What Makes The Difference ?

I could say this a million times and it will never be enough. Let’s break this down.

Money means choices.

No money means no choices.

Therapy is a privilege. It is a privilege 99% of those in poverty do not have. At least not, quality mental health care. Don’t even get me started on primary care.

Everything costs money. Not having money means you don’t have options. I’m so sick and tired of people from a place of privilege recommending shit those without privilege can’t afford. Like those who need it don’t even think of it….

Even people in poverty don’t live under a rock. They know what they need and could use but there’s no money!!!

Don’t judge because they haven’t done this or that – unless you want to pay for it.

Because I am in a good mood today –
No More Excuses . . . it’s all about the money.

The History of Adoption

She explains in LINK>Dame how the historical traumas of family separation have shaped contemporary adoption in the US. How infants and children are valued and for what purposes. And since I don’t believe in burying this country’s history of slavery, I was happy to see her highlight that “Many of America’s earliest relinquishing mothers were enslaved Black women whose children were often sold away from them.”

Or how about this history ? Native American mothers fled to the hills with their children and grandchildren to hide from government officials intent on sending the children to military-run boarding schools. Also in the 19th century, poor white mothers in eastern cities, many of them immigrants, struggled to care for their children due to poverty, widowhood, illness, or simply having more children than they had the capacity to parent. They surrendered them to foundling homes or institutions that labeled the children “orphans” despite the fact they had living parents.

Of course, Gretchen Sisson doesn’t neglect to mention the scandal of Georgia Tann of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society in Memphis (from whom my own mother was adopted).

A favorite adoptee writer, Tony Corsentino knows Sisson and by chance I received a notification – Relinquished, 1: The Adopter Hustle – from him about the book yesterday. He writes about the title of her book, that it is a verbal adjective for adoptees like him. He also notes that “In another sense, relinquishing parents are themselves relinquished: relegated, marginalized, generally voiceless in the joyful clamor that attends every new adoption.” He writes that – Gretchen notes in her book that “it is adopted and displaced people who have led movements for abolishing adoption as it is currently practiced.” He says further that “The book’s aim is to present the authentic voices of parents who have lost their children to adoption.”

Corsentino goes on to say – “. . . because its arguments are a crucial part of the case for reform and abolition of adoption, I regard this book as a landmark in the history of research on adoption, and one of the most valuable scholarly contributions to the struggle for adoptee justice in the entire history of that struggle.” In his essay, he shares an excerpt that makes the case that it is NOT either adoption or abortion. From pgs 63-64 of Sisson’s book – “women who’d recently had abortions found that none of them seriously considered adoption, mostly because they believed it would be too emotionally traumatic.”

“These feelings about adoption were equally held by focus groups of both “pro-choice” and “anti-abortion” women, all of whom considered adoption to be emotionally painful not just for mothers, but for the children who would be relinquished. In another study examining the decision-making of women who’d had an abortion, most of them were unequivocal in ruling out adoption, with one participant alluding to the flawed reasoning of anti-abortion advocates: I don’t want to give my child away to nobody, and I’m not … and that’s the part they don’t understand. I can’t just be bearing a child for 9 months, going through the sickness and then giving my child [away]. I can’t.“

Tony adds – “Our social world involves . . . Adoption agencies and hopeful adoptive parents (that )have become entrepreneurial; they hustle for birthparents.” “chasing pregnant people, luring them, seducing them.” They “use the techniques of search engine optimization to ensure that a wide range of phrases a person with an unplanned pregnancy might Google will call forth ads promoting relinquishment for adoption.”

Please DO read his entire essay !!

Why Does It Surprise You ?

From a Transracial Infant Adoptee – When you adopt, you are not disillusioned to the reality of privilege. In a lot of cases, you know the situation surrounding the reason adoption is being chosen, and the circumstances. So when your adult adoptees eventually come back and question everything, why does it surprise you ? Why is there such a need to gaslight them about the truth behind their origins ? Or determine the narrative for them ? You knew coming into all of this where they came from and you should have known the trauma you would be placing on them, if you participated. So why is it such a shock when they decide to see the child trafficking for what it is ? Or the fact that you gained from the tearing apart of a family ? As an adult adoptee, all of the above truly does baffle me. If anything, I would expect adoptive parents to be the most sympathetic, empathetic and empowering individuals that they could be. Rather than shocked, butt hurt & defensive about a situation they themselves created. Especially in regards to the child fully recognizing what the industry is and the trauma it intentionally inflicts.

One adoptee responded – I think they forget that we grow up ! Oh, and of course, they believe they are different.

The original poster wanted responses from adoptive parents and one answered – In all 3 of my cases, I knew the circumstances as they were told to me. 2 cases ended up being much worse and one was slightly different. My adult adoptees have not come back to question because they were told their story from birth, and retold as often as they wanted to hear it. As adults, the two older ones have been in contact with birth family. They were given all the truths I knew. Yes, we knew that raising adopted children would cause them different emotions, thought, feelings than raising biological children. Not one of my 3 have compared their adoption to child trafficking, so I have not had that shock to deal with. I have admitted since the first day I held my first child all that I have gained. The biological moms were not teenagers and were not without resources. All of the adoptive parents I personally know are sympathetic, empathetic and empowering individuals. I know that is not true in all cases. I’m so very sorry that so many adoptees have had such traumatic experiences. And I’m thankful that there are groups where adoptees can share what they experienced with others to lean on. There are times when adoption is the best solution for a child to have a stable home. If anyone comments, I will gladly respond.

Another adoptee suspects – Some adoptive parents are so blinded by their “need” for a child that they become deluded and believe that the adoptee is truly “as if born to” and should gratefully play along with their own delusion. They don’t want to discuss the adoptee’s start in life and family because it threatens their delusion.

And one who was in foster care from birth and then put into a forced adoption at age 10 during the LINK>Baby Scoop Era in a closed adoption writes – I also think that too many adoptive parents (and hopeful adoptive parents) really do not recognize the crucial part that they play in an adoption – the rewards are theirs – the power dynamics are theirs too (once the adoption is finalized and they get what they wanted, including name changes, erasure of first family and a new birth certificate that proclaims them as the owners). They keep telling themselves that they are doing it all in the ‘best interests of the child’ (or baby). But is it really ? Could they have imagined a different way to help ? To care for and love ? Could they have fought harder for Legal Guardianship instead ? Can they make the promise that they will do everything possible (and really mean that) ASAP to discover the child’s natural family, heritage, family medical information and to keep the child’s own culture and needs truly front and center as a focus, while that is child is being raised outside of their own genetic, biological family ? Unless an adoptive parent is willing to go all in and do that – they will be shocked when the youth (or adult adoptee) scorns or derides their actual intent notes that they are an integral part of the broken system that helps to keep it chugging along.

Doing Great Harm Unintentionally

A question was asked in my all things adoption group – why when foster and adoptive parents are asked a question and answer it honestly, are they bashed or told they are doing wrong ?

One, a former licensed state foster caregiver who placed her home on hold until she could learn or prepare how to best serve kids and families in crisis, answered – MAYBE because of a rational perceived injustice, based on or due to a reasonable fear. Being complicit in systemic inequities and the oppression of marginalized people. For exercising an INTENTIONAL choice to volunteer one’s privilege to care for families in crisis. Doing so generously with genuine reciprocity and care, being greater than the conditions of extraction and exploitation, is rare. Such preparation includes learning from survivors and the victims who have been the most impacted. A tolerance of ignorance is tremendously difficult for one who knows the realities. The “unintended” harm is inexcusable. Implementing a GROWTH MINDSET is taught in training for FOSTER CAREGIVING – PARTNERSHIP PARENTING. It is a critical cornerstone of any hope of doing good. Hostility is expressed by survivors after having experienced injustice. It is VALID and to be EXPECTED by their OPPRESSORS or those PERCEIVED as representatives of that OPPRESSION. Harm, neglect, emotional neglect through gaslighting and abusive tactics are all too common. It is difficult to not to REACT, impossible to respond RATIONALLY, when faced with distressing questions, apparent or perceived willful ignorance, or simply in the appearance of continuing to promote that INJUSTICE.

The argument always comes up – so you believe a child should be with their parents no matter what the situation is?

One reasonable reply to that was this – there is a lot of room between being with their parents and being adopted. There are some parents who are not safe for their children but that doesn’t have to automatically mean adoption either.

And this response – do you want us to all tell you that your adoption will be the exception to the rule? That you’ve obviously found the ethical way to do things? That your desired child is definitely going to be one of the ones who should have lost their entire family, identity, medical history? That you won’t have to worry about inherent trauma because you’ll pray hard enough and love them hard enough and that’s all you need to do? Sorry, that’s not how this works.

Then this long but rational response – I understand where you are coming from because I was there a couple years ago. This is why we need to read, listen and learn. As adoptive parents, we need to listen to the former foster care youths and adoptees. so we can do better.

We may need to seek out the support of a therapist to process our own hurts…there are therapists out there who are themselves former foster care youths and adoptees. They are more than able to support or coach you through this. Adoptive parents need to heal their own wounds, to make the space needed to acknowledge their own responsibility and the harm they have done by adopting.

We also need to bear the responsibility of supporting the adoptees in our care. That is acknowledging our own place in the trauma first. Then seeking supports to help these children process their own trauma. Finding a qualified therapist (adoption trauma informed) for the adoptee would be the ideal.

We need to be in relationship with the biological families, no matter our prejudice. These children need to be safe, yes, but also in relationship as much as possible. We need to take responsibility to build those bridges – no matter how frustrating it can be – for the benefit of the children. If we can return the children to their family, we need to attempt to do that. If the family needs support, we need to be willing to support them. We need to do everything we can to support reunion no matter the age of the child. Of course, we need to maintain their safety but that doesn’t mean a child needs to be taken away from their biological family. There are many options that don’t include adoption.

I have faced these questions in my own circumstance and recognize that in my situation there were other options I was ignorant of…I regret adopting. I was already the legal guardian but I was not informed by adoptee voices. I was listening to adoption lawyers and adoption agencies – who are only in it for the money. I made a huge mistake not being adoption informed. A mistake that if the affected parties (such as the biological family or adoptee) wanted changed, I would.

We need to acknowledge that we will fail miserably in everything we do because we care for a child who is not our own and is traumatized. If that is the reality, we have to be ok with that. We need to be ok with fighting for trauma informed support – both in the home, at school and in the greater community.

We need to stop blaming the children or the biological families for the children’s mental health issues.

If there weren’t people willing to foster or adopt, the system would operate differently. We need to see this and then, become advocates for the adoptees we care for but also against the foster and adoption systems already in place.

The old narrative of fostering and adoption needs to be torn down and it is our responsibility as adopters to lead this fight…the former foster care youths and adoptees have fought hard enough already.

I love our adoptee but love isn’t enough. I need to do more and I learn about what I need to do by listening to the voices of former foster care youths and adoptees as well as their biological families.

ADOPTIVE PARENT FRAGILITY SELF-TEST

Thanks to LINK>The Adoptee Diary.

Ask yourself the following:

1. Do I feel defensive when an adoptee or (birth/first) mother says “adoptive parents tend to…?”

2. Do I feel angry when people tell me I benefit from Adoptive Parent privilege — that the adoption industry works in my favor, or that my socioeconomic class and/or race enabled me to adopt?

3. When an adoptee or mother talks about adoption, do I feel defensive because they’re describing things that I do or think?

4. Do I feel angry or annoyed by the above questions?

5. Do I have a history of embracing Hopeful and/or Adoptive Parent behavior that I now feel ashamed of, so I need to show people that I’m no longer “like that”?

6. Does saying “not all adoptive parents” or similar phrases make me feel better when someone calls Adoptive Parents out for something?

7. Do I expect an apology when I feel like I’ve been unfairly accused of poor Adoptive Parent behavior?

8. Do I feel better when I say, hear, or read, “every (adoption) experience is different?”

9. Do I try to convince adoptees and mothers that they’re wrong about adoption by pointing out people from their position in the triad who agree with me?

10. Do I feel the need to talk about my own hardships (such as infertility, a “failed” adoption, or a difficult childhood) when an adoptee or mother talks about their pain?

11. Do I think the adoption community would benefit if people stopped talking about the hard stuff, were more supportive, learned from “both sides,” or focused more on the positive?

12. Does being told that something I say, think, do, or otherwise value is harmful make me want to shut down, leave, or express my discomfort/displeasure in some way?

13. Do I feel the need to state that I have friends/family who are adoptees when someone points out problematic behavior?

14. Do I feel the need to prove that I’m one of the good ones?

15. Do I feel that my opinions and perspectives about adoption should be given equal weight to that of an adoptee or mother, that I have something unique and important to contribute to the adoption conversation, and/or that it is unfair to be told to listen more than I speak?

16. Do I feel the need to defend myself on any of the above points?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are dealing with Adoptive Parent fragility. Take time to reflect on why you feel the way that you do. Take time to listen to adoptee and mothers’ perspectives. Adoptive Parent fragility is a hindrance to healing because it prevents adoptees/mothers from being able to engage Adoptive Parents in honest conversation without also having to bear the burden of catering to Adoptive Parents’ emotional comfort. At its worst, Adoptive Parent fragility can cause an emotionally unhealthy situation for adoptees/mothers because of the power dynamics and the weight of being responsible for Adoptive Parents’ feelings, while not having space to express their own. If we cannot talk honestly about the issues, then we cannot make progress.

Choosing Not To Have Children

More than one friend in my age group has told me that their grown children do not intend to have children which will mean no grandchildren for my friends. Even my oldest son has expressed some doubts that he will. What is going on here ? Very real concerns about how climate change will make the future very difficult for today’s children and their children and much sooner than I had previously heard – like by like by 2050.

Because I think daily about issues at least tangential to adoption, that is the first place my thought goes and in an article in The Guardian titled Should I have children? Weighing parenthood amid the climate crisis by Megan Mayhew Bergman I read – Ellie at age 23 wrote the author, “While I don’t believe the changes we’re seeing have to signify end-of-days, I do believe there are incredibly thoughtful solutions at hand which – if we can pull them off – would bring about a world I’d very much want to have children in. But I also think my generation may have found itself at a unique moment in which more people isn’t the answer, and alternatives like adoption represent more eco- and ultimately, human-conscious choices.” And to be certain, more than 100,000 children have been born in refugee camps in Myanmar and in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar, the largest refugee settlement in the world, which is vulnerable to extreme flooding and landslides.

Recent polling reveals that four in 10 young people are “hesitant to have children as a result of the climate crisis” and “fear that governments are doing too little to prevent climate catastrophe”.

An article in Vanity Fair last year by Tatiana Schlossberg titled How Should a Climate Change Reporter Think About Having Children? She goes on to say – Reproduction is a fundamental feature of life on earth, but a morally fraught decision for anyone who has the choice. And there’s not even a right answer. She mentions a drive through a scenic passage in Colorado but that “I felt so angry at our species. Angry because we are willing to destroy all of this and to do so knowingly, because we seem to value no life other than human life, and I’m not even sure how much we value that.” I would have to agree with that last bit somewhat.

She goes on to share – when you are a married straight woman in your 20s and everyone wants to know when you’re going to have a kid, it turns out to be almost impossible to avoid thinking about the future.

In answer to that, she shares – There are two familiar arguments about not having a kid when it comes to climate change. The first one is that it is unkind and irresponsible to bring a child into a world whose future is uncertain at best and apocalyptic at worst. The second one is that, as a privileged, white American with a sizable carbon footprint, any child of mine would be another person with a similar environmental impact, both in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and resource consumption. According to those two lines of thinking, having a child is unethical, both because of what it would do to the child and because of what that child would do to the world.

Realistically, she goes on to admit – As both a reporter and a person in her child-bearing years, I don’t know what the right thing to do is—and I don’t think that there is a right thing to do. I find myself feeling much the same way. I do believe humanity will continue to exist and on some level I feel that raising a reasonable number (like 1 or 2) of children to be highly aware and ethical will be valuable to whatever the future will bring.

She also acknowledges that – not having a child is not the same as becoming a vegetarian or buying an electric car. Having a child, becoming a parent, can be a defining feature of life on earth—the reproduction of aspen trees is not necessarily parenthood, but it is part of the same drive to pass on genetic material; it is hardwired in us, and we share it with all other lifeforms.

A dear friend of mine is involved with Project Drawdown, a climate-advocacy organization, that has ranked the 100 most effective solutions to climate change, and found that together, education and family planning for women and girls is the second-most effective way to reduce emissions (after reducing food waste, which includes shifting to a plant-rich diet and preventing deforestation), because when women are more educated, they generally have fewer children, and also add to the economic and cultural success of their communities.

The Vanity Fair article author notes – The birth rate in the United States and much of the developed world is declining. When people express concern to me about there being too many people on earth, they don’t seem to be saying there are too many Americans; they are, knowingly or not, talking about limiting the growing and increasingly young nonwhite populations in the global south. Throughout American history, anxiety about population is almost always linked to race or national origin, so what I always want to say in response is, “Who are you talking about when you ask me that question?”

I do feel lucky to have the female freedoms I do because of the time in which I have lived. I acknowledge that I am indebted to the work of so many women which has given me choice (and currently, that is highly under threat). Support for reproductive freedom is a core part of my own political identity, as is support for climate action as an environmentalist. We try to raise our sons to value the same things as well.

I will also admit to a certain degree of arrogance in that kind of thinking. That my having kids is okay because my kids will be a good persons and who knows ? One of them might solve climate change. OK, so the latter idea is probably not the most likely outcome, nor is it the most powerful argument in defense of my having children. Any person could say as much. True, I di think that my children are special, geniuses, perfect in their own ways, but I also realize that my children doesn’t necessarily have a greater right to be born than anyone else’s. I am sad for the youth of today. Even back around the 2000s when my husband and I decided to have these two boys, the concern was not as urgent as it seems today (and I say seems because it should have been more urgent then and even in the early 1970s when I had my daughter).

Believing in Colorblindness is a Privilege

Colin Kaepernick with his parents, Teresa Kaepernick, Rick Kaepernick and girlfriend, Nessa Diab

Read the link to Colin’s story at the end of this blog to understand more completely why his photo is here.

Articles that mention adoption always catch my attention. Today, I saw one in the Huffington Post – Like Colin Kaepernick, I Wish My Adoptive Family Had Talked About Race by Melissa Guida-Richards. She was adopted from Colombia in 1993 and her adoptive parents were one of many that believed in the colorblind ideology. Her adoptive parents believed that giving a child a loving home was all that was necessary.

For most of her life, the family didn’t talk about her race and ethnicity. Actually, she was not aware of her true racial identity until she was 19 and found her adoption paperwork. Her parents had believed that if they raised her as Latina, she would be treated differently than the rest of the family. However, people often questioned her about where she was from ― particularly when her adoptive family wasn’t around. When she was out in public with her white parents, she found that she was included under their umbrella of privilege. But the moment she was out on her own, people treated her differently.

Many BIPOC adoptees eventually learn that the world is divided into how they are perceived with their adoptive families versus when they are alone. And this is especially true in today’s climate where an Asian adoptee shopping for groceries can be attacked, a Black adoptee pulled over by police is potentially in danger, or a Latina adoptee walking in their town is told to go back to their own country. Adoptive families can think that it will never happen to their child, but for most transracial adoptees, it does. It’s just part of the reality of being a person of color.

Transracial adoptees do not have the privilege of believing in colorblindness. It can be fatal for a Black adoptee to “forget” that they are Black. If that adoptee approaches a police officer the same way their white parents do, they could find themselves in danger. When adoptive parents do not properly prepare their transracial adoptee for a racialized world, they are left playing a game of catch-up that they hopefully can win before it costs them their very life.

Current policies disallow considering race when placing children in adoptive homes. This is due to laws like the Multiethnic Placement Act (MEPA), which prevents child welfare agencies that receive federal funding from denying or delaying a child’s placement based on race. MEPA was amended in 1996 to establish that states could be fined for using race in placement decisions. While MEPA also requires agencies to “diligently recruit families that reflect the racial diversity of the children in need of homes,” it does not fine states that fail to do so.

Currently over 70% of adoptive parents are white and over half of adopted children are of a different race than their adoptive parents. One key issue with MEPA was that, while it made it significantly easier for white middle-class adoptive parents to adopt children of other races, it neglected to require anti-racism and transracial adoption education before or after placement.

The adoption industry perpetuates the idea that adoption ends in a beautiful happily ever after. When we think of adoption as an ending, we forget that it has a lasting, constant impact throughout the adopted person’s life, not just their childhood. Race should not be an afterthought in adoption. Adoptees are often pressured to be grateful and simply be happy that they have a family, to forget all of the challenges and trauma they experience.

When you are a person of color, you know how the world sees and treats you, and when your family refuses to be open to simple conversations about ethnicity and race, you start to wonder what’s so negative about acknowledging your identity. It impacts how you see yourself and how you believe your family sees you.

The author found that her adoptive family avoiding conversations of racial differences led to her having feelings of rejection and shame. She struggled to understand how her parents and relatives could love all of her, when they refused to acknowledge a big piece of her identity. Adoptive parents need to get comfortable having uncomfortable conversations about race. Race may be a construct but its ramifications are very real.

At the beginning of her essay, the author also mentions Kaepernick’s interview in Ebony magazine. Worth the quick read.

An Adoptee Centric Movie

The blond on the left is the adoptee. In Glorious 39, an adoptee is the lead character and much about the emotions and behavior of the family in this movie ring true with all I have come to know about adoptees and their relationships with their family. Anne Keyes played by Romola Garai is the central character. Adopted at the time her parents didn’t believe they could have children, they subsequently had two – the brother and sister in the photo above.

Like many adoptees, Anne does not fit in with the family raising her. She has been adopted into a powerful political family. Like many adoptees, she is very close to her adoptive father. Dangerously so.

So, this is really a story about an adopted daughter’s relationship with her family. The fact that she is adopted is mentioned frequently throughout the movie. She also leads a different life, working as an actress, while the rest of the family except the father who is part of the pre-war government appears to live a life mostly of leisure (though her brother is actually part of the Secret Service). The pro-appeasement movement (which father and son are part of) hoped to avoid a conflict many believed they would lose. The elite also hoped to preserve the status quo of their comfortable lives. The appeasement theme is key to the relationships within the family dynamic.

The movie does not get a lot of good reviews. As a history buff to begin with, who enjoys seeing English culture and countryside, I did like the movie and it did make me think politically. But I was really drawn to the adoptee story (not too many reviewers mention it other than in passing). I believe that part was true to life, even if the lives are not those that most of us commonly experience as regards wealth and privilege. It is the relationships of the adoptee contrasted with the parents and siblings that really had my attention. There is a reveal of who the adoptees parents were and how she came to be in this family.

Trigger warning for animal lovers – there is a strong focus on the fate of family pets at the outbreak of the war that could be disturbing.

The Last Resort for Who ?

There is a contradiction in this statement – “adoption should be the last resort for the child” and yet adoption is the “last resort” for infertile people? It’s a selfish perspective that only serves the adoptive parent who couldn’t have children. They are only thinking about what is best for them and not what’s best for the child.

Think about how this would feel – knowing you are someone’s “last resort.” How does that feel ?

Adoption is trauma regardless the loving intent of the people who adopt.

It’s not the responsibility of a child to heal infertility loss for anyone or be a last resort. Children are not blank slates or interchangeable. Parenting is not a right, it’s a privilege.

It’s like hoping for a bad thing to happen to the child and it’s mother so a good thing can happen for you.

How about helping young mothers keep their babies instead of hoping they will lose their baby. The majority of babies are given up by kind loving mothers who are too young and poor to care for them.

There should be more resources and programs for single mothers with little income, so that they can help keep the child. Why should we look at helping find the child a better home, rather than taking care of the immediate problem for the mother, and helping support that mother. It’s like putting a bandaid on a dirty wound. You’re only fixing the outer problem by hiding and ignoring the problem beneath. Thus the wound becomes infected. That infection is causing trauma to the child and the mother.

A very sad example – I placed my only child after trying to raise him for nearly two years. I was an excellent young mother until two men broke into my apartment and raped me. I had a nervous breakdown and no longer felt capable. I wish someone would have been there to help me. He also ended up being sexually abused for six years, so it’s not all rainbows and butterflies, and he is messed up from it.

The 100% percent pro-adoption industry narrative, brainwashes the culture’s general view and is a very harmful form of coercion. What is the implication ?

That you are not good enough to parent your own child. Yet by giving your child up, you receive the deepest respect because you have proven that you are a loving, selfless person who only wants what best for your child. You do that by allowing someone else who is much much much more more qualified, stable, etc etc than you are, to raise your child. In other words: it’s selfish to keep your child. Be a loving mother and make a loving adoption plan with glitter and rainbows to boot. This is a very dangerous and insidious narrative and coercion tactic. It is the dominant strategy within the adoption industry.

Instead, “let’s minimize trauma and support families in keeping kids safe.” This is the healthy way forward.

PS – in case you are wondering, though generally against adoption almost all the time, the group I belong to group has never advocated for children to stay in abusive situations. They may however, support family reunification after therapy and counseling for the parents and the affected children. If the family can make it through all of the hurdles, they will be better parents due to learning how to parent better and children always prefer their original parents, they are resilient and with time and therapy may yet overcome their early challenges.

A worker in a residential treatment center noted – It’s an ugly world for some kids and their symptoms are ugly from what they suffered. Most of the kids that we worked with did come from adoptive family and were adopted at birth. The children who were adopted later in life, did have less problems. It’s never a “better than” problem. In this person’s history was their adoption at 3 days old. Her biological mother lived in the same town as she did – yet she never knew it. From her perspective, her adoptive parents were pretty selfish. Not only for that reason but the feeling was that it was her job as an infant to solve the problem of their infertility. Of course, that wasn’t possible. Not every person has the same adoption experience. The fact remains, every infant adopted has trauma from having been separated from their mother. And that feels like a life-threatening situation to a child who has no words and no language.

Adoption is actually *never* the only option. Legal guardianship doesn’t sever all genetic ties and create a false birth certificate. Here is an example of some of the complications of being adopted. She applied for a “Real ID” (you know, the one we are all going to be required to have soon, if we want to travel even within the US). The online system REJECTED her birth certificate information, because it is a FALSIFIED LEGAL DOCUMENT. This is just one of the issues adoptees face for the rest of their lives, because somebody decided they couldn’t adopt a child without altering their true identity.

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.