A Strange Club

I finished reading Before and After yesterday. I don’t think Lisa Wingate expected to open this door when she wrote her bestselling fictional novel based upon the horrors of Georgia Tann’s methods of operating an adoption agency – separating children from their original families purely for profit.

However, as she embarked on book tours across the country, the sheer number of real lives impacted by Georgia Tann made themselves evident. I believe the reunion in Memphis that the new book is based upon was an effort on Wingate’s part to repay the living victims, many of whom are descendants of those directly impacted, for a good story that made her even more successful than she was before (she had written quite a few books before this phenomenal story).

In the Afterward chapter of Before and After, a story about Georgia Tann adoptees and their remarkable reunion in Memphis –

“We need to be given peace and

freed of the misery that comes

from not knowing,

and allowed to live with the truth

before we pass from this world.”

~ Letter from a TCHS adoptee

to her unknown birth family

The reunion proved that people are interested in hearing what the adoptees and their descendants have to say, that strangers care about this long-ago miscarriage of justice.

Countless families have a connection to the horror of Tann and those movers and shakers of Memphis who let her operate until 1950. This is a story that doesn’t have an ending. It never will. For thousands of families, tens of thousands of lives, it will always be a part of their history.

There’s fear of the unknown. My adoptee father had that and he wasn’t a Tann baby. The Salvation Army separated him from his unwed, poverty stricken mother.

Many, if not most, adoptees hunger for their personal information – their medical history in particular.

Being a Tann victim is like being a member of a strange club. Those who’s lives are somehow a part of the the Tennessee Children’s Home Society story. There is a shared experience with all of those who’s lives have been impacted by this.

For many of us (myself included) there is a feeling of kinship when we find our long ago “lost” family members. Not all reunions go happy but mine have.

What I took away from reading this book is that there is a universal aspect to the experience of most adoptees. Though the Georgia Tann/TCHS story was a particularly bad scandal, the effects on the Tann adoptees is so very similar to the wounds and trauma that every adoptee experiences (even the ones who aren’t aware it is there – that is my own opinion about it but from exposure to a diversity of adoptees, I don’t believe I’m far wrong).

Before We Were Yours (the fictional account) is a fast and engaging read. Before and After is a bit more tedious but the real story of real impacts on real people. I recommend both books.

To Raise Up A Child

It burgeons like a night mushroom beneath a protective cover of fallen leaves that look sickly and forlorn. The leaves are the symptoms that protect and in some strange way nourish the spores of the hidden genius that it may arise at the right time, possessed of its own unique and unadulterated powers.
~ Jean Houston, A Mythic Life

I think that those people cut off from their own, whether adoptee or foster child and their original parents, are in the early stage of changing the myth. The unicorns and rainbows story of how wonderful it is to be plopped into a stranger’s world. We are seeing that it is an outmoded perception and it needs to change or go away. These individuals now speak up loudly to help those unaware to see what is going on.

Life is complex. The child (and even the matured individual) who has been impacted may be scarred by a trauma, those who haven’t been subjected to it may struggle to understand.

Finding a way to make sense of it all is something I have been doing for a couple of years now. A good starting place for my own self has been to accept and acknowledge the sad and tragic circumstances that are part of the thread of continuity which makes me who I am.

For those adoptive parents and foster care givers, it is critical to see, not only the trauma and the wounds and certainly to address those, but also to seek to see the core self that is at the deepest level of the soul, before those impacts arrived. What are the natural talents and capacities, yes gifts, this child has to give to the world ? Nurture those !! Even as you attempt to heal the wounds that will always be within the personality.

The Need To Know

I love to read stories about happy adoptee reunions. They do not always turn out well. I do believe that the need to know is universal in adoptees, even when they think otherwise. Human beings are not meant to have no continuity, no connection to their origins and genetics, only a black hole leading into the past. I have experienced a black hole beyond my parents and I now have the information they lacked.

My mom yearned for a reunion she never realized. She once wrote to me in an email – “When I found out that my Mother was dead and my Father’s whereabouts unknown, the purpose of my search sort of fizzled out. I just felt that as a Mother I would be devastated to lose a child and never know what happened to it.”

So I love happy stories of adoptee reunions when the adoptive parents are supportive and encouraging of their adopted child’s need to know. Today, I read a very nice story about a young man named Alex. His parents were high school students and he was adopted when he was only 5 days old. His adoptive parents are Jewish.

Alex was a Communication Arts major at the University of Wisconsin and was taking a documentary film-making class. He needed a personal project and decided he wanted to look for his biological mother and document the development of his search. His adoptive mother had his baby bracelet that came home with him. It had his biological mother’s name on it, Trina Dunn. He used Google and found four women named Trina. One turned out to be the right Trina. The reunion is happy and he has discovered another “family” religious perspective. His original genetic family is Catholic and his parents have been married all these years.

Another story I read today was about Jenna, who was helped to find her original mother thanks to DNA and MyHeritage. Their DNA Quest project is a pro-bono initiative offered to adoptees who have little information to aid a quest of their own.

Jeanna says, “When you’re adopted, you have no idea of the background that led up to your adoption. I didn’t know if she would be accepting. She was, and everyone in her family was completely accepting.” Jenna says she now feels a sense of completeness that was lacking in her life.

If you are an adoptee and want to search for your genetic origins – know it is your basic human right to discover where you came from. If the reunion doesn’t go well, you will know that at least you tried. There is so much guilt and shame attached to any mother giving up a child that it is not always possible to overcome the damage. Her response to your effort is not about your worthiness but about her emotional wounds.

What Is Enough ?

My mother doubted her worth as a human and as a mother. She never believed she was good enough. Adoption did that to her. She felt broken and torn.

My mom tried very hard to know her roots. She appealed to the state of Tennessee for her adoption file. Though her father was twenty years older than her mother and her mother had already died, she was denied because the state didn’t really try too hard to determine her father’s status. He had been dead for 30 years, when she made her attempt.

She did an Ancestry DNA test and had a profile, hoping against hope to learn some truth. At least, she had some idea of her ethnicity from that effort. She tried to complete family trees but since they were based on persons who adopted her and adopted my dad, she quit and said to me, “It just didn’t feel real.” Of course it didn’t. From a genealogy perspective – it wasn’t the truth.

I now have the complete story for both – my mom and my dad. I wrote everything up in a limited edition book given to family, so that what I worked so hard to learn would not be lost with me, if I died.

There is no risk-free exposure for the children of adopted parents. I know. The wounds and damage passed down my family line and other children ended up adopted too.

Second Chance

One of the saddest situations in adoptionland is a child that was adopted and the adoptive family seeks to be rid of that child and it does happen.

In one case, an adopted child had been through four failed adoptions. This child had been renamed each time and didn’t even know their real name.

Or a child adopted internationally when they were 2 years old now up for re-adoption at the age of 8-1/2. The advertisement for this child is full of glowing attributes – why then is the need to be rid of the child ? It is beyond sad that people adopt without understanding the trauma and wounds that come from separating the child from their original family.

Between 1 and 5 percent of U.S. adoptions get legally dissolved each year. Some children are put up for “second-chance adoptions.” Second-chance adoptions are children who were already adopted and whose adoptive family no longer wishes to parent them.

Accurate statistics are not available for how commonplace second adoptions are, due to a wide variety of factors that include the closed nature of some adoptions, changed names on Social Security cards and birth certificates, and other paperwork issues.

Legally speaking, adopted children are recognized as no different from biological children. And for this reason, parents who opt to put a child up for re-adoption are doing nothing more legally complicated than any parent who puts a child up for adoption in the first place.

Children who end up in need of adoption a second time have lives that are deeply disrupted and end up with lifelong doubts about their worth. Most adoptees, even when their first adoption does not end up dissolved, suffer from similar issues.

Adoption is a complicated situation that is fraught with problems. That is why many adoptees are now speaking out against the process and looking for better alternatives for cases where a child’s welfare requires a more stable situation.

Just Don’t

But you will. You believe you won’t make all the mistakes the others have made. You believe you know a better way.

Don’t be one of THOSE adoptive parents or hopeful adoptive parents who think they know better and their kid won’t be like those angry adoptees, the thousands upon thousands that have struggled with adoption. You don’t even KNOW what to teach them as an adoptive parent.

You do not raise adopted children like you raise biological children and that has nothing to do with love.

An adoptee said to his adoptive mother, “It doesn’t matter how loving and good your parents are and it doesn’t matter that you have a wonderful home….at times it isn’t enough and I am still very unhappy!” When you hear this from your adopted child, it will break your heart. Adopted kids are going to have pain and there isn’t anything an adoptive parent can do to erase it. Understanding that this is the reality is very painful!

You can’t erase the sadness lurking where you can’t reach it.

It would be better if you didn’t adopt but if you already have, the path forward is complicated.

So, if you already did it, then create a home where your adopted children know they can feel however they need to feel and that they know you’ll be there to listen, love, and support them through it.

Whatever your adopted child feels is the reality, don’t dismiss it. Your feelings are yours to deal with.

The trauma of adoption doesn’t stop existing because you want it to. If you think you can love that trauma away, as an adoptive parent you still have a lot to learn.

Love is not enough, good intentions are not enough. No amount of love or honesty can resolve the deep challenges an adoptee faces from being isolated from their biological identity.

Fragility Self-Test

Before you decide to adopt or foster a child, consider your own emotional state. Here’s some help for contemplation.

1. Do I feel defensive when an adoptee, former foster youth or birth/first mother says “adoptive parents tend to…?”

2. Do I feel angry when people tell me I benefit from adoptive parent privilege — that the adoption industry works in my favor, or that my socioeconomic class and/or race enabled me to adopt?

3. When an adoptee, former foster youth or original mother talks about adoption, do I feel defensive because they’re describing things that I do or think?

4. Do I feel angry or annoyed by the above questions?

5. Do I have a history of embracing hopeful or adoptive parent behavior that I now feel ashamed of, so I need to show people that I’m no longer “like that”?

6. Does saying “not all adoptive parents” or similar phrases make me feel better when someone calls adoptive parents out for some perspective or behavior?

7. Do I expect an apology when I feel like I’ve been unfairly accused of poor adoptive parent behavior?

8. Do I feel better when I say, hear, or read, “every (adoption) experience is different?”

9. Do I try to convince adoptees, former foster youth and original mothers that they’re wrong about adoption by pointing out people from their position in the triad who agree with me?

10. Do I feel the need to talk about my own hardships (such as infertility, a “failed” adoption, or a difficult childhood) when an adoptee or original mother talks about their pain?

11. Do I think the adoption community would benefit if people stopped talking about the hard stuff, were more supportive, learned from “both sides,” or focused more on the positive?

12. Does being told that something I say, think, do, or otherwise value is harmful make me want to shut down, leave, or express my discomfort/displeasure in some way?

13. Do I feel the need to state that I have friends/family who are adoptees or first mothers when someone points out my problematic behavior?

14. Do I feel the need to prove that I’m one of the good ones?

15. Do I feel that my opinions and perspectives about adoption should be given equal weight to that of an adoptee or original mother, that I have something unique and important to contribute to the adoption conversation, and/or that it is unfair to be told to listen more than I speak?

16. Do I feel the need to defend myself on any of the above points when commenting in a discussion?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are dealing with adoptive parent fragility. Take time to reflect on why you feel the way that you do. Take time to listen to adoptee and original mother perspectives.

Adoptive parent fragility is a hindrance to healing because it prevents adoptees/original mothers from being able to engage with adoptive parents in honest conversation, without also having to bear the burden of catering to adoptive parents’ emotional comfort.

At its worst, adoptive parent fragility can cause an emotionally unhealthy situation for adoptees/original mothers because of the power dynamics and the weight of being responsible for the adoptive parents’ feelings, while not being allowed the same consideration to express their own.

There is also the weight that comes with people that you care about lashing out at and abusing you (verbally, emotionally, and/or digitally).

If we cannot talk honestly about the issues surrounding the traditional adoption industry, then we cannot make progress towards creating a healthy reform.

Sad And Heartbreaking

I find myself in such an awkward position. I have come to see that adoption is not the happy, rosy picture the industry wishes to paint because it is so lucrative. Even so, but for adoption, I would not even exist. What a quandary.

So to get real – adoption is never about the child who becomes an adoptee. This is the reality. As difficult as it may be to accept and understand.

Certainly, I am anti unethical adoption. My mom’s adoption was unethical. My maternal grandmother was pressured and exploited in a difficult situation that to her unending sorrow resulted in losing the baby girl she fought so hard to keep. It wasn’t her fault. She was a victim of Georgia Tann who was a master at the art of separating mothers from their children.

Even though my existence is decidedly an effect of two adoptions (both of my parents were), that does not mean that I cannot see the problems with adoption – especially for the child who is forever wounded in a deep place and may not even know what the actual source of their emotional pain is.

So, it is not positive or beautiful to take another women’s child. Period. There has to be a better way and that is to provide for a family to remain intact.

And there is also the issue of the father. Yes, some are unconcerned about the child they helped to create. It may also be true that others that never get a chance. I believe my dad’s father never even knew he existed. Since he was married, my dad’s mother probably simply never told him and handled it herself. My dad was so much like his father that I believe they would have been great friends. It wasn’t her plan initially to give my dad away, though at 8 months, she let him go for adoption.

Everything about the act of adoption is sad and heartbreaking – for the adoptee certainly – but I also believe for the natural, original parents as well.

Owning The Truth

Regarding adoption, as one dives deeply into the practice, it is difficult not to come to the conclusion that either you are OK taking someone else’s child – regardless of the pain it causes them – or you’re not OK with that.

At some level, it really is that simple. Some people can do that and function and some can’t fathom the thought.

Many adoptive parents make excuses. What if this ? Or what if that ? Or I did this ? Or I did that ?

Or even more honest and direct, if not me, what would happen to that child otherwise ?

But there are some adoptive parents who recognize and own their personal motives – I wanted kids and couldn’t have my own. It was about my need to experience motherhood.

It doesn’t make it a positive thing for the original mother or the adoptee but owning it is something. Many adoptive parents can’t bring themselves to accept that truth.

In case you misunderstand this – no one, absolutely no one, is advocating that children should ever remain in truly abusive situations. No one!

Not Only Genes

A child inherits more than physical attributes as well as general interests and tendencies from their parents. They can also inherit the wounds that their forebears were inflicted with.

In my own family, I see how my parents separation from their original parents was passed down through me and my sisters, not only in regard to a bit of distance in parenting and concern for our well-being and ability to provide for ourselves but because of that perspective on the part of our parents, our ability to parent our own children was also impacted.

Patterns repeat – lack of familial support for a young mother and her baby, lack of financial resources, whether from family or society, and a definite lack of understanding about the wounds caused by separation or the effects of being raised by strangers (through adoption or foster care) are all evident in my own family’s history.