Paradise Preoccupied

So, big changes in the online adoption world, as you can see from the press release here.

Because I am one of the eight bloggers founding the site that is Adoption Under One Roof … ouradopt.com … I will be moving most of my adoption-related writing over there and leaving this blog for personal stuff, general opinions, politics, information on Seychelles and whatever else I feel like writing about that has less to do with adoption and more to do with other aspects of life I find interesting.

I encourage everyone to visit what we know as Our House, to come in for a look around, then wander all over and get to know the place and the people.

We have put a great deal of thought and work into Adoption Under One Roof, determined to make the site easy to navigate in a way that allows everyone interested in adoption, from whatever angle, opportunities to learn and to teach, to share and to listen, and even to fight when that seems a possibility for resolving conflict.

Years of softly-softly, please-excuse-me-for-having-opinions-but … communication in a population segmented into tidy groups of the like-minded stifled not only disparity, but also originality of thought as a byproduct, have produced only limited success, if that, in bringing about needed change in the adoption world. With each POV pulling against the other, often with almost irreparable results, forward progress has been near impossible, and as the community became more fractured it also grew more fractious, therefore less able to coordinate any efforts toward reform.

As the environment came to view the standard of separation as a given, bad habits developed and discussion between those with differing, although very often valid, views became progressively more rare and people stopped listening to entire populations simply out of reflex. Rules of engagement within neighborhoods of the adoption community grew less flexible and exclusion became more and more the common method of dealing with dissent.

At the same time, within cozy climates of agreement-at-all-cost the inclination was to support without question or debate ideas that couldn’t possibly hold water, being so full of holes and without enough real fabric to stick together, and this allowed much of the irrelevant and invalid to take on unwarranted gravitas and leak into discussions without ever having been subjected to the light of rational critique.

Allegiance became obligatory based on whatever version of shared point of view dominated a segmented population, and honest evaluation and demands for accountability took a back seat to comradeship-at-any-cost.

Although everyone has heard of adoption, only a small percentage have any real information, and most of those who think they understand adoption are actually way, way off the mark by just about everyone’s perception, so most of those finding themselves making an approach to the adoption world come with the great handicap of no information or a load of misinformation.

The key to reforming systems to the point that no child is unnecessarily relinquished, no mother is coerced into placing against her will or better judgement, no family adopts without having demanded the highest ethical practices, no agency over-charges or misrepresents, no government facilitates ease of adoption for reasons of profit or felonious purposes, no child is denied the hope of a loving family when needed and one can be provided, and no children are put or left at the mercy of the horrors of abuse and neglect is education and information; putting everyone as close as possible to the same place on the same page with access to ALL the information.

Whether a starry-eyed couple dreaming pastel dreams of parenting in spite of the odds against or a terrified woman trying to figure out how to make it from one day to the next, having access to all sides of what adoption is, and what it isn’t, will go a long way toward putting power in their hands, the power to make informed decisions based on here and now and tomorrow and fifty years from now.

It’s with this in mind that OURadopt.com began, and why those of us dedicated to the idea put Adoption Under One Roof.

Read Full Post »

Press release:

Adoption dot com Blogging Staff Resigns to Launch More Inclusive, Relevant Site.
Adoption Under One Roof: covering adoption from every angle, every view, for everyone, at ouradopt.com.

In reaction to a narrowing focus and dwindling support for quality writing tackling the big issues related to adoption, more than one-third of the remaining blogging staff of Adoptionblogs dot com resigned last week, and in conjuction with former colleagues today launched the realized vision of a totally new concept in online adoption communities.

Dedicated to providing information, provoking thought and promoting positive progress toward ethical adoption practices through education, exchange and cooperation between triad members, eight talented and dedicated bloggers have joined forces to build a new, relevant and totally inclusive site.

Never before have all aspects of adoption been presented under one roof … a one-stop reference for anyone coming to adoption from any direction … the goal of the site, as is made clear by the title: Adoption Under One Roof — Covering adoption from every angle, every view, for everyone.

Areas of the site will offer platforms for birth parents, adoptees, prospective adoptive parents and adoptive families, from enthusiastic advocates to staunch opponents. Individuals and families of every stripe — married, single, gay, straight, pro, con, LDS, atheist … and everyone else with adoption in their life — will be able to access valid information, participate in discussions, laugh, learn, rant, rave, share and enjoy in an atmosphere created specifically for the purpose of bringing about positive change in the adoption world.

Through a vision for a world in which every woman in a crisis pregnancy is fully informed and ethically treated, every hopeful adoptive parent demands a process that ensures any child coming to a family comes as the result of strict following of the laws and as the best of best options available, where rights of every adopted child have been protected along each step of the journey, and the hope of a family remains for the children of the world who have no others, Adoption Under One Roof … ouradopt.com … casts a new light over adoption that will illuminate all dark corners and brighten the lives of many.

An arm of Adoption dot com, once the world’s largest adoption-related website, Adoptionblogs dot com was launched in October of 2005, going live the following February with twenty-six bloggers covering thirty-one categories. The site was an immediate success, filling a need for real information from honest and talented writers.

Management support and leadership, however, began to flounder, and by late last year it was apparent there was no committment to move forward and a rapid slide toward irrelevancy began. With more than two-thirds of the blogs abandoned, and that list growing longer every month, reader’s needs were not being met and the demand for a new, dynamic and dedicated site presented itself.

Read Full Post »

We’re getting close to the end of the month, so I’ll pass along some bits of adoption-related information I’ve been collecting lately, starting with Ann Fessler and Melissa Weiler Gerber on the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

With no access to safe, legal abortions, an estimated 250,000 to one million women each year resorted to unsafe abortions that were responsible for an estimated 40 percent of all maternal deaths during this period. Women who did not want or were unable to obtain an abortion were under tremendous societal pressure to conceal and deny their pregnancies. They frequently were shunned by their families, friends and schools. More than 1.5 million such women during this period were secreted away to maternity homes and host houses where they were hidden until they gave birth and surrendered their children for adoption, often against their will.

(If you’ve not yet read “The Girls Who Went Away”, I strongly recommend it as a vital lesson in history, if nothing else. I wrote about my personal experience as a pregnant teen in the days before abortion became a legal option, and the series can be found at the following links: part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six, part seven, response from Ms. Fessler, some follow-up.

These were all written while I was at Adoption dot com, but even though I hate to send that terrible bunch of abusive jerks any hits, I am still very proud of a lot of my work there.)

A new Yahoo group has been started for Adoptive parents of children with Cerebral Palsy. You can find them here.

And a new blog has been started in Seattle by a women who has been writing about her life as a cancer survivor and is now preparing to adopt. Her first post on the adoption blog is here, and her cancer survival blog is here.

Here’s a story about another messy situation involving a surrogate mother, if you have the heart to read about complicated issues where everyone can lose.

On an up note, however, there is this article from the Jakarta Post about Xinran of “Motherbridge of Love” fame, author of “Sky Burial”, “The Good Women of China”, talking much about food.

We then ventured into that tender terrain of identity, of how a person living in another culture survives; for a sense of belonging is surely fundamental to the human condition and something we often overlook.you consider yourself a typical Chinese mum?” I asked, thinking that there is nothing typical or ordinary about this vibrant woman. “I think I am lost,” she replied. “In China they think I am western and in England they see me as foreign. I sometimes feel like I am a wild animal being brought up in a human zoo, like I am living in a double culture. It is a bit of a struggle. Honestly, I don’t understand the language so well. And even China is changing so rapidly. Between brothers and sisters, in just three years, there can be so much difference. “

And also from China, this very interesting article on how some Chinese are managing to revolt quietly and without attracting too much attention from their repressive government.

The sudden “strolls” by thousands of office workers, company managers, young families and the elderly in this sleek financial hub are the latest chapter in a quiet middle-class battle against government officials. The protesters are going about their mission carefully, and many speak anonymously for fear of retribution in a country that stifles dissent.

Speaking of repressive, here’s a story out of Pakistan that should have everyone jumping up and down and making so much noise … but, gee, that doesn’t seem to be happening.

The Lahore High Court on Friday handed over a girl to her parents after recovering her from the city’s Darul Aman. The court handed over the girl after her parents assured the judge that they would get her married off to the Darul Aman’s superintendent, as the girl had wanted.

A “Darul Aman” is like a women’s shelter … sort of … so running away and ending up there is a common enough situation in many cultures. This being Pakistan, however, getting hitched to the guy running the place rather than going home with dear old Dad sounds like a good plan.

Sheesh. Rock, meet hard place … devil, there’s the deep blue sea.

Perhaps this is a good time to point toward the top of this post and ask people to think about the rights of women and how damned hard they are to come by.

Read Full Post »