Muslim Teen

Today’s concerned question – Does it benefit a child in any way if they are adopted right before aging out of the foster system?

I happened upon my state’s adoption directory, which is disgusting because it lists HUMAN children as if they’re shelter dogs. Like, what the fuck? Oh, and of course all the children are POC and/or disabled because saintly wealthy white adoptive “angels” don’t want anything but healthy white infants.

What caught my eye was that there’s a Muslim teenage boy “looking for a home”. We’re a Muslim family. Of course, I don’t know his whole story. But he will be out of the system in a year or so. I don’t believe you magically know how the world works or can survive in your own when you hit 18. I’ve heard of this concept of adopting teens who are about to age out, so they have a home base/landing pad as they become legal adults. As a Muslim, we have no concept of adoption as Islam holds that adoption in the western sense takes advantage of orphans and erases the heritage of children. Would pursuing adoption for this child benefit him in any way? What if I financially supported him to find distant family, college enrollment, career development etc.? Or even just a home to celebrate Ramadan and both Eid’s in, as I doubt he’s in a Muslim home placement?

One response – Does it have to be adoption? Could you offer him guardianship in your state? Or even foster him instead so he has a Muslim household to go to?

Another notes – He’s old enough that you can ask him what he prefers. And another agrees and suggests – Present him with information and let him choose his future. And yet another – See what he wants to do and find out your options.

One advises – there are probably financial benefits for him, such as insurance, maybe help with tuition, stuff like that… Since he is an older child you could take him in and explore those things and give him a chance to decide if that is the choice that he wants.

Another shares – My former sister in law did this with one of her students. But she became his guardian and didn’t adopt. I’m not sure how they came to that arrangement, but he became part of the family as a teenager and she calls him her son. They supported him financially and he was able to get lots of scholarships all the way through grad school because he wasn’t adopted.

One who experienced foster care as a youth writes – NO to adoption or “permanent” placement. I was “placed” at 17 and 1 month away from aging out. The state decided I didn’t need any help related to foster care after that. I wasn’t eligible for ANYTHING related to being in care. I ended up homeless shortly after. This kid will lose transitional assistance if adopted or “permanently” housed.

One adoptive parent wrote – Check with the agency and your state in terms of what support they receive through young adulthood, if you adopt or not. The FAFSA for federal aid for education now has a question that asks if the student has been in foster care at any time after the age of 13, and if so they are considered independent and eligible for more aid than when parents income is considered. But consider what age they will have health insurance – if you have employer insurance that allows you to add them and continue to age 26, then that could be a big help to a young adult, if their state based medical insurance would end sooner. It varies by state whether there is any support available for foster youth between ages 18-21.

One adoptive parent noted – In California, he will be eligible for more aid from the state, if he is not adopted. However, the idea of your family including him in celebrations and becoming a source of cultural, religious, and emotional support is lovely.

A CASA volunteer shares – he may benefit more from supervised independent living thru age 21, if available. You could offer to be a resource as a place to go during college breaks and holidays, without making a formal arrangement. He might then consider/ask to be adopted as an adult. There may be certain advantages to not having to claim your income as household income, when it comes to services and educational expense.

An adoptive parent through foster care writes – I wish we had a federal system with normed supports to give you a concrete answer. You need to do some homework to see what is available in your specific state and region via options. Many regions offer more supports without adoption, such as transitional housing, college support, stipends, etc, where even guardianship would not be his best option. Other areas children loose all supports at 18, if not in care, but keep medical and a stipend until 23, if adopted as a teen. (I wish that wasn’t the case but it is in some places). I would just reach out to the case worker and not mention ANYTHING about the type of permanency and just start the conversation with that you are a Muslim home and would love to support. Some case workers will push adoption, so just get your foot in the door with some real conversations on how you can support him before mentioning your concerns about adoption. Having people in your corner to talk to, lean on, and celebrate with, would be an amazing support in and of itself.

A foster parent shares her experience with an orphaned teen. She is also a former CASA. They may well get more benefits, if they age out. It depends what they need or want to do, as to if it matters in their particular situation. As an example, I know a 17 yo wanting to go to four year private college, then grad school after that. If they are listed as independent, no parents, they very likely will get more in scholarships for both schools. If they are adopted, even after aging out, they’d no longer be considered independent, then the graduate school they want to attend would then require the parent assets and income information in considering private scholarships. Some scholarships are still available, if a foster kid is adopted at age 17. Others are not. It really depends what they want to do. Adoption means if the adopters pass away, the kid will inherit what they had but that can be done with wills and trusts, if you want to leave them anything should you pass away.

Another person who spent time in foster care and then was adopted notes – The aid at the state level is universally better and there are new federal aid packages that have lowered the minimum age and raised the limit for aid for people who have ever been in foster care. The foster care alumni association used to have some awesome resources. I would not participate in formal adoption but rather open your home as one resource (but don’t be offended, if they don’t accept). I had several home bases that filled different voids my adopted mom had but those relationships are since no longer a part of my life by my choice.

Cold Cruel Adoptive Mother

“For not an orphan in the wide world can be so deserted as the child who is an outcast from a living parent’s love.” ~ Charles Dickens

In the BBC 2008 Mini Series – Little Dorrit – Arthur Clennam’s “mother” never lets him see his beautiful biological mother, who dies of grief from being separated from her son. That is the “secret” revealed near the end of this excellent series. It is easy to note early on how cold, cruel and dismissive the woman that Arthur thinks of as “his mother” is towards him.

There is so much that could be said and I found tons of perspectives and essays about Dickens and orphans with a quick Google search. Charles Dickens’ oldest son, Charley, once wrote that “the children of his brain were much more real to him at times than we were.” He really wasn’t a sterling character in his own life. After 10 children and a series of post-partum depressions, his wife Catherine had grown fat, tired, and dull. He met a young actress named Ellen Ternan, a girl the same age as his daughter, Kate. It is said that they had a son who died in infancy. Dickens’s children may have disappointed him, but he almost always got what he wanted. When he died, Kate joined her siblings in summoning Ellen Ternan to his deathbed.

Dickens involvement with the imaginative and emotional implications of orphanhood and of the horror of abandonment is inscribed in Dickens’s fiction. All the forms that give shape to the self – status, work, citizenship, marriage, parenthood, property – are explored from the subjective vantage point of what may be termed the orphan imagination. Dickens was relentless in critiquing child labor, both in legal and criminal enterprises, and exposing the hypocrisy of a society that allows children to live on the streets. In a Dickens novel, orphans, women, and the mentally disabled repeatedly suffer.

In Dickens’ 11th novel, Little Dorrit, he tells the story of a little girl, Amy Dorrit, who is raised in a debtors’ prison, where she spends much of her life. Yet she develops into a capable and caring person. She works as a seamstress for a family whose son, Arthur, falls in love with her. With time, the Dorrits prosper and Arthur falls into debt. Later, it is revealed that Arthur’s “supposed” mother has been cheating him and the Dorrits.

High mortality rates made orphans commonplace during that time in England. Dickens tendency to obsessively include orphaned children throughout his literature. Little Dorrit is capable of standing up for herself and for what she believes is right and what is wrong. In the end Mrs. Clennam is forced to reveal that Arthur is not really her son and that she has been keeping money from him and the Dorrits for many years. Mrs Clennam’s unloving attitude drove her husband to infidelity, which resulted in a son, Arthur. Mrs. Clennam raised him as her own, without any motherly feeling. When Arthur’s birth mother died, his paternal grandfather bequeathed money to Amy, who was born in the Marshalsea the day Arthur’s birth mother died there.

Little Dorrit is a novel by Charles Dickens, originally published in serial form between 1855 and 1857. The novel satirizes some shortcomings of both government and society, including the institution of debtors’ prisons, where debtors were imprisoned, unable to work and yet incarcerated until they had repaid their debts. The prison in this case is the Marshalsea, where Dickens’s own father had been imprisoned. Imprisonment – both literal and figurative – is a major theme of the novel, with Clennam and the Meagles quarantined in Marseilles, Rigaud jailed for murder, Mrs Clennam confined to her house, the Dorrits imprisoned in the Marshalsea, and most of the characters trapped within the rigidly defined English social class structure of the time.

Here is a preview of the series we finished watching last night –

Cabbage Patch Adoption

An adoptee has a request – Looking back on Cabbage Patch Kids as an out-of-the-fog adopted adult hits me different than it did when I was a kid. I’m interested to hear what your thoughts are on CPKs — then and now.

blogger’s response – I remember them but I don’t think I ever thought about the adoption part even though both of my parents were adoptees.

There were over 50 comments. I’ll only share a few –

I never really connected the dolls with adoption issues per se, even though I knew there were adoption certificates but as a child I just legit thought they were just babies grown on a little cabbage farm, so they didn’t have parents. another one replied – I’m with you there! I still remember the day I found out they didn’t grow on a baby cabbage farm. While it’s an amusing memory now, 7/8 yr old me didn’t think so. But wait !! Actually, they do. There is a cabbage patch farm you can go visit, where they are born from the mother cabbage! It’s kinda cool.

From the website story about how LINK>“it began in a cabbage patch . . .” – The Bunnybee led the way and Xavier followed. Bunnybees were flying all around sprinkling magic dust from the crystals onto the cabbages. Rows and rows of cabbages were everywhere. But, there was something different about them. Xavier blinked his eyes and squinted at what he thought was movement among the cabbage leaves. Xavier moved closer and soon could see that there were lots of small kids and babies sleeping and playing among the cabbages.

blogger’s note – found this “Pack the ‘Kids™ up for a trip to the new BabyLand General® Hospital in Cleveland, Georgia, voted one of the Travel Channel’s Top Ten Toylands. Beautifully situated in the North Georgia Mountains, this Southern Style home filled with Cabbage Patch Kids will capture the imagination of your entire family.”

Maybe I won’t include any more adoptee perspectives because I also found this sad story related to the dolls.

The dolls were originally invented by a Kentucky artist named Martha Nelson Thomas. Martha first started making them in the early 70s, and would “adopt” them out to family and friends. The dolls eventually caught the eye of Xavier Roberts, a Georgia man who ran a gift shop. After Martha denied him permission to sell her dolls, he stole the design and began making his own versions.

Xavier’s dolls, which each had his signature printed on the ass, became wildly successful over the next few years. Their popularity reached its peak in 1983, when shortages of the dolls over the Christmas period led to mini-riots in toy stores across the country. Through all this, Martha didn’t make a single penny from her creation.

In this video, we travel to Kentucky to meet with friends and family of Martha, and hear how the Cabbage Patch craze affected her life. We also traveled to Maryland, to meet Pat and Joe Prosey, who believe they have the largest private collection of Cabbage Patch Kids on the planet.

Maybe just say NO to a Cabbage Patch Doll for your own living adoptee.

Too Many People Already

I can’t see my all things adoption group agreeing with this one but sometimes it is one of the arguments. Today, I read (and to be honest, this concern was minor compared to the others) –

I sterilized myself last year because my bloodline is just plain bad. My genes are very bad. I am also not healthy enough to carry safely, and I know what genes I and my fiancé would be putting into our prospective biological child. On the off chance that the baby would be healthy, that would be fantastic. But I can’t guarantee that, especially knowing what I have wrong with me and what is in my bloodline. I feel it would be very selfish of me to give birth to a child who would potentially have even more problems than I have. Plus, I don’t want to add more life into the world when it’s already overrun. I didn’t ask to be born, neither would our biological child. Her question to the group was – Can someone please give me a better idea of what qualifies as ‘good’ adoption and what qualifies as ‘selfish’? I want to make sure that we do it right, with as minimal trauma as possible.

From a mother of loss to adoption (aka birth mother) – Most adoption is basically legal human trafficking. It is likely to have lasting impacts on children – even if they’re separated at birth. In my own opinion, the only “good” adoptions are unavoidable ones where a child is orphaned, abandoned, or removed from an abusive/neglectful household where reunification isn’t an option. Otherwise you’re basically buying a baby and putting your own desires above the actual wellbeing of the child.

An adoptive mother asks – If you aren’t healthy enough to carry a child, are you healthy enough to raise them? Here was her reply – when I say not healthy enough to carry, I mean as in I am obese. We all know what overweight can do to a pregnancy, and being obese is even worse. I also have badly scarred lungs from many bouts of bronchitis and pneumonia and have high blood pressure. The risk for miscarriage is very high. Luckily because I’m sterile, I don’t have to worry about that.

The follow-on question from an adoptee was – How are you going to keep up with kids ? Her reply was – I’m taking medicine to make my condition bearable and I’m steadily losing weight (15 pounds down!) Plus my fiancé is much more active than I, so he can take over when I cannot continue. I also look at my mom who has been obese her entire life with me. She kept up with me.

One adoptee notes – I had 16 children and am not a pixie … nothing with my weight was an issue. I was 260 with my last. (Same dad/husband for all).

From a Baby Scoop Era adoptee who was pregnant as a teen but who parented asks – are you healthy enough to parent, chase after and be reasonably certain that “you” are healthy enough to keep up with and participate in all the physically challenging aspects of raising a child???? For at least 30 years???? They do not stay cute/cuddly babies forever!?! Consider joining a gym and adopting a puppy or kitten!?

Another adoptee notes – You’ve been here, hearing that adoption is unethical and causes harm, yet you still want there to be “a right way” to do things for yourself. You’ve still got a bit of de-centering to do in this conversation. She replied – I don’t necessarily mean a ‘right’ way, but a less traumatizing way. I would love to have the chance to be a parent in the best way possible, but not by giving birth to my own. I’d like to find the best way to go about adoption minimizing trauma as much as possible, since I know trauma will still be a thing no matter what. The adoptee states – Adoption legally disrupts identity, family, and history. Consider other ways of helping displaced children, such as fostering and supporting reunification, or supporting teens as they age out and start making their own way, temporary or permanent legal guardianship, other legal transfers of custody. Kids shouldn’t be required to give up anything in order to get the help they need.

Another mother of loss to adoption shares – it’s weird to me that you know it causes trauma and you still want to do it. Reminds me of my own situation. My son’s adoptive mother knew there would be trauma but thought that if we did open adoption well enough, it could mitigate that trauma for him. I don’t yet know how he feels about it as an adult but I’m so angry about it now. That she was glad to do the harmful thing – just hoping to make it less harmful.

When the woman complains – “This is tiring” Another adoptee replies – really?! This is tiring for you imagine how tiring it is for people that are adopted telling you over and over again that adoption is trauma, and it is selfish and human trafficking yet you try to justify your actions by doing it because of your health issues. Having a child is not a right it’s a privilege… and it seems to me you don’t have that privilege. You do not have to adopt a child in order to give it external care but participating in the system is participating in human trafficking.

Someone formerly in foster care disagrees with the above – I believe she means tiring because she’s repeating herself in different ways. I can understand where the system is abused and children are being taking advantage of by the system. I have been in there while I was in foster care. However, being in foster care is not the same for everyone. Most kids would love to be reunited with their parents because most don’t understand the harm they were in. Later in life they find out and can appreciate being removed from harmful situations. Also, there are children who hope to be adopted to have a family that they choose and chooses them. I have also been here. I’ve been in multiple foster care homes and was adopted as a teenager. I also recently adopted my nephew and his sister (mom had a baby by an unknown father). I fostered them for over 2 years trying to reunite and both her and my brother chose to sign over their rights. I tried helping her and taking her to her rehab centers and she would leave and say it’s too hard. She was also prostituting and using drugs and coming to supervised visits high and unable to keep her eyes open. Dept of Social Services gave the ultimatum that either I adopt or they will find someone else who will because she had given up trying at all. So I understand all perspectives. Sometimes no matter what anyone does the birth parents aren’t going to get their life together. The kids are already in the system. Adoption can allow a sense of home and normalcy other than being that foster child or not being able to call anyone mom or dad or whatever. (Also, I don’t force anyone to call me anything. I ask them what do they feel comfortable calling me and how they want me to address them). It’s important for them to feel included and know their opinions matter.

Shame On You Missouri

Whose Money Is It ?

From an article in the Missouri Independent, LINK>Legislation aims to stop Missouri from seizing federal benefits owed to foster kids. Turns out Missouri’s child welfare agency took at least $6.1 million in foster kids’ benefits last year to reimburse itself for the cost of providing care. Of course they did !! Missouri’s practice of taking millions of dollars in Social Security benefits owed to foster kids to defray the cost of providing care could come to an end under legislation debated last week in a House committee. The state took at least $6.1 million in foster kids’ benefits last year — generally Social Security benefits for those with disabilities or whose parents have died — to reimburse itself for agency costs.

It’s a decades-long practice that has come under increased scrutiny across the country over the last few years. Several states, including Arizona, New Mexico and Oregon, have stopped the practice. Fifteen states and cities have, according to NPR, “taken steps to preserve the money of foster youth.” Nationally, state leaders have raised concerns they wouldn’t be able to fill in the budget gap left by abolishing the practice. California’s governor last year vetoed a bill that would’ve halted the practice, saying it would have cost too much.

If the legislation actually passes (a big IF in this state), the division could use the funds for the child’s “unmet needs” beyond what the division is obligated to pay, such as housing as the child prepares to age out of foster care. The state would also be required to ensure the account in which the child’s benefits are deposited is set up in a way that doesn’t interfere with federal asset limits.

“This money is important for their future,” Rep Hannah Kelly of Mountain Grove said. She has been a foster parent in the past. The hearing was in a House Children and Families committee. “We have a responsibility to make sure that it is safeguarded for their future.”

The state withheld $8.1 million in foster kids’ benefits in 2018, $7.9 million in 2020 and $7.1 million in 2022, according to data shared at the House Children and Families committee. State agencies are allowed to be designated as the payee for kids in their custody, though nationally it’s been documented that kids aren’t always informed the state is receiving their benefits. The main federal benefits at issue are through Social Security: Supplemental Security Income for those with disabilities and survivor’s benefits for those who have a parent who has died. Kelly’s bill also includes benefits issued by the Railroad Retirement Board and Veterans Administration.

Around 10% of foster kids are entitled to Social Security benefits for survivors or those with severe disabilities, national reports have estimated. That would mean somewhere around 1,200 kids are eligible yearly in Missouri. The result of the practice is that kids who are orphaned or have disabilities are responsible for paying toward the cost of their care in state custody, while foster kids who are ineligible for those benefits pay nothing. “No child really wants to be in foster care,” said Rep Raychel Proudie of St. Louis, “…to make them pay for it is just absolutely egregious. We don’t usually make children pay for their care under any other circumstance.”

The state uses the money to pay for routine foster care costs, though agency staff did not provide details when asked by lawmakers about those specific expenditures. In other states, it’s used to help offset the money states pay foster parents and group homes, for instance, for costs like housing and food. The bill would prohibit that practice, so the agency would only be able to use the money to pay for things outside the bounds of their obligations, such as tuition, transportation, technology or housing.

A foster father, Jason White, testified at the House hearing that his foster child, now 20, “has exactly zero dollars to his name,” which he said would not be true if the state had put his federal benefits money into an account. The state is supposed to provide a quarterly accounting of how it is using a child’s money but White said in practice that hasn’t happened. He has no record of where his foster child’s benefits went.

Madison Eacret, lobbyist for the nonprofit social service organization FosterAdopt Connect, said the annual social security disability benefit per child is around $10,000: equivalent to “two years of books and supplies for college, 10 months of rent for a one bedroom, nine to 12 months of child care for a young child, or four years of SNAP benefits. Currently the vast majority of foster youth beneficiaries including those in Missouri never see a dollar of this money, and they don’t even know that someone has applied for their benefits.”

Mary Chant, CEO of Missouri Coalition for Children, said the money could help foster youth who age out of the system and can become homeless. “This funding would make a considerable difference in helping youth better position themselves for independence. This money belongs with the child.”

The Reality Of Not Knowing

Blogger’s note – Though I grew up believing my parents must have been orphans because they were adopted, I never thought their origin stories were fairytales. The image came from the International Association of Adopted People (IAAP) who noted that – Every time you asked about your biological family and received dismissive remarks, it was a trauma. Every time someone corrects you on who your “real parents are” It is another micro trauma.

One adoptee agrees – adoption is one of the most devastating things that can happen to someone. It’s unnatural and from the adoptee’s perspective, it can be extremely scary. I was terrified. And my fears were always realized. It truly is more like a horror story than a fairy tale.

One woman noted the effects on her life – Answering security questions for data access: Where was your father born? What’s your father’s middle name? What’s the middle name of your oldest sibling? Where were your parents married? As soon as I see these are the first options for security question my anxiety ratchets up and my hands shake. I’d say this is a trauma response. I found out at the age of 52 that my entire existence has been a lie. My colleagues suggested I just lie or make up an answer as who’s gonna know ? Me. I’ll know. I won’t lie.

For me, it’s always been the medical history. Sorry that you were lied to, I always knew I was adopted. That’s supposed to be less traumatic to know, even if you don’t know who, when, where or why. (Blogger’s note – it was a mysterious health problem that got my adoptee mom wanting to connect with her birth mother.)

Someone else noted – we are all aware that adoption entities encouraged and fabricated falsehoods in order to make their product for sale maximally appealing. (Blogger’s note – In fact, Georgia Tann absolutely did this regarding my mom – changing her birth parents ages and educational status to match what my mom’s adoptive mother had specified.)

Another noted – The worst thing about adoption is closed adoptions. The second worst thing is you cannot get your original birth certificate in some states. Secrecy, shame and religious politics rule. (Blogger’s note – both of my adoptee parents adoptions were “closed” because it was the 1930s. I also found it impossible to acquire original birth certificates from Virginia or California.) Though someone noted – for many adoptees there are things FAR WORSE than not having access to their original birth certificate ! (Blogger’s note – sadly I do know there are, I’ve read far too many accounts of such in an all things adoption group.)

Then someone else notes – A lot of these adoptive parent marriages are not fairytales either. (Blogger’s note – my dad’s first adoptive father was an abusive, raging alcoholic. His adoptive mother eventually threw the man out. I learned via Ancestry.com that he died young of cirrhosis of the liver.) I don’t know why they call an even possibly good marriage a fairytale anyway? I think that whole “you were chosen thing” is a joke too. Yeah, you actually have to pick who you have a relationship with but if you’re adopted as a baby, you’re not really chosen except for maybe basic things you don’t have any control over anyway.

And from my own experience of learning my actual biological, genetic roots I can appreciate what this woman shares – I recently identified my family and met my father months before he died. Knowing my origins has had an enormously positive impact on my mental health. I don’t have the constant questions going around my mind. I have brain space. This is what the kept must experience from day 1. The trauma continues because I can never be fully integrated into either family. However, now that all 4 “parents” are dead, the only word to express what I feel now is I am “free”. No more obligations to other people’s agendas.

3 Branch Tree

Symbolically, I like this tree showing 2 strong and closely linked branches with a 3rd one sort of off to one side. Donor Conceived Persons have a 3 Branch Family Tree. When a child is conceived via donor egg or in surrogacy, there is by reality some contributions made by the gestating mother, though difficult to pin down with any accuracy. I would not expect similar physical contributions when there is another father raising that child in the case of sperm donors. So, just my opinion on that situation.

I know that discovering my roots was an experience that has helped me understand how my ancestors, and myself as well, fit into American and world history. Some date their arrival in the United States to pre-Revolutionary War time. Others were immigrants not even naturalized yet. Feeling my Danish, Scottish, Irish and English roots, as well as wondering where that smidgeon of Ashkenazi Jew or Mali came from, these just add spice to my genetic mix.

So while pondering on such facts today, I tumbled on this man, LINK>John Vanek, who found out at the age of 28 that he had been conceived with the help of an anonymous sperm donor and what little documentation ever existed had been destroyed. He had been interested in genealogy and DNA since the 6th grade in public school.

Using all of his genealogical and historical skills to work, he reconstructed the blank half of his family tree from the trees of distant 3rd- and 4th-cousins and, by this method, managed to identify the anonymous donor. He has since met his biological father for the first time, that was in early 2016, and has subsequently developed a relaxed friendship with that man.

Because there are lots of people out there looking for unknown or anonymous parents, grandparents, or siblings, but very few with the skills and experience he possesses, he started LINK>GeneaLOGIC Family Research Services with the primary goal of helping such individuals. John regularly helps adoptees identify their genetic or biological parents and the children of sperm or egg donors identify their genetic parents (or other close relatives).

John describes 2 of the situations where he has assisted a client – One client was conceived in an adulterous relationship, in which the father never knew the affair had led to a child. (Blogger’s note – my dad was conceived in such a situation, when his young mother had an affair with a much older, married man – she handled the pregnancy without ever telling him.) Another was looking for information about her father, who had been abandoned at an orphanage as a newborn.

He reassures those seeking with this – “Whatever your circumstances, there is still hope.” (Blogger’s note – I agree from my own unusual experience of being the child of 2 adoptees that died knowing nothing about their origins. Within a year of their deaths, I knew what they never did, who all 4 of my original grandparents were.)

John notes his ethical core. He realizes that there are always possible risks and rewards of searching for one’s unknown past, through DNA testing or otherwise. You never know who or what you will find. Therefore, when appropriate, he is happy to refer clients to a family therapist or a law firm specializing in adoption, donation, and surrogacy.

He ends his “About” page with – I am here to help you.

It Was Not What You Think

A Facebook acquaintance of mine, who is also an adoptee, delivered a made for Sunday sermon –

Here’s a serious question. Why is it so many couples who have experienced issues with infertility or unable to keep a fetus viable in utero, believe God is or has called them to adopt, only after they’ve spent thousands of dollars, spent years of time trying to have their own baby.

Seriously, if God was really calling you to adopt why didn’t he/she/they call you before wasting the time and money?

Also why do you think telling an adopted child about how much time and money you spent trying to get and maintain a pregnancy will translate to them how God chose you to be their parents when clearly if you had been successful you never would have adopted?

And how do you justify telling an adopted child it was God’s will for you to be their parents? Like isn’t this God powerful enough to put a baby in your barren womb?

Why is it not gods will for you to accept your struggle to conceive as god telling you you shouldn’t have children? But it’s the adopted child’s responsibility to believe it was gods will for them to leave their family of origin and become the child you couldn’t create or deliver?

100 years of propaganda, and Indoctrination.

Has convinced you that adoption is a way to build a family.

This is commodifying children.

Adoption was never suppose to be about finding infants for infertile couples. Adoption prior to Georgia Tann was about finding homes for orphaned children. (Blogger’s note – my own mother was a victim of Georgia Tann’s practices.)

Inquiring minds want to know.

Blogger’s note – searching for an image for today’s blog led me to this LINK>How Do I Know If I’m Called to Adopt? by Lauren Elizabeth Miller. Which led me to look at her “About” page. She says “My next greatest calling is writing and speaking about faith, motherhood, and adoption.” She is an adoptive mother of children from China. In her blog, I appreciate this line – “While all of us can do something, not everyone is called to adopt.”

Yet she also writes – Our family has always landed in churches full of adoptive families that have affirmed our family’s call to adopt. We temporarily moved to Franklin, TN right before we were old enough to start the adoption process for China. (China requires both parents to be 30 years old.) The first church we visited was filled with adoptive families and stories that re-affirmed our calling. However – You will have family members or friends who will question your call to adopt.

Blogger’s note – partly in answer to my FB acquaintance – Evangelical Christian churches play an outsized role in promoting adoption.

Get Any 5 In A Row

How about the far right vertical column ? Love is not enough. Some adoptees would have preferred to have been aborted. Many are accused of being bitter if they speak out about adoption according to their own lived reality. My genetic biological grandmothers were not really all that young but were probably considered by some to be too young (or is it only that they lacked adequate support and financial means ?). Most adoptive parents including my own adoptive grandmothers would probably have agreed with the last one.

Maybe the far left vertical column suits your perspectives. Certainly many babies do start life in an orphanage (in fact, leaving my mom for temporary care at Porter Leath in Memphis was my grandmother’s well intentioned but tragic choice). Babies also turn up in dumpsters – sadly. The all things adoption group that I am part of is often accused of being “mean and negative”. When an adoptee wants to know more about their origins they are often accused of not being grateful or not loving their adoptive parents enough to just accept their lot in life. Some who have experienced the pain of infertility look at those who conceive easily and think it is unfair. And of course, the perennial question about the lack of alternatives to adoption.

In fact many of these bingo “scores” I’ve encountered many times as I have sought to educate my own self about the realities of the commercial adoption industry that makes LOTS of money for those promoting the taking of children from one family and depositing them with another.

Have You Noticed ?

Lately, it seems every few days or weeks there is a new story that reaches my awareness related to Korean adoptees. Today, I have 2 to share in this blog. The Korean War was fought between North Korea and South Korea from 1950 to 1953. A lot of Korean born children came to the US after the war and in the decades since.

I discovered Kristen Kish in the current issue of Time magazine’s feature – 100 Next – The World’s Rising Stars and then found an interview in Bon Appetit – LINK>How Being an Adopted Korean Influences the Way Kristen Kish Cooks by Alyse Whitney, who notes – I was also adopted from Seoul (by a white family in upstate New York). She talked to Kish about feeling disconnected from Korean culture—especially the food.

Even before this, my husband pointed out a story in The Huffington Post – I Was Told My Parents Were Dead. 38 Years Later, I Got An Email That Changed Everything by Cat Powell-Hoffmann. As a Gemini, stories about twins fascinate me. She observes – “Was this why I could never shake that lonely gnawing in my belly when I was growing up? Was she the reason?”

Something that seems clear to me in reading both stories is how this cultural “exchange” failed to truly provide these adoptees with any cultural foundations. Kish was born in Seoul, South Korea as Kwon Yung Ran. After living in a few orphanages as an infant, she was adopted when she was four months old. Cat’s adoption records noted that she had been “abandoned at birth with no living relatives.” Contacted by a woman who worked at the adoption agency 38 years later, she is told – “you have family in South Korea. Your mother is alive and well.” And “You have a twin sister.”

The woman from the adoption agency forwarded two letters to Cat. The one from her birth mother addressed her by her orphan name, Yi Soon. Her words were tender and fragile. Her twin’s letter felt like living distant but parallel lives. Her reunion occurred in Tulsa Oklahoma, at the adoption agency’s corporate headquarters. She notes the “two women raced toward me with their arms outstretched and tears in their eyes.” She said meeting her twin was “like looking at a stranger wearing my face and using my voice — but one of us spoke Korean and the other did not. It was disorienting and bizarre to think I’d shared a womb with another human being and now I was meeting her again 38 years later.” Then she says, “The very first words my birth mother said to me were ‘Mianhae,’ which means ‘I’m sorry’ in Korean. Then she said ‘Saranghae,’ which means ‘I love you’.” Turns out that when she was born in 1973, twins were considered bad luck in Korea. Her mother had to choose and chose the first born twin. The cultural differences meant they didn’t understand each other, and they were accustomed to living very different lives. She says, “because of our language barrier, we were mostly forced to play charades to communicate, and I could barely get across the most basic sentiments, much less hold the heart-to-heart conversation I so desperately wanted to have with them.”

Back to Kristen Kish’s story – she writes, “As I grew up, I realized just how incredible it was to go from unwanted and abandoned by my birth mother to being part of a new, welcoming family, who felt only joy at my arrival.” Kish writes that adopted children are like “real-life Cabbage Patch Dolls” because they have their own special dates and certificates for when they are adopted and become citizens of the United States. Kristen Kish was adopted into a family in Kentwood Michigan. She says, “I love to eat Korean food, but I don’t need to cook it. Other people can do it better.”

Kish writes – “I don’t know anything about Korean culture. I was raised by a white family in Michigan, and I didn’t look in the mirror and think about why we didn’t all look the same. They are my family, and that’s all I know.” Also that “There’s this fondness I’ve always had for older Korean women—I soften up, and I can legit feel it inside my heart. They’ll be like ‘I’m so proud of you’ and it just crushes me, in this really sweet way,” Kish explained. “My life is f—king fantastic and I don’t want a Korean family, but we both know that there was another life that could have potentially happened. It’s the ‘what ifs?’ that get you.”

She has a positive perspective on her adoption but still hopes to one day at least go to the clinic where she was born. She notes – “I feel oddly disconnected because my family is my family. Maybe I wouldn’t have become a chef if I grew up in Korea. I was put up for adoption for a reason, whether I was unwanted or they couldn’t care for me, and my life wouldn’t have been as great. Being in a family that wants you, that life is much better.” Kish has been named as the new host of Bravo’s popular and long-running series “Top Chef,” which she won in it’s tenth season.