Privilege, Who is it that Really has It?

In school, we talk a lot about the privileges that come along with being a part of the majority.  Whether it be the  majority gender, race, religion, so on and so forth, where there are more people, other people tend to get out-voted.  Their needs might not be considered, and others, well, they simply aren't very well represented.  Which, in turn, can make things in law and society, very unfair for minority groups.  We're asked to ponder issues and think about how others feel, how others experience difficulty with things that we never would have thought about because we don't have the same experience.

Adoptees, 2% of people, are often asked by others to ponder how their lives "could have been."  "Your mother could have harmed or abused you, you could have grown up poor and your parents took you in."  This is a basic assertion that the adoptee now lives a life of privilege because of adoption.  And perhaps, economically (which is only one facet of life and privilege), they do.  But when you point out that those things are stereotypes and don't make much sense when you actually sit down and hear people's stories....what is there left to ask a person to be more grateful for than every one else is asked to be?  But turning it around, there's a lot an adopted person could ask a biologically-raised person to be grateful for, instead.

Those who have been biologically-raised have likely....

• access to their birth documentation.
• no birth certificate related difficulties at the passport office, with driver's license or jobs where security clearance is needed.
• grown up knowing their lives from birth-forward.
• been in the same room with or grown up with other biological relatives; people who look like they do.
• have access to family medical history.
• have never had to answer awkward questions or stereotypes/assumptions about the other family that they have out there.
• have had to deal with issues that may arise from having two families in two different roles in their lives.
• have never dealt with harsh state laws that hold information on their heritage under lock and key.

I am sure others could think of other things.  Perhaps they experienced because of their adopted status; perhaps things other adoptees did not experience or that some did.

Reading the blogs of Adult Adoptees of International Adoption and Transracial Adoption has opened my eyes that some of these issues that they face that others in the adoption community may not face.

Faded Footsteps writes about such difficulties.  Not being able to communicate with her family without a translator; a third party where private moments are shared with a person in between is something  everyone, other adoptees included, may take for granted.  Not being able to communicate with them on her own in the way that she wants to is another thing many people may take for granted too.

"I’d like to communicate with my parents. 

Without a translator.

Without a third-party, without someone who gets to hear about my adoption details and witness the most private details of my life.

Unfortunately there is no magical power. There is no magical scientific equation in a language barrier. There is no magical solution that suddenly makes this Go Away. No, a translator does not make it better – merely on the surface level. Why?"

These are things I have never thought about.  How I take it for granted that I can communicate in the way I want to, without a third-party to translate, with my Original Family.

I remember at Yoon's Blur, Melissa discussing how she has been scolded by other Koreans for not knowing how to speak Korean.

"It's understandable to me when Koreans or Americans show surprise when I say that I don't speak Korean. I can deal with that. But it's when I get these looks and remarks of how unfortunate or irresponsible it is to my heritage and people that I don't know the language--first of all, as if I don't already have to deal with feelings of failure and inadequacy without you pointing it out to me, and second of all, as if I could have done anything about it. What, as a 6-month old Korean infant adopted into an All-American White family surrounded by other All-American White families, I was supposed to teach myself the Korean language and figure out how to make kimchi? That sounds feasible."

 Growing up surrounded by your culture and being able to be immersed in the language of your roots; something many of us take for granted.  Not having to learn these things as an adult--something else we take for granted.

Again, what Transracial adoption is like for many....these are things I've never imagined.  Not only is being Korean, Chinese, so on and so forth, in the U.S. its own experience, but being an adopted Korean, Chinese, etc. person is its own experience.

Because 98% of the United States is not adopted aren't there privileges that come a long with that?  How often are adoptee issues really heard, represented, and understood if 98% of people have no clue what it is like to be adopted?

None of pointing these things out is about asking for some one's pity or sympathy.  Pointing out privilege is not about making someone else feel badly.  There have been times I've encountered so little sympathy for adoptee issues that it honestly would be an absolute waste of my time to write about adoption for that purpose (I am not referring to those nice folks who read and comment on my blog, by the way).  No, this is not about pity.  Asking others to empathize with another group, not assume, and imagine the challenges they face is not about pity.

The LGBTQ community asking people to understand how hard it is not being able to marry, have their relationships respected under the law, and not be able to have the benefits that come with marriage is not about pity.  It's asking for your help.  Remember them the next time you walk into a voting booth.

A woman explaining how she's not taken seriously or paid fairly at work is not about pity.  It's about asking for your help.  Remember her the next time company policies come up; evaluate how the company can better serve the right of equality of its female employees.

When a racial or ethnic minority talks about experiencing discrimination, it's not about pity.  It's about asking for your help.  Remember them the next time you see discrimination and point it out.  Take a stand for a fellow human being.

And when an adoptee tells you part of adoption that are broken and unfair, it's not about pity.  It's about asking for your help.  Support the adoptee rights movement.  Look up national or local state groups.  Is there a bill in your state pending?  Write a letter to your legislator and ask for support.  There are loads of individuals out there blogging about reform and adoption issues (see all the fabulous blogs in my blog roll to the right!), all it takes is one moment to sit and read.

"The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life."  --Jane Addams

Photo credit:  graur razvan ionut

Where Should a Woman in Need of Resources Go?

I was notified by a friend that a local birthing center is helping an expectant mother in need.  She is without a home and resources and needs support.  The birthing center has been coordinating donations to have her basic needs met.  I think what this birthing center is doing is awesome, but don't know if this is a regular service they provide or not.  So if has me thinking, where would a mother in need go to find support?

I tried to think of a place the surrounding areas between my home and the birthing center of where I would refer someone if they needed help and quite honestly, the places I would be comfortable with are few and far between.  The few I did come up with are locally-based, not government organizations or large national groups that would be easy for any one located any where in the U.S. to find and use.  It was a shocking realization that there really didn't seem like a place for women to go--not one that I was aware of any way.

Where could she go where there would be no possible bias?

What entity out there....

• Does not provide adoption services, participate in the adoption process, or receive funding from adoption fees or for finalizing adoptions
• Does not have a connection to any entity that does provide adoption services or receive funding for finalizing adoptions
• Does not provide abortion services
• Does not have a connection to any entity who does provide abortion services
• Does not have a religious affiliation or connection to any religion or religious group
• Does not have a political affiliation or take side in any one political stance
• Does not receive support or funding from any entity that might support a bias

Really, what entity does not do...well anything....but provide women with unbiased information for whatever they need help with?

That would.....

• Provide knowledge of the various laws in place and rights of women and their children
• Could provide unbiased counselling and accurate information on whatever a mother is inquiring about.
• Could provide referrals and applications to help with any issue a mother could possibly need or want to know about from financial support, to education, legal help, food, employment, clothing, shelter, so on and so forth?

Where could she go to find out how to secure housing, food, support, access to education and employment, inexpensive daycare and health insurance and health care to get herself back on her feet?  When finding all of these things seems so daunting and a mother does not know where to turn...where can she go?

Photo credit: Simon Howden

Poverty is a Womens' Issue

Looking back, I feel like I was raised to believe that if you work hard, you will excel in life.  While this is true, hard work is rewarding, it didn't take into account how others would treat me for reasons out of my control and how that might impact the opportunities I would have.  I am talking, of course, about being a woman.  It's not hard to see the differences and inequalities due to gender, both big and small.  There's the time where I stood in line at the cash register with my husband, and I'm the one who pays, but the cashier hands him the change.  Or the many times where the server at a restaurant asks my husband if he needs anything but walks away without asking me.  I wish that were the extent of it.  There were times where I felt poorly treated and not taken seriously, despite my hard work, because I am a young woman.  Having a career as a mother can be difficult; child care is expensive and work and school schedules are not always made with mothers in-mind.  I cannot tell you the challenge that it is to be a young mother continuing my education when the education I need is a long drive away and the classes designed to cater to the students who likely live on campus that may have with fewer family responsibilities.  I can't imagine the challenges mothers pursuing an education face if they cannot find affordable child care, do not have access to transportation, and cannot find classes offered during times that work around their children's schedules or their employment schedule.

I recall at one place I worked, I asked a co-worker who had been working there for a lot longer than I had why we didn't have a day care on-site.  It was a very fair question as the majority of the employees were female, many of which were mothers, who I would sometimes notice struggle with child care, employment, and school schedules and making it all work.  These issues seemed especially compounded for mothers who were single.  Daycare, I can tell you, is very expensive--at least here in our area.

"We did," they replied.

"Why did they stop?" I asked.

"I think it was because it wasn't cost-effective," they said.

Not cost-effective?  I wondered.  Taking care of your female employees and providing them with a safe and inexpensive place to have their children cared for while they work is not cost-effective?  Not having mothers call off of work or have to make other arrangements last minute because a babysitter fell through or a daycare provider was sick is not cost-effective?  Being able to have easy access to child care so that work and academic schedules could be more easily worked around so that a mother could advance herself in her career (which would in turn, obviously benefit the employer) is not cost-effective?

In the United States, households headed by single women are the most likely to live in poverty.

I talk a lot about how adoption is not solving the problem of hunger and the cycle of poverty in other countries.  But it isn't solving the problems women face here in the United States either.  Does encouraging expectant mothers to surrender their babies to adoption:

-Remove the "glass ceiling?"
-Address issues where employers do not offer schedules that accommodate mother's schedules?
-Address issues where schools do not offer schedules that accommodate mother's schedules?
-Encourage affordable daycare to be offered?
-Address issues within our Social Welfare programs where services are inadequate or could be improved?
-Encourage counselling and programs to help prepare a woman, who is unprepared to parent, for parenting?
-Raise awareness of the problems women and mothers face and how they can be solved?

(just some of the few issues and challenges women, mothers, single mothers etc. may encounter).

I don't see how it helps any of those issues women face.  Encouraging mothers to surrender because of poverty is a reaction to the problem of poverty.  It does not solve the individual issues involved in poverty or alleviate the social issues of gender inequality that put women in that position and keep them from advancing.

When will society learn to ask itself to be selfless and make a positive change for mothers in need?  We need to address the issues of poverty and what causes individuals not have the resources to provide for themselves and their families.  Mothers need the same opportunities to advance in the professional and academic worlds as everyone else.  Isn't it time that we acknowledged that and addressed their needs, rather than encouraging band-aid "solutions."  When will we stop refusing to look at the problems of poverty and the inequality of women at their roots?

"I've yet to be on a campus where most women weren't worrying about some aspect of combining marriage, children, and a career. I've yet to find one where many men were worrying about the same thing." ~Gloria Steinem

Photo credit:  graur codrin

Adoptive Parents & Perpetual Childhood

I recently read a study from 1984 that focused on opening records in New York.  I like to read articles from the past because it shows me the reasoning behind why things are the way that they are and the reform efforts through history.  This study is no acception.  Interviewed were 42 Adoptive Parents on their perceptions of opening up birth record access to Adult Adoptees.

Why were Adoptive Parents being asked?

Per the literature review and historical overview in the article:

"Confidentiality has been the traditional hallmark of adoptions carried out by social agencies.  Social Workers and adoptive parents were influential in promoting legislation in the 1930s and 1940s to insure this policy through legal means.  In 1939 "about one third of the states provided for safeguarding the records of adoption from public inspection, and nearly one third made no mention of keeping the records at all' (study's author is quoting Brooks & Brooks, 1939, p. 132).  By 1950 most states had passed adoption legislation sealing adoption records.  The chief reasons given for sealing adoption records focused on issues surrounding the stigma of illegitimacy, the need for anonymity of persons involved in adoption, and the need for completely severing adoptees' ties to the birth parents (study's author is referencing Watson, 1979)."

The literature and historical review also noted that the ideal at the time was that the biological family was the superior family form and confidentiality and severance of ties to the Original Family was paramount in allowing the Adoptive Family to appear as a biological family (p.1).

So, how did Adoptive Parents respond now, after the records had been sealed for 40-50 years?  Almost 98% were against measures that allowed Adult Adoptees no access; about 58% disagreed with no access so long as there was medical need.  About 52% agreed with Adult Adoptee access so long as the First Parents and Adoptive Parents gave consent (p. 5).

The study attempted to find a correlation as to why Adoptive Parents in 1979 would feel one way or another about records access.  They determined that fear of being rejected by the adoptee had the strongest correlation with an Adoptive Parent's disagreement with Adult Adoptee access to their birth record.  The author of this study noted a prior study where it was found that most adoptees who initiated "genetic searches" felt positively about their relationships with their Adoptive Family, for the purpose of refuting the stereotype that Adult Adoptees with interest in their origins were doing so as an affront to their Adoptive Family.

I let out a heavy sigh when I read about parents feeling adoptees needed permission to see their own factual birth documentation.  An Adult Adoptee can go off to war to protect their country and even run for President (yes, we've had adopted presidents) without the permission of their parents, but to see the document that proves their birth, their documentation of citizenship in this country.....they should by law required to have the permission of their parents.  I cannot explain how belittling that feels, especially because no one else needs to ask, regardless of family drama, except for the Adult Adoptee.

Are we faring any better now?  I would hope that if asked in 2010, the majority of Adoptive Parents would be in resounding support of unconditional equality for their descendants.

The separate histories of birth record access and open vs. closed adoptions bears repeating.

References:
Geissinger, S. (1984). Adoptive Parents' Attitudes Toward Open Birth Records. Family Relations, 33(4), 579.