Tag: Triggered Emotions

Tone Policing

Though the example uses feminism, adoptees also frequently experience similar criticisms. So, just a little PSA for anyone in an adoption or foster care related group or community – note, I have not had a problem of this sort in my efforts here.

First of all, what constitutes “tone policing” and second of all, why tone policing isn’t a healthy way to address marginalized people from the privileged position. Tone policing is telling a marginalized individual (like adoptees) that they should speak respectfully to their oppressors (for any reason).

A common form of tone policing is one person telling a justifiably angry (or even triggered) person that foster and adoptive (including hopeful) parents “learn best” when they are spoken to in a gentle tone. This is an example of foster and adoptive parents using their privilege to force submission from the marginalized person. You don’t think of it that way, but that is absolutely what you are doing.

Foster and adoptive parents become allies by learning boundaries from an adoptee or former foster care youth’s harsh tone. While it isn’t always easy, it is necessary to face the realities of these lived experiences without asking them to moderate their tone. These privileged people do not “learn best” from a gentle or more submissive tone.

Marginalized people (adoptees and former foster care youth) have spent their entire lives performing. By that, I mean they are forced to conform to the standards set by privileged people in order to appease them. If they do not, they are accused of being angry, bitter, and advised to seek professional help.

When you ask them to “code-switch” (changing aspects of conversation to fit in or gain acceptance) in order to make you, the privileged powerful person, more comfortable, you are forcing them to conform to your ideal of what the submissive, grateful adoptee or former foster youth is supposed to look like. You are forcing them to conform to your vision and version of who they are meant to be.

The best thing you can do is listen to their voices and understand that they are sharing their lived experience with you and often in spite of difficult emotions related to those experiences.

Little Orphan Cassidy

I am somewhat a fan of the program Saturday Night Live though I never watch the whole program and rarely the sketches. Usually on Sunday morning, it is a guilty pleasure, to look up the cold open and weekend update segments. I started doing this in 2016 after our former president was elected. Therefore, I missed this sketch until I learned about this in my all things adoption group.

The video, LINK>YouTube, for this indicates that an orphan (Chloe Troast) sings to the moon (Timothée Chalamet) about not getting adopted in a Saturday Night Live sketch – Little Orphan Cassidy. I noticed the old building has a sign over the door – Ms Pippinstuffs’ Home for Unwanted Girls.

So, I just watched the sketch (link above, if you want to watch it your self). Certainly, the feeling expressed at the beginning won’t be totally alien to people who were adopted later in childhood but not as infants. However, if she is really 26 years old, she should have aged out of the system 8 years earlier. Actually, then she admits that she is already 27 years old. It goes downhill from there. No wonder some adoptees found it troubling, however, SNL sometimes does go a bit too far attempting humor.

Here is what some adoptees said about this sketch –

First, the adoptee who shared a link to the video wrote – I saw this SNL skit and feel a lot of emotions about it but don’t know exactly how to express them. I’m curious what everyone else thinks about it

Adoptee – not cool or funny. Two things really irk me. [1] I do not enjoy having my trauma being the gag. How many other traumatized people have theirs twisted like this? [2] The theme is there is something wrong with you to not get adopted. Like it’s a life goal.

From someone in foster care as a youth – I also saw this and not sure what to think. I love Timothée Chalamet and SNL, but they do offensive things all the time and that’s their thing. For me, I think the most important voices are former Foster Care teens or adults who have lived through group homes.