The Sneaky Old Stigma of "Less Than" Makes its way to Modern Times for Adoptees

Not that it has really "made its way," it honestly just hasn't gone away yet.  What I mean by this is the subtle (or not so subtle) messages people send about adoptees that make it clear we're not seen as deserving as other human beings.  I am most aware of how the Romans saw those of illegitimate or poor birth because I've recently read about it.  Then there's Elizabethan law where even adoption wasn't permitted to "redeem" a bastard.  The U.S. was a bit kinder in that respect, our early-mid 20th century laws tried to erase illegitimacy, at least for adoptees, with the as-if-born to laws and amending and sealing.  Still before the popularization of adoption in the early-mid 20th century, children weren't adopted to be full-fledged family members.  They were adopted to be companions and workers.  The orphan trains, which involved children being "put up" on what were essentially auctioning blocks, were the beginning of our foster care system.  Being adopted might mean a roof over your head and clothes to wear; the alternatives were hunger, baby farms, and orphanages where you might sit in a cradle for an unknown period of time and never be held.  Later on, the alternative to being adopted was being raised by an unwed mother, whom, according to society, her illicit pregnancy and childbearing automatically made her unfit.   It's the old message of "bad blood" and that social class at birth fundamentally flaws a person for life.  Modern messages, perhaps unknowingly, perpetuate this stigma for adopted people.  Be grateful you didn't end up in the gutter is something people have been telling adoptees and like people for centuries.

You may have heard modern versions of this age-old stigma: "your mother could have aborted you!" or "you could have just been left in an orphanage/foster care" to an adult adoptee or fostered adult who is seeking the same rights as everyone else has, who wants respect, or who wants to reform the systems that so radically impacted their lives.  People say "but wait a minute!  All children should be grateful."  Thankfulness is a healthy attitude to have in-general.  "Gratefulness" implies someone was unworthy, specifically in the historical context of povery, illegitimacy, and adoption.  No child, not one, is ever "unworthy."  What these messages essentially say is:

You are less than others so you cannot be equal to them.

You are not fundamentally deserving of respect.

You should be so busy being grateful to the systems that saved you from your (assumed and allegedly) horrid origins that you have no right to try to change or nitpick at them.

A particularly cruel Op-Ed in opposition to Adoptee Rights published in New Jersey news papers less than a month ago did not even bother to put it as nicely as my summations as the author wrote about birth certificate access in one paragraph:

"The adoptees’ should stop trying to obtain something they feel is missing from their lives because, the truth is, the only thing they are owed is a chance to live."

Funny, Maslow theorized that there are five levels of human need.  The first and very basic of level of need deals with physical needs that sustain life.  But the other four levels are beyond adoptees?  Are our genetics changed when we're adopted where suddenly nothing but food, water, shelter, and clothing matter to us?  Or do people really still truly believe that only food, water, shelter, and clothing should be the only things to matter to us because there's an understanding that adoptees are worthy of less to begin with?  Notice the woman, on her "Pro-Life" basis for writing the Op-Ed, didn't even give adoptees the right to Maslow's level one.  She says we have the right to simply be alive but the right to nothing more.  Too often "Pro-Life" arguments portray the concept that only being born matters and whatever happens after that is of no concern.  Adoptees too often feel the sting of this attitude, exemplified perfectly by the hostile tone of the Op-Ed.  To this woman, all adoptees were destined to be aborted and pre-natally, she argues our personhood as a "Pro-Life" advocate.  After birth, however, advocates like this one return to argue against our full personhood stating all we need is to live, as less-than-humans, the rights and needs of other humans are lost on us, above us, and certainly not something we are deserving of.

I will talk about psychology and adoption when it comes to not having access to knowledge of one's origins.  I won't make a psychological argument for original birth certificate access because Adoptee Rights is about Civil Rights and equality, so please don't misunderstand.  But these little reminders of how awful people think our lives would have been without adoption in response to adoptees talking about rights, reform, or reunion sends the message home: you're worthy of less, it is silly you're complaining about not having more.  There are many adoptees whose lives were made better by adoption but those adoptees are still deserving of more.  It should be the desire of every person that adoptees and other individuals are not seen as being undeserving of achieving more than the basic first level of need.  We need to stop demanding gratefulness and silence from people because their basic human rights were met as children.  It is the duty of adults to protect and meet the needs of children yet society demands that children be grateful for the fulfillment of the same rights little ones are so unquestionably deserving of.

Maslow said that the second level of need was to be safe and secure.  His third level was love and social acceptance.  His fourth level was esteem and self-worth.  His fifth level was self-actualization and awareness.  It should be the passion, desire, and goal of every person, every parent, and every child advocate out there to not stop at "well, at least they're not in an orphanage any more," thinking that's the best children deserve.  Poor children, stigmatized children, fostered, adopted, whoever, all have the same basic human rights and needs as all other children do.  "Well, at least they're not in an orphanage any more" or "at least you weren't aborted" are not good enough.  This is not where Social Justice and human rights stop.  When will people who have already been permitted to climb his pyramid for themselves get their down-ward shoving foot off of the top of adoptee's heads, realizing that rights, reunion, or reform may be any part of levels numbered 2-5 for that adoptee, and acknowledge that adoptees are just as human (and just as wholly deserving) as any other human being is?

photo credit: digitalart