There Is No “Just”

I’m short on time today. Coming on the heels of the blog yesterday, this from The Adopted Chamelon seemed perfect –

I hear pro choice people say, “how many kids have you adopted?” Then you have these comments from people who have no understanding of adoption, “You can always adopt if you can’t have your own kids.” “If you don’t want to parent just put the kid up for adoption?”

There is no “just” to it. It is a complex decision that will affect you and the child for the rest of your lives. Adoption is trauma. People treat it like it is a simple solution. “Just” means they have put no thought to what happens after adoption. Children are not born blank slates. We have our family’s heritage, intact, inside us.

The adoption industry has done such a good job dehumanizing children that people think you can “just” put adoptees in the family that had the money to pay for them and everything is great.

The truth is that separation causes a lifelong trauma that could be prevented. We need to see this trauma first and foremost. Stop treating adoption as the answer. Adoption is a lifelong struggle that often gets ignored. If we are going to continue treating children like property at least acknowledge the harm it has done. Stop saying “just” adopt. Stop bypassing the very real trauma that has to happen for a child to be put in the situation where they are permanently being removed from their family to be put with strangers.

We don’t “just” get over it either.

#adoptedchameleon

Birth Mom Saturday

Never heard of this until this morning. Apparently an effort by adoptive and prospective adoptive couples to make moms feel better about giving up their baby but it may be more like rubbing salt into a very tender wound that a conveyance of gratitude.

My understanding is that this is “officially” designated for the Saturday before Mother’s Day which is already painful for any mother separated from her child for whatever reason. It is un-natural for any mother.

It could be a really beautiful thing if it was run by first mothers and for first mothers. But also, the fact that it’s separate from Mother’s Day feels WRONG because they are mothers. Also it’s definitely NOT OK to treat first mothers as incubators which those memes and posts feel like.

One adoptive mother wrote on Instagram – “I know my babies mamas have had a hard life of fighting demons and feeling unloved and a million other nightmares. But they both chose life for my forever humans (my note – what ?) and that’s so very significant. They chose to bring these kids into the world and I’m overflowing with gratitude because of that. First mamas are part of our kid’s stories. And today I honor that chapter and their role.”

It is said that this day of recognition was originally started by a birth mother to show support for other birth mothers. I don’t know the original name or the year started. It appears that the concept has been “taken over” by the pro-adoption crowd to promote more babies being surrendered to increase the supply of babies for them. It is being misrepresented and used for a different motive now, than it’s original and intended meaning.

One woman contributed this insight – “As a First Mother, I’ve never cared for it. We don’t have an Adoptive Mothers’ Day. Why the need to preface and differentiate? (I can only answer that from my own perspective) Being a part of Birth/First/Natural Mother Support Groups, I’ve found that those who are relatively new to adoption or do not have contact with their children tend to find solace and comfort in having a day that is specifically for them.”

According to the linked YouTube, Birthmother Day was supposed to be about the forgotten mothers being remembered. Breaking the Silence is a poem by Mary Jean Wolch-Marsh. Very heartrending to listen to this spoken. https://youtu.be/zUg6ap8H2Tk

There is much more to the stories of adoption than it appears in the happy stories of elated couples building families with someone else’s children.

Marginalizing Adoptee Voices

This meme by a PRO-adoption group is meant to diminish the reality of adoptees by suggesting their lives could have been worse. Maybe their lives could have been worse but that does not mean they have to be grateful for what they lost.

This is an apples to oranges comparison – like saying the kid with the broken legs at the hospital can’t complain because the kid next door has cancer. We can be grateful things aren’t worse for us but that does not mean we are grateful for the wounds we suffer either.

Its not a competition. They are two separate, traumatic situations. Comparing unlike situations does not serve either of them.

The person who originally posted this meme is an adoptive parent who is attempting to co-opt the adoptee experience by starting a propaganda campaign in support of adoption. You would NOT believe how MANY adoption related groups are listed at Facebook. This group Adoption & Samfund Ungdom is Danish (I am 25%).

Here is a blurb in English from their page –

“Finally a Facebook page on adoptees who are glad they are adopted. I am thankful to God for all the good things I have in my life, including simple things like food, clothes, shelter and good health and I teach my adoptive children to be thankful to God (NOT thankful to me) for these too. I am happy there are many adoptees who are quite normal unlike the crazy businessman Arun Dohle who makes huge money out of adoptees.”

I would wish to note here that Arun Dohle was adopted by a German couple from an Indian orphanage. Like many adoptees, he started to search for his roots in his late teens. The Indian orphanage did not want to provide access to his file. Arun addressed his issue through the Indian Courts. It took him 17 years to finally obtain access to the desired information. It should NOT have to be so hard.

My own mom tried to get her adoption file from the state of Tennessee and was rejected in the early 1990s. I finally received her full file in 2017 after her death (not that she had to die to get this – she was never informed that the law in Tennessee was changed in the late 1990s that would have allowed her to receive it – more the tragedy really).

I simply want to make this clear. An adoptee can be grateful for their blessings and still have deep traumatic wounds from the realities of their adoption. I seriously have a problem with making adoption about God, even though I have a deep spirituality that connects me to my own creator.