Broke: A Memory

If you've noticed, I've been taking a break from posting about research and current events.  I am on a month-long break from school and have decided to give my brain a rest from reading the journals and whatnot and do some leisurely reading.  I also hesitate to share my personal experiences in place of research, because as Linda worried in one post on her blog, you never know what you might share that someone you love might become upset with you for.  None of us who share our stories want to do that.  I do not want to share stories that might seem controversial and have Adoptive Parents and First Parents feel like they're being punished.  I said it before and I will say it again: parents that love their children do the best they can with the information that they have.  We grow and we learn when we give feedback as to how it made us feel so that others can go on to try something different.  That's what my blog is all about.  (There's also the increase in emails I get in my inbox of people accusing me of having a pity-party for myself that keeps me from sharing personal stories--but we won't talk about that.  I get an increase in nice emails too though).

So, in another discussion with my [Adoptive] mom, she needed to hear some examples of how I viewed the world differently in my adoptee-mind while growing up.  This was difficult for me to share because I had spent my whole life trying not to make her feel like crap in relation to my adoption.  I will admit that there were a couple of times as a bratty teenager where I did say "well, then take me back then [to the agency]! when we would have one of those all-out mother-daughter arguments.  A couple of times where I shouted at my [Adoptive] father "sorry, I just must not have math genes like you do!" because he is a math prodigy and would get frustrated at me when helping me with my homework and none of it was sinking in (funny enough though, my two Natural, maternal brothers are good at math!).  When I look back, I feel that these outbursts from an otherwise "silent adoptee" (silent about my adoptedness) were (1) a teenaged way of trying to indicate that I wanted to talk about something but didn't know how to bring it up and (2) being hurtful to try to gain control in an argument.  Looking back now, I feel really badly about it.

The Memory

One vivid memory I shared with her was another explanation I gave her as to why I believe in Family Preservation.  I had always had the fact that I was adopted incorporated in my upbringing and remember being told about my adoption by them more formally when I was about five (I was not told my entire adoption story, what they knew of it rather, until I was 14).  I had watched the short, Christian movie "Gerbert: Before my First Day Began."  I don't exactly remember the whole thing, except that Gerbert the puppet learned he was adopted and how it was like how he had adopted his stuffed lion, "Roary."  The gist of adoption likely in that movie as well as in my surrounding Christian community was that young, unprepared mothers and fathers (it was mostly put on the mothers) give their children "better lives" when they cannot care for them.

So, can you imagine how I felt when my dad left when we were poor?

My mom has always been stunned that I remember my dad needing to leave to work in another state so vividly because I was only six at the time.  We had never had a whole lot of money but I remember it being explained to me that my dad needed to leave to find work and that my mom and I would be staying put in our apartment.  I remember helping her hang plastic across the doorways of the rooms we couldn't afford to heat and carefully avoiding the large kerosene heater in the middle of the hallway when I needed to walk from one room to the other.  Dinners were simple, sandwiches, macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, to keep the grocery bill down.  I remember worrying that it would get worse and that I would have to go somewhere, where I could have a "better life."

I remember being fully prepared to offer to eat store-brand macaroni and cheese for the rest of my life (which, for a six-year-old, is quite a sacrifice I guess.  Everyone knows Kraft is better right?) to help save money.  It was probably part of Piaget's concept of Magical Thinking in children "what did I do to cause this and what can I do to make it better?"  I viewed permanency differently than other children did.

Family Preservation

This was another opportunity for me to explain Family Preservation and how it is not a knock on her for raising me but yet a way of treating people how we want to be treated.  Instead of pondering how hypothetical women with hypothetical children feel about surrendering, I asked her how she would feel if she was made to feel "selfish" for not surrendering me because she was poor.  The same help that she would want for herself so that her bond with her child could continue should be in the foremost of everyone's minds in adoption and making funds and resources available to families.

Should we not Have Told you?

My mom wondered if it would have been better for an adoptee not to know that they were adopted, then they wouldn't have to deal with those worries and issues.  I told her that I felt that an adopted person always had a right to know and it was always better to know.  I believe from my reading that infants are aware of the loss of one mother and the bonding to another.  Someone likely may already know somewhere inside them that they are adopted--robbing them of an important cognitive label that can put thoughts and feelings that they have into context isn't right.  Also, not telling someone involves continuous lying doesn't it?  What do you say when they ask about their birth or heritage?  What do you say when they ask for medical history?  What happens when they are told of their adoption at the age of 30-something by the passport office...how do you suppose they might feel?

The problem I have is not with being told that women give their children up for adoption because of poverty and lack of resources.  It is with society literally encouraging women to give children up because of poverty and lack of resources that I have an issue with.  If being told that they were given up because of poverty was bothersome to a child, we cannot "solve" this by ceasing in truth-telling.  It should indicate to us that more resources need to be in place so that separations do not have to occur. 

(Wrapping it Up...)

So I concluded by telling her I don't think there is any way to do an adoption or explain adoption to a child that wouldn't result in that child viewing life through a unique lens, having unique issues and thoughts, and having unique worries.  The indication should be to have adoptions occur only when necessary and by plenty of support being available for children who are adopted so that they can have help and validation with their issues.  I never knew anyone who was adopted growing up or anyone who felt like I did.

Photo credit: Daniel St.Pierre