What Is It About Superheroes

My friend, Ande who writes LINK>The Adoption Files wants to explore the topic of adoption and superhero origin stories. Not being familiar with comic book history, I’ll leave it to others but her question intrigued me and led me down a rabbit hole of sorts via google.

Here is a list – Superman (we used to have a costume Superman shirt with the big S for my son Simeon), Spider-Man, Supergirl, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Loki, Black Widow, Perhaps the strangest is the Ninja Turtles (these crime-fighting turtle superheroes. Donatello, Michaelangelo, Raphael, and Leonardo are adopted – as baby turtles – by a Japanese rat who discovers they are dripping with a strange ooze before they mutate into human-like turtles. The history of these unique superheroes is about as complex as adoption itself. They’re being raised by a single dad who isn’t even the same species as they are.)

Finally, Iron Man (Tony Stark – my maternal grandmother’s family name !! Yay), So I’ll take Iron Man – Superhero Tony Stark is adopted. Many kids love to dress up as the iconic Marvel superhero, but may not know about his complex family history. Tony’s brother, Arno, is the biological son of Howard and Maria Stark. As Tony later learned, the Starks adopted him as a cover after Arno’s health deteriorated as a baby. The identities of Tony’s birth parents were not revealed for many years. Tony’s birth mother, British Radio DJ Amanda Armstrong, was finally revealed to fans in 2016. The following issue revealed that his birth father was a SHIELD agent code-named Jude. Jude turned out to be a Hydra mole, forcing Amanda to place her baby for adoption.

My list comes from Adoptions with Love – LINK>9 Adopted Superheroes by Nancy Rosenhaus. Which confirms my suspicion that adoptive parents love to take their kids to see these movies as an affirmation of their own personal hero status. I don’t mean to be cruel or cynical but too many stories to confirm that kind of behavior causes me to say this.

Salon had a good article about what appeals to us in these personas titled LINK>We are all superheroes! by Robin S Rosenberg. So, I’ll finish this blog off with a few words about superheroes from that article.

A superhero is challenged by a moral dilemma, physical trial, or both. The superhero triumphs, sometimes learning and growing in the process. The stories generally follow the standard basic plots with which we are familiar. In fact, we may know the form of the story arc even before the story begins. This is especially true of origin stories, which form the bread and butter of superhero films and typically conform to some version of the hero’s journey in which the protagonist is, after some challenges and setbacks, transformed and dedicates his or her life to an altruistic purpose.

People generally enjoy simpler stories more than complex ones. We may prefer our superhero stories to be relatively simple. Their predictable, formulaic tales can also be reassuring: We can allow ourselves to become anxious on behalf of the story’s characters because we know that all will turn out right in the end. A story’s tension is cathartic. We don’t have to worry about getting too devastated.

Good fiction, and good storytelling of any kind, allows us to become immersed in someone else’s world and in doing so provides us with both an escape and emotional engagement. We can lose ourselves and temporarily forget our worries and woes, fears and foes. We also get drawn in to the characters’ world and issues. Stories’ core themes of right versus wrong, personal choice, sacrifice for the greater good, finding purpose and meaning, resonate. I will add – with good reason in a complicated world.

Prayers Please

This is a TRUE and ONGOING situation and typical of many, many of these kinds of circumstances.

There is a mom who gave birth yesterday to a baby girl at a hospital in Florida. How messed up is this? Mom can’t (now couldn’t) have visitors due to COVID restrictions. She was allowed ONE support person during delivery and guess who it was? Yup, hopeful adoptive mom.

Due to their policy, the person there during delivery is the ONLY person allowed in. Baby was moved to a room with the wannabe mom AND wannabe DAD. (Ya know, they consider the wannabe mom’s desire for a “support person” and so they allowed dad.)

The adoption agency involved in Florida is a major player in the state. The new mom has now told the social worker (employed by hospital) last night that she has decided to parent her child. Of course, the hopeful adoptive parents and adoption agency employee refused to leave the hospital – until the hospital social worker and nursing staff told them they had to.

As they were leaving, the adoption agency employee told the hopeful adoptive parents to “get some sleep and we will regroup tomorrow.”

Happily, the hospital will now allow the new mom’s mom to come and support this morning. The mom has been prepared by members of an all things adoption support group for the antics common in domestic infant adoptions that occur when agencies and hopeful adoptive parents don’t get their way. They often will call Child Protective Services just for spite.

Please keep this new mom and her baby girl in your prayers for continued good outcomes. Thank you.

And just to know – This is STANDARD behavior in the world of domestic infant adoptions. Coercion, manipulation, isolation, preying on vulnerable women at a vulnerable time. If you are a hopeful adoptive mother who signs up to adopt via a domestic infant adoption, you are supporting these kinds of practices.

It doesn’t matter IF the expectant mom was going to allow you to adopt HER child. If she changes her mind after seeing her precious baby – NO means NO. Every new mom has every right to change her mind. In today’s story – these hopeful adoptive parents are not going to get her baby but it is almost certain that eventually they will get someone else’s baby. They always do.

It is never an unwed, expectant mother’s responsibility to provide an infertile couple with a child. And they always speak glowingly of the sacrifice such mothers make to allow them to take her child away from family.

So Much To Worry About

We are ALL being forced to live through perhaps one of the most extraordinary times in our collective generations history. It will certainly be long remembered and remarked upon. We can not see clearly where all of this disruption will leave our country and the world, much less our families and our selves.

It is crucial that we learn to manage the anxiety. I had to recently make a point to my own husband that his anxiety was not healthy for me. That if I had a heart attack I could end up in the place where I really don’t want to be at this time (though truth be told, I never want to end up there for that reason).

It is a moral and social responsibility incumbent upon each of us to do our best to minimize our own role in and help to curtail the spread of this contagion. We are all having to make adjustments and modifications to the way we would prefer to be living. We are having to give up those things we like to do best in favor of not doing much of anything that we can’t do in our very own homes.

This can be a challenge for anyone with children in their home. It is best to be truthful in an age appropriate manner. I heard a young child at the grocery store yesterday ask their mother, “why can’t I touch things ?” It is definitely a teaching moment and where day care is necessary for those who must continue to work – good hygiene and distancing can even be taught to young children.

So, I want to say to you today – It’s OK to be worried. It’s normal and it isn’t an overreaction. If that is how you feel, it’s your feelings. Feelings can’t be wrong.

It has helped in our family to have a plan. I am the most likely to become infected because I am the supply officer for my family. We are fortunate that we have always lived this way (though there are a few more inconveniences and necessary actions that weren’t necessary before). We have a home-based business and our children have always been educated at home. We have less to adapt to and we also live in sparsely populated rural wilderness. Not always an advantage but at the moment, one we are grateful for.

And The Song Remains The Same

A hopeful adoptive parent is quoted as saying “Adoption is a beautiful way to grow a family because it takes great strength and sacrifice.”

What does that even mean ?

It is NOT the adoptive parents who make the sacrifices, even if they consider the financial impact on their lives of having adopted as some kind of sacrifice. Or if they think of their infertility – the giving up of having genetically related children – as some kind of sacrifice.

What do they sacrifice ? Most don’t even lose money because they crowed fund and stuff to raise money to adopt (yes, fundraising from strangers so you can adopt someone else’s baby is a thing). And even if a foster care adoption, they either get a “free” young child or if they adopt an older child or young child with issues. The adoptive parents receive money until the child(ren) is 18 to help offset the cost of raising them. People raising their biological child are not afforded that luxury.

You know who gets sacrificed ? The child.

And a sign of our current time ?

Social distancing is the default setting for ALL adoptees due to separation trauma. Consider it an insight into how it feels to be adopted.

If you as an adoptive parent need some kind of recognition for adopting a child, then you absolutely did it for the wrong reason.

The Better Option

There is such a thing as privilege. It is a privilege to have enough wealth that if you can’t have a child naturally, you are able to adopt someone else’s. Is wealth a better option than keeping a family intact ? There are cases where a child is going to need a safer environment but no child needs to have their identity erased and cultural heritage hidden from them.

It is weird to grow up with all these relatives and then reach an age in advanced maturity when one knows who their true genetic relatives are. Both of my parents were adopted. That means the grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins were never really my relations. It is a very weird feeling to know that with certainty now.

Of course, I acknowledge that there were these couples who provided for and raised my parents. They were the people I knew as grandparents growing up and they were without a doubt influential in my life. Now that I know who the real ones were, they are who I think of when I think of who my grandparents were, even though I never had the privilege of knowing them in life.

One of the expectations is that an adoptee is supposed to be grateful and acknowledge all the sacrifices their adoptive parents made to raise them. On the adoptees part there is this lifelong requirement to live up to the expectations of the adoptive parent. I know that my mom felt this and I know that she felt like she had failed to equal those expectations.

All parents expect something from their children but most children are quite free to ignore those parental expectations. An adoptee often fears being returned to a no-family state if they don’t live up to the expectations of the people who purchased their very lives.

It may be hard to read but it is a real thing for those who’s roots have been cut off from underneath them.

Understanding

I believe one of the most surprising aspects, of finally knowing my family’s origins (both of my parents were adopted), is fully realizing the suffering and/or sacrifices my grandparents experienced that enable my own existence. That may seem like a self-evident conclusion but it actually was not.

Not only did I finally feel whole but I was compelled to understand the realities of adoption for ALL sides of the equation. While I may never personally know how it feels to be adopted, I have 4 adoptees to inform my perspectives for not only were my parents adopted but each of my sisters surrendered a child to adoption.

So I have two birth mothers who are very close to me as siblings and a niece and nephew who have reunited with our family, so I’ve seen that aspect as well. I also had two pairs of adoptive parents (the grandparents I knew as such my entire childhood into early adulthood) to inform me.

Due to an adoptee group I have joined at Facebook, due to TONS of reading from all sides of the adoption triad, I am much more fully informed than I was my entire life and that has been the side effect of learning my origins.

Origin information is very important to any person who has been impacted by adoption and that is something that those not impacted seem to struggle to fully understand. If you’ve always known where you came from, even if you were not all that interested, you can be forgiven for not knowing how truly important that is.