Reasons To Be Thankful

Looking at the demands on my time for the week, this may be my last opportunity to write a blog for this space until next week.

In thinking about what I could write and the upcoming holiday, which is much on a lot of people’s minds, including my own – I thought I would list a few from the years I have been writing this blog.

Be thankful if your biological, genetic family is intact. No disruptions, no family separations, no taking of children away or fleeing domestic violence. You may even be in a minority number, if you can claim all of that.

If you were the recipient of adoptive parents, be thankful if yours have been kind, attentive and generous with you. I’ve read enough horror stories to know that is NOT how it always turns out.

Be thankful if you actually know where your genetic, biological ancestors came from. I was over 60 years old before I knew this about mine – or for that matter, even who “mine” were.

Be thankful if you knew your family medical history and what your vulnerabilities are. I still don’t know mine 100% but until I was over 60 years old, I could only say – we don’t know, both of my parents were adoptees.

Be thankful if your parents were actually “there” for you, if you got in trouble – found yourself pregnant out of marriage often with uncertainty about who the actual father of your child was.

Be thankful if you were able to get an abortion, during the decades it was legal. You often don’t know how much access to that might matter, until you need such services. Exceptions mean nothing to a doctor who fears doing one under such allowances might still jeopardize his future.

Be thankful if you have adequate shelter and running water – I have experienced a lack of both in my lifetime.

I know, that if I continue to ponder this, I could come up with at least a few more. Not all but most of the above are based directly on my personal knowledge, related to my own or a genetic, biological family member’s experience.

You could try creating your own list – whether you are an adoptee, a first/natural parent who was unable to raise their genetic, biological child for whatever reason, or an adoptive parent. It is said we should always count our blessings.

Let’s Get Real

I know what I am going to write about here, will seem like shocking hyperbole to the average non-adoptee, to anyone who hasn’t spent time listening to the stories of adult adoptees, who has seen adoption only through this beautiful adopter lens, and the seemingly happy adoptees in their own community.

Adoption is not heroism. It does not fight poverty, disease nor the root causes of inequality.

Adoption doesn’t even raise awareness about the real causes of poverty, inequality, parent-child separations, disease or social immobility. Instead it creates an idolatry of those who seek to adoption to counter a world that stigmatizes infertility, disease, poverty and poor access to education.

Adoption publicity silences the voice of adoptees, trapping them in a pernicious web where they are expected to show only gratitude.

The outcome of showcasing a false savior-ism in adoption is to make adoption fashionable and highly desirable to the upper and middle classes and wannabe saviors.

Anonymising family history is at the center of the process. This creates a commercial market for baby farms, coercion and kidnapping and provides a kind of diplomatic immunity and witness protection for all agencies and families under the magic umbrella of adoption.

The false story about adoption, that adopters are saving children, disguises the reality of parenting adopted children. Children who’ve experienced the trauma of separation from their natural family cannot replace the missing biological children of infertile couples.

The failure to address this grief by all parties and to instead speed towards wishing for the separation of babies from families, helps no one. Instead, the process leaves everyone having to repress forbidden feelings. That never ends well for anyone.

In the context of adoption, people frequently confuse being pre-verbal with being pre-feeling and pre-memory. It is the myth of the blank slate. In truth a baby comprehends without words. In children raised by their natural parents, there is a sense of safety and connection that lays a foundation for the forming of strong attachments, robust relationships and resilient immune systems.

It is time for a good change in how society handles these situations.