a sense of belonging that families can provide. Securing lifelong connections for these teens, both legally and emotionally, is a critical component in determining their future achievement, health, and well-being.

This year’s National Adoption Month theme is “Conversations Matter.” Incorporating youth engagement into daily child welfare practice can start with a simple conversation. Listen to what the young person has to say, what their goals are, and how they feel about adoption. Create an environment where they can be honest and ask questions. Youth are the experts of their own lives, so let them partner with you in permanency planning and make decisions about their life.

In 2019, there were over 122,000 children and youth in foster care waiting to be adopted who are at risk of aging out without a permanent family connection. Approximately one in five children in the U.S. foster care system waiting to be adopted are teens. Teens, ages 15-18, wait significantly longer for permanency when compared to their peers. Only 5% of all children adopted in 2019 were 15-18 years old. There is a high risk of homelessness and human trafficking for teenagers who age out of foster care.

More statistics from 2019 (the most recent year data is available) – of the 122,000 children and youth waiting to be adopted: 52% are male, 48% are female, 22% are African American, 22% are Hispanic, 44% are white, while the average age is 8 years old – 11 percent are between 15 and 18 years old.

The History of National Adoption Month –

In 1976, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis announced an Adoption Week to promote awareness of the need for adoptive families for children in foster care.

In 1984, President Reagan proclaimed the first National Adoption Week. In 1995, President Clinton expanded the awareness week to the entire month of November.

Adoption Competition

I’m an entrepreneurial business person, so I get it. We got in on a big recycling push that carried our business (www.yemmhart.com) to a nice high just before the great recession of 2009. We’ve not totally recovered and the pandemic hasn’t help but we’re still doing business. At the time we started our effort, we benefitted from some awesome and free promotional efforts motivated by magazine’s own commercial interests. Advertising one can’t buy and I’ll admit, it was great.

So, this t-shirt design company that markets their custom product for fund-raising efforts has married their effort to produce revenue and their marketing need to raise awareness of their company to the expensive efforts of couple’s wanting to adopt a child (usually tens of thousands of dollars needed to do so these days).

Therefore, they have created a marketing promotion – an adoption competition. The couple who gets the most friends and usually local acquaintances (via local news sources bringing an awareness – advertising you can’t buy) to buy a t-shirt from this company gets 1 vote for every t-shirt sold. There are 10 couples. You can view them here – adoption finalists. The competition ends tomorrow, November 19th.

The company writes on their website – Every year, we help fund an adoption. November is national adoption month and this year we’re helping another family bring their beloved child home! You would be amazed what happens when you combine T-shirts, social media and the power of someone’s story.

And thus, another brilliant marketing campaign and revenue generator is born.