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Archive for the ‘Adoption Advocacy’ Category

Maybe we can all get along … ?

Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, Adoption News, Family, International Adoption, Older Parent Adoption, tagged , , on January 4, 2008| 36 Comments »

The conversation with Gershom continues, and a plan may be forming to attempt unification among those with adoption in their lives by working together even though we come to this from different directions. Although she generously offered to liaise through email, I’m thinking a public discussion could prompt wider participation and some great ideas.

In her comment on yesterday’s blog Gershom mentioned that her focus for the next few months is on the Adoptee Rights Protest scheduled to take place in New Orleans in July. Since the adoptive parent block seems a likely group to be fully in support of rights for adoptees … adoptees being our kids that we’re willing to fight tooth and nail and walk through fire for on every issue … it occurs to me that this could possibly provide an opportunity to find out if olive branches can be construction material in bridge building.

I’m guessing that a casual observer, someone stopping by this blog looking for tips on tropical holidays or such, would assume an easy relationship between adoptive parents and adult adoptees … some for all the reasons many find infuriating, certainly … but Gershom and I won’t make that mistake. We both understand how shaky the ground is, especially after the sort of seismic activity that has been taking place recently and that treading cautiously is important to any walking together toward a common goal that is to be done.

In the early stages of thought on this … and I’ve not yet heard Gershom’s response, so may be completely off base by even beginning to consider a strategy … I’m thinking my contribution will begin with encouraging all adoptive families to make it a priority to investigate the issues surrounding open records, original birth certificates, access by adoptees to information on their identities and such, and to form an opinion; if that opinion agrees with those who fight for adoptee rights, join in the efforts to help them gain them.

If I could be so bold as to suggest a beginning step for Gershom, it would be to ask her to inspire adoptees to think about how they feel about accepting offered efforts from adoptive parents … if they want us in this fight in the first place. It won’t help a bit if our exertions are to be taken as attempts to step on toes, and since this is an adoptee-driven project they get to say who can climb aboard.

(I do know there are many, many adoptive families very involved on all levels of the open records fight, but I’m speaking here about those who may have been intimidated by, turned away from or turned off to adoptee issues by some of the more strident and aggressive, and those who have not yet begun to consider how the prevailing climate will eventually impact their children. Bastard Nation may just be missing a family or two with the message, after all.)

If there seems to be a consensus that joining forces for this event, this specific issue, is acceptable, then we all have to drop the rancor and get out of the habit of bitchy backbiting and “…but what about me?” ing. By beginning with this narrow focus, might we not filter out a lot of the miasma of misery that so often muddies the waters between us with “my pain is bigger or harder or more painful than your pain” contests, and simply accept the fact that all of us come to this table with a hunger for something gnawing at our guts?

(For those so compelled, the rancor and backbiting can still continue unabated as long as it’s kept away from this one issue. Does that sound fair?)

I can’t help but have niggling at the back of my brain the thought that someone reading this is ready to jump down my throat out of an assumption that I’m trivializing something somewhere, an idea that illustrates just how tentative steps may need to be, but we’ll get nowhere if we don’t start somewhere.

We don’t need to agree now on whether adoption is all or partly good or bad, if it should be banned or honored, if it helps more than it hurts or hurts more than it helps. We’re nowhere near ready to sit down at one table to discuss legislative improvements to the process or definitions of reform. BUT we can decide if we will or will not work together toward a goal that focuses on adoptees gaining the rights to their identity and a date in New Orleans in July that will highlight that goal.

If it turns out that we can, the chances of making progress on the other issues improves dramatically.

I am open to all suggestions … as long as they don’t involve impossible contortions for self-gratification. Ach! What the heck? I’ll take those, too, at this stage …

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The Evolutionary Benefits of Adoption

Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, Adoption News, Celebrities, Celebs, Fun, International Adoption, Older Parent Adoption, tagged , , , , on January 3, 2008| 19 Comments »

“My theory of evolution is that Darwin was adopted.”
Steven Wright

Steven Wright cracks me up. His droll delivery of distilled nuggets of simple, yet warped observation always strikes me as funny, and often gives an amused pause for thought. Getting to where he ends up requires strolling in from new and unusual directions, something that can be very good for keeping perceptions fresh and challenged.

The line above, of course, caught my eye and started me down a thought path that has led to a blog post. How handy, since a blog post was on today’s “to do” list.

Although “The Evolutionary Benefits of Adoption” is a ridiculously grand title that appears to claim one hell of a lot of ground this post never even begins to approach, it makes me laugh … striking me as funny on many levels … and reflects my morning ponderings prompted by Mr. Wright’s one-liner.

There are plenty of people who would never choose to put the words “adoption” and “benefit” in the same sentence, some even going so far as to suggest that adoption itself spawns nothing less than mass murderers, serial killers.

The website “Adopted Killers” … picture lurid, blood-red copy on a black background … that postulates this connection is high drama, courtroom photos and turgid bombast that in spite of supposed intent ends up making a pretty good case for adoption.

(Keeping with the theme of amusing lines, one from this site is a classic, although I doubt it was devised to entertain:

WHY are there twice as many Adopted Killers who are known to be in the category of Adoptees Who Killed Their Adopters?

Now, really … isn’t that one of the funnier lines you’ve seen in a while? Not only the spontaneous use of capital letters which is always a hoot, but the heart and soul –no mention of brain, of course — of this classic example of nonsense and illogic. I have to laugh ever time I see it … and it is fairly widely quoted by those who apparently don’t see the joke.)

As I read through the sketchy examples of adopted killers, I can’t help but notice the damaging effects of inappropriate kinship placements, foster care, mental illness and genetics, and it occurs to me that some of these people may have found less dangerous paths if adoption had been more a feature in their lives, rather than less.

As for evolving humanity, the examples of adopted people making huge changes for the positive in the world are impressive.

From way back in the 300s BC when Aristotle’s parents died … he wasn’t officially adopted, but raised by a guardian, then married an adoptee and adopted himself … and the basis of what we now call science was born, to the 1800s in America that saw George Washington Carver, one of this country’s most important inventors, adopted after the death of his mother, the evolution of our humaneness has been spurred by adoption.

Would I be writing or you be reading today without the contributions of Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison and who they became at least partly through their adoptions? Perhaps, but there would be long odds on the information age developing as it has had they not forged the trails they did.

So, perhaps there are some “evolutionary benefits” of adoption, after all, since the world has more than marginally improved through the efforts of adopted people who have passed along the positives.

If nothing else, I suppose, those opposed to adoption might take comfort in the idea (?) that twice as many adopted killers are adoptees who killed their adopters, therefore suggesting to anyone equating adoptive parents with evil incarnate that the result is fewer of those.

I wonder what Steven Wright would do with that …

(Here’s a list of famous people with adoption in their backgrounds.)

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Adoption: Pro and Anti — a conversation

Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, Cambodia, Family, International Adoption, Older Parent Adoption on January 2, 2008| 6 Comments »

Continuing the conversation with Gershom from her response to yesterday’s post …

We do walk more common ground than divergent, and I suspect that’s true in more cases than people are willing to admit.

About the Australian system, it does offer options and food for thought. Keeping in mind the horrors from which it developed also gives some hope that processes can evolve from even the most hideous circumstances. (Although there is cause to worry about how bad things must get before coordinated action is taken … ) The intense shame of Australians over their deplorable history of domestic adoption — and few countries can lay claim to as despicable a bout of modern-day social experimentation — has prompted radical changes to the systems there. Some would suggest the pendulum has swung a bit wide in correction attempts, but that’s how these things work in the world.

How well government running and regulating works overall, however, is debatable, as is being proved now in Iowa and New Hampshire. Some think it’s great, and others see it as a root of evil. Most certainly, though, its manifestation in Australia is very different from what a similarly titled condition would look like in, say, Cambodia.

So, where do we go from here? You and I, I mean. After all, if you … the author of a blog you titled “Anti-adoption”… and me … a widely-besmirched advocate who many would like to gag … are finding we agree on as broad a base as we apparently do, is there a foundation here for bridging a divide and working together?

Obviously, we are both intent on educating and informing, and that is vital. From expectant women in crisis to potential adoptive parents to policy makers, information is the key to basing decisions and practices in ethical, fair and honest ground so any adoption journey that may be taken starts off on the right foot and leads in a positive, not negative direction.

You and I might choose to stress different aspects of the ethical the fair and the honest, but if in the general community less time and energy was being spent in argument for the sake of argument, bitchy slap fights, self-centered attention-seeking and demands for recompense for water long over the bridge, we could pass along more information to a wider audience than now attempts to breach the fray.

How much difference could it make if it became very, very likely that every scared and confused pregnant girl and every hopeful adoptive parent had access to the information just you and I could pass along, not to mention the wealth of knowledge and experience so many are willing and eager to share? What if everyone approaching an agency was well-informed and prepared to demand ethics and answers and knew the true costs involved?

That, for just a start, is what I see as possible if the bickering slowed down and people put aside their pettiness and accusations of evil or stupidity or whatever other insulting approaches they seem to find so comforting for some reason.

I care deeply and passionately about the fate and welfare of children. You care deeply and passionately about the fate and welfare of children. That would appear to indicate a consensus, and through consensus progress is so much more likely than without.

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Differing opinions on adoption: Responding to Gershom

Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, Cambodia, Entitled to opinions, Family, International Adoption, Older Parent Adoption on January 1, 2008| 15 Comments »

This post began as a reply to a comment from Gershom on yesterday’s post.

I didn’t mean to accuse Gershom of ignoring the suffering of children, but to point out this as one of the reasons for my strong advocacy.

Of course families can be “adopted”, and if everyone who could supported just one other than their own the world would be a better place. Millions of dollars are spent daily by organizations and governments who have been charged with the duty to care for the people they cover, and some actually do spend a portion of that money helping, yet every year the orphan numbers increase.

Adoption “as we know it today” is a very big umbrella, and to oppose everything under that umbrella seems simplistic and short-sighted to me … rather like that “throwing the baby out with the bath water” thing, especially with so many “babies” in the “bath”.

Changes to the various systems, reform, providing other options in addition … all are necessary and some are happening, albeit too slowly in many opinions. It seems arrogant, however, to demand immediate changes by developing nations when the foster system in the US is a train wreck that is ignored year after year. It’s real people lost in the lurch when programs close, and although some might consider them collateral damage, rest assured those taking the hits don’t look at it so cavalierly.

I also must add that not all bio families should be preserved, that biology does not a good parent guarantee, and that many more children than do would benefit from adoptive families. And contrary to some thought, not everyone who conceives wants to parent, and those that don’t deserve options.

I know this will rub many the wrong way, but in my view a world with more adoption, not less, would be a better world than the one we have now. If every child beaten, abused or neglected, every child victim orphaned by war, by AIDS, by famine or abandoned by need or greed could be placed in a safe and loving family … in my mind, the closer we get to this idea, the closer we are as a species to showing our worth.

Given the huge numbers of children in the circumstances described, however, reaching any more than a tiny fraction isn’t possible. It’s that tiny fraction I hold out hope for and argue in favor of.

World peace, an end to global hunger and grinding poverty, wiping out corruption and discouraging cupidity are all noble goals, and I support any and all efforts toward accomplishing these and more. Once again, however, holding out hope that any of this happens on a grand scale in my time rather disputes the lessons of history and ignores too much of the base nature of humans.

So, while striving to create a world that is fair and bountiful and loving, more than 200 million children suffer, and if a few thousand of those can be adopted by families who adore them hope lives and a few more resources are freed for others.

Adoption is so often an apples/oranges discussion … while I’m picturing five-year-old Cambodian sex slaves someone else has in mind a 20-something American woman being coerced into relinquishing. My favoring more adoption so fewer children are sniffing glue to keep warm under Romanian streets is interpreted as an encouragement to grab babies from loving mothers in crisis.

Conversely, when someone demands family preservation, what comes to my mind are children ending up dead because a bio family was given one more chance too many. Insistence that reform means governments take control of adoptions has me thinking of deeply imbedded corruption that has and will continue to blithely sacrifice children in favor of political milage and blatant greed.

Calls to end the option of adoption for the children of the world rarely come from the uninvolved, and usually sound very much as if they issue from those with an axe to grind. When such calls come from adoptees, and especially strident calls that sometimes go as far as to claim anyone is better off dead than adopted … this is not an unknown claim, although certainly not universal, as Gershom shows … it can appear as an attempt to capture some sort of higher ground that others aren’t entitled to. When it’s birth mothers making demands to end adoption, sour grapes are the most likely flavor suspected. The contingent of adoptive parents rallying forces to end adoption seem to many to be wandering around in those hair shirts I wrote about not long ago.

Although everyone is assuredly entitled to their opinions, attempts to impose those opinions on everyone else should not come under any perceived mandate, and a ban on adoption is one fell swoop of an imposition.

Those of us advocating for adoption would never presume to insist that everyone adopt a child or hint than any family who has yet to do so is intrinsically evil or stupid or selfish. We will never insist that every orphaned, abandoned or neglected child in the world be adopted, and that the failure to make this happen is a criminal act of global proportions, and it is difficult for us to understand the vociferousness of those for whom the opposite is a strong enough urge to create the sort of venom that is so often injected into what should be reasonable discussions about the welfare of children.

Once more, the apples/oranges conflict comes into play, and a conversation that begins in one mind as a levelheaded approach to serious social issues translates to an attack on all that is sacred in the American family.

It seems that the key to many of the closed doors that separate the adoption community from itself should be the children. Sounds simple enough, but when one take has it that the corrupt practice that tainted their adoption experience is reason enough to halt all adoptions while others point their focus toward the huge numbers of children for whom adoption has been or could be wonderful, the conversation tends to break down. Add voices of those considering themselves permanently damaged and others longing more than anything for a child to love and the resulting cacophony puts the kibosh on any but the loudest and least equitable confabulation.

So, where does all this leave us?

Unfortunately, for as long as we are here we’re stuck with the world we have; a world in which war and poverty and hunger and cruelty are facts of life for many, rather than few, where my view gets preeminence on my blog just as Gershom’s does on hers, because we are humans and humans are a contentious species that more often than not self-focuses to the exclusion of anything not within personal apertures.

At least those of us popping in and out of discussions on adoption are coming to the table … even when it all ends in messy food fights, still something has been exchanged … although I am as convinced of my rightness as others are of theirs, as conflicting as those may be.

Since this is the first day of a new year, I find myself wondering how 2008 will unfold regarding adoption. I’ll admit to being less than starry-eyed with optimism … after all, the 6th anniversary of the suspension on Cambodian adoption passed just a bit over a week ago … but concern for the present and future of children in the world will continue to bring me to this table. Preserving the option of adoption is one of my passions, as putting an end to it is for others.

As long as we continue to spin … and I’m talking about the planet here, not attempts to control information … some people will disagree with other people; some will take those disagreements far enough strap explosives to their bodies and blow themselves and anyone unlucky enough to be within shrapnel range to smithereens, or drop bombs, or commit genocide.

When all that is taken into account, the name-calling and snideness on adoption blogs seems pretty tame, and when the irrevelant, the fringe, the just-plain-nasty, is ignored … on those occasions where real dialogue does take place … hints of consensus do present. If that will ever lead to triad-wide warm fuzzies, I doubt, but that isn’t really the goal, is it?

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Zoe’s Ark: Not about adoption

Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, Adoption News, International Adoption, The United Nations, tagged , , on December 30, 2007| 47 Comments »

Yet another article making the rounds is attempting the grasping stretch between the Zoe’s Ark fiasco and adoption, and hitting all the right notes with some who sing that tune and have little inclination to expand their repertoire.

Written by Lebanese-born adoptee and gay activist and writer Daniel Drennan, it takes a criminal act and dresses it up as international adoption, then quotes UNICEF’s lead tout spouting off indignantly, saying:

“This is not something that should be tolerated by the international community. It is unacceptable to see children taken out of their home countries without compliance with national and international laws.”

Well, duh.

Following her quote with this from him …

Her outrage unfortunately reflects a one-sided worldview concerning adoption today.

… rather makes the point, doesn’t it?

One more time here, folks: Zoe’s Ark is NOT about international adoption, no matter how often the attempt is made to smear the two together.

As an adoptee, Mr. Drennan has opinions on the value of adoption and he is more than welcome to them, and to share them, but his status grants neither a clarity others don’t possess nor the authority to speak for an experience wider than his own.

With the employment of faulty logic and emotive presentation, Drennan does manage to convey his meaning clearly in the article, but fails to do so in a way that has much to do with the real world.

… adoption on the international level creates a “demand” for orphans that is answered by Third-World countries and the agencies that serve them with a “supply” of children; it is problematic to bring a foreign-born child into a non-multi-cultural environment; individualistic, nuclear family-based cultures undo other more community-based cultures.

This ridiculous idea that adoptive families “create” orphans is one that continues to be regurgitated regularly with little regard for the facts that 200 million children face daily, and like others who suggest that “there are things that could be done to greatly alleviate if not eliminate poverty in the world today if the collective will to do so, which would require change in the standard of living of the First World, existed”, such simply refuses to acknowledge that these are living, breathing people that suffer as the collective will of the world has its attention focused elsewhere.

Pie in the sky is not on the menu. Never has been. Never will be.

Sticking with the simplistic in Drennan’s postulations, his insistence that adoption is all about First World versus Third World suggests that he is foolish enough to think there is nobility in poverty and corruption and that Third World countries need only a shift in First World standards of living to bring the Third World to a point of providing everything a people needs to live comfortably and raise families.

I live in an African country, and like most who experience the world outside of the tidy package presented to Americans I can tell you all that just ain’t so … not in this universe, anyway. Find the parallel plane where good triumphs over evil and the righteous always prevail and I’ll be happy to take a report, but here, now, that doesn’t happen and isn’t likely to — ever.

But, when in doubt, break out the emotive language and hope no one pays any attention to the lack of sense?

Do we simply deny that baby theft and brokering exist? Is it not paradoxical that underclass children in First-World societies go unadopted, often for racist and ageist reasons? What aberrant First-Worldist rationale allows for the adoption of Third-World children, while forbidding adults from these same Third-World countries to emigrate, or while deporting those already present back to their home countries?

Wow. All that at the end of just one paragraph!

1) No we don’t deny that baby theft and brokering exists, and those occasionally, albeit rarely, even have something to do with adoption. But in the huge majority of cases theft and brokering have to do with slavery and the sex trade, both thriving, especially in countries where international adopiton is not an option. And don’t forget infanticide! That’s a biggee, too, and also has nothing to do with adoption, although an increase in possibilities could very well be helpful.

2) ‘Underclass children in First-World societies’ going unadopted has more to do with faulty systems than because of “racists and ageist reasons”. Get kids out of bio families BEFORE they are irreparably damaged and stop making it impossible to adopt transracially and far fewer ‘underclass children’ will languish. (And although it’s handy to ignore when going all self-righteous, but many adoptive families are made up of older children and sibling groups, and of different races. Okay, they are Third-World ferriners, so apparently don’t count.)

3) And what aberrant First-World rationale views international adoption as a racial issue and puts it in the same category as deportations?

I am very happy that Drennan has found some peace in returning to Lebanon as an adult adoptee after being adopted as a tiny infant and raised in the US in an adoptive family. I am sorry that he has not been successful in his search for birth family. I am in agreement on much of what he has to say about Western involvement in other countries.

It is time to speak about the hypocrisy that ignores the ever-growing gap between the First and Third Worlds and the terrible abuse of the current power imbalance between them — a continuation of a sordid history in which the poor, the nether, the “uncivilized” portions of the planet serve as source material to be plundered, exported, and sold.

Actually, it is far beyond time to speak about these issues. The world is a cruel and horrid place for more individuals than those who find it cozy and kind, and that this should not be is a no-brainer for everyone not steeped in mulitnational business interests. That said, I have to wonder why someone like Drennan feels compelled to agree so emphatically with UNICEF’s Veneman when she states:

“It is unacceptable to see children taken out of their home countries.”

Does that not sound like a very bad case of discrimination … possibly even First World elitist discrimination … against the most innocent inhabitants of the world’s most dangerous and difficult places? Does Mr. Drennan’s international adoptee status provide some sort of absolution that allows him to wish on others a fate he escaped without painting him discriminatory? Is he allowed to speak for all? For any?

When voice is given to all concerned, when the discussion is finally and honestly balanced, only then will adoption no longer be tainted with the lingering remnants of an unjustly divided world.

On this, Daniel Drennan and I agree. I await an honestly balanced discussion.

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2007: Not a good year for adoption

Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, Adoption News, International Adoption, Older Parent Adoption, The United Nations on December 29, 2007| 13 Comments »

As 2007 wraps, organizations from the U.S. Government to the United Nations to every news provider on the planet are collecting data, crunching numbers and trying to find tidy ways to package the year for presentation to the world sometime after the calendar ticks over.

Already established and making headlines, the unsurprising revelation that the number of the world’s orphans finding adoptive American families has dropped significantly. What that means in the grand scheme of time passing and evolving humanity is debate fodder.

According to this report from Federal News Radio, there were 15 percent fewer international adoptions in 2007 than over the two years previous. From China alone adoptions have plummeted from 7,906 children in 2005, to 6,493 in 2006, to only 5,453 this year. With UNICEF figures calculating Chinese orphan numbers at somewhere around 20,600,000 and growing, the ratio of chance-of-family to no-chance is miniscule and shrinking.

Tightening of requirements for families hoping to adopt from China has had a negative impact. Automatic refusal now the case for people who are overweight, bearing a facial disfigurement, with hearing problems or treating depression, among other such arbitrary reasons for rejection, has eliminated thousands of potential homes for Chinese-born children.

Cultivation of a negative image of adoption from Guatemala has also served to cut the number of prospective adoptive families, and as other countries present viable options to families and children alike, they too come under fire.

The length of time it takes to complete an adoption has expanded greatly, resulting in increasing stresses on families as they fall in love with children they will not meet for possibly years while serving to sentence these same children to whatever hardship their pre-family life will bring for as long as the process takes.

Some hail this downward trend in Americans adopting from other countries as a positive step, seeing international adoption as a form of either cultural genocide, neocolonialism, unwelcome immigration into the USA, or a market-driven greed machine perpetuated by traffickers.

UNICEF, for example, takes the position that international adoption should begin to be considered only as a “last resort”, a stance many consider to be less child-focused than is healthy that results in masses of children falling through the cracks and living their entire lives in institutions or on the streets. (Or in the case of Romanian kids who lost the option of international adoption completely, under the streets.)

Dr. Elizabeth Bartholet, Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Child Advocacy Program (CAP) at Harvard Law School, is quoted as finding the decreasing numbers of children internationally adopted as “totally depressing” and says, “UNICEF is a major force. They’ve played a major role in jumping on any country sending large number of kids abroad, identifying it as a problem, rather than a good thing.”

Those with views similar to Dr. Bartholet understand that a reduction in the number of adopted children implies little more than fewer children finding families, while genocide, colonialism, greed and trafficking saw healthy growth in 2007.

Where the numbers will be in December 2008 is anybody’s guess, and with estimates putting the global count of orphans at around 200,000,000 each child finding a safe and loving home will remove the burden resting on the shoulders of the others … just a bit.

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“a dish served cold”

Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, International Adoption, Older Parent Adoption, tagged on December 28, 2007| Leave a Comment »

” … a quest is a passion, not a dish served cold like revenge.”

Umberto Eco The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana

I’m reading Eco at the moment — “The Mysterious Flame … ” is my upstairs book this week — and the quote above jumped off the page this morning and stuck around for a while, prompting a think on quests and passions and the inverse of each.

People have asked why I spend so much time, energy and effort researching and writing on adoption … after all, even when paid to compose page after page on the topic the compensation comes nowhere close to covering either the quantity or quality of the work … but as my former editor — a skilled and dedicated professional, unlike her incompetent, bumbling usurper — knew well, it was my passion that kept my contributions coming day after day.

That the passion is fueled by a quest is certain, and the quest is nothing more or less than a determination to protect the option of adoption for the children of the world.

Unlike those who seek whatever nourishment they can claim from the “dish served cold”, I don’t suffer from residual adoption fallout, I harbor no resentments and cultivate no spores of revenge. No few birth mothers and adoptees, and the occasional guilt-plagued adoptive parent, insist that this somehow disqualifies me from any discussion and negates the veracity of my thoughts and opinions, but I suggest that a cold dish takes less well to any warming the heat of passion serves up and begrudges all attempts to provide fodder for varying appetites.

As a traditional practice, these last few days of the year will be spent in myriad positions of contemplation, of processing and sorting, of filing away for future use and jettisoning the crap that simply clutters. Before 2007 fades to history, there are windmill tilts to tot, sacred cows to milk, sour grapes to squeeze and any number of other sticks to rub together.

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A guilty mother’s lament

Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, International Adoption, Older Parent Adoption on December 27, 2007| 4 Comments »

From one mother to her child in an attempt to explain, assuage and apologize.

My Darling Child,

You are my most cherished treasure, and the fact that I am better off with you … that the world is better off with you … is a truth beyond measure. No matter that your very existence brings joy to me and hope to a planet that sees every child a possible savior, through no fault of your own your life began under odious circumstances and I feel no little shame for the part I played.

The processes involved in leading to you to becoming who, where and what you are cannot be ignored, and as we now understand it is important there be no secrets, nothing hidden. The era of secrecy is over, and only through total, brutal and complete honesty and full acceptance of parental culpability can we hope to arm you for a lifetime of potential comments that may arise from knowledge of your beginnings. You must know where you came from, and you must start that knowing now.

I have long hinted that something was amiss, and I have seen in your eyes and your behavior that you caught not a little of the guilt that shadowed those hints, so now that you are approaching your fifth birthday the time has come to divulge as fully as possible the roots of your existence; to do less would be an unforgivable omission, prompted by love, of course, but such a negligence of motherly duty that you would eventually blame me for leaving so many gaps in your story. You may not yet be able to understand everything, but at least with most of the information provided you will in future be able to specify questions and ask for details as you need and can process them.

Before there was you, there was the dream of you. Your father and I had longed for a child for a number of years, but had not had any luck. We had even gone as far as to consider adoption, but when the time came to evaluate our suitability we didn’t do well and were turned down.

You have to understand just how desperate I was to have a child to forgive what I next agreed to do, so please … please … consider my longing for you as you strive to understand the lengths I was willing to go to get you.

I do not wish to lay blame, but since it’s the truth I am telling here, I must reveal that it was your father who came up with the plan. I was appalled, and convinced only after a good deal of time. He wore me down with pastel images of all things baby, talk of strollers and cribs and sweet baby smiles. In fact, he even dusted himself with baby powder and plied me with wine in his attempts to get me to go along with his scandalous proposal.

As ashamed as I am, and as repulsive as the facts are, the truth is that your father and I had sex to make you, and more than once.Yes, yes … I know how this must strike you and how your first inclination might be to be so very ashamed of us, but this is the raw truth you must comprehend if your childhood is to be lived healthily.

It is not a pretty truth, but a truth, nonetheless, that time after time I lay on my back with my legs spread apart showing my private parts while your father placed his swollen peepee into my body and grunted and groaned and sweated and cried, soon leaving me in such a state! I was a disgusting, sticky mess, and could do nothing but lie in the filthy residue in hopes that the base biology would do its work.

Over the next months, my body ballooned, taking on repulsive dimensions. My boobies could no longer be contained in my undergarments, and, I am forced to admit, I often thought of having sex again as hormones took over much of my mind.

Then came the birth.

I have never known such pain, and hope never to again. For eighteen hours, my body knew more agony than fire or shattering bones could cause, and with unrelenting regularity. My back felt like it was cracking open every two minutes. I vomited until there was nothing left but the dregs of bile, but that came, too, hour after hour. I screamed and screamed and screamed. I cursed your father, not only for the indignity of his fertilization, but for the resulting torture.

Eventually, but only after almost an entire day of the worst suffering I had ever known, I managed to push you out of by belly through my peepee … I know how horrible that must be for you to know, but it was the only way to get you out of me … while a great amount of poop came out of my butt at the same time.

A sickly gray and lumpy cord ran from your belly button into my peepee, and when the doctor cut it you began to make noise … you mewled like some sort of animal.

You were a wrinkled, bald worm-like thing, with mottled, peeling skin and a head the shape of an onion, and covered in slime and blood. Nurses sucked some repellant gunk out of your nose, put drops in your eyes, poked your heel and drew some blood.

I cannot tell you how sorry I am that your beginnings are as horrid as they are, nor hope to absolve myself for the part I played. I only hope that you can forgive your father and me, and understand that this is often the way things happen. Also, I hope by laying this all out for you now in graphic, yet somewhat age-appropriate detail I will avoid any and all fallout that might occur over the course of your life. No matter what, you know Mama has been honest with you.

Ashamed and guilty as sin, but loving you more than anything and praying you can forgive,

Mother

Although I have no doubt this will go completely over the heads of many who have taken to reading me regularly with no intention or capability of comprehension, those who do get it will understand this post an allegory. The intention is to address the wearing of hair shirts by adoptive parents.

Definition links provided in hopes of helping more challenged readers grasp concepts beyond their usual reach.

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Loss

Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, Family, International Adoption, Older Parent Adoption, tagged on December 22, 2007| 7 Comments »

There’s been a lot of talk here and on other blogs about loss lately, perceptions and definitions of, along with finger-pointing, blame-laying, name calling, anger, resentment … blah, blah, blah … as a downward spiral picked up momentum, but I’ve no stomach for it today.

While some mothers have been busy coming up with names to call me … “Skanks”. Ah, imagine the brain that put that together! The word “simple” comes to mind … accusing me of not showing respect (they having apparently lost the capacity to read), and assuming themselves into a moron box, another mother… a dear friend — kind, gentle, loving … has being doing something else completely, and her week puts all this yapping about loss in perspective. My tolerance for base nastiness and stupidity has certainly dropped.

Eighteen weeks pregnant with her second child … her son is almost two … follow-up ultrasounds revealed that the baby she carried is anencephalic.

Anencephaly is a cephalic disorder that results from a neural tube defect that occurs when the cephalic (head) end of the neural tube fails to close, usually between the 23rd and 26th day of pregnancy, resulting in the absence of a major portion of the brain, skull, and scalp. Infants with this disorder are born without a forebrain, the largest part of the brain consisting mainly of the cerebral hemispheres (which include the isocortex, which is responsible for higher level cognition, i.e., thinking). The remaining brain tissue is often exposed – not covered by bone or skin.

Infants born with anencephaly are usually blind, deaf, unconscious, and unable to feel pain.

(Blind is a bit misleading, as that seems to indicate sightless eyes, but because the eyes are actually part of the brain there are none. This site has more on the condition. The images are VERY graphic, however, so click with caution.)

Getting the news was an unimaginable blow. It was followed by a medical recommendation to terminate the pregnancy.

My friend and her husband are not in the first blush of youth. Their son was born only after a concerted effort to conceive, and they were over the moon when this second pregnancy was confirmed. They kept the news under wraps throughout the first trimester … just in case … and breathed a well-earned sigh of relief when that passed without incident.

What agony!

Back and forth between “God’s will” and fears of how to go through the pregnancy, birth and death of their second child without scaring their first … worries about the mother’s health and how continuing on this course would compromise the chance of a viable child in the future … fear, sorrow and overwhelming pity for the child.

They sought and received second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth ultrasounds and opinions; all saw the same thing — a tiny baby with a completely open head with nothing in it.

There is no known cause of anencephaly, but that didn’t keep my friends from attempts to shoulder guilt and punish themselves, but turning inward couldn’t mitigate the anger at the powers that would create such a pitifully cruel circumstance.

None of this, however, could stay the decision. It had to be made.

Through medical means, my friend birthed this child, and the parents spent time with this daughter that could not ever be. They say she had beautiful hands.

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Birth mothers and unsubstantiated crap

Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, International Adoption, Older Parent Adoption on December 21, 2007| 21 Comments »

I started this as a reply to another nasty birth mother commenting on yesterday’s blog, but it got too long. I did explain there, however, why I use the term “birth mother”.

So … moving right along …

“but the thing is, that your attitude towards natural mothers varies somewhere between frequently criticizing us and showing constant disrepect for us.”

My attitude? What does this person know of my attitude? Obviously, nothing at all.

Although I do criticize certain birth mothers … some are nasty, crazy bitches … I have never criticized birth mothers in general, nor have I shown disrespect. In fact, I have done exactly the opposite over and over again.

And, not believing coercion exists? You’re most certainly not talking about me. Check your facts.

The bottom line on ethics in US domestic infant adoption is written under one word: coercion.

Coercion of potential birth mothers comes in different forms, but all serve to undermine a expecting mom’s right to make the correct choice for her and her child, and blur the line between what is right and what is wrong about adoption.

Pressure tactics are probably the most obvious and insidious methods used to convince a pregnant woman that relinquishing her child at birth is the way to go.

Family members, sometimes well meaning but taking the short view, can be the first to start piling on weight after heavy weight of guilt, fear and diminishing expectations, as they postulate a doom and gloom scenario of the future.

It’s not unusual for parents to arrange everything from abortions to homes for unwed mothers to adoption by friends or relatives, without even consulting the expectant mother. By the time she’s informed, other parties can consider whatever action has been thought best a fait accompli.

If a situation is presented as hopeless, often hope isn’t looked for, and if the embers of fear are fanned into full-blown flames at the same time, even relatively simple options can disappear – go up in smoke.

You know who wrote that?

I did.

It’s part of a book on domestic adoption I was hired to write for Adoption.com, a book I was determined to have address the hard issues regarding adoption, and I refused to gloss over anything in favor of helping adoptive parents get the idea that it’s all about warm fuzzies. Jan Baker knows the book because I went to her repeatedly with questions while seeking real information I could pass on to potential adoptive parents. I ran almost everything to do with the triad by her for a valued opinion.

I also talked with Jenna Hatfield and quoted her on her experience with an unethical agency.

Here’s something else:

If an expectant mother can’t come up with very good reasons not to parent, everyone involved has an obligation to question why the child is being relinquished.

Has she been pressured into making this choice? Has she been encouraged to let someone else decide for her? Have there been lies involved, or strong efforts to diminish the experience and convince her that, “time heals all wounds,” and that she’ll soon get over any suffering she may feel from the loss of her child?

For the long-term happiness of all members of the triad, for the successful blending of birth parents/child/adoptive family that allows a child to grow in a safe climate of warmth and love, the foundations of the adoption must be solid and rooted in integrity.

Now, I know that many of the more rabid birth mothers will take issue, insisting that there is NO WAY IN HELL there can be any happiness or success or safe climates or warmth or love or integrity, but they are too far up their own butts to ever see the light so there’s not much point in trying to light a candle.

And here’s something I wrote just yesterday for Adoptive Parent’s Network, once again as advice to potential adoptive parents early in the process:

As hard as it may be when your longing for a child is great, it must always be remembered that what you are hoping so hard to end up with is someone else’s child right up until the point that child becomes yours, so respect, honor and ethics are paramount.

Once a match is made, there’s a face attached to the respect, honor and ethics mentioned in step eight … the face of the woman planning to place her child permanently and irrevocably with you.

Wherever and however your relationship begins, the fact is that she will always be your child’s first mother, and the sooner you understand that to the middle of your bones, the better. For the rest of your child’s life, this woman is half his or her eyes and hair and heart and kidneys, and all the nurture you so lovingly provide will not make her contributions any less integral a part of your child.

She will be the only mother for a very short time … a time that will be treasured and pondered and recalled a million times … and doing what you can to make this time as gentle, loving and without pressure as possible will benefit not only her, but the child, as well.

You will not be asked or able to assume the mother’s pain or fully comprehend her loss, but you must acknowledge it and allow her to deal with it in whatever way is best for her. This may mean more contact for a while, or no contact at all for a period of time. Do not judge.

It will be no simple thing to hold her sadness and your joy in your heart at the same time, but the reality of adoption requires that you try your hardest to do exactly that.

At the same time I was writing that, birth mothers were shoving each other out of the way to rip me to bits because I’m so ‘disrespectful’ … and not pretty enough.

What’s next, Ladies? Is there more unsubstantiated crap you’d like to pull from your collective ass and throw in my direction? It won’t stick, but you’re welcome to unburden if it makes you feel better.

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