Adoption Lies

Now that I've gotten my hate list about adoption out of my system maybe this post will sound more reasonable to the folks who think that I'm just ranting because I was hurt. Do I have a biased outlook on adoption? Of course I do. I don't see how anyone can have their entire lives affected by something this huge and not have a view that's tilted in a certain direction. My hate list is mainly aimed at the infant adoption industry and it's exploitation of mothers and children.

Should I not talk about adoption then if my view is biased? Should what I have to say be discounted because of my particular experience? When I hear the words... "just because you had a bad experience", my jaw clenches, my back stiffens and my blood pressure rises. Yes, I had a bad experience. Does that mean that everything else I say about adoption should be ignored and dismissed as the ramblings of someone who is just bitter and angry?

Everything I experienced as a mother of adoption loss and as an adoptee colors my vision of adoption but I also have the sense to learn, read, study and listen to other mothers and adoptees. I don't speak for the entire world of adoption, I speak for myself and of my own experience. It's interesting though that my experience is remarkably similar to many thousands of others and their experiences. That in itself speaks volumes about why the dark side of adoption has to be exposed. Why else would there be so many groups and communities of people getting together online to share these life events with each other. We need each other's support. There's comfort in being understood and realizing that we're not alone, especially when the majority of people in our communities don't have a clue what life inside our side of adoption is really like.

I had a discussion one day with a dear friend who also happens to be an adoptive mother. I was saying that I didn't believe adoption was necessary, even in the case of children already available for adoption who are in the system and waiting. I told her I thought permanent legal guardianship was a viable alternative. Up until that day we had had many discussions about both of our histories with adoption and she has agreed with the work I do and my views on the subject. This one area seemed to be a sticking point though. She felt that the children needed something more than legal guardianship - they needed adoption to feel as though they were truly a permanent part of the family. I totally agree with her that we need to make a system where children have permanence and consistency within a loving family but I didn't see any reason a child couldn't have that within legal guardianship.

The word "adoption". This is where the trouble lies. Once we both got clear on what we meant by the word adoption then we realized that we really did agree. It was just that word that was getting in the way. In general when people think of adoption they think of a child joining a family, being loved, protected and cared for for the rest of their lives. Ideally, that's what would happen. But.... in our system the way it is, along with that possible scenario is the erasure of the child's entire history - family name, genetics, medical information etc... In too many cases, a child's name is changed without consideration for his natural family heritage. His legal documents are changed to become lies and the child is the one who is expected to "adopt" and adapt to a new family history. When broken down into it's most fundamental elements, adoption is nothing more than a lie. This is what I object to, not the idea of a child having a loving home.

A child can have the exact same thing - a loving, permanent home - without the lie of adoption. I don't believe the child will feel less safe or less loved if he's allowed to keep a connection with his original family. If he can't keep that connection physically then he should in the least be able to keep a family name if he chooses, be able to have all of his TRUE birth documents, be able to have a family history of his own in any form that's available to him. Encouraging him to stay connected to where he came from should always be part of that loving home he's placed in.

We have to get people to understand exactly what the word adoption means and what it does in order to change it. Adoption as it is today is nothing other than ownership. Dogs and cats should be adopted, not people.

No Promises

The discussion regarding opening the records of adoptees and giving them the same rights as every other citizen continues. I recently listened to a radio show on this topic and I planned on doing a post about it from the natural mothers perspective but today I saw a post by Amanda at The Declassified Adoptee that was so spot on and eloquent that there really wasn't much I could add. Amanda - you're amazing! If you want to listen to the show I'm referencing, Amanda linked to it in her post.

The only other thing I could add is that from my point of view, listening to others speak for natural mothers grates on me the same way it grates on adoptees to have others speak for them. In my case I'm both so it's doubly irritating. In this instance one of the guests on the show felt that there was some danger in adoptees having access to information regarding their birth because of the risk of outing a mother who had surrendered a child. She was perpetuating the myth of mothers being promised anonymity. Once again as mothers we have to step up and say we were promised NOTHING! We were the ones told not to go looking for our children. We were essentially told to disappear into the woodwork, crawl under a rock, go away, pretend it never happened, go have other babies, leave this one alone or you'll damage the child, stay away, don't ask for anything or you're considered selfish, don't interfere, and so on and so on.

I'm here to say once again, I didn't want to be a secret from my own daughter. I didn't want anonymity. I wanted to be able to tell anyone who would listen that I had a daughter. I didn't want to hide away in a maternity home. I wanted her. I wanted her back from the moment I lost her. I spent every day for 22 years looking for her. If she had found me first I would have been shouting it from the rooftops. So to the people who have not walked in my shoes yet they think they can speak for me, to be perfectly blunt - SHUT THE HELL UP! No one has the right to tell adults who they can and can't associate with. No one has the right to keep an adult's personal information a secret from them.

In my opinion, as a mother of adoption loss and as an adoptee, the adoptee's right to know who they are and where they come from trumps anyone else's desire to keep secrets. As a child the adoptee had no say in the matter about a contract affecting them. As an adult an adoptee should have everything to say about that contract.

Resolve to keep talking

I learned about this organization Resolve - The National Infertility Association from a post on Facebook. They are lobbying to get tax credits for people suffering from infertility because the cost of treatment is so high. I find that a wee bit frustrating. Are there tax credits for those of us who have been through cancer? I'll be paying on those medical bills for years. Cancer is a life threatening crisis. Is infertility a life threatening crisis? They call it a crisis on the website. Now I'm not trying to minimize the pain that people feel when faced with this problem, yes I know it's painful, but how about a little perspective. The catastrophic and dramatic language that they use to get their point across can be a bit much. You're not going to die if you don't have a child.

Of course this group is also pushing adoption, it's all over the site. Adopters already get a huge tax credit to help them with the cost of adopting yet most natural mothers who surrender their infants are doing so because of lack of financial support. Why is that? If the adopters were really concerned about doing what they could to help children they would be adopting an older child from the foster care system who really does need a home. And....those adoptions cost very little if anything. Suppose a baby's natural parents aren't able to be there for the child and a family member is raising that baby. Where is the big tax credit for them? If they're really concerned about children why don't they do something to help single mothers instead of taking their children away from them? They don't because the adoption industry and groups like this push the adoption agenda which is of course money in their pockets and because they're more concerned about their own crisis of childlessness.

Resolve is having a family building conference next month. This is from the site....

So, You Want to be a Parent? Nothing can Stop You! The keynote speaker at Southwest Region’s 19th annual family building conference is Bill Grundfest, an award-winning writer and producer. “If what you want is to be a parent, nothing can stop you," Grundfest said. "And, once you are, the ‘how’ you became a parent will make no difference to anyone, least of all to you.” (bold my emphasis)

Well Mr. Grundfest, I beg to differ. Do you really think that if a couple become parents through infant adoption that it will make no difference to anyone?! How about the mother who will be grieving for her child for the rest of her life. How about the child who has been taken from his natural family, has been cut off from his history, has had his birth documents falsified, who as an adult is still treated like a child and not allowed to have his own personal records. What about all that?

When are adults going to start showing more concern for children and less for themselves? Everything I said above may sound like a broken record but every time I come across another site like this and attitudes like that of Mr. Grundfest I get pissed off all over again.