Some Origins Aren’t Happy

Being a domestic infant adoptee is hard enough but image that you met your biological mother but were told that you were a product of rape and that she wouldn’t go into any more detail about your biological father. This adoptee would rather know the truth than always wonder. Therefore, she asks what other adoptees have done when faced with a similar situation. Did they just let it go or bet a DNA test ? She admits that her biggest fear is that 50% of my DNA is monster and that now she has passed that on to her own children.

Some responses –

I wouldn’t condemn yourself for the crimes of your origin. There’s been several studies on the impact of nurture vs nature. The best way to deal with some things in life beyond our control is to just acknowledge them. You don’t need to accept it, you don’t need to approve it. Just know it and understand what that information means to you and what you will do with it essentially.

Another shared – A very dear friend was always told she was the product of incest. She did DNA testing for other reasons and has found a whole other family that never knew she existed. It’s been difficult for her to navigate but she is glad to be in reunification. The stories we hear about us form our ideas about the world and as the stories evolve sometimes our identities and the world we see changes too.

Then there was this – I’m an admin of a large adoptee only group, and this narrative is sadly not uncommon. Now, your mother may well have been abused, however many women are so heavily shamed that they were left with invent a story that makes what they did (have sex!!) appear more socially acceptable, to them and their (judgmental) family. It’s actually more common than imagined. That said, I’d highly recommend having a trusted therapist in place before exploring – to guard your mental health no matter the outcome. Personally, my mother won’t even say my father’s name. He was a major player. AND I have a relationship with his side of the family, which I value. Take your time.

Another adoptee admitted – My biological mom told me I am the result of rape also. And I’m inclined to believe her, because that’s a heavy burden to carry and I want to believe she wouldn’t lie about it. She did, however, give me his name and I found and spoke to him, and naturally his side of the story was very different than hers. I don’t know where in the middle of both of their stories the truth is, and that will probably eat at me for my entire life.

Then this one – While my mom didn’t say she was raped, she did tell me that my father was a pretty shitty human. They started dating when she was 15 and he was 21. Two years later she got pregnant, thought they were headed to get married, but instead got blind sided by him telling her that he was already married with an infant and a pregnant wife, and that he was also heading to prison for armed robbery. I did do DNA tests and found his side. He passed about a year before I found him. I’m still back and forth on whether I wish I’d had the opportunity to meet him or if I’m relieved I don’t have to make that decision. I did find both of those siblings, along with another younger brother (yet another mom) and a bunch of nieces and nephews. As big of a surprise I was to them, they have all been wonderful and welcoming. I don’t know if this helps but I don’t regret finding all the answers.

Some more encouragement – It’s okay to feel like you deserve answers, because you do – even if the answers are uncomfortable or hard to hear her give you. DNA testing helped me find family and get a few more sides to my adoption story than the one I had initially. Your mother may absolutely be telling you the truth, and I’m absolutely not saying to doubt that. I’m also very much a “believe all women” type. But if you feel a nagging that there’s more to the story than you’re aware of, it’s okay to seek answers. Good luck.

More about the potential realities – My biological mom will not tell me any details, although I do believe her that it was rape now. It’s frustrating not to know details of who this person was, but it’s painful for her to talk about it and she said she will never tell me. I’ve done a DNA test, not specifically to find him, but I didn’t get any additional information by doing so. At the moment, I’m just letting it go.

Twenty Things

I saw this recommended in my all things adoption group – “For adoptive parents: my adopted daughter asked me to read this recently. It has been really helpful to me, but also to our relationship. It gives us a framework for talking about how she feels and what she needs from me. I’ve learned so much, but there’s still so much to learn.”

Found this review in an interesting place – LINK>”nightlight Christian Adoptions.” Not a place I would normally think to look for any adoption insights. The review says that the author is an adoptee herself as well as a speaker and adoption trainer. She has written a book specifically about what adopted kids wished their parents knew. This list will give you amazing insights – whether you are an adoptive parent, an adoptee, or are considering adoption … and these insights can also apply to kids in the foster care system and foster parents.

Here’s the list of the 20 things –

1. I suffered a profound loss before I was adopted. You are not responsible.
2. I need to be taught that I have special needs arising from adoption loss, of which I need not be ashamed.
3. If I don’t grieve my loss, my ability to receive love from you and others will be hindered.
4. My unresolved grief may surface in anger toward you.
5. I need your help in grieving my loss. Teach me how to get in touch with my feelings about my adoption and then validate them.
6. Just because I don’t talk about my birth family doesn’t mean I don’t think about them.
7. I want you to take the initiative in opening conversations about my birth family.
8. I need to know the truth about my conception, birth, and family history, no matter how painful the details may be.
9. I’m afraid I was “given away” by my birth mother because I was a bad baby. I need you to help me dump my toxic shame.
10. I am afraid you will abandon me.
11. I may appear more “whole” than I actually am. I need your help to uncover the parts of myself that I keep hidden so I can integrate all the elements of my identity.
12. I need to gain a sense of personal power.
13. Please don’t say that I look or act just like you. I need you to acknowledge and celebrate our differences.
14. Let me be my own person, but don’t let me cut myself off from you.
15. Please respect my privacy regarding my adoption. Don’t tell other people without my consent.
16. Birthdays may be difficult for me.
17. Not knowing my full medical history can be distressing for me.
18. I am afraid I will be too much for you to handle.
19. When I act out my fears in obnoxious ways, please hang in there with me and respond wisely.
20. Even if I decide to search for my birth family, I will always want you to be my parents.

Not everyone (especially adoptees) are fans – “Eldridge is not an ally of adopted people! On one of her disturbing Facebook pages, she regularly deletes comments by adoptees, and blocks them if they dare to point out the nonsense she’s been sharing. I can see why adoptive parents would like her content.

South Korean Adoptions

There are a lot of Korean adoptees in the United States. Today’s blog is courtesy of a story in The Guardian about the LINK>Truth Commission investigating foreign adoptions. Some adoptees sent to Europe and the US say they were wrongly removed from their families as the government in Seoul actively promoted adoption. These adoptees suspect their origins were falsified or obscured during a child export frenzy in the mid-to late 20th century.

The adopted South Koreans are believed to be the world’s largest diaspora of adoptees. In the past six decades about 200,000 South Koreans – mostly girls – were adopted overseas. Most were placed with white parents in the US and Europe during the 1970s and 80s.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has decided to investigate 34 adoptees who were sent to Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and the US from the 1960s to the early 1990s. The adoptees say they were wrongfully removed from their families through falsified documents and corrupt practices. The adoptions to be investigated are among the 51 adoptees who first submitted their applications to the commission in August through the Danish Korean Rights Group led by adoptee attorney Peter Møller. There are now more than 300 applications filed.

The applications cite a broad range of grievances that allege carelessness and a lack of due diligence in the removal of scores of children from their families amid loose government monitoring. During much of the period in question, the country was ruled by a succession of military leaders who saw adoptions as a way to deepen ties with the democratic west, while reducing the number of mouths to feed and removing the socially undesirable including children of unwed mothers and orphans.

Most of the South Korean adoptees sent abroad were registered by agencies as legal orphans found abandoned on the streets, a designation that made the adoption process quicker and easier. But many of the so-called orphans had relatives who could be easily identified and found. Some of the adoptees say they discovered that the agencies had switched their identities to replace other children who died or got too sick to travel, which often made it impossible to trace their roots. The adoptees call for the commission to broadly investigate agencies for records falsification and manipulation and for allegedly proceeding with adoptions without the proper consent of birth parents. They want the commission to establish whether the government was responsible for the corrupt practices and whether adoptions were fueled by increasingly larger payments and donations from adoptive parents, which apparently motivated agencies to create their own supply.

Speak Your Truth

I got a blog notification from LINK> Tony Corsentino, an adoptee that I now am glad to be able to read thoughts from. He notes people whose lives begin with severance and secrecy need to speak their truth. He goes on to say that secrecy in adoption makes one’s story into contested property, where truthseeking, not to mention truth speaking, can be received as betrayal.

He says the nearly universal expectation is that adopted people are grateful for their adoption—grateful to their adoptive families, grateful for a system that rescues infants and children from perilous circumstances, from abusive homes, from orphanhood. That expectation imputes a form of dependence to adopted people: that of being beholden to their adopters, and to the system that placed them in their adopters’ families.

Speaking one’s truth is an act of self-emancipation.

Often when an adopted person speaks of being adopted as a less than positive experience, their truth is labeled a “poor adoption experience.” The implication is that questioning the justification for severing a child from their original family must come out of the aftermath of a traumatic experience.

When the question is one of rights, the justification for denying people control over their bodies, it is the point. Storytelling is essential to moral argument. He goes on to note – this is true of adopted people who recount their experiences with adoption. I do not know whether to call my own adoption experience “positive” or “negative” overall. I was taken from my mother and given to people who did and do love and care for me. That’s a “positive,” surely.

Regarding his own search, he says “I did not find my birth parents until the fifth decade of my life.” In my own roots search, I was well into my sixties before I knew anything about my genetic and biological origins as regards my original grandparents. My own parents died knowing nothing beyond their names at birth and some sketchy information about one or both parents’ names.

So, Tony notes – “I have reflected on all those factors—the barriers adopted people face in trying to reclaim their original identities, their sense of their place in the world, their cultural and ethnic roots, their family health histories—and I see no compelling moral justification for those barriers’ existence. Certainly no justification for the lack of support for adopted people who wish to overcome those barriers.” I agree. During my own search, it was like repeating dashing my head against a concrete wall.

The reason why individual trauma and harm matter in the stories adoptees tell is it forces other people to ask themselves whether it really had to be that way. Adoption is the legally sanctioned erasure of the child’s original identity.

Adoptees tell their stories because they believe that they have insights about adoption that non-adopted people will at least find intelligible. Even while acknowledging that it is impossible for people who have not lived severed aka adopted lives to truly understand. As the stories pile up, one has to admit that the harms are not all in one adoptee’s head but are a universal experience among them as a whole.

A Near Miss

Almost every Thursday (though I sometimes have weeks long gaps or skip a week), I query literary agents for representation of my third revision of my family’s adoption story. I do not intend to revise it again and if I do not succeed, I’ll simply print a copy for my daughter and for my family of today and be done with it. I do not intend to be pessimistic but at this point, I simply go through the motions like it is my “job” – and in a very real way it is. My husband has taken over most of our businesses functions to leave me plenty of time to write and he remains more hopeful about a positive outcome than I do.

Yesterday, I got the quickest rejection yet – like in minutes. Sharlene Martin of LINK> Martin Literary Management sent me this email – “I’m sorry but I recently did Jane Blasio’s book, Taken at Birth, and this would present a conflict of interest for me.” I didn’t know that of course, just sort of got lucky in choosing her (one of the challenges is deciding which literary agent to query). So, I looked into the author and saw that her book was published in July 2021. That is the closest I’ve ever come to finding a literary agent interested in the topic. I don’t know whether to feel encouraged or not at this point.

I was already aware of the story of the Hicks Clinic in McCaysville Georgia before yesterday evening. Dr Hicks was the Georgia Tann of Memphis Tennessee’s compatriot – with similar practices but in a different state, each seeking to grab their share of a lucrative exploitation of babies and hopeful adoptive parents. Adoptive homes are often an expression of secrecy, lies and shame. Everyone living there is living a false reality. Sadly, adoption is often not much different than human trafficking.

LINK> Jane Blasio is not the only adoptee to uncover the truth of their childhood as an adult. It can be quite unsettling for the person who discovers their parents were not the ones they were born to. These adoptees are often referred to as Late Discovery. Dr Thomas Jugarthy Hicks would tell his expectant patient that their newborn child had died at birth and then, sell their baby out the back door of his clinic to the hopeful adoptive parents.

Jane’s own story is that, at the age of six, she learned she was adopted. At fourteen, she first saw her birth certificate. This led her to begin piecing together the true details of her origins. It took decades of personal investigation to discover the truth. Along the way, she identified and reunited other victims of the Hicks Clinic human trafficking scheme. She became an expert in illicit adoptions, telling her story to every major news network that would have her. Her book is a remarkable account of one woman’s tireless quest for truth, justice, and resolution.

I first roughed out my family’s adoption story in November of 2017 using the NaNoWriMo effort to jumpstart it with 50,000 words and the title Lost Chances: Frances Irene Moore’s Georgia Tann Story. In 2021, I submitted a short version of 8,431 words titled With Luck and Persistence (my completed manuscript is 87,815 words) to the Jeffrey E Smith Editor’s Prize with The Missouri Review. This year I am doing a very brief version, less than 1,500 words, for the True Family Stories contest with the Kingdom Writer’s Guild titled Surprised by the Miracle. The prize is nothing to get excited about but my husband long ago suggested I write a version for Christians, so this is that – where I won’t make an issue against adoption – I’ll only focus on the miracle that I didn’t end up adopted as well. All this to say, I can’t say I won’t re-write it in some form again but I won’t revise the long manuscript again or try to shop it if this effort ultimately fails. I still think I have a good story but the challenge is getting anyone else to believe that.

Betrayal After Betrayal

Today’s story courtesy of the LINK> Huffington Post – My Dad Hid My Sister From Me For Decades. Then I Learned That Wasn’t Our Only Family Secret by Sarah Leibov. I share excerpts. You can read the whole story at the link.

Her dad had impregnated his girlfriend long before he met her mom and she was placed for adoption. The truth was revealed because the woman was coming to Chicago where the author lived and not only her mother (who had divorced her father 20 years ago) and her brother (who also knew about this secret sister) thought Sarah might want to meet her.

Her brother knew because he was going through their dad’s briefcase seven years ago and discovered letters from this woman and began corresponding with her. The mother discovered the secret when she asked who sent an email she saw on her son’s computer.

Sarah describes her reaction to the shock of learning about this sister. I only noticed that I was crying when people passing me on the street gave me sympathetic looks. I sat down on the curb, shaking. I was in shock, but another part of me was relieved. Intuitively, I’d always felt that my father was hiding something from me. Hearing the news validated the fear I’d buried inside for years. I was confused as to why he had kept this secret. My parents had divorced and married other partners when I was young, and I’d already had every kind of sibling imaginable ― my brother, a stepsister from my mother’s next marriage, and three half siblings from my father’s second marriage. Why would he keep quiet about this one? I didn’t know why my brother had never confronted my father, or shared the news with me. It was betrayal after betrayal.

She didn’t want to meet her father’s hidden daughter behind his back, or hide it from him, as he had from her. She called her brother and told him, “Call Dad now, and tell him what you know, or I will.” The next day, her father asked Sarah and her brother to meet him at a deli she’d never heard of. She thinks he thought she wouldn’t make a scene in an unfamiliar public setting, but admits, “I upset his plan. Tears flowed down my face as I ignored inquisitive looks from people trying to enjoy their matzo ball soup.”

Her father told them that when his girlfriend discovered that she was pregnant, she told him that she was moving to another state and planned to place the baby for adoption. Two decades later, the hidden sister gained access to her adoption papers and reached out to both her birth parents. Their father had then started corresponding with her and even met with her several times over the years.

Sarah writes about their first meeting – My fiancé and I met my new sister at a restaurant the following evening. My father was right ― she was lovely, kind and unassuming. I noticed that we both had inherited my father’s dark eyes and curly hair. She seemed a bit nervous and just as intent on making a good impression as I was. In her warm presence, all my envy disappeared.

And in the years since, we have bonded over our mutual interests in music and meditation, both on the phone and in person. I am very fond of her, but it’s so much more than that. I admire her political activism and ideals. She is a health care worker, and I’ve never heard her blame anyone for the difficulties she has endured. She lives with an easy, open acceptance that is challenging for me.

The hidden sister turned out not to be the only secret in their family. Turns out that her maternal grandfather had an affair during his marriage to her grandmother. Her mother and this half-sister (discovered thanks to Ancestry.com) were born only a few months apart, but on opposite sides of the country. When asked if her father had ever traveled to the East Coast, her mother explained that he was a traveling salesman. “We hear that a lot,” the geneticist told her mother.

Upon learning about this, Sarah was angry at her grandfather for deceiving her mother, similar to how she had been angry at her father for withholding a sister from her. It was frustrating that because the grandfather was deceased they couldn’t get answers from him. I know the feeling. I would love to know why my maternal grandfather appears to have abandoned my maternal grandmother and the baby that was my adoptee mother.

When she saw how overjoyed her mother was to have discovered a sister so late in her life, Sarah’s perspectives changed. It wasn’t their actions that were reprehensible, their decisions to hide what happened had caused pain.

She ends her essay with this – “Enough time has been stolen from me and now its my responsibility to recover what has been lost.” I understand. Building relationships with people who didn’t know you existed for over 60 years isn’t easy. I simply keep trying to stay connected with my “new” genetic family.

Honesty

An adoptive mother writes – One fear is of facing the reality that she isn’t really my daughter. Getting that amended birth certificate was so bizarre. It’s a lie. I know it’s a lie, because she didn’t come from my body and that’s what that paper says. I am her mom, in the sense that mom is a title but she has a real mom that she misses. I am her mom in the sense that I will raise and protect her. It’s a strange thing to be both her mom and not her mom. I had the fear of losing her when I reached out to her aunt. I’m working through that and we are committed to being honest and doing what is best for “our girl” but there’s still anxiety about her mom. There are safety issues but I recognize the harm not seeing her does to my daughter.

When asked, when has she seen or spoke to her mother ? The adoptive mother replied – Once a year before adoption and a year before that the mother only made sporadic visits. I don’t want to share a lot of her personal information out of respect for her. I will say that I have always told the truth to her, age appropriately at each stage of her growing (the child is now 7 years old), and she has always wanted her mother. I have always been committed to making that happen, but wanted to wait until she was 18. I’ve since learned that’s not the best and I am working to connect her with her family. An adoptee advises “let her see her natural mother as the reality and not the romanticized version she will create otherwise.”

So this important perspective – this may be a hard pill to swallow, that her relationship with her actual family is more important than her relationship with you. She needs that bond and connection. Please remember that you have added to her trauma by erasing part of her identity by changing her birth certificate. You have also muddied the waters for future generations who want to know their biological heritage, which isn’t you. Its important for you to know that the most painful thing her mother will ever feel is to hear her call you mom. I can tell you from experience.

These are all things you have to own, and let go of fragility. You are in a position of power. It’s scary for the child and her family, because there is this fragile adopter that controls if they ever see each other again. Keep that in mind. Think of how you would feel if someone had control of if you could see the person you loved the most again. How would you respond to them ? Would it be a healthy relationship ? Would you just do whatever it took to keep them happy ?

Hard To Believe But True

To keep the knowledge of this from an adoptee is so unconscionable. Even in the 1930s, when my parents were adopted, they always knew they were. Since I now know more about my original grandparents, my grandmothers would have always made great mothers to my parents. It was simply two factors – the times for my dad’s unwed mother and Georgia Tann’s machinations for my maternal married grandmother (though her husband appeared to have deserted her and there is no one left alive who could answer what my heart wants to know about why).

From an adoptee – How could you not tell your kid but then tell other people??? Like wtf. There’s something incredibly wrong with that picture.

From another adoptee – (BTW the child is already 8 years old) – that would be where I would have to ask for a conference with the adoptive parents. I could not knowingly and wrongfully withhold such information from a child and still be able to look them in the face daily. Idk if said child could remain in my class, although I’d want to be a support for the child. What a horrible situation for a teacher, especially if also an adoptee, but what a horrible bunch of bullshit for that child. School aged is beyond old enough to have already had those conversations. I’m not happy with these adoptive parents AT ALL.

Just a personal note – when my dad was 8 years old, he was adopted a second time when his adoptive mother remarried and his first name was changed from Thomas to Gale. Thomas was his first adoptive father’s first name. Gale was his new adoptive father’s first name. A completely understandable decision. Fortunately for my dad, he was always known by his middle name Patrick.

An adoptee who is also an adoptive mother writes – I am also a behavioral interventionist. This would be a “HUGE” trigger for me mentally. I couldn’t imagine looking into that poor innocent face knowing she is probably struggling internally (even without her knowing it) and then, knowing what she will face later on when she learns the truth. It would be very hard for me to navigate without yelling from the rooftops at the parents – what you are doing to this child is so wrong and mentally abusive. Even more so, that they are sharing this information with everyone else (savior complex, most likely or just narcissistic) but the child. Does your employer know you are an adoptee? I do a lot of advocating for adoptees and foster care youth in my district.

Someone else commented – Imagine everybody knowing your story but you. I hope they are setting aside a sizable amount of money for this child’s therapy because OMFG.

Another writes – And at what age does this go on until ? Where is that child’s human rights. They have no right to deprive that child of their roots. It’s seldom done to protect the child, it’s to protect the adopters from the reality that this child has another family and help them play out their fantasy. It’s disgusting and should be illegal.

From one adoptee’s experience – I was in a similar situation. I didn’t find out until I was 9. It shattered my view on pretty much everything. I feel badly for those children; finding out your life is a lie part way through childhood is just…heavy. The worst part about having a family that is secretive about adoption is that once I did know, I was told I still needed to lie about it because not everyone in the family knew. I shared it with my cousins of a similar age once and got laughed at by them because they didn’t believe me. It got me in terrible trouble with my adoptive parents for telling them. Those kids have a rough road ahead. An entire early childhood predicated on lies is no way to live.

Sometimes People Change

For people with adoption in their family, reunions are always an unknown quality. Like, even though my maternal grandmother was married to my maternal grandfather, why did he leave her 4 months pregnant ? (I do have theories but will never have actual answers – my cousin with the same grandfather doesn’t think his nature was not to care about his children and from pictures of him with my mom’s half-siblings that would seem to be true).

So an adoptee wrote – I think I found my birth father’s family. I am unsure if I should reach out. My birth mom told me he is a horrible person and the treason she put me up for adoption was due to his violent behavior and abuse towards her. I want to but I’m nervous.

It is not uncommon for a woman who has been the victim of domestic violence to want to protect her children from her abuser. Putting the child up for adoption can be seen as a way to provide distance and safety for that child. Case in point – My son’s birth father was/is a terrible sociopath, which is a big factor in my choice for adoption. Because it’s his mom and not me in charge, I have no concerns about him knowing his paternal grandparents and aunts. They’re very connected, and he loves it! So I say, go for it. You definitely deserve to form your own opinion.

Abusers don’t abuse everyone – so remember that before running away with – he said it wasn’t true, so it mustn’t be. You can still reach out but have boundaries to keep yourself as safe as possible. Maybe he is a reformed alcoholic or got help. There just tends to be a misogynistic perspective of – he’s nice to me, so no way he was not good to my mother, in many of these cases – and that is true across all family types.

It may be wise to look up his criminal record to be safe, but just like you, there may be good people he fathered or is related to, even if your mom is being honest. The adoptee replied – I looked it up, and he hasn’t had a charge since 1999. To which the advice giver said – maybe he was just someone who has criminal behavior when intoxicated and he got clean. Wouldn’t be the first! And the adoptee replied – He was intoxicated according to the arrest record. It’s hard to say. It could even not be the right person, but based on the information I was given, I’m confident it is. Even if he sucks, it’s better to live with the knowing than to live with the regret of wondering. You might have accurate information on who he used to be but you don’t know who he is now.

More practical advice – Don’t share too much too soon, so you can walk away and not look back, if you need to. With that being said – people may make up things to make themselves feel better or he could have changed. Every person deserves to be heard out, if the person needing the explanation wants to hear it. It’s likely been quite some time since you were given up, and, sometimes, people change. Sometimes the situation was misunderstood. Sometimes the situation isn’t what it was presented to be. I’d contact them anyway. Don’t pass out your home address, use a texting or messaging app to contact them by phone, meet in public places, if you’re meeting them. Don’t put your own address as a return address if using the mail, use an email that you don’t use for everything, if by email.

Good to realize – People always have stories. They don’t always line up. Your mother has her side and her experience. It is valid and important. However, she has a story that has a different character. A different man. People change over time. They live. They learn, they grow and they die. You can wait until it’s too late and lose the chance to answer your questions or you can take a chance. We adoptees hear stories of others all the time. Never knowing our own. We hear how others are effected but we are overlooked. All for our “protection”. So many people have agendas. They don’t want to look like the bad guys. They don’t want their mistakes brought to light. Understandable. However we aren’t responsible for them being comfortable.

This person’s experience matches my own experience on my maternal grandparents side quite a lot – They were farmers and country folk from southern Illinois (just to note – mine were Tennessee and Arkansas). Family was important to them. I was a missing piece to ALL of them in the family. A missing child. How horrible to think if I had not decided to find them that they would have always wondered what happened to that baby girl (just to add – that was also the case re: my mom, they all knew she existed). Me. I have now been welcomed back whole heartedly back into the family fold. No questions no judgements and all my questions answered. I know that the chances of that are so chancy but it was worth it for me. I hope that you can find some sort of closure or comfort in your journey. It’s always so scary to start, those first steps.

Such Misplaced Priorities

I was reading today where a hopeful adoptive mother actually was promoting to the son of an expectant mother all of the things they could financially provide to her soon to be delivered baby. This is unbelievably clueless. The boy would have loved to send the woman the message below (but his mother did not allow it, saying, “I’d love it, if he could respond that way, but it’s best if he doesn’t respond at all because I don’t think she was supposed to do that.”) –

Dear Hopeful Kidnapper,

My Aunt lives 10 minutes away in a 5,000 square foot house with a pool in her backyard. We can drive to the beach in my parents fifth wheel and she can build sand castles with us. We don’t need a beach house, we drag our house with us. Her cousin loves horses and can provide that experience for our baby as well. How arrogant that you think you can give her a “better life.” Has anyone ever mentioned money doesn’t buy happiness?

And this hopeful adoptive mother is also a social worker ? Hopefully these are being given to the attorney as this is straight up harassment! The fact that she is a social worker makes this even worse, she should know better! This lady has certainly earned a top spot on the Hopeful Adoptive Parent Stranger Danger List. Being a social worker, you’d think she would have first hand knowledge that even under the most dire circumstances, most adoptees would not chose to trade up their own mother, father and family for strangers that perceive themselves as having more or better. So, neither would this newborn. It’s just nature’s way.

When adoptees say they hate hopeful adoptive parents – this is why. This arrogance and the saviorism that centers on them but not the child. The willingness…no, the eagerness to cross every boundary a decent human understands, just to get what they want. All while casting dispersions on people who are in crisis.

This perspective – I don’t understand why people make help conditional on buying a baby. It’s never “Hey, we know you’re struggling and since we care about the baby so much, we’d like to be super involved as aunt and uncle, so we can make a difference in this child’s life.” This is why hopeful adoptive parents make me so angry. They have the resources to help but will only do so by destroying a family to benefit themselves. It’s gross.

And really, this is true – The only reason she’s harassing y’all is because of how soon baby will be here. I guarantee, if someone offered them a baby tomorrow, she’d vanish from your life. So gross.

More truth – No lavish house, top school, showy beach house will fill the void that separation from a parent will create. Children don’t care about social status. This is SO elitist!!! Like what a wild fantasy life she has dreamed up! What if this daughter doesn’t like dogs or horses and sand?! All children have the ability and their moments of it — what if this child is destructive and wild??! What happens when this fantasy bubble and perfect home and plan aren’t going exactly as she pictured?? Kids are hard and messy and unpredictable. Parenting is more than these clouds in the sky fakeness.

Finally, this from direct experience – I am an adoptee. I grew up in a huge, beautiful brick home. I had a swimming pool, along with a swim & racquet club less than 500 feet from my driveway. I had the “best of the best” as far as society saw. Upper middle class. Not rich, but never struggled for anything we “needed”. Even with that, I would have given all of it up to be with my biological family!