Loyalties

I was reading a post over on the forum today and something one of our members said really struck a chord with me.

...I wish all the people who've told me how lucky I am to be adopted and how wonderful it is, could have felt the confusion and sickness I felt after all that. I constantly feel, and I am sure all adopees get this, that I'm being dragged from one loyalty to another.

God this is SO TRUE. The loyalty thing! Adoptees are pushed and pulled in different directions all the time by our families, our friends, by complete strangers who think they have the right to dictate our lives to us. And to not even realize what they are doing, while telling us to be grateful for having people such as themselves pushing us around. It's insane-making. On one hand, you have the obvious pro-adoption camp who think that adoptees should "get over" their biological family and be happy/grateful/thankful/glad we have this super duper awesome forever family who so graciously let us sleep under their roof and tossed us some food from time to time. And then you have the seriously anti-adoption nuts who will tell you that your adoptive parents are nothing more than child abductors and any "love" I think I feel for them is simply Stockholm Syndrome and they are only merely fond of me as well. (Yes, I have actually heard those words from someone). And then there's the rest of society - people who are well-meaning usually, maybe they have no real connection with adoption so they don't know what to think, or maybe they know someone who knows someone who is adopted and they feel this way or that, so of course all adoptees should. And last but not least, you have your families, adoptive and, if in reunion/open adoption, your biological families. And I count my friends in here too, because they are close to me and are part of my "inner circle" so to speak. Everyone has an opinion on where my loyalties should lie. EVERYONE. And almost everyone feels they have the right to TELL me where my loyalties lie. What is it about loyalty anyway? I mean, why is it that society has this idea that adoptive parents are like a lover who is being cheated on if the adoptee decides to see where she came from? What's with this notion that because they raised me, I can't form friendships and relationships with people other than them? Oh wait...I can, just not anyone who might share my DNA. Because THAT would be "disloyal." I can call my mother-in-law Mom, but if I called my n-mother Mom? THAT would be a betrayal. And most people have no qualms whatsoever about telling me so, and making me feel like shit in the process. Because my own feelings and needs don't matter, apparently. And then to top it off by telling me how awesome it must be to feel this way. Do people listen to themselves? I don't think so. I don't think they even think about what is about to come out of their mouth most of the time. And damn this is turning into another anti-adoptive parent thing isn't it? LOL no, no, I don't hate my adoptive parents. Nothing could be further from the truth. And if they were alive today? I don't think they'd be the least bit bothered by my reunion and subsequent relationships with my biological family. At least I like to think they wouldn't, because they were pretty awesome people, and never once made me feel like I should be grateful for my adoption. They never used any of the tired old cliche's about adoption, and I'm so thankful for that. And you know, they ARE my parents. I DO feel a loyalty to them. But that doesn't mean I can't or shouldn't also have a space for the people who are my family by birth. What is so dangerous, or disloyal, about having more people in my life who love me? Do people tell their friends, they can't make more friends because the old friends will feel betrayed? I've never heard of that happening. But it's kind of par for the course in adopto-land. And it's funny, because when it comes to my biological vs. adoptive siblings, the sentiments don't seem to apply. Nobody thinks my adoptive brothers will feel betrayed if I list my biological brother as such on my FB family list. Nobody tells me I shouldn't talk to him because my brothers were the ones beating me up my entire childhood, not him. Nobody seems to care, they actually think it's pretty cool. But the parents loyalty thing is what's huge. And it's not like I can suddenly go back and be re-raised by my b-mom...it's not like my entire lifetime of memories is going to be wiped clean and I'll forget my a-parents ever existed. Yet people think adoptees must choose one or the other, pick sides, be loyal. I'll tell you what...I'll be loyal to those who show me love and respect and EARN my loyalty. And I - me, myself and I alone, will decide who that its. I don't tell anyone else who they should be loyal to...but for some reason, adoptee loyalty is open season. Sickening.

On being "chosen"

A lot of people like to adoptees that we're special; that we were "chosen" and should therefore feel really good and blessed and happy. It seems to be a favorite (right after "you could have been aborted," which if you think of it, how does one go from being a worthless and unwanted thing to be gotten rid of to being special and chosen in one breath? Talk about a mind fuck). I know I heard it, I think pretty much all of my adoptee friends have heard it too.

As a young child I really used to buy into it too. I would imagine my parents driving to the adoption agency, their faces lit up with these huge grins of anticipation, their hearts pounding as they arrived at the place where they would CHOOSE THEIR BABY. I pictured a big room filled with other adoptive parents just like mine, and soon a line of ladies would come from an inconspicuous wooden door off in the corner, each one smiling brightly as they each carried a plump and adorable baby dressed in white cotton dresses with eyelet trim. These babies would then be passed around the room, from adoptive parent to adoptive parent, and whoever was holding the baby when she stopped crying would "choose" that baby and they'd adopt her and go live happily ever after.

I had an active imagination as a child.

Chosen...was I chosen?

My amom told me a story one time that before they adopted me, they had received a call from the adoption agency, telling them that a baby girl was available for adoption. She was everything that they had hoped for...except for one dark stain on her record, her mother had been on drugs. (Insert audible gasping in of breath). So my parents in all their parental wisdom decided NOT to take that particular baby. Which leads me to wonder; what if they had? What if they DID adopt this little girl? Then there'd be somebody ELSE sitting here in my chair, with my name and all my memories and living MY life. Who, then, would I have become? Where would I be? What would my name be? What kind of life would I be living?

For I sure as heck wouldn't be who I am today.

My parents waited until the NEXT little girl was available for adoption - mois - and the rest is history. But I don't think of it as being so much chosen as just being the next available baby for the people at the top of the list. They didn't come into a room and select me from a group of other babies. They didn't pass me around and keep me because I stopped crying for them. No, I am who I am because of simple logistics.

I wonder about that little baby that was passed up. Where is she now? WHO is she now? Did she get as good of parents as I did, or was she abused and mistreated? Does she know she came *this close* to being ME? If she went to the people who were next on the list after my parents, would I have went to them if she had been chosen by mine?

God it is such a mind fuck.

More Religious Adoption Spew

This individual (who is presumptuous enough to call herself the "Third Eve"...heresy, anyone?) stopped by Irish's blog and left a rather idiotic and completely rude comment the other day.

Of course, I had to check out HER blog to see just what place she was coming from, and just as I suspected, it was filled with bible quotes and pretty pictures of angelic children. Ahhhh, even the adoption agencies themselves would be jealous.

I mean, really. Going off on "real" mothers (hmm, inferiority complex much?) and whining about adoptees not, what, seeing the whole picture?

What is there to see?

That we were abandoned, given up to strangers, and that we have a very real, VALID, pain and anger for that?

I suppose she assumes that only "happy" adoptees are "balanced" and that us "angry" types need God, oh pity the poor unbalanced adoptee who is angry and in pain, don't we know that everyone feels pain from time to time? Pfffft.

You know I find it interesting that she starts her post off with

"a real mother will put her child’s life above her own. "

That's something that thousands of n-mothers do every day, giving up their children for adoption, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes they don't have much of a choice at all.

But she said it herself, these are the REAL mothers.

Not the ones who are waiting in the wings to snatch them up, and justify it with "God told me to".

I find it amusing that these people use scripture to try to validate themselves and their love for adoption.

Exodus 22:21-23 (New International Version)
22 "Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan. 23 If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry.

Yet thousands of "widows and orphans" are taken advantage of every day, in the name of adoption.

Jeremiah 49:11
Leave your orphans; I will protect their lives. Your widows too can trust in me."

Nope, don't see God telling you to snatch up children there.

# Deuteronomy 10:18
He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing.

Hmmm...seems God wants us to HELP these poor unfortunates, not help ourselves TO them, as in this passage:

# Job 24:9
The fatherless child is snatched from the breast; the infant of the poor is seized for a debt.

Try to justify it all you want, but adoptin' fer da Lord is nothing but hypocritical.

If you TRULY want to be Christlike, you'd be helping families stay together, not ripping them apart.

But is it safe?

I love amusement parks.

I have since I was a kid. I remember going up to the local one here, it was an annual tradition with the church youth group, and my friend Stacy and I were completely inseparable and we'd hit every roller coaster and loopy ride we could hit in as short as time possible.

Of course we'd have to be really dumb teenagers and talk in this fake Australian accent the whole time, we were pretending to be foreign exchange students, oh we were a hit with the boys (because teenage boys are the most gullible of the species and who could resist two young blondes who were supposedly from Down Under, mate?) lol.

Yeah, those were the days. Free from our parents, running wild through the park, flirting with boys, and winding up sick to our stomachs from so much junk food and thrill rides.

Ahhh, youth. I'm so glad I am all growed up and beyond that.

Did you know that every year, there are hundreds of injuries at amusement parks and traveling fairs? Maybe you know someone, probably you don't, but I'm sure we've all at least heard of them.

The 4 year old kid who died at Disney; the girl who lost her feet on the Zipper.

Did you also know that while traveling fairs and amusement parks have regulated safety regulations, the stationary parks do not? Most don't have any, while some are left to provide their own safety checks. It is kind of scary, when you think about it.

Lately there has been more attention to this, some of the injured people have been bringing this to the public eye and trying to pass stricter safety regulations on these parks and the individual rides. And I would agree that that is a good thing.

Wouldn't you?

I would think that almost all of us would agree that when you go to an amusement park, you expect that the car won't come off the track or your limbs won't be severed. Our safety should be paramount, not an afterthought.

We wouldn't tell these injured people to shut up and just get over it, because they had a "bad experience", would we?

Yet that's what thousands of adoptees are told every single day, when we try to speak up about the pain that adoption has caused us in our lives.

Yet if something was hurting your child, or ANY child, wouldn't you think that people would want to do something about it? Why does society keep burying their collective heads in the sand when it comes to this issue? Is it because, unlike those injured by amusement park rides, our injuries are emotional, and not out there where everyone can see them?

It would stand to reason that if adoption is hurting the adopted, then something is wrong with the system. Something needs to be fixed, we need better safety controls, we need stricter regulation.

But nobody is listening, and the entire adoption amusement park is still operating, unregulated, hurting and injuring adoptee after adoptee as the giant ferris wheel keeps turning and turning, collecting child after child and dropping them off into the hands of waiting adopters.

Is "family building" really more important than the health of the building blocks themselves?

Abolish Adoption?

There seems to be some kind of misunderstanding in the midst of the adoption reformers (or, "angry adoptees lol) and the rest of the world, those who love adoption and don’t see anything wrong with it at all look at the reformers and think we’d all like to see it go away completely, be abolished, leave no other alternative for those poor, unwanted, unloved, homeless, orphaned, abused, neglected children.

Obviously, adoption has to be an option; there will always be a need for loving and stable homes. Oh, there are some people who truly do feel that adoption should go away completely, and some days, I tend to sway in that direction, but in reality, I know there is always a need for it. It just needs some tweaking, the furniture needs to be rearranged, the place needs a renovation.

A recent question over on the barf-fest that is Yahoo! Answers really tickled my funny bone (and not in a delightful way) and got me to thinking…if this person thinks that the pro-reform group has it backwards, then, WOW, he/she should take a long, hard look in the gilded mirror. This person states,

“Why do some adoptees want to ban adoption? I mean are they so angry they cannot see that adoption can benefit many? Can they not see outside their own “pain” that not everyone in the adoption industry is evil, not every decision to relinquish was forced? Do they honestly believe the foster care system is preferable? Or are they being influenced by b mothers groups, whose recollections of events may be hazed by regret and guilt?”

I don’t know where to start with this one. I mean, idiots come in all shapes and sizes, and I’d say that judging by this post, this idiot must be quite well rounded.

So I’ll just start at the beginning: Why do some adoptees want to ban adoption? I mean are they so angry they cannot see that adoption can benefit many?

Yes, start with the “angry adoptee” stereotype, always effective. Good show. Clap, clap. And just who is adoption benefiting…lawyers? Adoption agencies? I won’t argue with you there, bud. Yes, I’m sure there are MORE than a few happy adoption workers, whistling all the way to the bank. Oh, and let’s not forget the adopters, yes, it works out well for them too, they get that shiny new baybee, all cute and warm and smelling like oozing green shit.

Can they not see outside their own “pain” that not everyone in the adoption industry is evil, not every decision to relinquish was forced?

No, I can’t see outside my own pain. Neither can my n-mother, but thanks for your caring and compassion, I see that you must be one of those non-evil types, I can feel the love oozing from your pores. I wish you had adopted me, not.

Do they honestly believe the foster care system is preferable?

Preferable to what…having my name changed, my birth certificate altered and the original one sealed and locked away from me? Having my records made unavailable to me? Having my entire genealogy, my medical history, my social background become a huge secret that is ILLEGAL for me to know? Because I guess yeah, I’d rather know than be treated like a criminal for wanting to know.

Do you have to have a piece of paper to PROVE you are a parent, or can you love a child without it?

Or are they being influenced by b mothers groups, whose recollections of events may be hazed by regret and guilt?

This is a funny one. Regret and guilt…GEE DO YA THINK MORON?? Pffffffft.

I don’t need anyone to influence me, btw. I am an adult who is fully capable of forming my own opinions and thoughts, thank you very much. But thanks for treating me like an incapable child, again, you must be one of those non-evil types, I can still feel the love. Mmmmm.

You know, I thought some more about this idiot’s ranting and the same logic could be applied to those silly angry mothers who formed that dumb little thing called MADD.

I mean, why do some angry mothers want to stop everyone from driving home from the bar after a night of drunken debauchery just because one or two of them might have lost one of their kids? Can’t these mothers not see beyond their own pain that not EVERY drunken person who drives home ends up killing somebody? Or are they being influenced by AA members, whose memories are hazed by too many tequila shots and guilt about getting a little too flirty with every man in the bar?

Yeah. Why spoil the fun for all the adopters just because a few adoptees are hurt by being adopted, right?

Because it’s ALLLLL about the children.

Sure.

A Case for Adoption Reform

See my original post at http://antiadoption.wordpress.com/2008/05/26/a-case-for-adoption-reform/

I wrote this blog piece for Antiadoption, but I wanted to also highlight it here.

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Straight from the horse’s mouth.

I’d like to thank Lori Tay, a somewhat recent commenter to Anti-Adoption, for her very honest and poignant comment. It took a lot of courage and guts for her to be so truthful about how infertile couples TRULY feel about adoption and the little adoptees they may someday choose to bring into their lives, and I think it’s this type of hard-hitting, brutal honesty that we all need to see exactly why adoption isn’t the great thing that it’s hyped up to be.

Thank you, Lori. Honestly.

For those of you who haven’t seen Lori’s comment, here it is, copied for you:

Anti-adoption advocates hate infertile couples in general, seeing us as the problem. What they fail to realize is that many, many infertile couples have NO desire at all to adopt. For us, adoption would only be a VERY LAST RESORT.

That’s right, birthmothers - your child would be a last resort for us, whether you like that or not. Your child is not the great prize you may think he is. What most of us want most is our own biological child!

Thank God for advances in reproductive medicine. IVF success rates are improving all the time. I predict in the future there will be a lot fewer people adopting or fostering children, because they will be able to have their own child.

What Lori said is so deep and profound, it makes one wonder why ANYONE would place an innocent child in the home of an infertile couple. Kind of dispels the myth of the “win-win” situation, doesn’t it?

But what Lori brings up here is a fact that far too many adoptees already know…that we really ARE second best, we ARE the last resort, that our adopters really would have rather had their own. Too many adoptees are growing up in homes where they are not treated well, are not loved, and are, well, to put it frankly, either physically or emotionally abused because their adopters chose the consolation prize…adoption.

Thanks Lori for bringing it to us straight from the infertile horse’s mouth. What so many adoptees have tried to say, and has fallen on deaf ears, might finally be heard from the infertile mouth itself.

DON’T stop telling your truth, please.

How in the world could any adoption agency or social worker in good conscience, ever place a child in the home of someone with this much anger and animosity toward that very child? But it happens, it happens every day, and who pays the price? That innocent baby. That second choice, that last resort, pays the price for not being the biological offspring that their adopters wanted SO badly.

And if we complain, if we want to know OUR biological family, oh boy, do we hear about it. Shut up and be grateful, don’t hurt your adopters, you know the drill. Can’t win either way.

So it’s attitudes like this that lurk just below the surface…hidden, festering, simmering, eating away, but only a few, like Lori, have the guts to be honest about it.

I wish more did.

Maybe then we’d stop ripping families apart just so that someone else could get their consolation prize, and what little consolation it turns out to be.

The Definition of Family?

(Originally posted at Wordpress on 4/5/08)

I was reading a very nice blog post today by an adoptive father about the definition of family. This gentleman was going on to explain how he had grown up with quite an extensive clan - he had a huge family and so felt he very well understood what a family meant.

Good for him; having grown up in a very small family, I always felt a little wistful about those who had big, close, loving families.

But at the same time, he went on to say that a family isn't only made up of blood. And I can agree with him - to a point.

Because for someone who grew up with a big, huge, loving family of blood relatives, how can he possibly know or understand how it is for the adoptee who has to grow up and not be related to anyone?

I wonder where his little adoptee's family comes in to any of this. Are they a part of his "family"? Does he even consider them, the people who created "his" child, the people who share a very close connection to this little adoptee?

No, family may not be only blood, but blood is definitely a major factor in determining who IS your family.

I grew up without my "family" and I missed them, terribly, every single day of my life. I yearned for them, longed for them, cried for them. Even though I had my adoptive "family", and YES I love my adoptive family, when you don't have people around you who look like you, who act like you, who ARE made up of the same stuff that you are made up of, you just, well - you feel it. It's a feeling deep within your bones that you can never really shake. Even if the family who is raising you is the best, most loving group of people you could ever have the pleasure of loving and living with, sometimes love just isn't enough.

Families are not interchangeable.

I'm sure that this man's little adoptee will grow up in a very loving household, with a huge extended adoptive family to dote on him and care for him. But I hope they realize that that little adoptee has lost something - his original family, the family he was born to, a whole group of people who share his talents, his interests, his eye color and nose and hair and same big toe. Perhaps this little adoptee will miss them too...and if he does, I hope they are sensitive to that.

And, I'm happy that this man grew up with his big, happy, blood-related family.

I just wish that I had had the same opportunity to be raised with mine.

Infertility and Adoption

(Originally posted at Wordpress on 10/3/07)

So many times, a couple who is faced with infertility comes to the conclusion that when modern technology fails, they will ultimately turn to adoption as a means to bring a baby into their lives.

But as an adoptee, I'd like to as you to indulge me a moment, to listen to a side of the story on why adoption may not always be the next step in the "family building" plan.

In adoption, everything is advertised, televised, played and swayed to the angle of the joy and happiness that it brings the adopting parents. It makes their dreams come true; it fulfills their wishes, it makes their lives complete.

But where in all of this family building and life completing are the adoptees' rights and needs considered? Adoptees are basically treated as objects of desire; as things to be gotten; a means to an end to fulfill a desire.

We are force-fed this notion that we were a gift; that we were "chosen", that we were lucky and loved so much by our natural mothers that she gave us away and that our adoptive parents loved us even more because they chose to take us in. We made their lives so complete and happy and we are just these little gifts from god and on and on and on.

It's a huge pair of shoes to fill, being sent from god himself. Better not screw up.

But let me fill you in on a little secret:

Adoption is not a win-win-win situation. Not in the least.

Adoption is, first and foremost, LOSS.

Loss for the relinquishing mother.

Loss for the infant.

The one who really gains is the adoptive parent, but even so, the child will always have that biological connection to somebody else, will never be fully "theirs".

You wouldn't put a tiger in your garage and call it a dog, would you? Of course not, that would be silly.

So why do people expect to take another person's child and call it "theirs"? It just doesn't work that way; nature cannot be fooled.

And yet we continue on with this "adoption is wonderful" cycle, offering up babies to the adoption altar in the name of curing infertility.

But you know what?

Biology matters, and you know it's true.

Why do infertile couples spend so many years, so much money on fertility treatments? Because the WANT a CHILD of their OWN. Biology MATTERS.

And adopted kids know that, they know they are Plan B, the second choice. You can deny it all you want, but if it weren't the truth, why wasn't adoption the first choice?

And even after all that trying, all that money, all that extreme heartache and pain of not being able to conceive your own biological child, can you not now imagine that same pain and realize that this child you hope to adopt, also feels the same way about wanting to be with his or her natural family?

That the pain you feel in being unable to conceive, is only the tip of the iceberg of the pain a relinquishing mother feels when she hands over the child she brought into the world?

That the pain you feel in being unable to conceive, is only the extreme tip of the iceberg of the pain an newborn infant feels, when he cries for his mommy and SHE NEVER COMES?

Newborn babies are not born into the world, hoping and praying to be given away to some strangers, so that they can make their dreams come true. These little newborns that are growing in your heart, only want their mommy, the one and only person they know, they love, she is their world. This separation in the name of "family building" causes unspeakable trauma to the infant; and the really sad part is, this poor little child does not have the words or the capability to express his sadness.

You might call it colic; when he is really screaming, where is my mommy?

Or, he may seem like an extremely good baby; he has given up, has resolved himself to the sad fact that mommy is never coming back. That's a sad reality, folks, just try to imagine yourself as a tiny baby, not knowing where you are or who you are with, and the one and only person you want - your mother - has vanished.

That's got to be a terrifying feeling indeed.

Adoption. It is not win-win, it is not the natural answer to infertility.

I just hope some of you readers will think about this.