Who Is Really Responsible

Sharing some intelligent and knowledgeable thoughts today (no, not my own but so good, I had to share) –

Responsibility In Adoption

WHO IS REALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR FORCED ADOPTIONS?

A few people make the point that sometimes foster parents are forced by the state to adopt their foster children. Since there was some demand for a topic addressing forced adoptions from foster care, I thought this topic was important. Let’s start with some language.

ARE FOSTER PARENTS FORCED OR ARE THEY COERCED?

According to the Oxford Dictionary, “force” includes situations where a person may be threatened into cooperating with an action they would prefer not to perform. In this way, you can say that adoptive parents are “forced” to adopt from foster care under some circumstances. But I think the word “coerced” is better because it is a more nuanced word that conveys the fact that while there were no good choices, adoptive parents still made a choice.

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THESE FORCED ADOPTIONS?

There’s a who and there’s a what. Let’s start with the “what.”

What we’re talking about is the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA), a Clinton-era law intended to encourage state agencies to find and secure permanent homes for children waiting in foster care following the termination of parental rights. This act provides Federal monies for state agencies for each child adopted out of foster care in a given fiscal year. In order to continue to receive this stipend, the state agencies must increase the number of adoptions compared to the previous year. Agencies, therefore, train their caseworkers to push for (or coerce) adoptions so that they continue to receive these federal funds for their services. The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) is largely responsible for the number of children in foster care waiting to be adopted as well as the coercion in adoption.

The “who” is the adoptive parent.

I know you don’t want to hear this. It is so much easier to blame someone else for your involvement in a system of oppression. But let me put this simply: You would not have been forced to adopt, if you had not been involved in foster care as a foster parent in the first place.

Leaving aside any feelings many of us have about adoption and foster care in the first place, this is factually true. The caseworker could not have coerced you to adopt, if you had not already been fostering, which most of you signed up for in the first place.

THE REALITY OF FORCED ADOPTIONS

They do happen. Period. But when we put the emphasis on adoptive parents, we shift the tragedy of forced adoptions away from the helpless party: The adoptee. We also shift the emphasis from the party who truly had no choice and was literally forced: The natural family. Because the adoptee didn’t choose to be in foster care — the adoptive (formerly foster) parent did. Because biological parents didn’t choose to engage with the system — the adoptive (formerly foster) parent did.

Before you argue that biological parents chose to engage with the system, sit down and listen. Please.

The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) demands a supply of children to be adopted out of foster care, and Child Protective Services uses increasingly aggressive techniques to source these children. Many children in the system, even post-Termination of Parental Rights, are in the system because their parents were facing temporary situations and then the system saddled them with requirements they simply could not complete. When parents don’t complete the objectives of their case plan, their rights are terminated. Their children may be adopted “for the sake of permanency.”

ADOPTIVE PARENTS AREN’T VICTIMS

It is harmful to adoptees and their original families when adoptive parents make themselves out to be the victims in adoption. Not only does this potentially (likely) harm the adopted child and/or their first family, but it prevents the adoptive parent from healing the parts of them that are wounded by whatever causes led them to adoption. You have to be responsible for your choices. Period. As a first mother who lost her children to CPS and is now in reunion, I strive to recognize that whatever I may feel, I am not the victim. My children were. For the sake of your child, keep things in perspective. In the long run, it will also help you.

BUT WHAT ABOUT KINSHIP ADOPTION?

Kinship adoption is a true tragedy. The majority of kinship adopters didn’t set out to foster or adopt in the first place and accept responsibility for a relative’s children to keep them out of the system. In many states, they are then threatened with stranger placement, if they don’t adopt their kinship child. Adoption isn’t the right answer, but keeping children with family has to come first whenever possible. No adopter gets a free pass, but if there is an argument that can be made that kinship adopters have almost no choice because they didn’t choose to participate in the system apart from the pressure applied by the need for care inside the family.

YOU CAN DO THE WRONG THING WHILE TRYING TO DO THE RIGHT THING

It’s easy for those suffering cognitive distortions (often as a result of childhood abuse and trauma) to believe that participating in a broken system makes them a bad person.

Nobody’s saying that. We recognize the choicelessness you felt when confronted with the option to either adopt or allow a child you care deeply for to be removed from your home to be adopted by strangers — and you may never see them again.

But it is important, for the sake of your adopted child — that you not make yourself the victim of some third party — especially when that third party is faceless and nameless (“the system”).

LET’S GET VISIBLE!

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Difficult Father Issues

Today’s story – my 13 year old’s biological father wants to terminate his parental rights and the only way the state will allow that to happen is if my husband adopts my child. This is not something I ever wanted to happen and I tried very hard to avoid things getting to this point.

In the past under joint custody, he has refused to consent to therapy, refused to allow the children to take their medication, changed their class placements against their will, withdrawn them from extracurriculars, cancelled doctors appointments, picked up their glasses from the eye doctor and then, refused to give them back to us, etc… it’s just been a lot. At this point, he also hasn’t seen our child for the last four years, by his own choice. My husband is already raising my child and has been for most of their life. They already live here 100% of the time. So, logistically, this would not change anything.

If we do the adoption, I will be able to get my child back in therapy, to help them begin to work through all of this. Also with the adoption, comes the option for them to change their last name. They have their biological father’s last name. They are ADAMANT that they want to get rid of his last name and take mine. I did not change my name, when I got married. So it isn’t my husband’s last name. My last name is pretty important to me. I never knew my biological father or anything about him, and my mother did not raise me (I was a kinship adoptee). My last name has always felt like a connection myself, if that makes sense. It’s one of the very few things I can trace through generations and say ”this is where I came from.” My child knows this and I think wants to have a part of that as well.

All of that said, I feel weird about changing their name. So, I wonder if I should encourage them to keep his last name. There is a lot of trauma and hurt associated with that name for them. My hesitation is – do I feel they are old enough to have the final say in this. I really never wanted this for them and I am feeling horribly guilty about all of it.

Someone shared their personal experience – My husband adopted my child (this was an adult adoption), we asked their input and what they wanted. We made it clear it was 100% their choice and in no way did we want to influence such a big decision either way but we discussed scenarios and options in length and made them wait a while to make sure they still wanted it changed and it wasn’t out of spite or anger or a split second decision.

This is a different scenario than an adoption of a young child who cannot consent (this was really hard for me to accept but necessary to understand). Your child is consenting and wants their name changed. Names are very triggering, even for my adult child, when they hear their original name it always makes them lose their breath. It is ok to change their name, it’s ok!

Another person confirmed – in my state the court will not terminate the parental rights of a father, if there is a step-parent who could adopt. A father can’t terminate his rights without adoption because legally, it leaves the child fatherless. It’s something that, if allowed, could lead to parents requesting termination to avoid being required to support their children.

Abandoned at the Playground

Short on time today, so I am sharing this essay from LINK>Severance Magazine by Akara Skye.

My mother dropped me off at an empty public playground without a goodbye or a promise to return. I reluctantly and dutifully got out of the car. The playground and I drew a heavy sigh. We were alone together.

I shuffled over to the swing set determined to make the best of it. The hot wind kicked up, covering my face with a dusty film. For a moment, it clouded my vision, and I wondered if it might be better to not see clearly. To not see the truth of the matter; that everyone will leave me. What did I do to deserve this?

If both the mother I knew and the mother who relinquished me at birth could leave me, it would be easy for others to do the same. My birth mother didn’t come back for me, but went on to a brand new, shiny life including children, the ones she kept. Now my other mother has left me. Would she come back?

Hours passed, and the sun began to set. No other children had arrived and neither had my mother. I wondered if this would forever be my landscape. Dusty, dismal, and deserted.

I saw her car coming up the road just before dusk. I couldn’t read her face. Was it full of dread and desperation, or maybe it was full of joy and excitement? Had she done this with her other daughter, the biological one?

Put on your game face, I told myself. Act grateful. Don’t ask questions. The car rolled up. No honk, no door swinging open. I got in, and we drove off. The forever silence between us.

On the way back home, I was already worrying when, not if, this would happen again. What if she didn’t come back the next time?

I do remember another place. A happy place. I would ride my purple Schwinn bike with the flower basket and plastic streamers, to a neighbor’s backyard, two miles from my house. I was alone, yet it was my decision, so it didn’t feel like punishment. Their backyard was unfenced and sloped down to a creek. The surroundings were calm and peaceful, shaded and cool, nothing like the dusty dry playground. The breeze rustled through the leaves of the protective trees which bent over the water. The water lightly danced over the gray, brown, and white stones and pebbles. An occasional flower petal gently fell onto the sprays of water.

I was proud that I could sneak in without being detected. Little did I know that the neighbors were watching me, much like they might watch a stray cat who appeared at their back door.

Regardless, I was happy there. The place was the opposite of the disparaging playground; even though I was alone at both places. But perhaps I should get used to it. Everyone leaves.

Akara Skye is a domestic, Baby Scoop era, closed adoption, late discovery adoptee. She is estranged from her adoptive family and unacknowledged by her birth family. Skye is on the executive board of directors of AKA, LINK>Adoption Knowledge Affiliates. She hopes to increase awareness that adoption is not all pink, perfect, and polite but is layered with trauma for all involved.

Competition and/or Comparison

It is inevitable for an adoptee to feel some tension or conflict regarding their reunion with biological family and a perceived threat by adoptive family to the relationship they have long possessed with that adoptee. These are difficult waters to navigate.

Some good advice I read today suggested –

Try to disentangle yourself and the decisions you make from any/all of your parents. You have every right to have a relationship with anyone – if you are blood-related to them or not. You also have the right to step away from any relationship. I encourage you to go for it. Enjoy getting to know your father and sisters. This will not take away from your relationship with your adoptive parents or your mother.

Think of it this way: When you married, did your adoptive parents throw a fit? Were they shocked that you were (possibly) changing your surname? Did they demand that you not have a relationship with your husband’s parents? If you have children, did they declare that only THEY were the grandparents, the *real* grandparents, and these others were imposters? The same could be said about birth parents. That they are not “real.” Where everything is a competition and/or comparison. Thing is, you don’t have to play. All four of these people are your parents one way or another. That was the hand you were dealt. You deserve to develop a relationship with any person you choose, including DNA relatives. The feelings may ebb and flow with time and circumstances and that’s okay, too.

The person this was suggested to answered – it’s funny cuz my adoptive mom was upset when I changed my maiden name and she is jealous of the relationship I have with my mother-in-law too! But she’s better at hiding it these days. There just isn’t pleasing her and there never has been. I have decided not to tell her or my adoptive dad, at least not for a long time until I’ve sorted through all this myself.

What started this is – she has found her biological dad. He didn’t have a clue she existed. So far he has been nothing but kind and welcoming. She has also discovered that she has two baby half-sisters. She is nervous because when she was 18, she was finally allowed information about her adoption. Only her birth mother’s name was available, and she quickly found her on Facebook. She adoptive mother expressed feelings of betrayal. She felt the adoptee was replacing her. Eventually, she did allow the adoptee to have her biological mother attend her wedding. Then, her biological mom basically ghosted her and now she very rarely hears from her after years of what she thought was a great friendship. Her biological aunt, with whom she is close, tells her this is just normal behavior for her biological mom – she cuts people off and prefers to be alone. Ok, fine. After years of counselling and medication, the woman has gotten over this (for the most part). She is simply terrified it’s going to happen all over again with her biological dad.

No Contact

It is not uncommon now to see adoptees who have gone “no contact” – either with adoptive families or with their original genetic families. I will admit that I had to go no contact with my youngest sister, so I get why sometimes this is the best decision.

For example, this adoptee –

I’m no contact with all of my adopted family and most of my biological family. They’ve hurt me repeatedly by gaslighting, emotional manipulation and abuse, silence, lies (not to mention the outright physical abuse I experienced in childhood)….. and I’m done. Even my biological brother, whom I thought I’d always be close to, has joined in.

When I say I’m cutting toxicity out of my life, I MEAN IT. Friends, family, coworkers, jobs, personal behaviors and mentality – Wherever toxicity might be found, I won’t be. I’ve spent too much of my life trying to please others and fit in because then MAYBE they won’t leave me.

I no longer care.

I’m tired of going out of my way for “family” just to have them talk about me behind my back. I’ve dropped everything to help people who wouldn’t even lend me a smile.

No. More.

Goodbye and good riddance to them all. Best of luck on their future endeavors, but count me out. And though I know it’s the right choice, I’m really needing some emotional support and validation.

And the emotional support comes . . . from an adoptive parent. Removing toxic people from your life may be hard but so worthwhile. Rebuild your relationships with a family of choice. Good friends, partners, can go a long way in supporting you. Congratulations on the beginning of a life away from guilt and toxicity.

And this from another adoptee – Hugs! I went no contact with my adoptive parents years ago, no regrets. I had one brief unavoidable blip, which reinforced what a good choice I made. My younger sister, who was only 1 when she was adopted/went into foster care (I was 10 at the time) has minimal engagement with them. They will ask about me but she puts up the boundary. She’s not comfortable giving them updates about my life, since I have no relationship with them.

Irony is – she used to gatekeep me from my sisters, after I was forced from their home at 17 (just one of many previous times) and my biological family before that, so I find it validating that my families don’t get what they want now (at one time, my adoptive mother liked to brag about how I’m doing well because of their sacrifice and the hard decisions they made to help me help myself). When she told me about the reason why my adoptive mother thinks she was cut off (ie not invited to another family event with their biological son) I laughed because it just goes to show how clueless she really is and how little she actually DID listen to me, before I cut her off.

I have little to no contact with my biological family, least of all with their own monkeys and circus. The contact I do have is mostly initiated on my part (zero effort on the sibling’s part to connect with me, minimum from my mother and other relatives) and I’ve gone full no contact at times with my dad, depending on where he’s at in his addiction cycle.

I have no regrets. Only a slight regret for not putting up boundaries earlier because I felt I had to have some contact with some family because you know, I have no family otherwise (my in-laws are not super fans of me either, they are judgmental and don’t understand CPTSD (complex post traumatic stress disorder) or why my husband is with someone as ‘broken’ as I am (they see us minimally – maybe a handful of times per year now.) I now no longer give a f**** about what I do or do not say, that may or may not upset them. It used to tear me up and I’d think OMG was I too loud ?, too this or too that, and feel like a big POS and not worthy of their love, until I realized their lack of acceptance had to do with THEIR stuff and NOT mine. Mine was just easier to focus on because I was so transparent about everything, which is not how they roll.

Duty ?

Today’s story –

I was privately adopted as a baby. I was raised by my adoptive parents and 2 of their biological sons. My adoptive father was my favorite in the family. He took care of me and loved me and stuck by me, but more so for his biological sons. Even so, I felt closest to him. I’m 52 years old now. I have been taking care of my adoptive parents for about 5 yrs as a live-in caretaker.

My adoptive dad died 2 months ago and now I am stuck with my loveless, bitter, jealous adoptive mother who never seemed to like or love or want me. I believe she adopted me for charity status and attention.

Now that my adoptive father isn’t here to buffer her emotional abuse and filter her words for me, I am living in a nightmare situation. She doesn’t want me here but needs me. I feel like I owe her because that’s how she’s always made me feel. I’m grieving the loss of my adoptive father.

This happens. Both of my parents were adoptees and they both ended up having to care for or make arrangements for the care of their adoptive parents and to administer their estates (which is the most thankless job, I can tell you now because I had to help my dad after my mom died and administer their estate after he died 4 months later). It was my parents examples that allowed me to muddle through it and see it to the conclusion of all the related affairs. My adoptive grandparents were all good people. My mom’s adoptive father died early on and left my adoptive grandmother living alone for decades. My mom did have a difficult relationship with her adoptive mother but my adoptive grandmother’s decline certainly turned some tables between them, which I do believe was healing – somewhat.

One bit of advice for the adoptee trapped in difficult circumstances above (which I do agree with) was this – You don’t owe her anything. Coordinate her care with her insurance and take care of your emotional health.

Being a full time caretaker for someone who mistreats you should never be the duty of any person. This kind of work can be handled by others who are trained to do it. I can understand if there is love and care between the persons but if it isn’t there, it is better to get one’s self out of the role.

This thought occurred to me as well – She has two sons to take care of her. Where are they? Also there are wonderful old folks homes, where people chose to do this work and get paid to take care of the elderly. This is not your job.

This is not (sadly) an unusual situation – I had that same relationship with my adoptive mom. She was abusive yet felt entitled to my attention because she “sacrificed soooo much” for me. I cut ties with her two years ago. I have no intention of ever speaking to her again. Birthdays, holidays, deathbed, NOTHING. You don’t owe her ANYTHING. If you are able to walk away, do it.. and never feel guilty for it.

From another – You don’t owe her your life and happiness. Is there a way to navigate getting her a state guardian or some other sort of assisted living arrangement? Do what serves your whole-self. And another – At the very least her sons should share the load. People take care of their parents when they age, out of love and charity, not because they HAVE to. You don’t owe her that for adopting you. What you’re doing is selfless.

There is serious truth in this one – Taking care of a parent is hard under the best circumstances. Adoptive and abusive add layers of complexity. I was in a similar situation with my adoptive parents and my mental health improved drastically when I moved out. And truth in this one too – You don’t owe her anything. Anything and everything she did for you growing up was her job and responsibility to do as a parent. Anything and everything she did to diminish you growing up, that was also her choice. If you choose not to sacrifice your happiness, sanity, mental health, and peace to be her caretaker, that’s just a consequence of her choices and actions. It’s okay to choose yourself and put yourself first.

I understand this reality as well – The problem with “put her in a home” or “there are wonderful elder-care homes” is that most of those “homes” are run, often by large corporate entities that own many such “facilities,” for profits and cause much misery and too early death to the helpless folks stuck into them.

My parents and my in-laws all wanted to die at home with family. I am thankful that all of them were able to have these wishes fulfilled but none of these were cruel and abusive. That changes the choices one must make for their own good. We also had to have the help of paid care-takers in addition to our management of their situations.

With Privilege Comes Judgment

Growing up, I remember being told not to judge, to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes before judging them. I need to understand the other person’s experiences, challenges, thought processes, etc before judging their own personal choices or lived stories. It is true that judgments keep us safe, help us make friends, accomplish our goals, and all sorts of wonderful, important stuff.

The idea of privilege has become really controversial in some circles, even offensive. Usually the people who are offended by the idea of privilege are the people who have it. And when someone who has had some experience – maybe they have experienced being judged, as being inferior, because they were living in poverty, or they had a bad experience in foster care or in their childhood while being raised by adoptive parents – we should do our best to listen to their stories with compassion, realizing that because we did not have that experience ourselves, we cannot really know how bad it was for them. We need to simply give them the benefit of the doubt and open our heart to their pain and/or trauma.

So, too often when people are simply trying to share whatever awful experience they have lived through, someone will feel triggered and quickly counter this person’s lived experience with the words “not all” – which is simply meant to shut the person up and not allow them to revel their own experience honestly. Maybe you are a foster parent or an adoptive parent or do social work or work for the government in some kind of child welfare or government assistance office and you are feeling judged by the story you are hearing. You are desperate to point out that you are not one of those kinds of people yourself. And it’s wonderful if you are not. However, you should restrain yourself at such a time, take comfort and be confident in the knowledge that the story you are hearing is not about you but about the person telling it and their experience. Allow them to revel their own truth without dismissing it by inserting why you are such a good person (and in fact, maybe look long and hard at your own heart to determine is what it actually is that is being triggered. Is it your sense of being some kind of savior to some segment of humanity ?).

Privilege is something your life gives you that is good. By being able to see those aspects as a privilege, you should also be able to realize that you have had access to something that some other people didn’t. Often in adoption land, as in real life, those with privilege and those in government service too often treat the underprivileged poorly and that is un-necessary. They have it hard enough without you piling on.

The truth is, adoptive parents hold the dominant view in society. Their perspectives rule when it comes to creating the perceptions that people with no experience with what adoption is like in general, believe it to be. Adult adoptees are too often either silenced or dismissed. Money rules. The financially privileged hold the power in society over the less fortunate – who are too easily overlooked or not seen at all. Adoption is almost always a case of allocating a child. Taking a child out of a poverty stricken family and placing that child into a rich one. Georgia Tann didn’t hide her belief that doing this intended engineering of a child’s life led to better outcomes for that child than leaving them in their original poverty-stricken family. So the truth is, money matters.

Just as it was with Georgia Tann, money continues to be the motivation in our modern times. There are people making a LOT of money by taking money from rich people, in return for giving them the opportunity to experience parenting. An experience that infertility or the tragic death of their biological child may have robbed them of. Money can buy you the opportunity to parent a child. Only people with money can afford a domestic infant adoption. This is the reality. And some determined people without financial good fortune will even set up a Go Fund Me page or some other kind of charity outreach to get the money to adopt a child. But the fact remains – the adoption industry is doing very well at generating a lot of revenue for itself.

What Does It Feel Like ?

Today’s very sad story . . .

I wonder if everyone has a breaking point. Where they’re just done. Numb. Detached from everything that once was…..I moved out of my adopted parents’ house a year ago into my own house that I’m still renovating. Today I stopped by to see how they’re are doing as my adoptive mom is dying. I went to my old bedroom and found it completely empty. Why am I so upset about this? My adoptive dad threw out EVERYTHING that had come from India with me. No more photos or books in my native tongue. Gone is my baby book filled with what I liked and disliked. And the most terrifying loss? My little teddy bear that kept me company when I flew to America. I feel like I was abandoned again. I feel like that little girl again in the orphanage, crying for her mom. Crying. Crying. Nothing.

In a situation like this, one can only hear the sorrow and feel for the loss. And often, since there is no fixing a situation like this, that is all that is needed. It was a horrible abusive act on the part of her adoptive father. No excuse for such heartless cruelty. The least they could have done is either box it up and ask her to come get it or allow her some space to chose what she wanted before they cleaned out her room.