The Mask: Another Talk, this Time With Dad

Talking with my [Adoptive] Mom about my adoptedness was not an easy feat.  I'm not shy and only semi-opinionated (OK, maybe a lot opinionated) but I am very sensitive about saying things that will hurt her feelings.  On the other hand, is my [Adoptive] Father who is like a rock.  I have seen the man cry twice in his life: once when his grandmother (the woman who raised him) died and again when he thought I was running off to Peru to get married, never to return again.  My two-year romance with a Peruvian international soccer star and near marriage to him is a story for another day.  At any rate, it is often hard to tell how my dad truly feels about something or if he has been hurt by something or not.  Another obstacle is wondering if something I've said was received with empathy and nestled somewhere in his heart in understanding.

Where We're At....
My father is experiencing my reunion a lot differently than my mother is.  Foremost, my father does not worry about being replaced because there is no other father in the picture.  The man who fathered me is deceased and even if he was not, I would not want to meet him or have a relationship with him.  I have explained over and over again that adoption reunion is not about replacing people because there is room for everyone.  My Adoptive Parents did not replace my First Mom when I was adopted; I always still had a need and love for her.  Reuniting with her, my need and love for her does not compete with my need and love for them.  Still, it was an easier concept for an Adoptive Father to accept when there is no biological father than it is for an Adoptive Mother to accept when there is another woman in my life who is also my mom.

My father also understands what it is like to want to love someone with all your heart and want to have a relationship with them, even when they did not raise you, for the simple fact that they too are your mother.  My father is an adoptee as well (non-traditional) and his mother was an adoptee (infant adoption, traditional).  My [Adoptive] grandmother was adopted as an infant.  With her first marriage, she gave birth to my father and my uncle and left when my uncle was one and my father was two.  My father was raised partly by his father and partly by his grandmother, whom he also viewed as his mother.  He has a total of twelve full, half and step siblings.  She sent letters to him but he only saw her two or three times until he was in his twenties and started visiting her every couple of years.  My dad knows what it is like to have people in his life in various roles that don't compete and love and cherish them because it means something so deep.

(side note)
On a side note, my [Adoptive] grandmother, who was born in New York, mentioned her adoption only once to me.  She said "I suppose I should have tried to look my papers up long ago but everything is still sealed and I'm sure everyone is long dead."  She said it like it didn't matter to her but something about a subtle tone in her voice hit me in a place in my soul that only adoptees have and I knew it did matter.  Interestingly enough my [Natural] great-grandmother was also adopted as a very young child (traditional adoption) and my husband has an aunt who surrendered a daughter to adoption.  Adoption is everywhere yet people are so silent about it I feel.

Talking Losses
One thing that is a huge challenge to get through to my dad is loss.  My dad feels that feeling and expressing loss are synonymous with a lack of forgiveness.  Here I am met with the stereotype of the "angry adoptee" because I feel and express loss.  He feels that admitting feelings of loss means that he must be angry with his mother.  So how do I explain to him that I'm not angry with him or my [Adoptive] mom or with my First Mom, while simultaneously explaining the losses?

No better opportunity for me to explain my adoptedness, feelings, and activist work related to adoption issues to my father arose than when I needed his help for a school project.  I took a 5 week intensive course less than a month ago and needed to do a genogram on my Nurturing Family (which did pay homage to my adoption and Natural Family--of course) to demonstrate the Multigenerational Transmission Process.  In short, the Multigenerational Transmission Process is a theory of the family system by a theorist named Bowen that says that struggles within a family system are often passed down to generation after generation.  A genogram maps a family by displaying family connections and significant family issues so that an individual can view patterns within a family--especially where families are disengaged from one another or way to fused and have no opportunity for individuation.  Here is an example of what one looks like (it's not mine).

Showing him the image of his genogram was what I needed because it put loss on paper.  My mom had a neat-looking upside down tree of some sort.  His looked like a schematic for some complicated electrical system.  I let him see it and I told him:

"Forgiveness in your heart will not change how your family is mapped.  These are events in the generations before that you gave you a unique life in which you had challenges and struggles that you needed to overcome.  Forgiveness does not erase what you've experienced in your life.  What you've experienced would cause sadness and loss in any person I suppose."

I continued:

"The purpose of a genogram is to map out positive patterns in a family and patterns that are of a concern.  If we are forbidden from expressing loss for fear of being accused of being unforgiving, then how can we address the family issues that are causing the repeated loss--especially for our children and children's children?"

In the same way, this is why I am so passionate about Adoption Reform.  If I am forbidden from expressing loss for fear of being accused of being an "angry adoptee," how will I ever be able to identify the problems in adoption to make things better for the next generation of adopted children, of mothers, of families?

An "Ahah!" Moment
I realized that I showed him this genogram and started this conversation about me so that I could explain to him why I felt the way that I feel.  But the more I reflected on it, the more I saw my mission was for my dad.  I was not reaching out to him so that he would feel bitter.  To step out of the society-formed adoption closet that I felt I had been in for so long and for it to be "OK" to speak about my feelings was freeing for me.  I wanted to give my father, the brick wall, the man with few emotions, permission to feel sadness.  I wanted him to feel entitled to say that he had a hard life and that it impacted him and feel that he had the right to do so.  Again, not to feel bitter, but to feel free.

"In the soul of every orphan is an eternal flame of hope for reunion and reconciliation with those he has lost through private or public disaster." -Jean Paton

I want to make a clarification on forgiveness.  Forgiveness is an element between my father and his mother that he feels applies to their relationship.  This is one aspect that does not parallel to my adoption as my First Mother did not do anything wrong that I would need to forgive her for.  I feel compelled to point that out because we live in a society where First Mothers are still marginalized, and therefore, condemnation and a need for "forgiveness" is not a notion I wish to perpetuate.

Photo credit: djcodrin