Saturday, September 18, 2010

From the heart of an adoptee

I thought I would share someone else's blog post with you. Karen at Assembling Self writes lovely poetry. I also like what Judge Weatherford had to say. Moms aren't the only ones who feel the loss.

Birth Bonds - The Severing of Biology in Adoption

As leaf to tree, as flower to bee, as cloud to sky and rain.
Like foot to toe, and face to nose, and person to a name.
Together these, like fish to sea, forever will belong.
Just as notes an artist wrote, or lyrics to a song.
Like tracks to a train this perpetual chain is what the world is based on.
There are links between each living thing and dusk that turns to dawn.
A stopped hand on the clock, a lost key to a lock, are vital connections gone.
Like pasts left behind, that we need to find, in order to carry on.
I hope you know what I'm trying to show, the point I'm attempting to make.
Like a child to it's mother, or sister and brother, some bonds aren't meant to break.

It still continually surprises me, after 12 years of involvement in adoption reform and education, that people do not grasp the vastness of having your genetic and biological foundation taken from you when you are adopted. Only through our eyes, those that can clearly see, can anyone comprehend that the world revolves around family and heredity everyday, and through generations that came before them. It was said best by the honorable Judge Weatherford to an adoptee upon their petition to open adoption records.

"The law must be consonant with life. It cannot and should not ignore broad historical currents of history. Mankind is possessed of no greater urge than to try to understand the age-old questions: "Who am I ?", and "Why am I?" Even now the sands and ashes of the continents are being sifted to find where we made our first steps as man. Religions of mankind often include ancestor worship in one way or another. For many the future is blind without sight of the past. Those emotions and anxieties that generate our thirst to know the past are not superficial and whimsical. They are real and they are "good cause" under the law of man and God." - Hon. Wade Weatherford, S. Carolina Circuit Court Judge

Thankfully there are those out there who are recognizing an adoptee's right to their biological background. I've seen great progress in the last few years. But, it is far from enough. Money has and is still playing the largest part in separating children from their parents and extended family. I was sickened recently in finding an adoption website that claimed to do extensive "birthmother marketing". Along with the claim "Some of our adoptive parents had babies within as little as four months". What is next "negotiable down payment", "money back guarantee", or "low monthly payments"???

Those in charge of this have no real understanding of the life long devastating effects of closed records adoptions. Wait, strike some of that, they do but are too caught up in the profits and benefits from the adoption machine and they refuse to listen those harmed by this system. Why are people who have no true understanding of any aspects of adoption involved with the daily function and perpetuation of it? They act as sheep blindly being hearded by groups such as NCFA who are wolves...and yes...as you guessed it...in sheep's clothing. They profit off of our our pain and suffering in the guise of creating "families".

Let the voices of adoptees be heard. We are more numerous than you think. So many are out there feeling lost, alone, and misunderstood seeking and searching, as I was for so many years, who have not found their voices yet. Until that time we will speak for them.

Thank you Karen

1 comment:

  1. What a beautiful poem! I believe one person can make a change,and if we each of us affected by adoption, educate those that don't understand the loss as much as we can tolerate, I hope it will create a chain reaction. All I know for sure, is that we must keep speaking up or things will never change. Great piece!

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