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Archive for the ‘Family’ Category

Gay adoption: my take

Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, Adoption News, Family on February 1, 2008| 5 Comments »

I had an interesting email in response to the post of the other day, “Gay backlash and presidential candidates” that included these questions:

In your years of writing for adoption dot com, did the company’s anti-gay stance rub off on you?

Were you censored?

To answer the second question first: yes, I was censored. One post early on was removed completely, and I was told that if I did cover anything to do with the subject I was to keep within the confines of reporting news about gay adoptions without ever taking a position … and to go light on even that sort of thing. Or else. (I did slide in as much news as I could on gay adoption and linked to EBD Institute reports on research, however.)

As for the first question, let me begin by saying that there is no way I could care less about what consenting adults do within the privacy of their private places with their private parts … that all being PRIVATE … and that I find it more than a little perverse when others focus on such things.

I am less interested in the sex lives of others than I am in their toilet habits … and that would be not at all … and will never understand where anyone gets off (pardon the expression) letting their mind wander into such territory, then spend any time or energy forming opinions, much less spreading those opinions around. As I said, this strikes me as a strange, though common in every sense of the word, perversion.

I am educated enough to understand that a percentage of most any mammal population could be classified as “gay”, and having had a “gay” dog when I was a kid, that information didn’t come as a surprise. I’ve seen “gay” monkeys and “gay” goats, and whole populations of “gay” chimps … Bonobos, pygmy chimps, our closest relatives, are notorious for their homosexual activities … and know of “gay” couples of penguins and flamingos raising families.

(An exhibit at a Norwegian gallery a couple of years ago displayed photos of “gay” sex between everything from giraffes to whales.)

Since homosexuality is a part of the natural course of life for many, it presents no more barriers than shoe size or skin color, other than those resulting from basic biology, and that’s were adoption comes into the picture.

Obviously, although any two can tango, reproduction takes some more difficult steps that can’t be accomplished without some extra dipping that requires two genders. Unless or until cloning becomes a way to make new people, a gay couple will not be able to combine bits of DNA and come up with chips off the old block. Biology does not, however, make a parent.

Parent is as much a verb as it is a noun, and many people who have the nounish bit cornered are crap at the verby part. From the other angle, some who don’t noun verb beautifully.

Perhaps in a perfect world every child would have a loving mommy and daddy in a cozy house with a three car garage, two Volvos and an Irish Setter, but we don’t live in that world. (And I, for one, am happy about that! How bloody BORING!) The world is full of children who either have no family or family that is worse than no family at all and in desperate need of someone to love and care for them.

That being the case … and, really, that IS the case, and there’s no use arguing about it … I am fully in favor of loving people caring for children in a safe climate of compassion and nutrition.

Is gay parenting any different? Well, DUH. It’s different in the same way that older parenting is different and transracial parenting is different, and adoptive parenting is different, and parenting five kids is different than parenting one, and city parenting is different from country parenting, and Buddhist parenting is different from Catholic parenting, and my parenting is different from your parenting.

Are there some homosexuals that shouldn’t be allowed to adopt? There’s another DUH for you that I’ll place alongside any list of people of every persuasion that should never get within ten miles of a child … most of those having made the poor kids themselves. (See yesterday’s post.)

So, those questions answered, I’ll share this article from Time about the European Court of Human Rights overturning a French law preventing adoption by gays.

Franck Tanguy, spokesman for France’s Association of Gay and Lesbian Parents, says “this ruling is a step in the right direction” in that it “requires countries that, like France, allow singles to adopt children to treat unmarried homosexual and heterosexual applicants in exactly the same manner.” Failure to do so in any country with such legislation, Tanguy says, means they’d “find themselves condemned again and again for discrimination by the many single homosexuals who’d use this precedent to base a legal defense on”. However, Tanguy regrets the ruling “won’t change anything in countries that don’t allow any singles to adopt, nor force nations that don’t allow homosexual couples to adopt to change their laws”.

Seeing the pertinent detail is that the law allowed adoption by unmarried straight folks, this bill introduced in Utah recently would permit singles to adopt, straight or gay. People might want to weigh in on this.

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Corporal punishment or murder: Too close to call?

Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, Family, The USA from the outside in on January 21, 2008| 8 Comments »

“You don’t know you’ve crossed the line until you get accused of crossing the line.”

That right there is a line crossed, as far as I’m concerned.

It came from the mouth of a guy named Jeffrey T. Schwartz in defense of one Cesar Rodriquez.

Whether Cesar Rodriguez, who is accused of beatings and abusive behavior that killed his 7-year-old stepdaughter, could not have known he had crossed a line is a matter for a jury to decide. He has admitted that he routinely beat Nixzmary with a belt, hit her with his hands using “all my force,” threw her on the floor. He has admitted duct-taping her emaciated 37-pound frame to a chair and binding her with bungee cords.

What he hasn’t admitted to isn’t reported.

The story in the NY Times points out that laws in that state, and all the rest of them for that matter, are “vague on corporal punishment.”

Hello?

On what planet, other than LegalBullshitWorld, is there dense cloudiness between grabbing a toddler and swatting her on the bum when she tries to run out in traffic and holding a kid’s head under water, beating her savagely, and forcing her to use a cat’s litter box for a toilet?

After all, that’s how Mr. Rodriguez was raised … at least according to Mr. Rodriquez and Jeffrey T. Schwartz … and look at what a fine specimen he turned out to be, so there’s a defense made in some version of legal heaven (which would by definition of ‘self-cancelling phrase’ have to indicate some pact with some devils).

Crossing a line? There is no case of crossing a line here. This is rappelling down a precipice (or repelling, actually), slogging across a vast Sahara of crushingly bone-dry nothingness, then pulling up ten miles of cliff face with nothing but fingernails. One can not possible be confused with the other, and the fact that, indeed, the two are confused, blurred, smudged, smeared, massaged, manipulated, into fitting under one banner is disgusting.

Another child is dead, and before she was dead she was tortured … for years … and those doing the torturing, her mother and her mother’s husband, got away with it right up until the time they snuffed the last of life from this little girl.

This is no special case, no rare occurrence, but just an example with a name of daily events.

And no wonder, when society deems torture “crossing a line” when it is perpetrated on a child.

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Abortion rate report

Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, Adoption News, Family, The USA from the outside in, tagged on January 19, 2008| 1 Comment »

The Guttmacher Institute released its latest report on abortion numbers in the US last week, and because they are down to the lowest rate since 1974, the report is getting press.

The latest figures are from 2005, and the study found a 25 percent drop from an all-time high of 1.6 million in 1990, although still adding up to more than one in five pregnancies being terminated.

A convoluted issue that has long been hijacked by various factions looking to provide traction for wider agendas, abortion is, to say the least, a contentious topic.

Having experienced an unplanned pregnancy in the days before Roe v. Wade, I feel I have more than a little right to my own take on abortion, and I have aimed some writing at it in the past, albeit in tandem with work on adoption.

I am always made very uncomfortable when a direct link is drawn between adoption and abortion, as the hot potato of the first can’t help but be backlit by flame throwers targeting the second, and adoption burning to a crisp in the crossfire is far too dangerous a potential to let the connection weld without comment.

The idea that adoption is a likely consequence of restraint against abortion feels intuitive to many, but is very shaky ground and seems unhelpful in the extreme when trotted out before someone in the dire circumstance of a crisis pregnancy.

Unlike the stereotypic picture of the clueless knocked-up teen … that was me in 1969, thankyouverymuch, when birth control was illegal for anyone under 18 … 61% of women who have abortions in the US are mothers, half have two or more children, and additional children may be considered a cause for compromising care for existing kids.

Without being asked directly, several of the women indicated that adoption is not a realistic option for them. They reported that the thought of one’s child being out in the world without knowing if it was being taken care of or by whom would induce more guilt than having an abortion.

I’m guessing that explaining a full term pregnancy not resulting in a new addition to the family would be an issue, as well.

Clearly, the answer is to prevent as many crisis pregnancies as possible, and education and availability of contraceptives are the keys to this goal.

For those interested, I freely admit that had abortion been a legal option for me in 1969 I would not have chosen it, just as I did not choose to relinquish my daughter. Both facts relate only to me personally and neither are laudatory, but rather simply a reflection the cumulative process that made me me at that given point in time.

If I had found myself pregnant in 1974, the last time the rate of abortions was as low as it was in 2005, I would have carefully considered and very possibly opted for an abortion. At that time I was a divorced 23-year-old struggling to raise two kids on my own, working three jobs to make ends meet, taking classes as I could. Luckily, I dodged that bullet.

I will not get into the abortion fray here, as I have more to address on this blog than leaves time for that endless loop, but I will mention a couple of niggles I can’t keep my mouth shut in front of …

Speaking authoritatively on abortion takes a uterus.

Beethoven was not the third or fifth or whatever offspring of a syphilitic tuberculin.

The more power women have, the better the world gets.

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My beautiful first child

Posted in Adoption, Family on January 16, 2008| 10 Comments »

Not a good day today for blogging. I have a raging ear infection that is not one bit fun, AND the power was out all day.

One of the many bright spots in an otherwise difficult day, however, was getting this photo from my oldest child of her beautiful self at her company Christmas Party a short time ago.

Isn’t she lovely?
Jenn at Christmas

It is very often beyond my comprehension that I have been favored with FOUR beautiful and amazing children. How did I get this lucky?

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Just for fun, for a change …

Posted in Family, Fun, Island life, Seychelles on January 15, 2008| 4 Comments »

Just some fun stuff today …

A short film my niece made, and a couple of photos Gay took the other day while snorkeling:
coral©2008GMonins

Sea turtle©2008GMonins

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Yet another reason for open records, and replying to Joy

Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, Adoption News, Family, International Adoption, Older Parent Adoption on January 12, 2008| 11 Comments »

The discussion on open records and demanding that birth certificates are not only available, but also unaltered and containing the truest information available has be ratcheted up a notch with this story out of the UK about twins who’d been separated at birth meeting as adults, falling in love and marrying.

When Mark and I met, one of the strongest emotions I experienced was a feeling of recognition, an instant awareness that this person was important to my life, that a part of me I hadn’t even realized was missing had finally been found … I felt whole.

Having experienced the intensity of that love-at-first-sight connection, I can imagine how amazing the attraction would be if the soul mate had actually been a womb mate back when the soul was first forming. Coming to that relationship with none of the filters society and biology preps us with … and even non-humans react to the “incest taboo”, a fact I’ve seen for myself in populations of captive non-human primates and one that Darwin observed and wrote on … including not even the basic knowledge of the bio connect is a recipe for … well, for stuff that isn’t supposed to happen.

Some of those commenting on the Telegraph’s version of the story are suggesting DNA testing for all marriage applicants, but it seems a much easier, less costly and less intrusive addressing of the issue could be done by providing everyone with the information of exactly who they are.

DNA tests should not be trotted out as the modern form of identification unless we really want a world where people get into the practice of picking future spouses only after checking out that their genes prove them to be free of anything that could complicate matters someday in the future.

Frankly, folks, I find the thought of marching down the aisle into the arms of the love of my life with a report letting me know that he has a genetic propensity toward bowel cancer and baldness in hand just a bit less romantic a notion that I would like to embrace on my wedding day.

I would, however, be very happy to know if the man giving me away is biologically connected to me and assured that the one he is giving me to most certainly isn’t, and that seems a right as basic as any.

A couple of notes to readers:

I had almost three-quarters of a long post written when my computer did something fishy and ate everything on my desktop. The post was in response to Joy’s response to a comment on a blog from last week. I was in the process of thanking her for an amazingly heart-felt lesson on how adoption impacts her life with vivid descriptions of the physical manifestations she has suffered.

I am sorry not to give this the space it should have, but I spent all my energy on the first draft and I’m too wrung to reconstruct. I’ll hit the salient points, however …

Her writing went a long way toward bridge building, and I am very grateful for the time and energy she spent educating and informing those of us who have come to adoption from other angles. I am also hopeful that through such conversations as this … and it most certainly is a conversation people are listening to … progress will be made toward the day when everyone approaching adoption will be armed with ALL the information.

I do not see any readers here taking issue with Joy’s demand that no child should ever come to be adopted unnecessarily.

I hesitate to ask Joy if she thinks her adoption was unnecessary, since that would be voyeurism in the extreme, but do not doubt that many adoptees suspect that to be their case or know this as fact after reunion.

By sharing her story, she has taken great steps to help build a world where it becomes more likely that potential adoptive parents, understanding better her own personal pain, will demand that any child coming to them have absolutely no other option, and where birth mothers have a deeper understanding of more consequences of relinquishment. The more we all know and understand, the more power we have, and the less manipulation is possible. Education is the key.

Thank you, Joy.

The other note:

For those ready and willing to increase involvement in the run-up to the Adoptee Rights Protest, Gershom will be providing some direction for us as soon as she’s cleared the decks, and her desk, and can devote a bit of time giving us some guidance.

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Life interferes with blogging: Film at 11

Posted in Adoption, Cambodia, Family, International Adoption, Island life, Older Parent Adoption, Seychelles on January 10, 2008| 8 Comments »

That pesky thing called life is getting in the way of my blogging at the moment, but I’ll try today to incorporate a bit of one into the other in a way someone other than my mother might find interesting enough to follow through a couple of paragraphs.

Visual aides always help, so there will be photos, too.

First, I would like to thank everyone sending congratulatory messages and lovely thoughts in response to my Answers.com writing challenge win. All are much appreciated, and I’m very touched by how many people are dropping by to read Sweet Polska. I think I’m just about caught up on the emails, but if I’ve not responded yet please be patient.

We’ve been preparing for a big milestone that we hit today. This morning, Sam took his first step on the educational trail he’ll most likely be treading for the next thirteen or fourteen years: He’s now a student at The International School Seychelles.

This is where he will carry on learning all the way through A Levels, after which he’ll have to go abroad for university … a step Mark and I can’t stand the thought of, but know will be upon us about next week with the way time is flying.

It is a brand new Early Childhood Section building that saw today’s influx, so all of the kids were on equal footing as far as the facility goes, and that fact had Sam feeling quite comfortable. There were not only no tears, but a palpable excitement in him, and a confidence even his teacher, well occupied with attempts at organizing the part of the hoard that was to be her class, noted and commented upon amidst the throng.

The International School year actually began in September, but we kept Sam in the local school in our village, the gov’t school schedule runs January to December, for the extra months to finish the year with his friends. Not only were we putting off the commute … it takes at least 45 minutes to get into town where the International School is … we also feel it’s important that his Creole be good and rooted in his brain in hopes that the language will stick with him even when he isn’t speaking it as a matter of course throughout the day.

Because the completion of the new section of the school was scheduled for this month, a second intake has Sam starting at the same time as about a quarter of the total of young kids, with the rest returning, but to the new digs, after the Christmas break.

This was his first day wearing a school uniform, and, man-oh-man!, he is very cool in his. I don’t know how prepared he was to see all the other kids dressed the same, but he did seem to fit right in, and as time came to line up … oh! the ubiquitous lining up … he jumped right to it and started the queue.

He is so ready to learn, and expects to start that process today. (I’ve warned his teacher, explaining that he has all the Harry Potter books lined up to read and wants to get that show on the road! We tried to do the same when he started creche, as his thought then was that school was where he was going to learn about how the dinosaurs became extinct. He’s still miffed that that wasn’t part of the curriculum.)

The summary dismissal his father and I received as he headed up the line and led the class through the door … Watch out for wet paint! … had us both blinking back the tears that never fail to spring when we’re confronted with how much, and how quickly, our boy is growing up.

You’ll notice in the photos that ethnicity is not an issue here, and the mix at the International School is actually much more a fact than in the local schools. At the creche, Sam was one of only a handful of non-black kids, where at the new school all races are represented more evenly.

He is the only Cambodian-born child, and will be until his sister and the three other Cam-born kids in Seychelles start school, and very likely the only internationally adopted child … unless there is an adoptive family amongst the expats here on contract for a couple of years … as it appears he was the first in the country. His teacher and I will be working together to address these issues, but since the kids in the school come from so many different countries and backgrounds and religions and ethnic groups, the focus does tend to be more on the similarities, and I suspect he will have an easier time than transracially adopted kids in other parts of the world experience.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll post some photos, then go hug Cj … maybe tightly enough to keep her tiny just a little bit longer?

First day of school
Sam’s 1st day at school

Sam’s anxious to learn
He’s anxious to learn

The brand new school section
The brand new school

And just for fun, this cool rock at the beach we call … Ready for it? … Fish Rock. Like pirates, we’re not too good on thinking up names. (I have a brother named Larry … )
Fish Rock

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Some non-adoption fun stuff

Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, Family, Fun, International Adoption, Island life, Older Parent Adoption, Seychelles, Writing for fun on January 8, 2008| 23 Comments »

Being a Tuesday and all, I’m thinking it’s time I published a post my mother will read. This is, after all, still my personal blog, and I’ve been ignoring readers who don’t happen to live and breathe adoption and its related issues, but rather think my little kids … who just happen to be adopted … are adorable and worth spending time gazing over in cute holiday shots, and who like hearing about what’s happening in my life.

Those who couldn’t care less about me, my life or my family are excused from today’s blog.

Mom gets some bragging rights, as I was informed yesterday that I won First Place in the Answers.com Creating Writing Challenge. This was the third time I’d participated in what has been a fun practice in brain flexing, and coming in First has me right chuffed. I was pleased with what came from the list of “must use” words, and am happy enough that someone agreed that it was good. So happy, in fact, that the “I Won” badge will be a sidebar feature for some time to come. Besting what must have been thousands of entries, you won’t catch me … or my mom … sneezing at this acknowledgment.

I’d recently read Irene Nemirovsky’s “Suite Française”, and that elegant tale of the horrors of occupied France obviously inspired “Sweet Polska”. (I write on adoption out of passion, but fiction is all love.)

With the holidays over, it’s time to post those photos I’ve been promising, so here are a few from Christmas and New Year Eve.

Sam and Cj Christmas Eve with the tree in the background …
Sam Cj and Tree

Checking out the gifts … notice that small rip in the wrapping paper?
checking gifts

Cj’s not happy about being discovered in the process of peeking …
Busted

Some of our Christmas Eve open house guests …
Guests

Kids on Christmas Eve
guest’s kids

Our youngest guest …
The youngest

Mark had a good time!
Mark laughs

Sam served tea …
Tea

New Year’s Eve. Me with my friend, Michael …
Me and Michael

Cj holding hands with Daddy
Daddy’s hand

Sliding into the new year!
slide kids

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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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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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