Oversharing

I have been reticent until recent years to share some things that I consider privacy sensitive. Our perspectives on where the boundaries are can change over time.

It is a topic in adoption related groups that the balance is difficult to determine. There are adoptive parents who upon meeting you will immediately share with you that their children are adopted and have trauma histories. Realize you only just met and they don’t really know you or you them. That is considered in poor taste now within our modern society.

An enlightened adoptive parent may wish to be aware of not owning their adopted child. The adoptive parent may take care not to ignore the original family. At the same time, the adoptive parent may be concerned that they don’t stigmatize their child by making an issue of the child’s adoption.

One balance can be to remain open to discussing adoption while not initiating the conversation. The context in which it comes up matters.

It appears that oversharing is often related to wanting to be acknowledged for doing a “good deed”. Saving a child’s life – is often NOT the truth – no matter how much the adoptive parent would like to believe that. Adoptive parents have often not accepted their role in separating a mother and child.

Adoptive Parents in some groups want to be quick to point out that the behavior they’re asking for help managing is NOT A RESULT OF THEIR PARENTING. Some Pro-Life adoptive parents overshare to burnish their credentials – I saved this child from abortion by convincing her mother to give her up to me instead. You get the idea . . .

Before you overshare, ask yourself – Why does anyone need to know ? There may be times. Just be selective and consider whether sharing will eventually cause some kind of problem in the future.

Hmmmm, Cutting Through The Noise

What is so great about children being surrendered and raised without their identity ? Did I get your attention ?

I can’t imagine losing my mom – can you ? Both of my parents did.

You don’t have to take my word for it (just listen to enough adult adoptees and you will become a believer) – adoption is trauma. Bringing a child into a stable, loving home does NOT erase their trauma.

Why would you glorify abandonment ?

You know, you’re basically waiting for a woman and her baby to have the worst day of their lives so that you can have the best day of yours….

Adoptive parents literally act like the stork delivers these children.

One person’s intense joy is a result of another person’s desperate sorrow. I certainly saw the truth of this as I read my mom’s adoption file from the Tennessee Children’s Home Society.

Tell people who are not familiar with conventional adoption about the fake birth certificates your parents were given. That is one some people have trouble believing (yes, it is done all the time). Then tell them your parents’ REAL names were taken away from them and that they were both given a name that the adoptive couple preferred.

Imagine creating your family tree and having to list two names for each of your parents and then show their spouse with the adopted name so that someone might with difficulty sort it all out. Yes, my parents were not allowed to use the names they were born with. Are you incredulous yet ? Most people have no idea that adoptees are forced to live fake identities. My dad’s name was changed TWICE when his adoptive mother remarried. He was already 8 years old at that time.

If that baby had lost his mother to cancer, you would be mourning with him right now.

If adoption is so wonderful, which one of your children would you give up to someone else for a “better life” ? Note – it should be the child you love the most that you give up, since you would obviously want that child to have the best life. Crazy, huh ?

Ask an adoptee what it means to be adopted – adoption means you’re never going home. Let that sink in.

Most adoptees would get an abortion before they would give up their own child for adoption.

As the child of two adoptees, I try to be balanced (after all, I would not exist but for) and not be too harsh. Many people are well-intentioned but ill-informed about the realities surrounding adoption. I want my readers to walk away having learned something real, maybe opening up further conversation on the topic. Adoption is more complicated than you might imagine.

Many people believe that every adoptee was unwanted or they view the original mom as less than human because they can’t relate to someone who has given up a child. Both perceptions are quite likely UNTRUE.

Judgment of Solomon

It’s a story as old as the bible. Two women fighting for the love of one child. It is the child who actually suffers. Often the original mother will surrender for the good of the child. It happens when one woman was the first mother and then another woman steps in and the first mother becomes marginalized. Whether by adoption or divorce, it is hard to live that reality. I know, I have.

I was reading the sad story of a woman who was adopted at the age of 4. Got along well with the adoptive father, not so much with the adoptive mother. The couple divorced and for whatever reason the girl went with the mom. This adoptive mother spent years breaking down this poor woman’s confidence by telling her she was going to end up like her birth mother among countless other verbal and emotional jabs at her.

Time passed, she grew up. In a sense the predictions came true. She had a son who she breast fed and took care of everyday for 20 months. Then she had to ask for help. Her son already knew her as mom. Now she has a power struggle with her adoptive mom about who actually is the mother of her son. That is because she went through a rough part of her life and had to ask her adoptive mom to keep her son while she figured things out.

The adoptive mother agreed. Then, less than 3 weeks later, she called the woman and asked if she can give her a certain amount of money per month in return for adopting this woman’s son. She declined. As an adoptee herself, she said she wasn’t giving him up and that with another 2 weeks, she could be ready for him to come back to living with her.

Only a week later, the adoptive mother called again and said according to her lawyer the woman will be charged with neglect if she doesn’t sign over the rights to her son. Oh, this does remind me of what happened to my maternal grandmother !!

Anyway, fearing she might never see her son again, she consulted with a lawyer at a women’s shelter where she was living and had to face the reality that this was going to happen and it did. The adoptive mother changed the woman’s son’s name, just like happens so often in adoptions. While the original mother still has some access to her son, I know, just as the reader probably knows by now – this will not turn out well and the child will be the one who suffers.

Better To Have Been Aborted

It may surprise a reader to know this, but many adoptees actually wish they would have been aborted. That is how painful it is to be given up for adoption and doubly painful if the adopting parents prove to further damage an already damaged soul.

I am pro-Choice and pro-life. Not pro-Life like most of those are. They are only pro-Birth, truth be told. They are not willing to fund adequate financial support to struggling mothers so that they can keep and raise their children.

The world has enough people already. We do NOT need to be fruitful and multiply any more. In fact, we have not needed to do that for a very long time. The population explosion first occurred on a small scale and with a relatively moderate intensity in Europe and America, more or less between 1750 and 1950. Enough is enough. If a couple wants to have children and is willing to fully support raising them, I’m all for it. Otherwise, trust women to make the best decision and stop stressing over the babies you imagine they have killed.

I fully understand what it feels like for a child to be born into this world unwanted and unprepared for. My maternal grandmother never had any other children because of the shame and guilt she felt at having surrendered a child for adoption. She died too young and I fear what happened to separate her from my mom haunted her for her entire life.

I am a woman who chose to have an abortion. The timing was wrong, the father was wrong to make any kind of commitment and the pregnancy was not developing normally. I am grateful I could go to a clean clinic, where I received counseling and good treatment. It still haunted me. I had a child before the abortion who I am forever glad I kept (even though some circumstances at the time of her conception suggested I should not have – I knew she would be just fine and she was/is). I am a woman who went on to have two very wanted sons when I entered into a marriage to a good man who wanted to be a good father and he is.

Birth Order

My husband and I are both first borns and I see the personality traits are present in us. We both have a middle and a youngest sibling of the same gender that we are. Siblings are raised essentially in the same environment, so it could be assumed that we might be more like our brothers and sisters. Yet it appears that the same home environment makes up only 5-10% of our personality. Many of us would agree that we are somewhat or very different from our siblings. Genetic factors have more impact on our personality, maybe as much as 50%. Nurturing, how we are cared for must matter a lot.

Does birth order matter in adoption ? That is a question that I came to this morning’s blog with in mind. Does it matter if children are adopted out of their birth order ? My mom was the first born of her original mother and also the only child but was the youngest in the home she was raised in with an older brother who was also adopted. My dad was the first born and the oldest in the home where he was adopted. He grew up with a younger brother who was also adopted.

One study concluded that the rearing order of the children had little impact on personality except for conscientiousness, which was higher for children who were raised as first-born. The child’s sex had more impact than did rearing order.

Most adoptive families do not consider the impact that rearing order will have on infants who are first born to their biological parents, if they enter an adoptive home as the second or third child. If a child is an infant, it is assumed that such a child will have the characteristics associated with the rearing order in which they are placed. More often, adoptive families want to know the impact of adopting children out of age order on the children already there— especially on the oldest child or on several younger children when adopting an older child.

Sibling rivalry and the need for attention are very real factors in any multi-child home. I have seen it up close and personal with my two sons and have experienced a misplaced idealism upon my own reality that simply was not real by my youngest sister. I have seen frequently that the younger children often look up to the oldest. I have experienced first hand that parents expect the oldest to be an example of a “good” person – whatever that means in any family’s context.

Here is one reality some adoptive families face – maybe you have a larger age gap among your genetic/biological children. So you chose to adopt a child who can fill in the gap in age differences. Neither the oldest nor the youngest child’s position in your family is displaced by this decision. However, in any adoption of an older child, the chronological age of that child can be quite different from the child’s emotional age due to the trauma they have experienced. The reality you may find is that this new “middle” child is more like the youngest child in the family.

In any adoption – it is all about your expectations as an adopting parent. If you adopt a child who fits nicely into the age range where your children are right now, this newly adopted child may not blend in as well as you anticipated. Some precautions will be necessary when adopting an older child or when adopting a sibling group.

The Basics of Adoption

Raising an adopted child is not the same as raising your biological children. That is the first thing to understand. I can just imagine my mom’s adoptive parents (a banker and a socialite) saying something like this – “If it were not for us, you would never have had the kind of life you’ve had. Just always remember that.” And there is truth in that. My mom would have grown up in abject poverty. She was able to go to a university for a degree because of her parents’ wealth. I was able to take a special summer session as a student at Claire College, Cambridge and see the country of England, thanks to my mom’s adoptive mother.

Different isn’t always better. Also, more money doesn’t always mean happier. My mom had a difficult relationship with her adoptive mother who used a lure of money against her frequently. I can see she used money to control my mom when that (to control my mom) was not truly possible. I do know how blessed my adoptive grandmother felt to receive her two children. But as my mom grew up that feeling seems to have mutated into something controlling and judgmental.

I will honestly admit, I am grateful I was not adopted. Though I didn’t know family beyond my parents, at least I knew who my parents were. I did not have the name I was given at birth taken away from me. I did not have to pretend to belong when I knew that I didn’t. I was not abused but no one ever tried to convince me I was special because they chose me for adoption. I did not feel abandoned or rejected. My parents believed in honesty and truth.

No one tries to make me feel better by telling me my life could have been worse. Or that I would be dead if these people didn’t adopt me. That’s putting a huge burden on a child to meet the adoptive parents’ expectations.

Adoptees suffer a primal wound by being separated from their original mother. Many have symptoms of PTSD. Many adoptive mothers never resolve their feelings of inadequacy due to not being able to conceive naturally. Adoptees are often overwhelmed by feelings that they need to search for their genetic lineage. As adults, adoptees often experience difficulties in achieving a successful romantic relationship.

The Child Of Separation

Family separation has taken on a new meaning in the current government administration. Many of my friends and myself included are horrified at the barbaric and cruel images of what is being done as we witness these.

Rainer Maria Rilke wrote – “Every happiness is the child of a separation, it did not think it could survive.” I think in the context I am considering, one could not equate happiness with separation.

Family separation means something different in my life. It means my parents being taken away from their mothers. It means families so broken they cannot be put back together again. There is so much damage done when any baby is taken away from the mother who’s womb that child developed within.

Activists and reformers within the adoption world are hoping to see the common place separations end. We seek stronger safety nets for mothers with children with no judgement applied. It is not about how hard the mother works or how well she does trying to provide for her children but about the children themselves. Seeing that children grow up in safe spaces with loving relatives with enough to eat and enough usable clothing to wear. With a roof over their heads to protect them from the environment.

This is really not so much to ask of society and especially the wealthier members of our society – that we each accept a responsibility to the future generations of human beings on this planet.

Recent advances in the science of brain development offer us an unprecedented opportunity to solve some of society’s most challenging problems, from widening disparities in school achievement and economic productivity to costly health problems across the lifespan. Understanding how the experiences children have starting at birth, even prenatally, affect lifelong outcomes—combined with new knowledge about the core capabilities adults need to thrive as parents and in the workplace—provides a strong foundation upon which reforms can be created.

Not all stress is bad, but the unremitting, severe stress that is a defining feature of life for millions of children and families experiencing deep poverty, community violence, substance abuse, and/or mental illness can cause long-lasting problems for children and the adults who care for them. Reducing the pile-up of potential sources of stress will protect children directly (i.e., their stress response is triggered less frequently and powerfully) and indirectly (i.e., the adults they depend upon are better able to protect and support them, thereby preventing lasting harm). When parents can meet their families’ essential needs stress can be reduced rather than amplified. Families are better able to support a healthy development in their children.

Why Did You Adopt ?

My husband and I made a conscious decision not to adopt when we had been trying unsuccessfully to conceive. I believe our main concern was that uncertainty factor. We decided that we preferred to start “fresh” using an alternative form of medicine (obviously the main response to the question in the survey above).

Many adoptive parents are driven by altruistic reasons – it is not because of infertility – but they truly would like to be there in a positive way for a child who they believe needs them. It is a form of rescuer or savior motivation.

DIA is not through an agency but is a disclosed identified party adoption aka an open adoption. The inconvenient truth is that regardless of the type of adoption – agencies are manipulative, hopeful adoptive parents are clueless and often blinded by their own wants, expectant mothers are coerced into giving up their babies because they are led to the false belief it will be better for their infant, and infants experience tremendous trauma when they are separated from their original mother. The whole system of adoption is sadly a mess.

Hopeful adoptive parents usually have good intentions, even if they are blinded to more selfish and personally oriented reasons for adopting. Wanting to be a parent and acting on that is a selfish decision via adoption, regardless of how you get there. These adoptive parents may have more than they need for just their own selves. They want to share from their abundance because for some people sharing feels good.

Many original mothers were forced. One example that I read about – she was told either she place her son for adoption or they were going to report her to Child Protective Services – she was in extreme poverty, she did not have a job, she was depressed, unmarried and her my son was originally conceived through a man no longer in the picture. She was told she wasn’t good enough to raise her own son and that he deserved better.

It is important to change the narrative about adoption – it is not a beautiful circumstance. It is damaging and painful and should only happen in the very rarest of circumstances, and then it should be within the family, if possible (and honestly, it usually is possible). I am pro-reunification. It is important that the pain of separation is not permanent if at all possible. My perspectives on adoption, I will admit, have gone 180 and mostly against. There are exceptions, of course, and good ones.

How Confusing And Upsetting

In a private group I belong to, this story was shared –

“I’m at a loss. We have a Foster Son age 2 and a Foster Son age 5. The 5 year old will not listen at all. We ask him to do something and he acts out or does the opposite. We have had them for a week and I have cried every night I am so stressed. I have thought of everything. I reward him for being good and it doesn’t help. I need help please.”

~ desperate Foster Parent

One of the responses was this – Seriously? You’ve had them a week and you’re upset that they are having a hard time adjusting? If you don’t have the decency to understand that these kids go through absolute hell when they are removed and placed into your home you shouldn’t be allowed to foster. Who certifies these people/trains them? Who ever it is needs to be fired.

Did you know that there are hundreds of thousands of children in the US foster care system? Some recent data indicates that 690,548 children spent time in the foster care system during 2017. Many children in the foster system demonstrate post-traumatic stress like symptoms. This affects their development, coping skills, emotional regulation, relationships and attachments.

When the child has had some time to process the situation, learning meditation, relaxation and breathing techniques may be a method of learning to calm their own self, under their own control. A lack of control over their circumstances is one aspect of their acting out behavior.

Learning to replace negative thoughts with more positive ones can help the child develop a more healthy sense of self. These children need a safe play area and a nurturing environment. Over time, the children will need to learn to recognize triggers in order to gain control over their emotional states. Foster parents need discernment to ignore minor behaviors. By improving this parent-child relationship, the child may feel more supported in their everyday life.

Nothing a foster parent can do beyond patience, love, acceptance and an attempt to understand from the child’s perspective will work miracles overnight. The trauma suffered will be deep and unfortunately, to some degree, last a lifetime.

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.