The Declassified Adoptee

Is This Really Ethical? An Open Letter to American University Professor, Prof. Kimberly Leighton

2012-01-29T00:01:00.000-05:00

Professor Leighton,

Let me first start off by saying how glad I am that I could address this blog entry to you. I am glad that the show that I am about to reference had an adult adoptee there to speak, even if I didn't agree with what you had to say, because the public should be asking us about these issues. I am also glad that I am able to see adoptees doing so well; you are a testimony to that. So many people have a skewed view of adoptees (I guess the fears about adoptees "disrupting" people's lives if records are opened is evidence of that), having smart, insightful, knowledgeable adoptees in the public eye is an important thing. After reading another blogger talk about your recent NPR interview with Diane Rehm, I went to Ms. Rehm's website and viewed the transcript of the show. That is why I am writing you this letter today because you talk about ethics and I care about ethics, and because we're both adopted. As a student, I look at professors whom I consider my role models each and ever single day; I tend to think of all professors as having something to teach me. If any one of my professors had the same viewpoints and said the same things you said in the interview, the following letter is exactly what I would say to them (my readers interested in the NPR discussion can join it here).

It is important, foremost, to start a discussion with an understanding of why and how records are sealed. Records were sealed in the United States on the foundation of hiding illegal adoption. Georiga Tann pioneered this effort and all of her 5,000 adoptions were illegal. She was the first adoption worker to convince the vital statistics office of her state (TN) to seal the birth certificates of the adoptees of her adoptions. Alabama was the first state to legalize this (and they've since become 100% open treating adoptees equally). This movement to seal original birth certificates spread throughout the country based on two main things (1) hiding the illegitimate birth of the adopted person by sealing the record and issuing a new one making it appear they had been born to married parents and (2) changing the identity of the adoptee so that the original family, who was stereotyped as neurotic and deviant, could not find and interfere with the new family. Sealed records were not always kept from adopted persons; that was a second movement across the United States heralded by adoptive parents who wanted to control what their sons and daughters could or could not know about themselves.

Because non-traditional family forms, such as adoptive families, were not as widely accepted "back in the day" as they are now, this amending and sealing allowed adoptive families to hide the adoption from the prying eyes of the public. It also allowed the adoptive family to hide their infertility which is culturally more important than people may realize. In some families and cultures, women are permitted no other identity than "mother" and women who do not reproduce are considered not to have "done their job." Some of the original arguments surrounding records access were not about "birth mothers," believe it or not. In fact, people were quite preoccupied about the psychological harm it would cause adoptive mothers should they ever have to "deal with" the event of their adult sons and daughters finding out information about their original families.

I honestly couldn't make this stuff up if I tried. As the saying goes, truth is stranger than fiction, isn't it? No truer is that than the tale of American adoption history.

Ethical issues with amending and sealing I've discussed so far:

hiding illegal adoptions by changing an adoptee's identity.
bastard-shaming.
infertility-shaming.
sexism and paternalism.
perpetuation of the biological nuclear family as the superior family form by hiding "deviant" origins and creating fictitious "amended" documents to promote this notion.
lying.
classism (illegal and unethical adoptions typically target impoverished mothers and fathers).

What happens is, a child is surrendered but the information is not sealed yet. It's not sealed until the adoption is finalized which could be months or years after the surrender takes place. When the adoption takes place, an adoptee's name is typically changed, their original identity is sealed, and they take on a new name and identity within a new family (and if the adoption is dissolved and the adoptee "re-homed" their information becomes unsealed). This is the important point here: the adoptee's identity is changed and sealed. People make the mistake of believing that the change and sealing of the adoptee's identity was to provide "promises" of "confidentiality" to surrendering parents. It wasn't. It doesn't serve that purpose. It was never intended to serve that purpose. If it was, wouldn't they change and seal the identity of the original family? My name was not changed so that I couldn't find her. It was changed so that she could not find me.

What is confidentiality on a small planet filled with human beings who move about it far and wide? Can you really promise one person they'll never encounter another? To do so, what honestly would that entail?

It's a small world. Many adoptees grow up near their original relatives. They go to the same schools, vacation at the same spots, get stationed at the same military bases, and even work together as co-workers. How can we truly provide confidentiality to original families in such a small world? Is there an ankle bracelet an adoptee could wear that would sound when an original family member was within 100 feet so they could know they aren't to go near? Should they get clearance before they go somewhere to make sure an original family member wouldn't be there? Perhaps adoptees should be confined at home so we don't take those chances at all? If you think all of that sounds ridiculous, I feel the same way about the idea of treating adoption like a witness protection program to begin with.
The name of my original family is written in every molecule of my body. To say I cannot ever discover my relatives or ancestors is to rob me of important choice and autonomy over my own body. Shall adoptees be barred from genetic testing of any kind to avoid that they might discover their own families of origin? Are the chromosomes that make up my body the legal property of someone else? Is my body the property of someone else?
We all have basic freedoms. To say that an original family can be truly promised confidentiality is to say that adoptees cannot enjoy basic freedoms. Can I no longer ask a neighbor for a cup of sugar in case she's related to me? Should the phone company skip my house during their anual delivery of phone books? Should we automatically put priori restraining orders on all adoptees (Tennessee basically already does this) so that who they can talk to is restricted for no other crime than being adopted? What rights of mine do I have to give up to make sure that "confidentiality" is always a sure thing for someone else? What again am I being punished for?

Here are the ethical issues I want to point out. This is what secrecy in adoption presents:

Institutionalized discrimination. Discrimination against adopted people who want to access the same document about themselves that all others receive, without question, regardless of family drama. It is our decree of adoption that seals our records; not our family circumstances.
The subsequent discrimination. Discrimination against adopted people where many do not have equal access to driver's licenses, security clearances for employment, passports, and as it stands with some pending bills and movements in this country, they could lose the right to vote as well as run for public office, all because they do not have equal or easy access to their own identifying documents that others receive.
Enabling of lying. Amending and sealing has allowed many adoptees to be lied to about their origins.
Robbing of autonomy and self-ownership. Secrecy in adoption means an adoptee cannot so much as politely ask for medical information from family members. This means they may be receiving unnecessary testing or procedures as the doctor does not have the applicable information to go on.
Where is the personhood? If we cannot own our own DNA and if we cannot know of our own identities and origins, all to allegedly kowtow to another person, how does that speak for the personhood of the adopted person?
Adultism. Why is it the child, who will grow to be an adult, who has to be the one who has to (allegedly) kowtow to others in the triad in order for the adults involved to (allegedly) be happy? Is it really ethical to consider the (alleged) wants of the adults involved over the voiceless child?
Perpetual adultism. Why is it the adult adoptee, who had "promises" (allegedly) made on their behalf as a voiceless child, who had no say in the matter of what would happen to their own identity, the one who has to continue under the (alleged) "agreement" made by those adults?
Adoptism. What is it about adoption that causes an adoptee to be so fundamentally flawed that we need to be fearful of an adoptee knowing their own original identity?
Sexism/Paternalism. What is it about being an original parent that is so inherently shameful that we need laws specifically designed for adoption to hide who they are in relation to the adoptee?
Racism. Adoptees all over the globe are stripped of their cultural ties and identities. Many adoptees of color have paperwork claiming they are the race of their adoptive parents (usually White) or that they were born to White parents. Many adoptees cannot even tell you what race they are. They will be expected to fill out their race or ethnicity on forms throughout their lives and may even be subjected to racism for the color of their skin but cannot themselves know their culture or race of origin.
Denial of the limitations of confidentiality. All helping professionals know that there are limits to confidentiality. Confidentiality is a fundamental value in my profession; I know all about it. I've taken so many classes on HIPAA, for instance, I could probably teach them myself. However, confidentiality has limits and all helping professionals are required to disclose this. For example, if a client is going to harm someone, the professional has a legal obligation to report it and warn the person who is going to be harmed. If someone is going to do something dangerous, the professional must report it. Duty to Warm, Duty to Report, Duty to Protect--the list goes on and on. There are limitations to confidentiality and these limitations are seen as necessary, good and moral. Why can't this issue be seen acknowledged as what it is: another limitation to confidentiality? Why can't we say "taking away the identity of a voiceless child is wrong, sorry, we can't do it?" Where is the Duty to Protect the best interests of a voiceless child?
Anti-feminism. Remember, many adoptees are women too. Placing one woman and her (alleged) desires as being more important than the rights and autonomy of the adopted woman is just as sexist and paternalistic as placing a woman's needs as inferior to a man's. Feminism does not place women on a heirarchy and create special rights for one at the expense of the equality of another. Women "owning" other women, or their children, is not a feminist value. Some people believe we "expand" the rights of women with unplanned pregnancies by (allegedly) making adoption more attractive by (allegedly) offering the option of "confidentiality." Is it really fair to "expand" the options for adoption while restricting the rights of the woman who is going to be adopted?
Disablism. The idea that all adoptees want their records because they are mentally unstable and are searching for another person to "fix" themselves and can automatically be assumed to do so in a manner that is harmful and inappropriate, is disablism. It's unfair to individuals with disabilities to use mental illness as an insult in that way. It's unfair to treat adoptees who first and foremost want equality as though the restoration of the Civil Right of equal rights and protection under the law makes them "maladjusted." Back to adoptism, what is it about being adopted that makes someone think I can't be responsible and behave myself like any other person?
Stereotyping. Why is it always "the adoptee wants their birth certificate so that they can 'bang down' their mother's door?" Why can it never be "the adoptee wants their birth certificate because they want it. Perhaps they may also discreetly and politely call their mother to say hello one day, IF they can even use the OBC to find her to begin with"? It is all in the words one chooses and the way they decide to portray adoptees. When we get right down to it, it is nearly impossible and uncommon for someone to say why adoptees should not have access to birth certificates without using a stereotype.

In summary, we have a variety of ethical issues that amending and sealing presents such as: taking the basic freedoms of citizenship away from adoptees, adoptees unable to obtain every day documents and information that allow them to move about the country and the world, inequality, institutional discrimination, adultism, perpetual voicelessness and childhood, unrealistic and inappropriate disclosure of confidentiality, history of illegal adoption, paternalism, sexism, bastard-shaming, infertility-shaming, non-traditional family-shaming, denial of full personhood, racism, denial of autonomy, denial of self-ownership, original family-shaming, lysing, and, probably most importantly, never allowing an adoptee to become an influential and respected member of the "triad," to name just a few. When we weigh all of these things, plus the fact that amending and sealing was not designed or intended to promise original families "confidentiality," why does the scale always tip in "favor" of providing "confidentiality" to original families and rarely (except in 8 states) tip in favor of justice and equality for adoptees? Why?

I keep thinking about what ethical code there could be that would cause anyone, or us as a society to say "to promise away the identity of an voiceless child and hold that child to an (alleged) agreement made on their behalf for their entire life, even into adulthood, without their consent for the (alleged) sake of adults involved" is ethical, is moral, or is the superior option. I can't think of one. Most religions would say truth is a primary justice. If we view it as a secondary justice, is there not one thing on the list in the paragraph above to take it's place as primary to urge the opening of records as ethical and moral just the same?

Granted, I am not as educated as you are and my Philosophy class (Bioethics to be exact) was years ago. But I brainstormed the moral codes I've kept in my back pocket all these years any way. Surely with less than two percent of mothers having any preference for any sort of "anonymity" in regards to birth records this issue does not fall under the "most amount of good for greatest amount of people." If anything it's "the most amount of good for the least amount of people at the expense of the largest amount of people." Perhaps it falls under Consequentialism, because so many adoptees do so well we can say "oh, it's not that bad, they turned out OK." But Consequentialism isn't ethical; Consequentialism simply writes off unethical things because someone managed to turn out OK despite the challenges, lack of privileges, inequality, and hardships in their lives. Consequentialism turns resiliency, which is a near inexplicable phenomena of human ability, into a bad, condemning factor. And granted, Resiliency Theory speaks to this phenomena of the ability of human beings, and the human brain, to "bounce back" from all manner of adversity. What resiliency theory does not suggest, however, is that it is OK to persist in allowing people to experience unfairness and inequality because they have a good chance, considering all of their strengths, to "get over it." "Getting over" something that doesn't "seem so bad" does not make whatever it is ethical.

We cannot say that negotiating the identity, right, and autonomy of a child who has no voice, for the rest of their lives, is the moral and right thing to do. Because it simply isn't.

(Adding this paragraph 01/30/2012 after reading the transcript again). Professor Leighton, you and I are adoptees of privilege. Not only because of the color of our skin and because we have had the opportunity to obtain education and advancement in life, but because we searched and were able to find. We are self-actualized people who have all of the clues to connect the dots to identity that the non-adopted (typically) have. It is our responsibility never to look down on another adoptee who is still looking for clues and piecing together what is "identity." We cannot stereotype them as searching for something "more" or a "story" or assume they will open a "Pandora's box." We cannot judge them for doing exactly as you and I have and for wanting what you and I want. You and I have to acknowledge for other adoptees what we have found helpful for ourselves. We cannot get lost in our privileges and leave our brothers and sisters behind.

I'm going to give you an official invitation to the Adoptee Rights Demonstration. I hope to see you there.

Warm Regards,

The Declassified Adoptee

PS.
Other resources you may be interested in:

(Declassified Adoptee) Are Adoption and Surrogacy Feminist?
(Declassified Adoptee) Feministe asks Some Questions on Adoption and Feminism
(Declassified Adoptee) Why my [Amended] Birth Certificate is a Lie
(Declassified Adoptee) The Disablist Nature of Anti-Rights, Anti-Narrative Arguments
Carp, E. (2007). Does Opening Adoption Records Have an Adverse Social Impact? Some Lessons from the U.S., Great Britain, and Australia, 1953-2007. Adoption Quarterly, 10(3/4), 29-52.
Carp, E. (2001). Sealed Adoption Records in Historical Perspective. Adoption Quarterly, 5(2), 59-62
Samuels, Elizabeth J., How Adoption in America Grew Secret; Birth Records Weren't Closed for the Reasons You Might Think (October 21, 2001). Washington Post, p. B.05, Sunday, October 21, 2001. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1282262
Samuels, Elizabeth J., The Idea of Adoption: An Inquiry into the History of Adult Adoptee Access to Birth Records (2001). Rutgers Law Review, Vol. 53, p. 367, 2001. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=275730
Adoption, Identity, and Kinship: the Debate Over Sealed Birth Records by Sociologist and adult adoptee, Dr. Katrina Wegar

Don't forget to check out my blog rolls for the voices of other adult adoptees, original parents, adoptive parents, fostered adults, and donor offspring.

Get Your Hands off me: why Abortion Access is just a Small Part of What "Choice" is really about

2012-01-28T19:30:00.003-05:00

Have you ever heard this phrase: "abortion activists [meaning pro-choice folks] only want women to choose one option and that's abortion!" There are people who genuinely believe that "pro-choice" is the opposite of "pro-life" where they equate "pro-life" with carrying to term and "pro-choice" with "never carrying to term." I have a fairly plausible idea that this assumption is derived from the fact that "choice" and "pro-life" are argued together as an exclusive dichotomy. "Pro-choicers" fall into arguing for abortion and defending abortion which may send the message that individuals who are pro-choice like and prefer abortion over any other option. It is easy to fall into this well-worn path of argument because of the rampant misinformation about abortion and women's health care that is often found in "pro-life" pregnancy resources; people fall into this argument of exclusivity because they try to correct the misinformation. The extreme detriment of falling into this well-worn path of arguing over the "choice" vs." no choice" dichotomy surrounding unwanted pregnancy is that no one is focusing on or educating about the bigger picture that the "choice" part of this debate comes from. Many pro-choicers themselves do not understand the larger picture of choice which is why it is important to talk about it.

In this post, I wrote something many of you commented on or asked about:

Choice, in my mind, is simple. The right to choose describes a basic human right known as "autonomy" or "consent." Women, as fully human, autonomous, equal human beings, should have control and say at all times over their own bodies. A fetus cannot thrive without her body nor can its growth be supported without her welfare. A fetus and a woman cannot have personhood at the same time because when it comes right down to it, for a fetus to be a person a woman must be rendered nothing more than a biological vessel that serves to support its welfare and has rights secondary to the needs of the fetus. Care cannot be administered to a fetus without first someone touching a woman's body. To say that a woman cannot have control over her own body at all times, even if pregnant, is to say that women are not autonomous and have no right to give or revoke consent to be touched by others. It means others get to make decisions for her body in order to sustain the welfare of her pregnancy, such as forcing a woman to go on bed rest or denying a woman's right to refuse medical care while pregnant. A woman's right to choose means she has a right, not only to be in control of decisions regarding her own body at all times, but also in control of decisions regarding her body that may impact the welfare of her pregnancy; abortion included. I am not pro-choice because I believe abortion is a wonderful thing or a preferable or easy choice. I am pro-choice because I believe women are people and because the value of obtaining consent when it comes to touching a woman's body is extremely important to me.

To make an addendum to this, I'll point out that people say "oh well, a woman can have an abortion if she is going to die without one," and really, there goes the whole "personhood" argument right out the window. If the fetus is a person, what is it about the change in the mother's medical condition that erases that personhood where suddenly, abortion is now magically OK? Then on the other hand, if she is disallowed the abortion, then she and the fetus she is supporting will both die. That hardly follows the "respecting life" rhetoric. In fact, that, no better exemplified by the passing of the recent "Let Women Die" bill, sounds like nothing more than a cruel, punitive jab at a human being for the crime of having a uterus. What about a woman who discovers an aggressive cancer in her body while pregnant? Who wants to be the one to decide if she must die or risk her pregnancy trying to fight it? "Oh, well I would let her fight her cancer" some might say. But what about the "personhood" of the fetus? Personhood is not circumstantial--either you are a person or you are not. Either the woman is a person or the fetus is, both cannot be. And if one really "respects life" they will allow a woman to make her own decisions and acknowledge that a woman's life belongs in her own hands, not the hands of some politician.

Continuing on with my new blog topic, autonomy and consent are two basic human rights that make the difference between being respected as an individual who has sole ownership over your own body and being seen as everyone else's property. Abortion is one such area where some say that being pregnant is one circumstance where a woman should lose the ability to choose what happens to her own body. If the continuing of a pregnancy becomes more important than what a woman wants for herself, then what consent is there really needed to touch a woman's body to continue a pregnancy at any and all costs, per someone else's discretion? "Choice" is not about seeing abortion as superior than any other option. Choice is about acknowledging that we are first and foremost dealing with the woman's body when it comes to pregnancy and that she alone is the best person to make decisions for what happens to her own body. Stepping back from the picture even further, this plays into a larger theme of autonomy and consent that makes the abortion debate just one part of the over-all picture. When you understand how society views a woman's body, you understand why choice is so easy for people to second-guess or write off completely.

A few prime examples of women-as-society's-chew-toys:

Wanting women to have permission from a doctor or partner, to have to wait 24 hours after a consultation, or experience an ultrasound before being able to consent to an abortion.
Random strangers feeling perfectly entitled to walk up to a pregnant woman and rub her belly.
Random strangers feeling perfectly entitled to walk up and stroke a woman's hair (this is an issue especially for Black women).
Sexual harassment issues in the workplace where women have their shoulder's squeezed or massaged without their consent by a co-worker or superior.
Random strangers placing their hands on a woman at a club because she's dancing so she must be "asking for it."
The concept that "there is no such thing as rape when you're married" when husbands/partners force themselves on their wives without consent.
The unratified ERA.
The exotification of women of color.
The over-representation of the scantily-clad, uber-"feminine," damsel in distress in all of media.
The horrible phenomena where professionals delivering babies feel perfectly entitled to carry out medical procedures in labor and delivery, like adding medications to the IV drip, injecting a woman directly, or performing an episiotomy without a woman's consent.
The forced (and often uninformed) sterilization of many women throughout history, namely women of color and underprivileged women.
The idea that single, expectant mothers who live under the poverty line have something to "provide" to someone else who is more deserving.

The list goes on.

I have seen the double standard too many times. For men, it is perfectly acceptable to be reserved and stoic. What a leader! However, for a woman to say she does not like to be touched or to not appreciate an endearing squeeze on the arm? She's a "bitch." When I was 17 years old, I was called a "bitch" by an older male co-worker because I told him it was not appropriate to walk up and jokingly tickle a woman he did not know up the sleeve of her scrubs (I was a nursing student at one point). Apparently being a woman who is not willing to be everyone's scratching post doesn't make you popular. I have heard people describe women, who do not acquiesce to another's desire to touch them, "who take themselves too seriously," over and over and over again this way. Hugging, embrace, and kissing, these are all very important part of relationships, closeness, and togetherness with others. However, there is a difference between what is culturally appropriate, given a specific culture, and what understanding you already have with a friend or family member about what types of touching is appropriate, and the over-all general idea that it's OK to pet a random woman like a cat in some way or exploit her body in a print-ad.

Choice, consent, and autonomy is not just about reference for women's bodies and equality in how women are treated. These concepts are not just about choosing abortion; it involves a woman's right to make healthy decisions for her body that positively impact her pregnancy, should she choose, too. I think a lot of people may find it hard to believe that the view of women as incapable of making their own decisions and this idea that women do not own their own bodies does not translate into sustaining a healthy pregnancy either. However, this fact is very true.

For example, a woman who had a Cesarean delivery for one pregnancy and wants to try a VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean) for the delivery of her next pregnancy may have difficulty finding a doctor who will comply. I have had several friends who wanted to attempt a VBAC whose doctors told them that they would drop them as patients unless they agreed to schedule a C-section instead. One friend of mine, with a normal, healthy pregnancy, was turned down for her VBAC nearly one dozen times. There are both risks and benefits associated with VBAC. The risk is a 2% change that the uterine wall could rupture where the incision from the first C-section was made. The benefits are the benefits generally associated with vaginal birth. It's a woman's right to weigh the risks and benefits and decide for herself whether or not she would like to be subjected to invasive surgery to delivery her baby; too often this right is not respected by doctors.

Another example would be a woman's diet and ingestion of pre-natal vitamins. Many doctors will recommend that all women of child bearing age, pregnant or not, take a once-daily pre-natal vitamin. However, another school of thought questions the benefits of these vitamins and their necessity, especially if a woman already has an excellent diet. This is one instance where many women go against conventional wisdom, so to speak, and make their own choice for what they feel is right for them. Since it may go against doctor's recommendation and, according to him/her not be good for the fetus, should we take away a woman's right to decide not to put the pills into her body?

One more example, mentioning again the phenomena of women reporting the instance of receiving procedures they did not consent to during labor and delivery. A woman, whose body is respected as her own, has a right to make decisions as to what happens to her body during labor and delivery, including requesting perineal massage instead of an episiotomy and what medications she is or is not administered. I had this experience with the birth of my children. With my most recent birth, I felt that the monitors were painful and distressing (and my delivery was progressing just fine, I saw no need for them). I was denied the right to refuse monitors as the nurse took it upon herself to place them on my body despite my wishes. Just as with abortion, this is an instance in child birth where someone thought they knew better than I did and proceed to make a decision for me and my body without my consent. This is unacceptable.

I don't know what it is about being a woman that makes people think we're so incompetent to make our own decisions, especially when we're pregnant. I don't live another woman's life, I only life my own. I would not want to be told what to do with my own body and I can hardly tell another woman what to do with her's. The bottom line is, choice is about so much more than just the abortion debate. Until a woman's body is respected as her own and sole discretion is left to her as to what does or does not touch or happen to her body, our mothers, sisters, daughters, and granddaughters will not be equal, respected, and protected members of society.

I trust women. Do you? Join the Silver Ribbon Campaign to Trust Women

Living in Fat Shame Culture and Learning to Love my "Fat" Photos Anyway

2012-01-28T10:39:00.000-05:00

My first anniversary. The ol' "hide my body
behind my husband and the dog and then
crop the photo" routine.

Have you ever been in that place where the sight of a camera sends you diving underneath the nearest table or reaching for your napkin to hold in front of your face? If you're like me, you've shuddered at the loud suggestion of "group shot!" and then carefully positioned your body behind two people on either side of you. Or maybe you've got a special pose reserved for when you can't get out of being in a picture: turn, slightly sideways, shoulder forward, and your nearest accessory (an oversized clutch will do) held at your hip to draw the eye away from the thighs and midsection and to the clutch and shoulders instead. If you put your hands on your hips and make sure the negative space between your arms and your waist can be seen in the photo, you nearly guarantee yourself a slimmer appearance in the shot. I am a pro at feeling-fat-in-front-of-a-camera 101.

Considering my experience as a peculiarly grotesque (tongue-in-cheek) child and how I then vowed to never let my appearance cause me to be ridiculed again, I was once sensitive about having my picture taken. I have a body I haven't particularly liked seeing in photographs, until recently. I can thank my children for that.

I have always been sensitive about my weight, even when I was skinny. This is because, at 5'10, I weighed more than the other girls. It did not matter how slim, trim, and in-shape I was and appeared, the extra 3-5 inches I usually had on my female peers meant I had an additional 15-25lbs on them too. How I felt about my body only worsened throughout the years. First, there was college where I wasn't working out 5-6 days a week and exercising (basketball practice) four hours per day. Instead, I was sitting and studying--a lot. I also was eating a lot of nachos with chili from the college cafeteria--oh my gosh was it good and comforting. I remember looking at the photos of my one year wedding anniversary and being shocked "oh my goodness, that's just not me." I wanted to hide the photos somewhere where they would never see the light of day. But my husband loved them. I settled for choosing to display only shots where the majority of my body wasn't showing.

Then later, being pregnant three times, two to-term pregnancies both with babies over 9lbs each, really changed my body. My husband insisted on accompanying me to every pre-natal appointment with my first pregnancy. After a while, when my doctor would ask me my weight I would write it on a piece of paper and slide it face-down across the counter to her like you see in those dramatic movies where two parties are discussing a high-stakes deal involving lots of money. After my first son was born, I had never weighed so much in my entire life. Eating right and breast feeding helped me drop over 70lbs in the first four months. However, the weight loss stopped there and I was still pretty heavy.

I learned to instruct people who insisted on taking photos of me with my new baby on how to photograph me. For instance, I'd forbid someone to photograph me if they were sitting and I was standing; it's not flattering to the thighs. And watch that harsh flash, it enhances double-chin like you wouldn't believe. I spent most of my time behind the camera taking photos and not being in them. I soon realized that my baby was going to look back on these pictures and wonder where his mommy was and why she didn't want to be in any pictures. I know that I love looking back at pictures of my parents when I was younger. I have several pictures of my original mother too and I like to look at them and think of what I what age I was and what I was doing when one photo or another of hers was taken. How do I answer the question "what did you look like when I was little mom? Where are the pictures of you?" when my kids ask me?

This is where I decided I needed to change my line of thinking. I do not want my children to grow up surrounded by fat shame culture without me acting as a role model on how women's bodies (anyones body) should be respected and acknowledged as beautiful regardless of the size. It was OK to want to be healthy and lose weight. It was not OK for me to acquiesce to fat shame culture and hide myself from being captured in memories at special times because I was ashamed of what my body looked like. I want to be in the pictures with my children; I want them to know their mother is proud of who she is, not ashamed, and for them not to feel that another person's body is shameful either because I went first and set a good example.

Now of course, I am also a photography lover which I never became more passionate about than when my parents bought me a DSLR camera. I bring the thing everywhere with me and my friends (usually) appreciate that many of their events when they could not afford to hire a photographer could have some nice photo memories because I was there with my camera glued to my face. Here's where I started noticing other people dive under the table, hold napkins and menus in front of their faces, awkwardly hide their bodies in group photos, and don a peculiar stance to minimize their waist and thighs in photos. The host wants to remember that their guests shared this special time with them at their wedding, shower, or party and people are all but climbing inside the center piece arrangements trying to hide from the photographer.

Here's where I also started scratching my head because it's always the most gorgeous person that wants to hide behind the napkin. It's always someone with a body issue I had not so much as noticed existed that's sensitive about it and is trying to hide it in front of the camera. Standing behind my camera photographing family and friends, I do not see love handles or round bellies. I don't see blemishes or the fact that you don't think your teeth are cute. I see the magnificent way you tilt your head back when you laugh or how your nose crinkles just a bit when you smile. I saw intent look on your face when someone you admire was telling you a story. I saw how your aunt's eyes lit up when you touched her hand and told her it was good to see her again.

Of course, there are always people who generally won't like having their picture taken. Also, people taking pictures need to be mindful of someones preferences as well as respectful of their privacy when taking photographs. But for me, I have come to realize that hiding because I am critical of myself isn't worth it. What is worth it is making memories for my sons and my loved ones. People are not looking for my flaws, like I am, just as I am not looking for flaws when I photograph people I care about. As someone who has been struggling with my weight for years now, one liberating, shame-releasing phrase is something I've been learning to say more and more...

"Hi, can I give you my camera for a second so you can take a picture of me with my sons?"

My Dashed Ivy League Dreams

2012-01-26T00:00:00.000-05:00

I was talking about education with someone the other day; we were discussing our long term goals. I am continuing my education as a Social Work major now; I have to get my BSW in Social Work as the minimum requirement in my state to hold the title of "Social Worker." My goal is really to complete an MSW. My friend asked me what graduate schools I was applying to. I casually started to comment that I had looked into programs, listing the names of schools as I talked. When I got to the name of an Ivy League school that I have a good change of getting into, my friend proceeded to sit there and laugh right in my face. I mean, it was an enormous guffaw launched across the table in my direction. Nice.

"What?!" I said. "I have a good chance of getting into their advanced standing program to complete my Master's in a year!" She shook her head "you could never in a billion years pay for that." I felt insulted, not really by her, but at what causes a great education to be so far out of reach to the point that someone would laugh in my face for even considering it.

I understand the concept of working hard and getting a reward because you did so. However, when it comes to something as fundamental as knowledge, I wince to see it commodified. Especially at the expense of young college kids who feel pressured to go to college, have no idea what they want to do, and pick a major whose course load looks appealing only to find out there's not much you can do with that particular degree once you graduate. The college has made money though, and the new graduate is now swimming in debt. Indeed, to be able to better yourself in order to "move up in the world" means you have to have the tools to do so. Education is one such tool. How easy is it to better yourself when the tool you need to do so with is out of your reach? People will say, you don't need an education to make it in this world [insert inspirational story of one person you met one time who didn't go to college and did awesomely here]. It's true, you do not need an education to make it in the world. However, it certainly helps and it certainly disenfranchises some people, who with their passions and skill sets, need an education as a requirement to enter into the field they would be most skilled at and thus benefit the community around them immensely.

My dad's story is one of the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" kind. His mom left when he was two years old. He spent a good deal of time being raised by his grandmother. He got good grades in school and was a happy kid though there wasn't much money for anything. When he graduated high school, there was no money for college. So he enlisted in the military and did well. In addition to his hard work, his privileges as a White, heterosexual, Christian, male who does not have any disabilities more than likely helped as well. He met my mom and they got married. Work was often hard to find. I remember when I was little, my mom would work evenings at a local store that was a bit like today's Wal-Mart. My dad was (and still is) a Licensed Professional Land Surveyor. He has worked so hard and done so well, he is literally one of the best in his field, that he and my mom have made a nice life for themselves.

You see, he was made for surveying. He is mathematically brilliant. The man can tell you the volume by a mile-high pile of gravel just by walking around it, measuring a few things, and scribbling on a notepad. He enjoys being outdoors. He is good with electronics. I swear there is nothing about land surveying my dad does not know. He is the guy you hire when you want it done well, you want it done right, and you want it done well and right the first time it is done.

However, if my dad were a young twenty-something coming out of the military right now, he would not be able to be a Professional Land Surveyor. The laws have changed and you must have a minimum of a Bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university in a land surveying curriculum in order to be licensed. You cannot practice or call yourself a "Land Surveyor" without being licensed.

Where would my parents be now if my dad could not have followed his dreams and passions into a field that is beyond perfect for him had a specific education been necessary and not within reach? I do not even want to think about it. Maybe he would have ended up in a job he did not like and did not enjoy where advancement did not come easy. I don't even want to think about it. It makes me worry about my kids future and education; what will be available to them? College tuition calculators that average out how much you need to be saving per month to pay for your kids' college when they hit 18 make scary predictions.

Another friend encouraged me to feel jaded by my lack of ability to pay for school, let alone the school that I would like to go to. She said because I do not fall into any other minority group than being a woman (being adopted doesn't count as a minority group to most people), no one will ever help me go to school or give me a break despite the fact that college is still a struggle. I encouraged her to realize that we have never been turned down for employment or a place to live because of the color of our skin. Anywhere we go our religion is more than likely accepted and common place. We've never gone hungry or without a roof over our heads without a day in our lives. We both have been blessed with good health. Both she and I benefit from unearned privilege that has made meeting our needs possible, even if we aren't eligible at times for help reaching for the stars.

So, I won't be attending that Ivy League university. The program I need costs more than twice the amount that one at another perfectly good college costs. As much as I'd love to follow my life long dream (OK, maybe not life long but something I've aspired to since I was 16), I can't get into a mountain of debt that I'd still be paying off by the time I need to start paying for my kids' education. One of the main reasons I am going back to school is to increase my earning potential so that I can increase our likelihood of being able to send our kids to college. Going to this university would be counter-productive to that goal.

But one can still dream, I suppose.

Photo credit: Naypong

Santorum on Rape and Abortion: you Might be Surprised About What I Have to Say About the Presidential Candidate's Most Recent Gum Flapping

2012-01-25T14:56:00.002-05:00

I know you'd expect me to write a blog entry that rakes Santorum across the coals for his recent disclosure that he wanted to constitutionalize the personhood of a fetus and take away a woman's right to choose. To be honest with you, I cannot decide who I am more irritated at: Santorum for his viewpoints or the liberal media for the disrespectful way they are reporting on his viewpoints.

I cannot let the way many liberal media outlets have treated this issue go without comment on my blog simply because I tend to have very liberal viewpoints myself. I am tired of the thoughtless rhetoric coming from all sides in this Presidential campaign. Of course, not all political statements, conservative or liberal, are "rhetoric" where information is simply regurgitated but not supported by thoughtfulness, compassion, or sound information but rather stereotype, bias, and emotion. Consequentially, I have absolutely no appreciation for liberal rhetoric where someone boasts very liberal viewpoints but fails to have investigated, questioned, and made consistent their own ideology and thus becomes ignorant to various groups as a result. Abortion is one issue where I will especially take both liberals and conservative as well a pro-choice and pro-life statements to task for their ignorance toward women and other commonly associated groups, adoptees, original mothers, and victims of rape. In an effort to trash Santorum, various media outlets have thrown women, victims of rape, and individuals conceived from rape absolutely under the bus to do so. This is horrendously shameful and I am completely appalled by it.

To understand why I am angry, you must understand what the question "you don't support abortion even in the case of rape and incest?!" implies. Abortion debates typically go the same way. Someone asks someone else for their views on abortion to which the other person, if pro-life, replies with their view that abortion is wrong. Then the pro-life person is typically asked to clarify if they mean it is wrong under all circumstances or just some. Then the pro-life person responds "yes, I believe that the fetus has personhood and that it is wrong to abort it." Here's where the next line enters "even in the case of rape or incest!?" If the person who is pro-life responds "yes, even in the case of rape and incest, abortion is wrong" they've just condemned a woman who is pregnant against her will to carry her "rapist's baby." There may be a good deal of pearl clutching and gasping in astonishment at their opinion. However, I dislike both opinions and especially what the "rape and incest" viewpoint implies. There are three general problems or implications here, especially evidenced in the media, when this topic comes up.

What's wrong with asking "you think it's wrong, even if a woman was raped?!"

It implies that there are some circumstances under which it is perfectly OK to allow, as well as disallow, a woman to have autonomy and choice over her own body, depending on definable sets of circumstances that are pre-determined by people other than the woman herself.
It frames child birth as a punishment to be doled out by whomever deems themselves fit. Saying that a woman should not be forced to carry a pregnancy because she did not conceive through consensual sex implies then that those with pregnancies that did result from consensual sex can or should be punished. This viewpoint is disrespectful to all women.
It asserts that individuals born of rape or that women who have conceived from rape who choose to carry to term and give birth have something to be ashamed of.

So here is where I will give Mr. Santorum some credit; he's consistent. He believes that fetuses are people and that they should fall under the protections enjoyed by any other human being in the United States (I'll refrain from commenting in detail on the irony of the lack of consistency of applying equal personhood to already-born people in multiple diverse groups, such as the LGBTQ community). To him, because a fetus is a person, he feels no circumstance (such as rape) erases that personhood (I know, the irony, the irony!) or that "person's" right to live. There is no flip-flopping for him where he falls into the category of "well, the fetus has rights but not if the mother was raped." Thinks about it: when someone says "a fetus is a person and should not be aborted....oh, except in the case of rape or incest," someone may be attempting to sit on the fence, please both sides, and avoid that gasping-in-disgust-pearl-clutching response from others. But what they also just did by saying so is state that already born people, who actually really are people, are not "really people" if they were conceived from rape or incest.

I was conceived from rape. I assure you that I am indeed a person.

This is the issue with the media outlets. They are having an absolute field day with his statements by making ignorant and offensive statements and implications (such as the three I pointed out) of their own. The Daily Mail is one such offender. The title of their article on this topic states "Rick Santorum says rape victims should 'make the best of a bad situation' if they get pregnant and give birth to the 'gift from God." This article headline is not saying "Santorum is wrong because he disagrees with a woman's right to choose." This statement, clarifying directly that they are referring to someone after they were born, mockingly calls that person conceived from rape a "gift from God." If you want to say that women should have say over their own bodies in all circumstances, fine, I agree with you. Mocking real, born, people who were conceived from rape is offensive and unacceptable.

I made three comments on the above referenced article. One in response to an existing conversation in the comments section on Ryan Bomberger and two letting the Daily Mail know (quite politely, actually) that as someone who was conceived from rape, I found the title of the article offensive and belittling. In an effort to assert their own rhetoric above the dignity of real people, they chose to censor out the viewpoint of a person their words insulted, and declined to post those two comments. The third comment I made, which did not include any critique of their method of reporting this issue and did not include any of my perspective as a person conceived from rape, was the only comment of mine that made it through their moderation. What a shameful abandonment of true liberal values.

CNN was honestly no better. My first issue, of course, is that Piers Morgan asked the "even in rape or incest?" question to begin with. That was a huge eye-roller for me. However, what is more-so offensive is the caption that CNN has under this video that says "Rick Santorum says that even a child conceived through rape is a 'gift' and that life must be protected." Here we have the same problem again. CNN does not refer to a woman's right to autonomy over her body. They directly say the word "child" and mockingly call that child who was conceived from rape a "gift." They do not say "a woman has the right to choose to end her pregnancy" instead they paint a child who was born as some shameful, horrible thing that no person would ever want. Rape is horrible and pregnancy from rape is not "God's will" nor a "gift from God." But CNN did not say "pregnancy." They said "child." They mockingly implied that some children are worthless beings outside of the realm of God's love and acceptance based on their conception circumstances.

What Santorum did was say that the fetus, whom he believes is a person, is a gift from God. What CNN did was mockingly state that actual children who are the products of rape are not gifts from God. Quite honestly, which statement is really more deplorable? I believe God loves me but I do not believe he orchestrated my mother's rape just to bring me into this world. I do not believe he causes bad things to happen to people. As a person I am blessed by God but I do not for a minute believe my mother's trauma was God's doing. CNN could have went in this direction but they didn't. They were too busy victim-blaming and painting victims and children as monsters.

On a side note, in case you are wondering, I will explain who Ryan Bomberger is and why he was mentioned by commenters in at least one article. He is an adult adoptee who was conceived from rape who says he "should have been aborted" because of the conception circumstances that he has been made aware of via his agency narrative. It is unfortunate that Mr. Bomberger allows himself and his mother to be stereotyped in this way. I am unsure if he advertises himself as "should have been aborted" because he really believes so or because his catchy campaign benefits not only his political projects (he is behind the billboards featuring faces of Black children, labeling them as an "endangered species" as well as behind Mississippi's recent "personhood" initiative). Or perhaps, it is to benefit the enormous adoption agency he is the marketing director of; I'm simply not sure. Seeing as Mr. Bomberger does not desire to reunite and speak with his first mother, we will never really know what her thought process was or if she ever did consider abortion (nor is it any of our, or his, business what her thought process was).

The mistake that many liberals and pro-choicers alike fall into is defending access to abortion services based on the argument "what if she just doesn't want a baby right now?" A subsequent mistake is to then describe horrible circumstances one might envision not wanting to parent under, such as rape, incest, or having a child with a serious illness or disability, as reasons why a woman might not "want a child" and might want to have an abortion. They fail to recognize that not only does this line of thinking fall into multiple realms of prejudices (e.g. disablism, classism) but it fails to acknowledge and uphold what choice is about.

Choice, in my mind, is simple. The right to choose describes a basic human right known as "autonomy" or "consent." Women, as fully human, autonomous, equal human beings, should have control and say at all times over their own bodies. A fetus cannot thrive without her body nor can its growth be supported without her welfare. A fetus and a woman cannot have personhood at the same time because when it comes right down to it, for a fetus to be a person a woman must be rendered nothing more than a biological vessel that serves to support its welfare and has rights secondary to the needs of the fetus. Care cannot be administered to a fetus without first someone touching a woman's body. To say that a woman cannot have control over her own body at all times, even if pregnant, is to say that women are not autonomous and have no right to give or revoke consent to be touched by others. It means others get to make decisions for her body in order to sustain the welfare of her pregnancy, such as forcing a woman to go on bed rest or denying a woman's right to refuse medical care while pregnant. A woman's right to choose means she has a right, not only to be in control of decisions regarding her own body at all times, but also in control of decisions regarding her body that may impact the welfare of her pregnancy; abortion included. I am not pro-choice because I believe abortion is a wonderful thing or a preferable or easy choice. I am pro-choice because I believe women are people and because the value of obtaining consent when it comes to touching a woman's body is extremely important to me.

This is precisely what these media outlets need to be pointing out but they aren't. Instead, they choose what is only a different form of anti-woman, anti-choice rhetoric conveniently disguised as liberal values. I have no more respect for what they are doing and how they are treating women like my mother and I, than I do for Santorum's anti-choice, anti-autonomy, anti-woman claptrap.

Anti-Firefighter Mentality: Simple Truths from a Firefighter's Wife

2012-01-24T00:04:00.000-05:00

Us at Matt's academy graduation.

I was home with my children one afternoon while my husband was at work. We were outside playing when suddenly the quiet of the afternoon in our small town was broken with the sound of sirens on emergency vehicles sounding the alarm. There must have been a fire or serious accident to have that many vehicles and sirens going, I thought to myself. My toddler interrupts my thoughts; he recognizes the sounds of the sirens too. "Is that daddy," he asks me. "I don't know, it could be daddy," I replied. He works part-time locally in a neighboring town that sometimes helps cover emergency services where we live. "He's going to come home, right mommy?" my son asks casually. My son's question is so nonchalant because he literally means to ask if his daddy is on his way home or not. He doesn't see the irony in his words because he is not yet old enough to understand how dangerous daddy's job really is. "Yeah, buddy," I reply. "He always comes home." Considering the dangerous nature of my husband's job and the fact that he and so many of his co-workers serve so willingly and gladly, the politics surrounding agencies that provide emergency services recently have been infuriating to me.

Some recent online news articles, and the negative comments made on them, have left me frustrated and infuriated. I see politicians making poor choices for fire departments for selfish political gain.  Yet then it is convenient to blame the fire department and fire unions for budgeting problems after bickering over something as small as a 1% pay increase so the firefighters can afford to feed their families. It seems so unfortunately easy for this to be done when you consider that there are so many people who have a bad perception of fire services to begin with.   In the media people complain that fire services are a waste of money--something they do not want their tax dollars to go toward. Yet in an article on a subscription-based fire service, the firefighters were personally blamed and vilified for the lack of available services (subscription-based services allow community members to refuse to contribute financially to the fire department in return for agreeing to opt out of receiving services. Though firefighters often want to respond to the fires anyway, they may be threatened with the loss of their jobs, their livelihoods, if they do so). The perceptions of firefighters and how these perceptions are used impacts my husband, his safety, our livelihood, and our precious community. I will use every platform I have to combat this misconception--my blog is no exception.

Firefighters are lazy underachievers who get paid taxpayer dollars to sit around all day and watch TV and sleep in recliners. There aren't very many fires any more, fire departments are a waste of money, and firefighters are just taking advantage.

Firefighters are not lazy or under-achieving

Firefighters are highly skilled professionals. In addition to requiring that firefighters demonstrate physical fitness, maintain detailed knowledge of the streets and major buildings within a city or community, master complicated equipment and vehicles, and be educated in fire science, many fire departments also require that firefighters double as Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs). This means not only meeting the EMT requirements for a local community or city but the national requirements as well--the national EMT test is no walk in the park. Can you imagine being skilled as a caretaker and nurturer as a medical professional but also having to have the bravery and skills to run into burning buildings? Can you imagine being drawn to the physical work of firefighting but also needing to possess the gentleness and medical knowledge of an EMT? How common do you think it is that those two qualities of both caretaker and what I would certainly dare to call the qualify of a warrior, in the personality of the same individual? Competent firefighter/EMTs are not your everyday people.

I am a nurturer. I know for a fact that I could do the EMT part of the job. My first two years in college were in nursing school, I have been employed as an Emergency Department Technician, and I have ridden in ambulances. But I will tell you I know without a doubt that I could not do the job of a firefighter/EMT because I do not have what it takes to fight fires. I cannot walk into a room so hot that the tops of my ears immediately singe and my helmet starts melting. I do not have what it takes to scale the side of a building using a hook and some window ledges to save someone. Memorizing building layouts, maps, and backstreets and having to safely navigate to an emergency in a matter of minutes in an enormous, expensive, vehicle? I'd be lost. It takes someone really special to do this job.

Firefighters are highly knowledgeable professionals. In addition to all of the knowledge and skills required to be a firefighter and an EMT, many firefighters are also college students or college graduates. Many firefighters are also paramedics. Firefighters in larger cities are required to attend and pass fire academies and training exams. They also may encourage and reward firefighters for achieving higher education by giving them additional points for having a college degree or serving in the military. Many of my husband's peers are veterans or reserve military personnel.

Firefighters do not "sit around" all day

Busy, busy, busy.  Washington D.C. is one particular fire department which seems to always be under attack in the local media. One firehouse in the District of Colombia, lovingly nicknamed "The House of Pain," averages about 700 calls per month and in 2009, they totaled nearly 10,000 (that's an average of nearly 27 per day, folks. That's no less than one emergency responded to per hour). Officially reported fire calls are hard to come by but in a big city fire department, I wouldn't at all feel like I was exaggerating to say that an average of 15-20 calls per fire station per day was accurate.

There's more to firefighting than you think. Being a firefighter not only entails firefighting responsibilities as well as emergency service responsibilities, often times firefighters inspect buildings, provide CPR and first aid training to the community, install and provide smoke detectors for free, inspect fire hydrants, provide protection and rescue to various waterfronts, as well as provide staffing to things like sports and entertainment events.

"First Responder" means more than you think. We live in a society that really doesn't take care of our vulnerable populations as well as we think we do. Sitting in nice, comfortable homes, we don't see the things that firefighters and EMTs see or see what they do and never get credit for. The lack of access to affordable health care and, lets face it, accessible health care and health education means overflow in emergency rooms and that emergency personnel are very busy. One fire department I know of sends a firefighter to carry a child with a disability up the stairs of his home twice a day just so that he can sleep in his own bed. His mother's insurance did not cover a private medical company to come do this and no one would help her...except the firefighters. Additionally, people get sick, they get scared, they are tired or desperate or without resources--they may call 911 for things you and I think are silly. In fact, a great deal of fire/EMS calls fall into this category. Fire, EMS, and police are there for these individuals in their time of need. Fire, police, and EMS have fallen into this "catch all" category that is literally holding our society together in some ways, to the point that some emergency services are now hiring EMS social workers to alleviate some of this burden.

Firefighters are not "living it up" on our tax dollars

Health risks. The longer a firefighter stays in duty, their risk of developing a fatal cancer grows. A recent study (2006) discovered that firefighters who have been on the job for many years were at significant risk for cancers such as brain cancer, kidney cancer, Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, colon cancer, bladder cancer and Leukemia.  Continuing on this career track year after year increases the risk of mortality among firefighters from these illnesses. Firefighters are also at risk for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Ever thought about how stressful it is to work long hours, be alarmed constantly by loud bells and sirens, and not always have time for a healthy meal? Firefighters are also at an increased risk of Cardiovascular disease (CVD). CVD is the leading cause of on-duty firefighter fatalities. Firefighters are at risk of exposure to toxic chemicals, bio-hazardous substances, and hearing loss. I have not even covered the cap of the iceberg as far as illnesses go--you get the idea. Firefighters and EMTs put themselves at significant health risk to save the lives of others, they deserve every benefit they receive and then some.

Let's talk about pay. Firefighters who work in large cities are often not paid enough to live within the cities they serve. Firefighters who are required to live within city limits may struggle to find a safe neighborhood with a good school district that they can afford, especially if they do not benefit from coupled or married privilege with an additional income earner in the household. Despite this obvious catch-22, many news sources and even political leaders love to demonize and humiliate firefighters who have to commute to work. It is an enormously hot political topic surrounding our community. These politicians secure votes by blaming the fire department for not being 100% staffed by residents and claiming that commuting firefighters are selfishly removing employment and money from local residents. People cheer along with them and develop a poor image of Fire and EMS services, cheering "reformation" of these departments heralded by this prospective political leader. These politicians and bureaucrats conveniently forget to mention that fire departments often have to recruit far and wide in order to find enough of the needed specialized help to fill their enormous staffing needs--and that there are already often programs in place to help locals obtain the necessary education and skills to apply for the job. They also forget to mention that they don't pay firefighters enough to live within the city, nor do they intend to.  Reporters in one neighboring city of mine have all but stalked firefighters, videotaping them and violating their privacy and the privacy of their spouses and children, outside of their homes to report on their residency. The starting pay for a Philadelphia firefighter is about $40,000. In Baltimore, starting pay is about $33,000. For FDNY it's almost $40,000 starting pay. Yet firefighters are expected to find affordable homes in safe neighborhoods with good school districts within the limits of major cities?

Newsflash to the politicians, firefighters do not drive 2-4 hours to work because being paid pennies for dangerous work in the name of "robbing" the local residents of employment and job opportunities is just oh-so-much-fun. Even the meanest people I've met in my life weren't that dedicated to making other people miserable. They do it because the larger cities, that they can't always afford to live in, offered them a job and it's a job that allows them to use a specific skill set in a way that is useful and beneficial to others. No conspiracy involved, I promise.

Family life.  Long shifts, inadequate pay that leads to needing overtime or more jobs, stress and danger on the job, and illness have lead to higher divorce rates among couples in the firefighter community. One source went as far as to say that firefighters are three times more likely than non-firefighters to get divorced. If you think being a firefighter is a tough job (and it is), try being married to one.  Long hours and working on holidays means that spouses and families have to adapt. It is no easy talk watching your partner experience having his (or her) hearing destroyed, his/her sleep constantly disturbed, and knowing that every time they go to work they could be exposed to any number of dangers or health risks.

An interdependent community that's not looking to "take advantage" of anyone. In the almost 10 years that I have had the privilege of having a firefighter as a life partner, I have witnessed the most amazing displays of concern for others that I have ever seen. I have personally witnessed my husband and his friends, many who weren't even on duty at the time, bring a friend whose heart had stopped back to life. One afternoon, my husband jumped right in and saved the life of a child on a call that wasn't even his when a co-worker went down on the job.  I have seen firefighters travel over a hundred miles to attend the funeral of a fallen brother or sister they had never met out of respect. I have seen my husband's peers donate their sick time to an ill firefighter in need and take collections out of their own pockets to give to the family. I have seen them use their days off to make repairs to the home of a hospitalized firefighter and attend to his or her family. I have seen firefighters work extra shifts for no compensation so that a firefighter missing work for a serious illness could have their shifts covered and receive a paycheck. Selfish people hoarding your tax money (and you know I don't speak about anyone that way)? I think not.

Why treat public servants this way?

Perfection
Of course, no fire department, no firefighter, is perfect. Continued changes and improvements are needed as times change and people's needs change. I have long since critiqued the patriarchal aspects of our 9-5 world and work week. Businesses and places of employment tend to be open and operate at times that are not convenient for individuals with child care responsibilities. Often times this translates to men working, women staying home, people rearranging their lives to fit into a routine that doesn't entirely fit their needs, and children end up in daycare. I see jobs that provide 24 hour service (especially those traditionally male dominated), like firefighting, as a perfect opportunity to trail blaze the way for the formation of convenient schedules that benefit women and families that both serve the public and employees who have child care responsibilities. The continued reduction of occupational segregation in professions like firefighting is something I look forward to seeing--yet one heatedly debated topic is firefighter schedules and many people believe in the 9-5 schedule for a firefighter or something similar such as a series of 12 hour shifts. The lack of understanding of what firefighters (and those in like professions) need is an enormous blockade to this change.

What I want you to understand
The fact of the matter is, my husband and his co-workers, through their occupation are at risk for hearing loss, mental and physical health problems, heart disease, exposure to toxic chemicals and bio hazardous materials, injury, and a host of other issues, which places their families at risk of divorce or losing them, all to work to save people they have never so much as met. They deserve good pay and good benefits--why that ever comes into question is beyond me. If I could implore anything of anyone reading this, it would be to stand up for what's right for your community fire department. Support them, find out their needs, bring them a plate of cookies from time to time, and call politicians out on using our women and men who serve us daily as pawns. Their safety is that important, and so is yours.

References:
GAGLIANO, A. (2009). What Every Firefighter's Spouse Should Know. Fire Engineering,162(12), 89-92.

Del Ben, K. S., Scotti, J. R., Yi-Chuen, C., & Fortson, B. L. (2006). Prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms in firefighters. Work & Stress, 20(1), 37-48.

Soteriades, E., Smith, D., Tsismenakis, A., Baur, D., & Kales, S. (2011). Cardiovascular disease in US firefighters: a systematic review.Cardiology In Review, 19(4), 202-215.

Youakim, S2006). Risk of Cancer Among Firefighters: A Quantitative Review of Selected Malignancies. Archives Of Environmental & Occupational Health, 61(5), 223-231.

So, my Friend Wants to Adopt a Baby.....

2012-01-22T00:56:00.000-05:00

On occasion, people ask me "how can I adopt?" A lot of people hear I work with "Adoptee Rights," and not understanding the term, assume that "Adoptee Rights" means advocating for expanded rights of people who want to adopt, like advocating for bigger tax credits or other laws that favor adoption in some way (yep, even with "adoptee" in the title people make that assumption). People who know I am adopted and also know that I had fertility problems either want to know how I finally managed to get pregnant or they want me to give them some tip on how to adopt or some reassurance that everything about adoption will be wonderful. I was stunned for a moment when I got an email from a good friend, who doesn't have a direct adoption connection but follows this blog and is supportive of me just because she's awesome, asking for advice on how to adopt a baby. My usual mini-speech about adoption ethics that I would usually give to someone did not apply in this situation. Believe it or not, I had no idea what to tell her.

The [Usual] Mini-Speech

When someone asks me for my opinion on adopting, I tell them how I honestly feel. I tell them I feel it is most important to look into foster care adoptions. Yes, there are mothers who, even if offered proper support, do not want to parent infants whom they desire to place through an agency. However, these infants are not going to go without a home as there are more than enough people waiting to adopt an infant. In fact, the ratio of adoptions that may occur to waiting prospective parents is so unbalanced that often times it takes great marketing efforts on the behalf of the adoption facilitator to try to find expectant parents who would be willing to place their baby for adoption. People will get mad at me for not being supportive of the private, infant adoption system. I am not judgmental of others who disagree but I personally do not I don't like the system; I do not like where this particular system is right now socially, legally, and practice-wise. I think the more pressure there is on this part of the industry for adoptions to take place, the more pressure there is for law and practice to facilitate adoption to stay in business than to explore alternatives to adoption. Therefore, I am not interested in contributing to it by sending even more applicants its way when people ask me for advice. If people want to know what I, personally, support, I tell them to look into the public foster care system. Not that that system is perfect either; I would hope the more people who desired to adopt from foster care the more people could demand changes to make things better. I didn't forget inter-country adoption, I just honestly do not get into that with people.

Guardianship vs. Adoption

I do not usually get into the whole guardianship vs. adoption argument when people ask me about adoption because I do not like the legal implications of either option. There are instances where guardianship is workable. However, as an adoptee, I can tell you that I am happy to be the legal daughter of my adoptive parents. They have raised me since I was nearly 5 months old. It would have and still would feel uncomfortable for me to have simply been their "ward." I don't like that and I don't think that would have been in my best interest in my particular type of adoption. I also do not see anything reasonable about the fact that adoption legally erases an adoptee's relatedness to their original family, amends and seals the related records in an attempt to legally alter history, allows adoptees in some cases to be defenselessly lied to with little way of discovering that fact, and then makes it something akin to an Olympic feat to try to get information. I do not like that I am no longer legally related to my original family or that my information was sealed. I think it's ridiculous and as you know, I wasted no time and spared no expense unsealing it all as soon as I figured out how to do it and plan to eventually change my legal name to include my original surnames. Names that are mine and never should have been taken from me to begin with.

There needs to be some balance between these extremes. A child's history and relatedness to their biological family should not have to be erased in order for them to be loved and care for by another family if that ends up being necessary. A child should not be robbed of the ability of legal relatedness to their nurturing parents simply because they are not biologically related. Why we cannot legally acknowledge a broad spectrum of parents as per what is best for each individual child is beyond me. I know people wonder about inheritance and would complain about an adoptee having their hands in too many "pots" so to speak taking away money from one parent or the other's "real kids." I've heard people say it both in the general population and even legislators concerned about it; people worry that the adoptee is going to take someones money or that the adoptee's money isn't going to go to the 'most deserving' family member (in the case a parent would inherit from a deceased adoptee). I say, good grief, inheritance seems like an awfully insignificant issue to overcome and work out in the overall effort of improving the rights of adopted children. At any rate, this is why I don't get into the whole guardianship vs. adoption thing--I think people should do whichever they think suits the situation and hand and fight tooth and nail for every shred of documentation that belongs to the adoptee so that the adoptee can have it some day. Everyone impacted by adoption should join the Adoptee Rights movement to fix these laws so we don't have to have these arguments for decades to come.

The Background

What's basically happening here, is that my friend, who I'll call "Jane," needs to know how to adopt or become the guardian of her cousin's baby. The baby's father is in prison and is disinterested in parenting, the expectant mother apparently has some drug issues and also says she does not want to parent. She already has an older child whom her own mother is raising. Unfortunately, the grandmother is stretched too thin to take in this new baby. Jane's first preference and priority is for her cousin to get her act together and parent her soon-to-be born baby as well as her other child. However, Jane can't force her cousin to accept help she doesn't want nor has she been able to convince her to consider making a parenting plan. At the same time, Jane does not want to lose this baby from the family which is why she is stepping up to offer to adopt or become a permanent legal guardian. I can anticipate that some people would say to this "why does anything need to be legal or official, why can't the baby just live with Jane?" That may be one option. Remember, this issue isn't about putting the goal of adopting first, it is about trying to figure out what's best for the individual child first. That being said, if Jane is going to end up the child's sole caretaker, she needs the legal ability to make decisions for the child. Also, her cousin is set on not parenting and wants to make arrangements for her baby to be adopted. Jane feels she should be informed now about how to make adoption/guardianship arrangements and acknowledge her cousin's wishes than watch her cousin arrange an adoption outside of the family with someone else.

Here's Where I Have no Clue

So she asks me, where to go, who to ask, and what do to. A lawyer? An agency? I had no clue. The reality of these issues is, there are always people out there who (as I already said), even if given the resources, do not want to parent. Or they make the decision while pregnant not anticipating how they might feel after the baby is born or the fact that they may change their mind after the baby is born. As much as I don't like adoption agencies, I would hope in these instances that these mothers would go to a remotely ethical agency. I think doing so would increase the likelihood that they would be exposed to competent counselling as well as resources to help them plan out all of their options (and I say "plan" as an actual-helping-professional-term, not in the mushy PAL "adoption plan" sense). Social Workers (unfortunately, not all adoption workers are necessarily "Social Workers") are well trained in the intervention planning process. What ought to be happening is that a worker helps a client discover their problems, translate the problems into needs, take the needs and create goals, identify objectives to go with that goal (describe how each goal can be accomplished in detail) and weigh the pros and cons of several possible plans (attempting to keep an expectant mother focused single-mindedly on adoption as her only plan is an absolutely unacceptable planning process) that best address the issues and goals at hand. In the case that an expectant mother absolutely wants to consider adoption, it would be very important to me that she work with someone who excels in implementing the intervention planning process and who applies it to adoption in a way that is ethical and beneficial to her and her baby.

However, does an agency really apply in this case? A lawyer? Can they arrange something on their own? Do foster-to-adoption laws apply? And who in the world can they ask? (Pennsylvania law would be applying here). My friend's situation is an example of what we talk about: the child's right (per UNICEF) to be raised by his or her own biological family members when the parents are unable or unwilling to parent and I have no idea how to tell my friend how in the world this happens.

Help!

Photo credit: graur razvan ionut

Made With Love

2012-01-20T00:00:00.000-05:00

I was walking my house the other day thinking about all of the creative things I'd like to be able to do but am not even remotely good at but how fortunate I am to benefit from the talents of people who are good at those things. Namely sewing. The person who has that kind of patience is my hero. I'm sharing some pictures with you of things other people made for me with love. I thought today might be a nice day for a picture post (don't forget to click "read more" to see the rest of the post!)

Tier curtains sewn by my mother in law.

Panel curtains sewn by my mother in law.

My friend, Diana, sewed the black and white purse.

Diana also made the cover to my Kindle.

Diana also made this necklace (Diana can do anything).

W's blanket made by my a-mom.

Baby quilt made for my kids by my a-aunt. The blue fabric was saved from her son's quilt she made when he was a baby. That means the blue fabric is like a million (or 22) years old.

The blue knitted (crocheted??) baby sweater made by my o-great grandmother ("o" means "original" btw).
I told that story here.

My friend Autumn made allll of these earrings. She = awesome.

My mother in law embroidered this blanket for my kids.

My a-grandmother (she's adopted too) made this quilt for my kids.

M's quilt made by my a-mom.

My mother in law made me this pillow.

One of the twin necklaces I had made, one for me, one for my o-mom.

My o-mom bought this bag from Diana to give to me.

The quilt my sister in law made for my kids.

Mommy, why do you Wear Make up? Early Lessons for my Preschooler (and me!) on Women and Beauty

2012-01-19T00:00:00.000-05:00

I woke up one morning, pulled myself out of the warmth of my bed, and threw the curtains back letting the sun stream in my bedroom heralding the start of a brand new day. I start my morning routine which consists of a mad dash about the second floor of my home getting a shower, dressed, and what few chores I can done before my kids wake up. Once awake, it becomes all about getting them fed and ready for the day. One morning while my kids were playing happily on the floor in my oldest sons' bedroom, I went the next room over (mine) and decided to actually put on some makeup that day. Of course, I nearly stab myself in the eye with the mascara when I am startled by a small but unexpected voice behind me.

"Mommy, what's that?"

I turned to see my three-year-old watching me intently.

"It's makeup," I replied.

"What's make-up?" he asked.

"It's something I sometimes put on my face."

"Why do you wear make up, mommy?" he finally asks.

Here's where I have an entire conversation about what I want to say, in about five seconds time, in my head. I don't know why the importance of the answer dawned on me that morning, or any morning for that matter seeing as I am not in the least bit a morning person and usually require at least one cup of coffee before doing any critical thinking. However, the recent scenario where my son asked me about age (OK, not so much, I accidentaly made it about age) coming to memory make me wince to myself. I completely did not say what I wanted to say the last time he asked me something important.

I had groaned sitting down into a chair. It was the first Wednesday of December I remember; this because the first Tuesday of every month is one of my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu classes and I am always hurting the next day. One of my instructor's (who, by the way, is an awesome person) favorite ~~torture~~ warm-up exercises consists of us laying flat on our stomachs and pulling ourselves across the studio by our elbows. Works the core, don't you know. The next day as I painfully lowered myself into my chair for breakfast, I responded to my son's question by saying:

"Because I'm old."

I really regret saying that because I do not want him to associate being an older adult (which I'm not one) or growing older with something painful or negative. Health complications can be common among older adults as the body ages; it is important to be sensitive to that. However, it is equally important not to make an automatic assumption determining that someone who is an older adult must have health issues or is physically limited in some way because that is a stereotype. This is an association I did not want to teach my son. My son makes associations really easily and is not easily unconvinced of something he's learned. For instance, because the Sprout network insists on playing Nicole Johnson's diabetes cookbook commercials every single commercial break possible, he now associates diabetes (which is heavily represented in our family) with "rich chocolate cake." I have told him that having diabetes means you need to eat very healthy and not too much sugar to stay healthy and that his great grandma and grammy both have diabetes and work very hard to eat right and stay healthy. He's not convinced; he's seen pictures of cake.

Thanks Sprout.

This is why I paused for a moment with the makeup question and reminded myself: I am responsible for teaching this little boy, who will one day grow into a man, about how to view and treat women. It's important for me to teach him our family's values when it comes to women, physical appearance, and beauty. So really, what should I say here that reflects that?

So saying "to make mommy pretty was off the table."

Why? Because I am already pretty, all women are. I need to ask myself why it is that I am wearing make up. Is it to hide something, to conform to someone elses standard of beauty, or because I like to wear it? And if it is not to conform to some beauty standard or to hide behind it, my answer to my son needs to reflect that. Mommy is not hiding behind her make up. Mommy is beautiful; all people are beautiful. This is also why I did not want to genderize my answer. Because if wearing make up is about doing something you just want to do, and not about conforming to laid-out female standards of beauty, that means make up isn't just for girls. Men do wear make up; perhaps not anywhere near as prevalent as women do. I thought of all of the human characters on the TV shows he watches; they all, men and women alike, wear make up to ward off the glare from the lights and camera.

I dislike that he is already learning that things are assigned to boys and girls, not by what they like, but by the gender identity they've been assigned. The recent Lego debate is no better example of this. Boys' toys are bold and adventurous. Girls' toys are frilly and demure. My son has learned that things are not for him based on whether or not it is pink or blue, which makes me sad, because he loved the color pink. We visit our local fire station often where they have pink hats for girls and black hats for boys and I would all but bare my teeth at anyone who tried to change my son's mind the times he would request the pink hat instead of the black one. I don't even like that they have one hat for girls and one hat for boys to begin with. My husband defends this saying that having a pink firefighting hat at the fire station increases the ambient belonging of women in a predominantly or stereotypically male environment. If both hats were intended to be for anyone who wants one, I might agree. But that's not the fact. The fact is, the pink hats are reserved for girls. The black hats, that look more realistically like firefighting hats (I have never seen a real, pink firefighting helmet complete with a shield on it that pictures a dainty dalmatian wearing pearls and a bow) are for the boys.

The day he told me he wasn't allowed to like pink any more, because pink is for girls, I wanted to cry. No matter how many times I've told him he is allowed to like whatever he wants to like or even when I pointed out that his Poppy has a pink dress shirt he wears to church, he won't be convinced otherwise. Needless to say, genderizing make up and concern for one's appearance about issues being unique to girls is not a road I wanted to go down.

So, now I want to tell you that I sat down with him and had a thoughtful conversation with him where he learned more than I did and that I walked away a proud, beaming mother congratulating myself on a job well done educating the next generation of young men on women's beauty, self-esteem, and appearance. I want to tell you that I will be writing into parenting magazines everywhere describing the perfect lesson to teach children on these topics. Instead, it went a little more like this:

"I put it on my face because I want to. Sometimes adults wear make up and sometimes they don't. It is just another part of my clothes for the day."

"Oh, OK" he replied before returning to the enormous bulldozer he had parked in the hallway.

*sigh*

Photo credit: mistermong

STOP SOPA/PIPA!

2012-01-18T00:26:00.000-05:00

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Movin' On Up (Again!)

2012-01-17T22:05:00.002-05:00

Orange Belt!

Is Adoption ALL you Ever Think About? (Some New Stuff)

2012-01-16T00:25:00.000-05:00

As you know, I think it is vital for people to be able to listen to the voices of adult adoptees, especially when it comes to adoption issues. Adoption culture has spent so long telling everyone that being adopted "is the same as" being a biological child. In some regards, it is the same. We are full and equal members of our families and because of that equality, there should be no problem embracing and discussing the differences that adoptees bring to the world and their families. Silence about adoption issues should not be the ticket to being seen and treated equally as a member of your adoptive family. Because of this culture of adoption, people haven't been going to adult adoptees for their responses on adoption-and-similar issues as much as they should have. I think people get a glimpse of the importance when they participate in ventriloquism ("my sister's friend's cousin is adopted and she thinks/feels/says....."). They're acknowledging that an adoptee is probably the best source for an issue which is why they've responded as if they can speak for one. However, they fail to follow through and let the adoptee speak for themselves or ask the adoptee what they feel.

It has long been one of the ever-evolving missions of this blog to be just one more adoptee providing responses on adoption and a variety of political issues. I want people to be reading our blogs, asking for adoptee commentary, and asking for adoptee participation where it would be vitally important. I am always thinking of new ways to draw people to the adoptee community and to rally with us as allies and as friends. People have said that more people will listen if adoptees voice their opinions only in certain ways. This may be true as the saying goes, you get more flies with honey than vinegar. However, there just seems to be something awfully unjust about asking the only people who can tell you what an experience is like to offer up that precious information, often information that evokes strong emotion and is hard to share, only if it is perfectly packaged in the way the listener wants to receive it.

On the other hand, one thing that I have been wondering that might be a barrier, at least for my blog, is the fact that most of my posts are directly adoption-related. Someone not necessarily impacted by adoption may come here for an article or two that I've written about a current event but end up not following along because they do not identify with anything else here. So they do not follow and they don't get to have regular access or exposure to the writings of someone who identifies as being adopted. Perhaps there are adult adoptees out there who are at the stage in their life where they've worked out adoption issues and they don't want to think about adoption or being adopted all the time. They might like to follow along with someone who identifies as adopted, someone they therefore identify with, and hear about other things that adopted person is doing. Perhaps people are puzzled or put-off by the largely adoption-only content on this blog wondering if that's all I ever think of.

Well, I will clear at least one thing up there: adoption is not all I ever think about. In fact, I spend most of my day doing four things: studying, chasing after my children, being delightfully happy that adoption is not ruining my day, and looking for chocolate. It's true. I'm fortunate to have a world renowned Chocolatier down the street from me who believes in leaving no chocolate craving unaddressed and who will open his little boutique up for you at any hour of the day or night.

MMMM....CHOCOLATE!

I think one misconception of a lot of adoption blogs, no matter what "triad" member is penning them, is that this is all the person ever thinks about. After all, that's the only part of them, their online presence, that readers get to see. You can have a blog about almost any topic such as feminism, parenting, cooking, product testing, photography, crafting, healthy living, or shopping and I don't think people assume that the person who pens a cooking blog or a shopping blog is just unhealthily consumed with cooking or shopping. However, I do think that many people make this assumption about adoption authors because of the stereotypes of mental health against every triad member (and the stereotypes for each of us are different but pervasive). I wish more people had a different and better understanding of adoption bloggers. This blog being mostly about adoption does not represent an imbalance in my life where I am consumed with the topic. This blog was never intended to represent a written form of my day-to-day life; just the adopted part of my life. I work out what adoption-related things that come to mind here, for my own benefit and the benefit of others, so that my life can be balanced.

I will not say that being adopted is never hard or that things are always perfect. But I have less of a need to work out concepts that I have interest in and more of a desire to talk about topics other people are interested in hearing about (which is why I asked for input). It's why you've seen me give commentary on more current and political events lately. I am not criticizing those that write about adoption-only (obviously), I am just trying to keep my blog current with my ever-evolving goals. I would like to draw more people here for a variety of reasons so that they can, as a result, learn more about adult adoptees and adoption, in the process. What I think I would like to start doing more is writing about more general life issues; things a broader variety of people can also identify with and things that adoptees who might want to hear from an adoptee but not necessarily about adoption all-the-time would want to read (and non-adopted triad members are welcome too, of course). I'd like to talk more about life and parenting (without embarrassing the heck out of my sons by being too personal, of course), my quest to not ~~abhor~~ dislike cooking so much, and my love of art and crafting.

And of course, I'll still blog about adoption. This will always be an adoption blog. People should understand that this blog is written by an American, reunited-private-domestic-infant-same race-agency adult adoptee, wife, mother, Social Work student, Christian Universalist, unapologetic humanist and feminist, crafter, photographer, fire/police/EMS family member, horrible cook (so on and so forth) and that every part of my identity is in everything I write whether I expressly or specifically detail it out or not.

For blog entries that include general life topics with no specific adoption comparison, see my new Life Stuff tag.

PS. In case you're wondering, no, no one emailed me asking "is adoption all you ever think about?" Most everyone who has ever written me has been very nice. I used it as a title because people do often say this to (usually) adoptee and original mother bloggers (maybe AP bloggers too, I have no idea) and I thought it would be an ironic title.

What's the Right Answer When it Comes to Veronica Rose and other Custody Cases?

2012-01-15T00:07:00.000-05:00

I have been asked several times to comment on custody cases that (usually) involve fathers whose children were surrendered to adoption by their mother and who want to regain their right to parent their child. People have asked what I think should happen in cases such as the Veronica Rose and Emma Wyatt. There are so many of these custody cases out there, they are hard for me to follow and I honestly do not have enough information to make an opinion case by case. I have gone "on the record," so to speak, by voicing support for parents, such as Carla Moquin, in the past. However, with limited time and resources to do any digging (and already being spread so thin with the activities I am already involved in), it is hard to decipher what is going on in these cases when all I see is what is in the media.
The typical media response has been to create an emotional frenzy pitting the stereotype of the unfit-abandoning-biological-deadbeat-father who may be at further disadvantage due to biases about class and race, against well-to-do adoptive parents who are often portrayed as "taking a child in" when no one else "wanted it." I do not make the mistake of falling for these stereotypes. So, I will try to give my opinion on these cases generally-speaking.

Additional problems
The issue in many of these cases is that a child often grows older and older with all of these appeals, meaning they develop more of an attachment to and memories with the parents who are raising them. As these trials progress not only does the validity of the adoption and the petitioning parent's rights come into question but so does the age of the child and whether or not the child would be harmed by a change of custody. We should not allow this to happen with these lengthy appeal processes where parents professing to want what is best for the child stall and stall. Instead of simply sticking to the issues at hand, we waste time considering things like whether or not the father is a super nice guy and if we like him or not.  What I want to know is: did he assert his right to parent in the appropriate time frame? Did he revoke his consent to the termination of his rights in the appropriate time frame? If not, was it fraud, state-skipping (more legalized-fraud), lack of information, or duress that lead to this happening? Prove these things, hammer them out, and if his rights were wrongfully terminated, let him parent. If he was fully informed, did not want to parent and had adequate time to make that decision, and changed his mind three years down the road, I don't think a child should be uprooted.  You know that I support the concept of multiple parenting rights for multiple parents instead of just one "father" and one "mother" as well as not erasing an adopted child's connection and relatedness to their original family. It would benefit children whose parents need help raising them to not be severed from their family ties but have several parenting figures working together to meet their needs. But unfortunately, that's not how our system works and my opinion has to be based on what is already in place.

I don't care if a father has five bedroom single-family home with two car garage or if he lives in a small apartment. I don't care if he was fired from his last job. I don't care if he smoked for twelve years and is trying to quit. I don't care what anyone has to say about his ethnicity or his participation and identification within a particular diverse group (e.g. the people who say "ICWA shouldn't count because the father doesn't "act Indian" enough. Um, excuse me?). Either a parent is fit and has rights within the law or they don't. Period. These appeals, feet dragging and vilifying of a father's race, culture, and sociodemographics leaving the children involved in these cases growing older and older when custody changes is unacceptable.

*note the examples of fathers I gave here do not pertain to any specific case.

What about the child?
I do believe that it is stressful for a baby to be separated from the only nurturer he or she has ever known, including a newborn who spent nine months being nurtured by the mother who carried him or her (people who disagree are entitled to disagree and I'm not going to argue about it).  This does not mean that being in a home where you are not wanted is a superior option to being separated from a parent that does not want to raise you. This means that when a mother wants to parent and can be helped to do so, she should be. Biological fathers too. This should become the primary focus rather than the misleading rhetoric of "selflessness" in adoption, so that she and her baby do not have to experience this separation unnecessarily.

However, because I believe this, I cannot then say that a child who has developed an attachment and memories with a nurturing parent over the course of years won't experience any stress or pain simply because they are being returned to their biological family. Leaving a caregiver is stressful; period.  In these cases where a child grows older and older and is returned to their biological family, we absolutely cannot lose sensitivity to that child and all they have lost and have been through. In these cases where the child has grown older and older because of appeals and feet dragging (especially when the original father or other petitioning original family member is perfectly fit and well within their rights) the courts must take into account the welfare of a child who would be raised in a home that dragged its feet to prevent the ability of an original family to stay in-tact and to prevent a child losing that family.

This is not to say that this is the case with every single custody battle like this. I know of a biological extended family who is battling the original father for custody because they truly believe he is not fit to parent and have very valid reasons for believing so. I cannot paint every case involving these issues with the same brush.

Perhaps in some cases, what is best is joint custody or at least visitation, for the parents who raised a child for the first several years of his or her life--only if it is in that child's best interest. Not because it would benefit them but because of benefits it may have to the child. This might not be a popular idea but I, at the age of 26 years old, still remember being two and three and I definitely remember being five and older. Very vividly in many cases. I know that I loved my parents who were raising me at those ages. I really did, I loved them to bits. If a child wants to maintain a connection with familiar faces and it would benefit them to do so, let them.

Are tribes abusing ICWA?
I have to say, I find the very accusation that tribes are abusing ICWA infuriating. What is perhaps more so infuriating is that, from what it appears on the various Facebook pages contesting the return of Veronica to her biological father, it's a bunch of mostly White people sitting around moaning about how our government should overturn a policy meant to protect people of color from genocide! Have people so quickly forgotten why we have ICWA in the first place? Our nation has a long history of the abuse and genocide of the first nations of this continent. Treaty after broken treaty. Forced assimilation in boarding schools where children were not only stripped of their culture but emotionally, psychologically, physically, and sexually abused and tormented--severely so if they dared to utter their native tongue or original names. The Indian Adoption Projects removed children from their homes and tribes and placed them in White homes for no reason other than the color of their skin and their family's government-induced state of poverty. They lost their culture, their families, their roots, their land, their parents: and the tribes were impacted by the loss of their next generation. In modern day, we have a disproportionate number of First Nations children in the foster care system, in White foster homes, in culturally incompetent environments, despite ICWA.

It's a shame people have come to bad mouth ICWA. We cannot, as a country, become so silly in love with the idea of adoption that we stop protecting vulnerable populations.

But the mother chose adoption and chose the parents!
People want to know why the court should be able to overturn an adoption that a mother wanted because of the father's wishes, or in this case, the father's wishes and ICWA. There are four really important things here I think people should keep in mind (1) this is adoption, not health care or abortion, (2) fathers are equal to mothers as parents, (3) it is the basic human right of every child to be with biological family if and whenever possible, (4) it is also the basic human right of every child to have a loving and nurturing home.

This is adoption, not abortion or health care. A woman should have the unquestionable right to make decisions for herself and her body while pregnant. Too often we carry this over in adoption and treat her child like a piece of property speaking as though laws and children's rights provisions do not have to be followed if a mother "chooses" not to follow them. In adoption, it is a good thing for mothers and fathers who do not want to parent or cannot parent to choose the adopting parents (I say this despite the fact that I loathe pre-birth matching). Adoption involves a lifelong connection between two families and it is important for original parents to choose people they feel serve their child's best interest and who they can maintain a connection with because a child has a right to have that connection. However, I don't think it's OK to circumvent the law or children's rights in this process. It should not be anyone's right to choose to cut out a perfectly fit father from a child's life. It is likewise not OK for one parent to get to decide-away the parent's parenting rights. It's not OK to choose to circumvent a law meant to preserve a child's culture, heritage, and family. It should not be a choice to take away a child's legal relatedness from their father, grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters, and cousins (unfortunately, this is what happens in adoption even if a mother doesn't want it to or the adoption does truly need to take place).

I cannot be convinced that in the case of ICWA being circumvented that not one couple or parent or extended family member could be found that has tribal connections or roots, to foster or adopt First Nations children who absolutely cannot be parented by their original families or who were voluntarily relinquished. My own adoptive mother is 1/4 Iroquois for goodness sake and I'm not even of First Nations decent. We need to reform the system and start making choices in the best interest of children, not what's politically or financially most convenient or lucrative.

The stereotypes that mothers are solely responsible for their babies and fathers have no responsibility was well ingrained in the 40's through 70's when women "got themselves pregnant," were penalized and humiliated and father's were legally and socially encouraged to run for the hills taking no responsibility (not that all fathers did that, of course). We've come to view and treat mothers as if they are a child's only family member which is a disservice to mothers, children, fathers and extended family members.

Only when the big adoption taboo is involved do we vilify fathers who want to stand up and take responsibility for the children they've helped create.

People have said "mothers need to have the right to be the sole decision-maker for a child because if a father is involved and she doesn't want him to be, she would just have an abortion." That's probably one of the most ridiculous things I have ever read, first of all (well, maybe not so ridiculous because people were responding to Oregon's HB 2904 last year said something similar. They said it was a mother's right to choose to waive protections set in place to ensure children did not experience adoption loss needlessly because of their parents' duress). I honestly am so sorry that people view pregnant women so poorly that so many truly believe that the only way for a woman to make health care decisions is to fail to protect children once they are born and preserve the rights of fathers (and also grandparents and extended families) to nurture their own children.

Reforms are needed
Like I said, wrongful termination of rights, lengthy court battles, and appeal after appeal so that families are held in limbo and a child's future is unknown should simply not be happening. This is an enormous indicator that adoption should be federally regulated. Whether arguing "small government, family law, or contract law, naysayers of the federal regulation of adoption say this needs to be a private matter between families. Well it isn't. Adoption is big business. A failure to address these issues on a federal level is a failure of our government to set ethical guidelines and standards and acknowledge the universal human rights of adopted children. Either a father has a right to raise his child or he doesn't. Either a child has a right to family preservation as first consideration or they don't. Being a father or child that lives in Utah instead of California, New Jersey, or any other state, does not change your humanity or your entitlement to human rights and ethical treatment. It is unacceptable that father's rights and consent to adoption laws differ from state to state, or that the differences in law are used to circumvent and confuse men who want to parent the children they've helped create. It is unacceptable that mandatory disclosure laws on adoption policies and procedures do not exist in all states. It is unacceptable that some states do not allow adoptees to access original documentation about themselves. It is unacceptable that someones human rights are upheld differently from one state to the next.

We need a de-profitized, regulated, de-privatized (or heavily regulated), well thought-out, well researched, heavily overseen adoption system that follows the same basic guidelines, principles, and protections in every single state. There needs to be a clear federal understanding what parenting rights are, how parenting rights are voluntarily or involuntarily terminated, what constitutes fraud and an overturn of termination, and directions for a speedy appeal process. Who has rights to parent in place of the mother or father if both have terminated their rights, such as tribal members, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, cousins needs to be determined. Whether or not the father of a child that is about to be adopted was properly notified or informed, whether or not he acted appropriately, and whether or not his rights were upheld should not be guess work. If a mother relinquished under a false understanding, it is fraud. If a parent wrongfully loses their right to parent their child, it is fraud. What is the guess work here? We've failed our families as a country to leave this to guess work or a conflict in law between states! And, if we de-profitized adoption we'd remove any motivation there is for adoption facilitators to push forward with adoption and lobbyists to push for adoption laws that put adoption before families.

"Every child has the right to know and be cared for by his or her own parents, whenever possible. UNICEF believes that families needing support to care for their children should receive it." --UNICEF

Photo credit: Salvatore Vuono

Did Romney Pressure a Mother to Surrender her Baby to Adoption?

2012-01-13T10:18:00.000-05:00

Religious influence and pressures in adoption are real. Now two authors are alleging in a book about Presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney, that he participated in pressuring a mother to surrender her baby to adoption or else be ex-communicated from the church, in the post-scoop era. When you tell a religious woman her choice is to give a baby a "better life" or basically to go to hell, how much of a choice does that sound like?

Part of the story of mother, Peggie Hayes:

"But while Hayes considered Romney a friend, he was also her bishop—which meant it was his job to pass along sometimes-harsh church counsel. The tension between the two relationships came to the forefront one day when he came over to her apartment, and encouraged her to turn her son over to the church’s adoption agency when he was born. (The church’s position is that if a happy marriage between parents of a newborn seems unlikely, adoption is preferable to single parenting.)

Hayes was offended by the suggestion, and told Romney she would never give up her son. But, according to Hayes, Romney told her, 'Well, this is what the church wants you to do, and if you don’t, then you could be excommunicated for failing to follow the leadership of the church.'" (source)

I remember browsing an agency website one time and seeing the phrase "do you know a 'birth mother'? Invite her to your Bible study group, pray with her, let her know that God forgives." To any random person, this might have been a little irritating. However, if you grew up in a very religious environment, you might have seen a whole different meaning. It means that being pregnant out of wedlock when you can't afford a baby is a big, fat, huge sin. When you make someone feel sinful, you're telling them their transgression was not only against their fellow person but against God. Transgressing against God to a religious person is a big deal. We're talking heaven and hell here, an entire afterlife. When I see something like that, I see manipulation. I see exactly how I would have felt had I gotten pregnant in high school or in my early 20's before I got married.

This is one big reason why I do not support candidates who want to incorporate religious values into law and practice. I do not want to be forced to live by anyone else's nor should anyone be forced to live by mine.

Should Romney be President, what would be in store for adoption in the United States?

Kevin Ost-Vollmers from Land of Gazillion Adoptees Lets me Pick his Brain (First.Vlog.Ever. Part II)

2012-01-12T00:00:00.000-05:00

Watch my interview above with Kevin Ost-Vollmers from Land of Gazillion Adoptees--woot!

(and don't forget to check out his interview with me at his blog).

PS. this is my 500th post on this blog!

Online Privacy: the Very True Confessions of a Bullied Girl who Escaped the Clutches of Social Media

2012-01-11T00:01:00.000-05:00

**At work or kids-near-the-computer profanity warning **

I was sitting at my computer desk staring blankly at Facebook when the word "WHORE!" catches my eye from the side of my screen. That's right, that annoying little feed to the right-hand side of the Facebook page that lets you know what people are doing on Facebook every minute of every day is suddenly lit up with profanity. A young family member of mine, being featured in the feed by Facebook, was busy typing to her friends on Facebook and having them type back to her; they were fighting. "Facebook fighting," they called it. Someone called someone else a "whore." Someone else was a "slut." Someone accused someone else of going some other embarrassing thing. Someone made jokes about some girl being fat.

I clicked out of Facebook at that point unwilling to see more of the high school fight unfold and I thanked God, I seriously thanked God, that Facebook, blogs, and social media did not exist (especially in this capacity) when I was growing up. These days it is so easy to make one comment or post one picture and have it spread like wildfire or have someone find it and turn it into an embarrassing situation. It would have only made it easier for the bullies to bully me when I was growing up.

I was a bullied girl.

I rarely talk about it and have been trying to type, erase, delete, re-type, re-erase, re-delete this entry for nearly as long as this blog has been going, trying to find the right way to share this part of my narrative in a way that would be most helpful to others. It's hard to write about because no one wants to admit there was a time in their life when they weren't liked or that something about them was so disliked that their peers made it into a hurtful spectacle. No one now would believe that bullying ever happened to me, not if you've known me for my teen and adult years. By the time I was seventeen, I had played soccer and also first base for the softball team. I did drama and was in vocal ensemble. I even sang the main solo for the church's Christmas cantata year after year. I was captain of the volleyball team one year until they replaced it with field hockey and then I played for the field hockey team. I had traveled internationally and made friends far and wide. I was captain of the basketball team two of the four years that I had played. I shattered at least four league records, was All-Star, All-Conference, First-String two years in a row. I was captain of the All-Star team my junior year and lead them to victory scoring into the "triple-doubles" myself with over 20 points, 20 rebounds, and an ungodly amount of blocks. I had a full-ride scholarship to a college with a top basketball team whose head coach I had trained with during the summers. I had a tight-knit group of very close friends, there were about ten of us who were "best friends." I was always dating someone because it proved I was pretty. I was always working so that I could always have the nicest things. Name brands, makeup, accessories, gadgets, and perfectly manicured nails. I was an honor roll student and generally liked by my teachers and peers. No one who knew me then or has known me now would think that there was a time when I was disliked and teased and that would have been all well and good to me in my high school years because I was bent on making myself as perfect as possible in every single way.

Because I told myself would never, ever let myself be teased like that again.

Ms. Perfect. Age 17

I had a wonderful experience in elementary school. Middle school was a different story. Fourth through sixth grades were like hell to me. What was I teased for? For being ugly. I was so absolutely hideous to everyone around me that not one day in those two years did my appearance escape comment. Of course, I wasn't actually ugly. Looking back on my pictures, I was a sweet thing with wide chestnut eyes, golden brown hair that fell into a soft bob around my face, and elusive dimples that marked either side of a shy smile. But this didn't matter. It became popular at my school for kids to think I was ugly. It all started one day when someone was trying to be funny and poke fun at me for no particular reason. But whatever it was they said was catchy, it had some particular sticking point, and those who overheard thought it was hilarious. They probably thought my upset reaction was hilarious and well worth their time poking fun at me.

Me, age 9, hideous, right?!

"Oh no, she's looking at me! Shield your eyes or you'll turn to stone!"

So it continued, for two years. Two years that escalated into joking far beyond my appearance and into anything that anyone could pick up on and launch an assault. My intelligence. My family. My clothes. You name it, anything. I went to a private school and our uniforms were supposed to "level the playing field" between students--but they didn't. I suppose I didn't get the memo the day that Hush Puppy shoes became popular and I never thought I would live down the ridicule when I stepped on the bus and someone recognized that my shoes were from Payless. Though I was never tormented specifically because I am adopted, the fact that I am adoptee did not escape their jeers. One boy called my original mother a "teenage slut" and said I would be "just like her." Another girl made fun of me for being an "orphan." In her prejudiced world, it was proof that I was a worthless and uncouth pauper someone was kind enough to rescue economically but could never be redeemed socially. Teachers weren't much help and the principal was bewildered. My parents were outraged and did what they could.

I cried a lot. A whole lot.

The bullying stopped in 7th grade about as abruptly as it started. It was almost as if those entire two years had never existed and only a few of the people ever came to me and formally apologized--yes, some actually did. This experience is far, far behind me but the issue of bullying is always near and dear to my heart. I try to think of what I can do, as a member of society, to help end bullying in schools and help both the bullies (I believe most people who bully others once felt helpless and bullied themselves) and those who were bullied. As a mother who uses the Internet quite a lot, I keep in mind that what I post on my blog, my networking sites, and write to people in emails is forever. Does this or that about my child really need to be shared? And although this is mostly-about-the-adoption-topic blog, this isn't something I am expressly concerned about for adoptive parents, original parents, or even adoptees as parents when it comes to adoption-related narratives and privacy and our children. This is important for every single parent out there who uses the Internet or whose children may use the Internet some day.

The extent my sons care about this issue right now is my oldest getting irritated when I'm blogging because he wants to use one of his apps or visit one of his preschool websites to watch a 45 second Fireman Sam clip for the 5,000th time. But I don't think of my adorable little three year old as he is now when I think about what I write on the Internet. Because, again, what I post here is forever.

I think about when my boys will be seven and nervous that their friends won't think they're cool if they're too scared to stay the whole night, at their very first sleepover.

I think about when they're nine and I'll have to hear for the first time "mom, can you please not kiss me goodbye in front of my friends any more?"

I think about when they're embarking on their teen years and I make the ultimate parent faux pas by accidentally telling someone they're crushing on "sorry, he can't come to the phone right now, he's in the bathroom and is going to be a while," and have to deal with silent treatment for the rest of the evening.

I think about the teen-young-adults they'll be who will roll their eyes, sigh, and say "mooom!" when I bawl at absolutely every single event in their lives: their sixteenth birthdays, their eighteenth, when they get their license, when they get an award, when they go to their first prom, when they graduate, when they go off to college, the entire car ride home from dropping them off at college....

I think about the amazing young men I will have raised who will go out and make their way in the world as interdependent parts of our community and society, who can go back and read every single thing I have ever written about them.

There are things we might think to share that seem reasonable enough. Like a (to us) no-brainer political or social point of view that we wholeheartedly believe and want to share with others that an experience our children had brought us to accept. Or, a funny photo or stressful story we'd like to share because we think others will appreciate it and lend us support. These things seem reasonable. Like when it seemed reasonable to my mother to shirk off my worries about a outfit she bought me for 5th grade picture day because I just knew the kids would have a field day of joking about it. The outfit was pretty (OK, even as an adult, it still isn't my taste) and the kids should not have cared that it wasn't the particular fad and instead appreciated it because it looked nice on me. It was a matching top and skirt in a faded, cotton pink that my mother had purchased from a local boutique. It had a gentle pattern of small blossoms covering the fabric and a bib-collar of delicate off-white lace that gently graced my shoulders. My shoulder-length hair was half-down, half pulled back in an understated bow made entirely of off-white, pearly beads. But the fact of the matter is: they didn't appreciate the outfit. They didn't care. Wearing pink was not cool and the lace thing just sent them over the top. I didn't fit in, I stuck out like a sore thumb in an atmosphere that already wasn't accepting of me.

Me, age 12

Yes, there are things that should seem reasonable to do or share, reasonable to an adult. But in the end, which was really more important? The principle of the matter where I should have been proud to have a pretty outfit and the kids were at fault for being so shallow, fickle and cruel? Or the fact that I was teased over it for probably two weeks after the pictures were taken, for two weeks after the pictures came back in, and then probably again when it was forever immortalized in the yearbook at the close of the school year? The principle didn't matter. Me being the "bigger person" and wearing a nice outfit even though it wasn't popular and those kids being the ones "in the wrong" didn't matter. The outfit mattered. Being pointed out as different because it was more important for me to wear the skirt and top than just blend in with the crowd mattered. Being relentlessly (which is no exaggeration) teased is what mattered. To me.

Now don't say "see, her parents did make all kinds of mistakes!" First of all, I don't know if I would say the outfit incident was her fault or call it a "mistake." It just is what it is. It also wasn't a "mistake" exclusive to adoptive parenting that, if hadn't been made, meant I would have grown up and not developed any of the opinions on adoption that I have now. This was a "all parents are liable to end up doing something like this" kind of "mistake."

I will never shirk off the issue of bullying the way I see some people do. "Kids will be kids" is no excuse to allow one child to make another child miserable. This is not something that is "part of growing up" or something that is acceptable to leave unaddressed. I will never be age 9 again. I will never be age 10 or age 11 again. I will never get to do those years over. Letting both the bully and the victim persist in pain is unacceptable. Productively working on the issue of bullying is the responsibility of every single parent.

I wholeheartedly believe that when it comes to issues of the Internet and bullying that children in oppressed and vulnerable populations are even more at risk. Like the young Black girl who was mocked on her teacher's Facebook page for her hairstyle. Or the many cases where the Internet has been used for students to bully fellow peers for being gay. Adoptees too may be vulnerable when it comes to this sort of thing because, you have to remember, there are stereotypes and stigmas associated with being adopted and people are so curious about adoption, our origins, and our stories. When you share pictures, personal details, and the adoption narrative in a way that is identifying, their peers in the future may see it and find it. And they may not be kind about it. While it is important to embrace adoption differences and enter into discussion of adoption, there is a balance. A healthy balance between being open and making it into something potentially embarrassing. If my parents had had an adoption blog and shared my conception circumstances in an identifying way, for instance, I would have been mortified. Had my parents made it sound like my adoption was some God-driven charity project they had embarked on where they "rescued" me from squalor..oh my goodness, oh.my.goodness. Had my peers found it; I cannot even imagine. Did I mention I went to a Christian school with Christian peers and teachers? That I grew up in a predominantly Christian and religious community? Do not think that being surrounded by people who follow a God who commands them to love and accept means that bullying will never happen. I learned about contradictions very early. Like how we all stood there at school chapel services and nodded in agreement that God calls us to love everyone; everyone except Amanda, I guess.

I choose to tell my story now, as well as some of those sensitive circumstances; as an adult because it is my story to tell. I am aware that people may have obnoxious reactions or say something unkind in return and sharing it and dealing with that reaction is my decision as an adult to make. It is also my original mother's decision and I do not share anything about her (or my parents) or the parts of our story that combine both of us that I do not think she would want shared. And yes, my parents and my original mother do share things themselves with others as participants in my adoption narrative with narratives of their own. I respect their rights to tell their parts of the story and they respect my privacy by not sharing things I do not want shared. All my parents respect the adult they help shape.

Me, age 5, with my mom.

This post was almost two years in the making and I did not want to post it equally as badly as I did want to post it. The hesitation wasn't just about being uncomfortable sharing something personal about my life that I am not particularly proud of. It was because I have a lot of friends, family members, and people I don't know well but generally just like who blog and utilize social media and who include information about their children when they do so. I like these people; I do not want to hurt their feelings when my definition of what "respecting privacy" means when it comes to sharing online may differ from theirs and I did not want them to think that I am sitting here behind my computer screen on the high horse of judgement. I'm really not (and none of these people I'm fond of portray their kids as charity projects or share uber-embarassing stuff, in case you're wondering). I too utilize blogging and social media to help my family keep in touch with people we love and being mindful of what I post and share about my kids is in my consideration daily. The recent topics on privacy in the bloggosphere, the courage of other bloggers, like Joy, to say how they feel about online privacy even though not everyone agrees or follows the same rules, has turned this post from drafted to published. I know not everyone will agree with me and I did not write this because I expect everyone to. But I realize now that my experience can at least be helpful to those willing to read. Please take from it what helps you.

Warm Regards,

A former bullied girl

PS. OK, so "WHORE" isn't really profanity. But I couldn't put "don't read this at work or near your kids because I say 'WHORE' and 'slut' in this post!" in the little warning blurb I gave because it would have defeated the purpose of the warning :-)

Huntsman's Failure to Defend his Daughters is Astounding and Utterly Disappointing

2012-01-10T13:20:00.000-05:00

There is an outrageous video on YouTube you may have heard about in the news, it is all over media--especially conservative media. A group alleging to support Presidential hopeful, Ron Paul, also alleges that other Presidential hopeful, Jon Huntsman, does not have the best interests of the people of the United States at heart because he has two internationally adopted daughters and they have posted a video featuring his daughters on YouTube to make their opinion clear.

Some sources say they have confirmed that Huntsman supporters posted the "ad" to make it look like Paul supporters posted it, in order to paint Paul as someone who is racist and willing to go over-the-line when it comes to opposing a fellow candidate. It doesn't matter who it originated with or why: the video is absolutely horrible. The "ad" if you want to call it that, clearly intends to portray the idea that, due to the girls' races and places of birth, his daughters are not true Americans and therefore Huntsman does not really care about the United States because he adopted them. I won't tell you who I think the President should be but I will tell you that this "ad" and its racist, adultist, adoptist attack on children is disgusting and morally repugnant at best. The Huntsmans' response to it was nearly as appalling and certainly disappointing.

Huntsman responds:

"I have a daughter from China who was abandoned at two months of age and left in a vegetable market, picked up by the police, and sent to an orphanage. No future, no hope, nothing to look forward to. And now she's in my family."

audience applauds

He continues:

"I have a second daughter who was born in India...and left for dead the day she was born and luckily, she was picked up before the animals got her. And she was sent to a catholic orphanage first day and spent a year there and now she is in my family."

He concludes:

"I have two little girls that are a daily reminder that there are a lot of kids in this world who do not have the breaks that you do who face a very very uncertain future that lacks health care, that lacks the ability to dream and plan, and any sense of upward mobility. Now these two girls are on the Presidential campaign trail. I say, how cool is that?"

Applause, applause, applause (of course)

I debated on whether or not to post about this on my blog because I am uncomfortable giving more public audience to on the "ad" or his reply to the "ad." I talked it over with a transracial/transnational adult adoptee whose opinion I admire and we both agreed that posting about it further was problematic because it was drawing yet more attention to something that should not have been said in the first place. However, since few media outlets are pointing out what should have been the correct response, we felt an adult adoptee response was needed. It is for that reason that I write this entry as well as record some of the responses from adult adoptees and adoptive parents Kevin at LGA got when he brought the issue up on his Facebook page.

Can the adoptive parent who said this please be the next President?

"Huntsman's response: "outing" his kids' story to make himself look big hearted - made me even madder. It was a racist attack on Asian-Americans and adoptees as "perpetual foreigners" - and implying that he is less of an American by association. To publicly give away his children's narrative - which they are the sole owners of, as a response is appalling. Why should his children need to live with "left to die," "found in a dumpster" as part of the public discourse? I'm sure they are thrilled that their classmates and all their peers and Fox News now have access to their agency narrative.

Someone attacked his kids, and he sold them out.

My stomach hurts."

Someone else responded:

"I guess no one runs for President without having a sense of himself (or herself) as the utterly fascinating center of a huge drama, but Huntsman's invocation of his children's 'tragic past' was unnecessary. Can't he just say 'leave my kids alone' and be done with it?"

Another person was concerned as to whether or not this whole ordeal originated with Huntsman's campaign to begin with:

"The stats don't look good for him - his campaign was the first to link to the vid even when it had no views, etc. And...even if he isn't responsible, his response still made me nauseous." (She shared the link I included in my intro paragraph)

This "ad" was a racist, adultist, adoptist act that placed political goals over the welfare of innocent children. If he was unwilling to simply say "leave my daughters alone," Huntsman could have used this as a teachable moment to enter into discussion about race and adoption. Not in a White-guy-educating-the-world-on-race-relations kind of way. But to step up and act like the leader he is asking the citizens of the United States to let him be and to condemn the notion that transracial/transnational adoptees are not really Americans or citizens (and perhaps learn a thing or two about transnational adoptee deportation?). He could have said he understood adoption as well as foreign policy past the concept of "they're super poor over there and I rescued two kids." Instead of defending adoptees, adoptees of color, and his daughters, he chose to defend himself and bolster his image by disclosing his daughters' narratives in order to paint himself as a savior. His response perpetuated the misconceptions of "other people" in "other countries," especially the original families of adoptees, and did nothing to challenge racial, cultural, and adoption biases.

The Huntsmans' say they are concerned as to what their daughters will think about this incident some day. Mr. and Ms. Huntsman, I can tell you as an adoptee that how my parents respond to attacks on me as an adoptee are 100 times more important to me than how the public does. Unfortunately, your responses were sadly lacking.

Mr. Huntsman, I am Russell Green. Are you?

But I'm the REAL Mom! Important Lessons from the Most Recent News-Worthy Custody Battle

2012-01-09T00:00:00.000-05:00

It puts it in perspective when you consider that the "rope" being "tugged" in these types of
"wars" is a child's truth and identity.

The recent birth certificate battle between two former partners has once again brought some birth certificate issues into light. One mother is the biological mother; she donated the egg that was fertilized and carried by her partner. The other mother was the child's initial nurturer; she experienced pregnancy, childbirth, and the initial closeness with the child. Both raised the child for an equal amount of time. Of course, it's not about a child's right to have accurate information describing a historical event in their life, it's about who gets to be awarded as the "real mom" by being named as "mother" on the birth certificate. Here is another instance where the best people to ask about how a birth certificate should be recorded and if it should or should not be changed are people who have had their birth certificates changed, namely, adult adoptees. A few things about this case strike me as interesting.

There are no hard and fast rules as to who is "mother," not any more.

This case is so similar yet so dissimilar to the arguments over "real mom" in adoption. In adoption, the concept of mother is usually shared between two mothers: the natural and initial nurturing mother, and the nurturing and legal mother. Because of our Western, paternalistic ideals of family, adoption discussion has become preoccupied a great deal over whois really the only "real mom" and consensus usually says that it is the adoptive mother because she has spent the most time with the child and done the child rearing.

Yet because in this case both mothers did equal amounts of child rearing, the argument over who is the "real mom" is not split between nature and nurture as in adoption, it is split between two concepts of "mother" that, in adoption, are embodied in one mother (the "birth" mother) instead of two, but that these two mothers share between them: biology and pregnancy/childbirth. One mother claims she is more "mom," not because of nurture, but because of biology. Another mother claims she is more "mom," not because of nurture, but because of pregnancy and childbirth.

In adoption, neither biology or pregnancy would make either one of these mothers the "real mom." Again in adoption, you're only the "real mom" if you've done all of the child rearing. In the case of surrogacy, being pregnant does not make someone a "real mom." In the case of a typical parenting situation where a mother gives birth to a baby she is biologically related to and intends to parent, she is legally, socially, and in our culture a "real mom." She typifies "real mom" and encompasses all four mentioned concepts of "mother" in just one person. Pregnancy was certainly an arduous and intensive nurturing experience (the fact pregnancy takes so much out of you is one reason why this adoptee shall be birthing no more children!). But in terms of nurturing making a "real mom," a new mother in a hospital has not yet done years of nurturing. Yet she is considered the "real mom" who has every legal right to take to take her baby home to raise because the baby is biologically related to her and she gave birth to him or her. See the double (triple...quadruple?) standards here and how the definitions of "mother" culturally, socially, and legally change in people's opinions depending on what circumstance (in other words, stereotypes and prejudices) is involved.

Who are these peoples' "real parents?"

As an adult adoptee, I have been told who my "real mom" (and "real parents") are by many people. There was a family member who reminded me my adoptive parents are my "real parents" because of the law: they wanted kids, they couldn't have any, they legally adopted me, I am their heir, and I am obligated to fulfill that purpose. Then there are people who call my original parents my "real parents" because their concept of family, what they value, is within biological family lineage and genetics. Then there are people who say "biology doesn't matter" and "anyone can be pregnant and squeeze out a baby" and tell me that my "real parents" are my adoptive parents because they "paid a lot of money to get you" and "wiped all the tears and tied all the shoe laces." Please notice one important thing: none of these people are me, live my life, walk in my shoes, or maintain my relationships for me on my behalf.

Take a look at these scenarios with any one of the definition of "real parent" someone might have (legal, pregnancy/birth, biology, or child rearing) and see if they all, or even just one, fits in every situation.

Two adoptees were conceived from rape. One adoptee will not call the man who fathered her "father" because to her, the title of "father" is too prestigious, too endearing, to be awarded to such a horrible person. The other adoptee values biological family ties. She calls the man who fathered her "father" because she doesn't see it as honoring him in any way, just simply stating his place in her genealogical family line. Which adoptee is right? (You know I say both are). And if you don't walk in their shoes, how comfortable are you defining "real parent" for them?

Three adoptees have loving and accepting adoptive parents and original parents who may have accepted or rejected them at reunion. One considers herself to have four real parents because she values what nature, nurture, pregnancy/birth, and the law have contributed to her life and who she is. The other adoptee considers her adoptive parents her "real parents." They're all she has ever known and she has trouble with the concept of integrating her original and adoptive parents together in the concept of "parents." The third adoptee views his biological parents as "real parents," not to be hurtful to his adoptive parents, he loves them, but he defines parentage as being biologically related. Which adoptee is right? (You know I say all are). And if you don't walk in their shoes, how comfortable are you defining "real parent" for them?

Two adoptees were raised by abusive adoptive parents. One adoptee refuses to call her adoptive parents her "real parents" even though they are legally her parents because they did not fulfill the nurturing task. She views her biological parents as "real parents," even if she did not spend a great deal of time with them, because they have a biological connection. The other adoptee who was abused thinks of her adoptive parents as "real parents" because the law says they are and because, even though they were abusive, they are all she has ever known. Again, Which adoptee is right? (You know I say both are). And if you don't walk in their shoes, how comfortable are you defining "real parent" for them?

People have said cases where gay and lesbian parents fight to be on their child's
birth certificate will "bring laws up to date." But is this always the case? The practice of
altering a birth certificate (e.g. amending and sealing) is very old. Expanding its
practice and enforcing the "real parent" ideal instead of preserving the accurate and historical
truth for the individual sounds like a giant leap backwards to me.

Last one.

Two people were raised by abusive parents who are their "parents" in sense of nature, nurture, pregnancy/birth, and law. They weren't surrendered to adoption or adopted by anyone nor raised by anyone but these abusive and neglectful parents. Are these parents "real parents" and if not, who is? If nurture and child rearing is one's only definition of "real parent" and these parents did not do substantial or beneficial nurturing, would we then dare say that this person has no parents? Who really wants to use their own rules to dictate what these two people should think about their own lives?

The differing scenarios could go on and on and on. When you think of all of the various scenarios out there, there is actually one hard fast rule: "real parent" should be defined by the person who was parented. I don't walk in any of the aforementioned, fictitious peoples' shoes, though my circumstances may be similar to a few of them, I can't make their decisions for them.

Let me also be clear that each parent in these situations, in every situation, also has the right to self-identify their own label for themselves. One identifying ones self or another person's place in ones life does not automatically mean all involved must agree in their own definitions. Self-identification. Self-determination. Two things I value very, very much.

As someone with an altered birth certificate, what do I think?

I do think there are hard and fast rules as to who should be on a birth certificate. Birth certificates are intended to imply biology and birth, not legal, nurturing, social, cultural, sentimental (whichever) parentage. They are documents that record a historical event and provide an individual state with health related information--which is why a mother may end up disclosing to the state everything from her weight to her smoking habits when filling out a birth certificate form (I wanted to write a big "dear government, mind your own freaking business" across my sons' birth certificate forms by the time I was done filling them out). The state happens to make an abridged version of these documents available for the people whose births they record for identification purposes.

Despite these simple facts, people claim "birth certificates are not intended to portray biology because no one DNA tests the fathers before they go on the certificate." It's true, they are not tested but not because birth documents aren't intended to imply biology; it's about good old paternalism and legitimacy. Old legitimacy laws say that a child is only "illegitimate" if the mother is unmarried not if the husband is not the biological father.  Even if there is a pregnancy from a previous relationship or extra-marital affair, the laws said the child was "legitimate" if the mother is married. In an aversion to ruffling some social feathers, the man on the birth certificate is to be assumed to be the biological father: because women bearing children outside of legal subordination to her husband [marriage] has long since been unacceptable in our history.

Cases like these are prime opportunities to not only draw attention to the basic human rights of an individual whose birth a birth certificate is describing, but to acknowledge different family forms and their needs (and acknowledging their needs the right way). There are too many scenarios out there to keep trying to shove everyone into the Western, paternalistic family form where only one man and one woman can be called "real parents" and therefore, get to alter a historical document that someone else receives as though an event in history is able to be changed or that it did not happen.  Altering/amending/sealing birth certificates has lead to people defenselessly being lied to and being denied their roots, among other rights. Birth certificates are not about and should not be made to be about validating one adult over another. And this is really what this case (and many other birth certificate/custody cases) is about: adults trying to be validated above another. If this case really was about wanting biology on the birth certificate instead of birth out of sole benefit to the child and not validation to the adults arguing over it, the one mother should be advocating for the anonymous sperm donor to be named the "real father" and placed on the birth certificate as well, along with her name. But she isn't. She is not fighting for all biology to appear on the certificate, just her own name.  These cases end up being about who is the "real parent" and the birth certificate rendered into some type of ownership document.

What's the answer?

These issues both in adoption and this particular case could be solved by leaving a birth certificate accurate with biology and birth information (which means both of these women should be on the birth certificate, including the natural "anonymous" father because sperm donation should never be anonymous) and certificates of legal parentage for everyone, including those who would legally be considered a parent but are not included on the birth certificate. This really should apply to everyone. When someone is born, record the related information and leave it alone!  The child has a right to have it.  If the legal parents change down the road, issue parenting certificates (and stop requiring birth certificates for so many ID purposes--it's ridiculous). If it benefits the child to have more than one or hey, even more than two or three recognized legal parents, then make it happen. No amending, no sealing, no lies, no secrecy, no "anonymous" parents, no omissions, and no shame.

We should know better by now than to assume that every family can be legally or practically shoved into the "female mom" and "male dad" role. Some people have gay, lesbian, and transgendered parents that don't consider stereotypical gendered titles and roles to fit them (and being a queer parent does not automatically mean that adoption or donor conception were involved so there's even more diversity there). Some people have divorced and remarried parents giving them two moms and two dads. Some people were conceived from donors and have two biological parents and one nurturing parent. Some people have any combination of such whether in adoption or other family situation--these issues need to be focused on benefiting the child, not validating adults or outdated concepts of "family" that are not practical or inclusive.  Both of these moms embody birth and biology and therefore both should be on the birth certificate. Both should be granted legal parenting rights if that is what is best for the child. As for who is the child's "real mother?" Is it the biological mother?  Is it the mother who gave birth to the child?  Is it both?

Why don't we let her tell us when she's all grown up?

Photo #1 credit: meepoohfoto
Photo #2 credit: stockphoto

First.Vlog.Ever!

2012-01-08T15:59:00.000-05:00

My first vlog ever is up and running at Land of Gazillion Adoptees! Go check out my interview with Kevin Ost-Vollmers (and don't mock my headphones!).

What the 100 and 77 Year old Mother-Daughter Reunion Teaches us About Women, Rape, and Adoption

2012-01-06T10:59:00.001-05:00

(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

I am sure many of you have read the story by now about Minka Disbrow, a now 100-year-old original mother who has been thinking about and hoping to reunite over the course of 77 years with the daughter she reluctantly surrendered to adoption in 1928 after conceiving from rape. She finally reunited with her daughter in 2006. It is a heartwarming and inspirational story, which is why so many news outlets have been reporting on it. While many reading may be doing so for entertainment value (not necessarily in a cruel way but adoption stories always seem to be of tear-jerking interest to the general population), most of the non-adopted general population lacks the proper "glasses" to find the lessons that we should be learning about adoption, women, and rape from Ms. Disbrow and her daughter. As a feminist and adult adoptee who was conceived from rape, those glasses are permanently fixed to my face.

Choice & history. I don't think people understand how absolutely amazing this story is and how resilient both of these women must be. If you're understanding of adoption is that it originated "somewhere with Moses" and "continues to touch our lives today," you missed much of the plight of orphans, "illegitimates," and abandoned and impoverished children throughout history. In the early 20th century, babies born to unmarried and impoverished mothers were typically not taken into a loving family to be raised an equal member of the family. Babies languished, untouched and unheld, in orphanages or sometimes met their plight in "baby farms" which were notorious for brutal infanticide. My adult adoptee grandmother, who I won't ask about this particular instance out of respect but family lore holds, was born about 10 years after Ms. Disbrow's daughter was, and adopted for the purpose of being a companion to her adoptive mother because her husband was frequently away on business trips.

This story goes to show the lack of choices that have surrounded women. Whether by rape, having to do sexual favors to the man of the house to keep a roof over one's (and one's children's) head, the inaccessibility (or failure) of contraceptives, the lack of proper sex education, or experiencing a serious illness after getting pregnant: many women become pregnant when they do not want to be or simply can't endure a pregnancy. One should not lack an appreciation for what this must have meant for Ms. Disbrow: she could not have an abortion, she could not parent the baby she wanted to keep, and she was surrendering her daughter to what was, in the adoption world at the time, an enormous and scary unknown. How must that have felt? What choices did she really have about any of her situation? As our country seems to be forever bent on both attacking women's health legislation and obliviously glorifying all-things-adoption, we need to keep in mind that going backwards in history and eliminating women's choices when it comes to pregnancy is not the way to go. We neglect to learn from the experiences of the Ms. Disbrows around us and lack empathy for her situation if we think it is OK for women to just "make do" without expanding and supporting their autonomy and choices.

"Unplanned pregnancy" doesn't always mean "unwanted baby." As adoption and abortion are frequently associated together, on articles or conversations about rape, I frequently see both pro-choice and pro-life people alike talking about resolving the issue of conception from rape in terms of adoption or abortion Even the National Right to Life had the audacity to report this story on their website, despite the fact that abortion was not involved with this story. To them I suppose abortion is automatically implied because they see the two issues as one in the same, the "resolution" of an unplanned pregnancy: adoption is simply the "loving option" of the two. What many pro-choice and pro-life people alike miss is the fact that an unplanned pregnancy does not always yield an unwanted baby and when we speak of unplanned pregnancy, especially by rape, in the false dichotomy of abortion and adoption, we perpetuate a lot of misconceptions that not only leave expectant mothers and their children without services but possibly make them even more vulnerable as well.

When we absolutely cannot bring ourselves to believe that a mother who conceived from rape could love or want to parent her child, we deny the opportunity this poses for further advantage to be taken of these women. Who would believe that a woman had been pressured or coerced to surrender her baby or that she would have desired to parent instead, if rape was involved? Who would believe that she'd ever want her son or daughter to know her name or have their information and original birth certificate if rape was involved? Who would believe she would want the opportunity to reunite if rape was involved? My guess is that people wouldn't believe these things and the taboo, the shame, the victim-blaming our society does leads to not only misunderstanding of the needs of rape victims and their children but a lot of us doing legislating, guessing, and decision-making on their behalf too. Everyone always "imagines what a rape victim would want" when discussing these issues rather than taking the time to really listen to one.

We're people too. Despite the horrible thing that happened to her, Ms. Disbrow did not see the beautiful daughter she gave birth to as anything less than she was: a daughter and a person. As a daughter conceived from rape, I have been on the receiving end of the taboo. I've watched people try to disguise a surprised gulp when I disclose more about my origins. I've had to listen to countless people say "and your parents knew you were a rape victims baby when they adopted you?!" or "I am surprised your 'birth mother' wanted to know you!" as if there is something personally, fundamentally, and intrinsically wrong with me. This taboo presents itself in discussions of abortion when people say "I think a fetus is a person and abortion should be illegal....oh, except in the case of rape!" I suppose if a fetus is a person except in instances of rape, really-real-born-people who were conceived from rape wouldn't be people either. My little minority group gets thrown under the bus in Adoptee Rights too. People worry about the mother who conceived from rape "being found" should full equality be extended to her offspring. This perpetuates the paternalistic ideals of blaming the victim and alleging she should hide in shame when people specifically agree to make different rights for her surrendered son or daughter. I implore people working on Adoptee Rights legislation not to throw people like me under the bus and speak away our rights because of conception circumstances. Do not forget that we are people. Do not forget that we are equal and should be treated equally. Do not punish us or our mothers for something completely out of our control.

Do not assume my mother doesn't love me.

I am not ashamed and clearly, Ms. Disbrow isn't either. I cannot tell you what it means to me to hear of another mother-daughter pair so happily reunited and telling their story, especially when conception from rape was involved. Her bravery in telling her story has shown another beam of light into an area of adoption and society that has been darkened by misconceptions, lies, stigmas, paternalism, shame, and victim-blaming. My hope is that everyone who reads her story will take a moment to absorb more than the heartwarming feeling it brings--to learn something, to benefit from the lessons the Ms. Disbrows around us have to teach. To read more about Ms. Disbrow's story, see the article here.

An Open Letter to the Adult Adoptee Considering a Search

2012-01-06T00:01:00.001-05:00

Dear Adult Adoptee,

In this age where increasing amounts of adoption begin as "open" and the facade that there are no secrets in adoption develops as a result, you may feel like your experience has been forgotten. There are people who haven't forgotten. Your experience has not been lost or thrown to the wayside. There are people who understand and identify with the questions that you ask yourself, the thoughts you push to the back of your mind, and the possibilities you cannot seem to allow yourself to consider. Should you search? Should you seek to reunite? You weigh the pros and cons in your mind and perhaps do not even know where to begin.

There is no guarantee that you'll find anything or anyone. Depending on the type of adoption, the type of facilitator of your adoption, and the state you were born in, finding out information about yourself may be no small task. I never realized how emotional it would be unfolding pieces of my life pre-adoption. I was not prepared for how turning over a small government envelope and watching the first newborn pictures of myself that I had ever in my life seen, tumble out into my lap, would impact me. I was very good at shoving adoption out of my mind but it did not work for me that way any longer once I started to search. Once I made that decision, investigating adoption's impact on my life and the reality of the impact on both of my families became unavoidable. But I was up for working through this decision. Searching was trying and emotional but I would never choose to un-know what I now know about my origins--both the good and the bad. I am glad too, because this means my kids will have my half of their information. It belongs to them too.

There is no guarantee that you will be accepted at reunion or that reunion or relationship will mean the same things to you as it does to the family member that you find. People enter into reunion with different expectations of each other and it can translate into problems when one person is not at the same level of commitment as the other. Expectations can set a reunion off on a rocky start. Rejection hurts; it is important to have support in place.

There is no guarantee that your parents will support you. This seems horrible to say but I know too many adoptees whose parents have made the reunion about themselves or who were deeply hurt by their son or daughter searching to be ale to say flat out to every person "your parents will understand." The closed adoption system created a culture where our parents were never prepared to have adoption out in the open like this or to integrate another family or information from another family. Knowledge and help from my parents during my reunion was an empowering experience for me. It brought us closer and it helped them get to know me even better because I began to know myself.

There is no guarantee that you will find healing. Perhaps this is the most important part of this. You cannot rely on another person or an event going the perfect way to find healing or resolution to a problem in your life (if there is a problem). Patterns of hurt and healing are inevitable, unavoidable parts of life and human relationships. But being whole cannot hinge on the actions of another person. To expect so is to say that things can never be OK if something doesn't go just the right way-and that simply isn't true. To refuse to be whole because of conditions that you've made yourself upon which wholeness is contingent is to surrender to victimhood rather than to take back your power in your place in adoption as someone who once had no power, no say in the manipulation of your destiny. Be courageous, be wise, do not be a victim. Reunions won't always go perfectly, family members won't always be supportive, the related bureaucracies can be oppressive, and you may not end up finding what you are looking for. This is the reality. But it has to be OK anyway, you have to know you can still be whole and reach for that wholeness. You must realize you are worth love, support, and happiness and that no circumstance takes that away.

It is not your job to fix anyone else, either. Your wants and needs matter just as much as the next person's.

There is no guarantee that others will understand, be supportive, or that they won't make comments that will hurt your feelings. This is where we adoptees need to keep in mind that our reunion efforts are not the business of just anyone who asks. You owe nothing to the nosy neighbor, the gossipy coworker, or any person who will not handle your feelings with care. Seek the support of those who will support you and God bless them for it. Justifying yourself to people who haven't a clue about adoption to begin with will only wear you out.

I am a supporter of reunion so it may seem strange that I would emphasize the things that cannot be guaranteed. So why reach out to adoptees thinking of searching to begin with? First, I need to be honest because I do not believe in sewing seeds of false hope. I never in a million years thought that I would be eagerly, immediately, and unconditionally welcomed by more than a dozen aunts and uncles, more than 30 first cousins, and a mother. This is especially because of the very sensitive (more so than your typical surrender circumstances) surrounding my conception and surrender. I can't in good conscience guarantee to another adoptee that things will be just the same for them.

I feel like sometimes people who want to search use the fact that there are no guarantees to put off what they truly desire to do as a cover for deeper fears. So, I agree with you, there are no guarantees. But there are also possibilities and so long as there are possibilities, does it makes sense to put off something you want to do, if you really, truly, want to do it? No matter what the outcome of finding or not finding or being accepted or rejected, I have never met an adoptee (and between Facebook, in person, and in my day to day life I have encountered hundreds of adult adoptees) who regretted knowing more about their life pre-adoption. Being accepted is a possibility. Having your parents support you is a possibility. Finding understanding is a possibility. Healing or self-betterment, though I would not hinge those things on search and reunion going just the right way, are possibilities.

What I can guarantee is that you are not alone in the world. There are adoptees walking in your shoes right this very minute or who have been there. If you need to hear these words, here they are: wanting to know more about yourself or wanting to reunite does not make you a selfish, disloyal, angry, unhappy, or a bad person. It makes you a human being, an adoptee, who simply wants to know and embrace what others take for granted. You have a right to access what pertains to your life. You have a right to choose not to access it. No one should judge you for wanting to seek what is rightfully yours so please do not make the mistake of judging yourself.

Yours Truly,

A Reunited Adult Adoptee

Happy 2nd Reunion-versary!

2012-01-04T16:31:00.000-05:00

I have officially been reunited for two wonderful years. Check out the posts I wrote last year for our first reunion-versary:

January 2nd: One Year Ago "the Envelope Came"

January 3rd: One Year Ago we Said "Hello Again"

January 23rd: One Year Ago, Face to Face Again

Enjoy!

Photo: my original mom and my then-one-year-old son on her first visit to my home. He was showing her something outside of our dining room window.

What it Means When Feminists Ward off Critiques of the Duggar Family Based on the Concept of "Choice"

2012-01-03T01:46:00.003-05:00

You may have seen the stories flying around the web about the Duggar family and Michelle Duggar's recent miscarriage. The uproar grew louder when one of the Duggar cousins allegedly leaked private family images that were taken of the miscarried baby on a social networking website. Some people vehemently defended the Duggars, hailing Ms. Duggar as an ultimate mother figure. Many people critiqued her decision to keep having children, 19 so far to be exact.

The criticisms of Ms. Duggar's continued pregnancies initially grew after the birth of her 19th child from the previous pregnancy, a daughter, who was delivered prematurely weighing just six ounces over one pound, via emergency C-section. Being born at 25 weeks (many doctors mark 24 weeks as the "age of viability") puts babies at risk of severe complications and survival rates vary by professional opinion (50%-80%). One feminist blogger whose link was posted on Facebook (I'd link to it if I could remember the URL) criticized the criticisms stating that feminists do not appreciate it when people condemn abortion or a woman's right to choose it so we should not criticize a woman's choice to become pregnant and birth children either. The words of the author of that post have been rattling around in my head for a few weeks now and I have to say, I am not quite sure I agree.

Of course, I am the first one to say "mind your own business" when it comes to women, pregnancy, and health care. I do not think that marital status or class, for example, have anything to do with someone's worthiness or capability of being a good parent. I understand that a lot about what makes pregnancy and child-rearing hard for a lot of people are not problems within the individuals themselves but rather their reactions to (or the reactions they get from, rather) a classist, sexist, and largely child intolerant society. As for a woman's right to have her own life, health, and body in her own hands to make her own informed medical conditions? Yes, absolutely; I am right on board. Of course there are exceptions to this but generally most people who were upset about Mr. and Ms. Duggar continuing to have more children were not touting some lifetime usage limit that should be placed on a woman's uterus. Rather, the concern expressed was based more on the worry that pregnancy was putting Ms. Duggar and the child potentially born of that pregnancy at risk as well as concern over the stress that more children would have on the children already in the family. Many people who watch the family's popular television show (I do not watch it) have commented that it appears the older children are doing a great deal of rearing of the younger ones themselves.

Does our respect for choice really translate into disallowing ourselves to pass on wisdom to other women (not saying all critiques of the Duggars are actual wisdom) by saying something like: "that's probably not a good idea" when it comes to pregnancy and child rearing? As I see it, this is where both [some] feminists and [some] pro-life advocates alike get it completely wrong. You might be shocked to learn that [some] feminists and pro-life advocates would agree on something but it is true: the discussion of already born, living, breathing, autonomous human beings as not independent individuals who are thusly entitled to human rights on that principle as though they are not people but property or the mere "products of choice." You've read me write this a thousand times and it will come a thousand times over: we see a perfect example of this in how adoptees are treated in our society.

The pro-life person in this instance views the adoptee, not as a full person on their own, but a product of a woman's choice which translates into essentially being her property. They say adoptees cannot know their full identities or heritage and crusade against our Adoptee Rights campaigns in several states because it interferes with anti-choice "counselors" being able to offer the right incentive to a pregnant women to "choose life" instead of abortion. Of course this view blankets women as being rendered completely ignorant and incompetent by either their gender or pregnancy so much so that she can, or needs to be, persuaded to make the "right choice" by holding a juicy enough carrot at the end of the stick to entice her toward the right path. No amount of research has convinced these individuals and groups that anonymity in adoption is not something surrendering mothers generally want because the narrow-minded stereotypes of "birth mothers" hiding in shame from their "illicit" child bearing are just too darn attractive--but I digress.

I won't let the feminist off the hook either. For likewise, there are feminists who stand in the way of Adoptee Rights also claiming that an original mother's decision to sever ties with the adoptee (they assume that every surrendering mother is fully informed what adoption legally means and does at the time of surrender) means she has chosen to relinquish her motherhood to the adoptee and therefore relinquished any entitlement the adoptee may have of knowing their connection to her. This choice, per the feminists of this viewpoint, trumps all else. To them, the adoptee is not an autonomous individual in this regard but rather a mere product of her choice, a choice (an alleged one at that) that they see as trumping any full equality the adoptee feels they should have under the law. For we female adoptees, this means our sister feminists would too relegate us to less-than-human and to the level of property, the product, the "result of a choice" of someone else. What a shame.

The mistake I wish people would take care not to make: stop confusing private health care decisions while pregnant (choice) with the rights of the born individual. Stop using the right to make private health care decisions to turn our brains off and keep from saying "hey, this really isn't a good idea" when it needs to be said, when it comes to the rights and welfare of individuals who were born because of whatever decisions their mothers did or did not make. Continuing pregnancy is a choice. Giving birth is a choice. The son or daughter born because of those choices? They are people, not choices, and discussing what is in their best interest is not "anti-choice." Feminists condeming the critiques of Ms. Duggar's decision to add more children to her family have done so in a way that essentially says that we cannot talk about the welfare such a decision has on that child or the other children involved because those children are her "choices," the "products" of her reproductive choice, rather. As I've explained, I cringe because in the minds of others, being adopted makes me someone's "choice" too.

I have a friend with a rare medical condition which poses severe complications should she get pregnant. Pregnancy would put her at risk for not only severe complications but risk her life. She would have to experience invasive medical procedures to sustain the pregnancy and the life of the fetus, have a high likelihood of miscarriage and pre-mature birth, and face other possible complications. Can I stick my head in the sand and say "I'm not allowed to be concerned, I have to pretend that this doesn't exist because I believe in choice?" Does Ms. Duggar's right to continue to be pregnant and give birth mean that no one who knows her could say to her "maybe more births or more children aren't good for you or your family right now?" (I'll refrain from extending my own personal opinion on the Duggar's exponentially growing family). If a friend is putting herself, her body, or the potentially resulting child at risk, I will be a friend and let her know I am concerned. I am not talking about legislating women's autonomy away or telling another woman what she can and cannot do. But I will be a friend to the women I know and I will be honest. Our respect for another woman's choice should not cause us to see her children as choices rather than as human beings. Respect for choice should not translate into us throwing each other's wisdom out the window.

Photo credit: duron123

A Year in Review: I Want to Hear from you (Lurkers Especially!)

2011-12-31T20:54:00.000-05:00

Considering that this blog was started 2.5 years ago to find my original family, it certainly has come leaps and bounds. It has documented my own personal journey processing being adopted. It has documented my thoughts and feelings on issues relating to adoption both nationally and around the world. It has helped me bring some adoptee issues, strengths, and experiences to those searching on the topic of adoption. It has helped me meet a variety of new friends and allies throughout the world.

This year you followed along with me as I.....

Gave birth to my second son.
Finished another semester of school.
Read at least 25 books, at least 17 of them adoption-related that I made notes about here.
Embarked on my second year of reunion.
Joined the Blogher Publishing Network.
Had work accepted into 2 anthologies.
Did 1 Adoptee Rights workshop and 1 speech at a film festival for University of Pittsburgh.
Was quoted in several blogs, magazines, and Yahoo News.
Worked in my home state with several friends and allies on Adoptee Rights legislation.
Attended and posted live from my second Adoptee Rights demonstration.
Joined the fabulous Adoptee Rights Coalition as a board member.
Got my yellow belt in Tang Soo Do.
Added over 50 blog followers (OK, I wasn't really keeping track of this one, it's a guess).
Completed my second NaBloPoMo.
Made 296 posts on this blog.
Started Lost Daughters with several other fabulous adopted women which added 92 followers.
Featured 11 artists impacted by adoption and their work.
Posted work from at least 22 guest bloggers.

For the Next Year.....
I am torn over the concept of New Year's resolutions. On one hand, I find them really hard to keep--and positive change should be started and made whenever someone decides on it, no point in delaying. But the start of the new year is so tempting to start something new too. To make a goal and celebrate it the next New Year when it comes around.

Some goals....

Do some podcasts/vlogs
Post more picture-related entries and creative things.
Read at least 10 adoption-related books.

I started this blog to reunite but it has turned into a variety of outlets for me: for rights and for personal introspection. What I would like to know, especially from the people who read but do not comment or comment regularly (you can use the anon option for commenting), what would you like to see me write more about this coming year?

Happy New Year to you and yours. Thanks for sticking with me and reading along this past year. Here's to blogging in the new year!

photo credit: supakitmod

It's Never Selfish to Love Yourself

2011-12-30T12:14:00.003-05:00

Ornament my mother-in-law and I
made together for my aunt.

I promised I would post my Christmas reflections. So here they are. I think reunion and investigating the relevance of adoption in one's life often involves considering other people as much as it does considering ones self. An adoptee may seek reunion while worrying about their adoptive parents being upset and at the same time worrying that they'll be rejected once they've found their original family. Many adoptees whose reunions I have witnessed have tiptoed carefully through a minefield they have perceived that was in front of them and worrying about stepping on the wrong area and causing an upset.
When I reflect on myself during the reunion process, I realize that I too was this adoptee. I ask myself now if I ever stopped to consider my self and my own feelings during the process and what I've found is that the culture of closed adoption caused me to feel so entirely selfish for seeking reunion that considering my own needs and feelings instead of worrying about catering to others whom I worried about "upsetting" was something I put on the back burner. I know now that I was lucky to have adoptive parents who are supportive as well as an original family who is supportive. I realize many adoptees do not always have this support, or they're afraid to ask for it, and it is humbling to think of their experience. It dawned on me this Christmas that one big thing I did this year for myself was investigate self, investigate concepts of self, and come to an important integration of what "self," "selfish," and "selfless" mean to me in my own belief system as a person, as a woman, and an adoptee.

I think the greatest lesson I learned this year is that loving yourself is never selfish.

I asked myself this Christmas how much my concepts of "selfless" and "selfish" have lined up with my own belief system thus far in my life. The truth of the matter is, they haven't lined up. I have not always balanced my own needs with the needs of others in my relationships. I haven't always stood my ground when I should have. And the whole "you're being selfish" retort to reunion and Adoptee Rights that adoptees often hear still stings from time to time. I realize that this is a conflict between two belief systems: my past one and my present. In my Christian community growing up, the further you could get from the concept of "self," the better. I think this translates to something deeper than that when it comes to women. A lot of Bible verses perceived to be about "selflessness" were misapplied: such as Matthew 4:51 where Jesus told his followers to walk a second mile if they were asked to walk one mile. That verse is honestly more about dealing with oppression, so in essence self-preservation, than it was selflessness (the "walking a mile" is a specific Roman reference). In my twenties, I rejected this concept of give, give, give, be "selfless," and always put everyone else before your self.

I no longer see the concept of "selflessness" as entirely moral. Since the dawn of time, people have been asking themselves "what is moral?" Philosophers (no, I am not saying I am a philosopher) have even tried to come up with hard, fast rules such as what is moral is what benefits most people, what is moral is what benefits self, or what is moral is what would cause a positive impact if everyone in the same situation did the same action at the same time. But none of these rules are hard nor fast in absolutely every situation. My ethical principles are perhaps no better but they work for me. The Pharisees, trying to trip Jesus up, asked him to say which commandment was the greatest: he replied that the greatest commandment was to love God and to love others. What they failed so see that all 10 of "The 10 Commandments" fall under these two categories, under the one category of "loving God," really. In the "least of these" passage we learn that how we love others IS how we love God. This summary is where I derive what is right and wrong for me from and I would follow it whether I was spiritual/religious or not. For me, what is right is what does not cause harm to others or self. Of course, there is no hard and fast rule that determines always, in every situation, what that means. Intelect, conscience, the wise old souls in our lives--these are all tools God gives us to help us along our way.

Why self?

You can't give what you don't have. You cannot keep running if you do not take time to fuel up. Because you are just as important as anyone else is. Within the concept of loving others should automatically always be the implication of equally loving self, though we don't often treat it that way. How can we really love others the way we love ourselves if we do not love ourselves to begin with? I have come to realize that life does not always have to be about extremes. The aversion to being "selfish" does not mean that one has to go the opposite way and completely abandon self. Nurturing and loving self does not mean that one has to indulge in narcissistic behavior or validate the narcissistic behavior of others.

Loving one's self is about balance. It boils down to being just as much as much about others as it is for you. When I think about it, what I want most for my friends and family is for them to see themselves and love themselves and take care of themselves as much as I want those things for them. I need to think highly of them enough to realize that they want the exact same thing for me and to act on it. My in-laws selected Christmas presents for me so that they could see my face light up in delight. My parents selected Christmas presents for me to see my face soften in relief that some of my burdens were taken care of (they gave us money toward a new dishwasher!). My original mother and original aunt spent all Christmas complimenting the pictures I posted and telling me how much I look like them and am beautiful. I had done the same with my gifts for them. What I have come to understand is that those truly interested in being in my life are interested in me, the genuine me, and knowing that person. I cannot allow them to love me, to benefit from who I am, if I do not know who I am to begin with. I gave the gift of my Self this year in the gifts I chose to give others because that is what they really wanted all along. I needed to love that self and know that self in order to be genuine in doing so.

Always remember, someone who expects you to operate or make decisions based on complete self-abandonment is doing you no favors.

So love yourself. You are worth it.

Christmas Recap: Craftiness and Gifts from Self

2011-12-26T14:30:00.001-05:00

Me and M

I will have a post to go with these pictures tomorrow. For today, I really just wanted to make a picture post with a few captions. This Christmas, a small goal I had for myself was to make as many gifts as possible something that I had either made/decorated myself, something I had someone else make, something that meant something to both me and the other person, and/or something I bought locally.

I really enjoy tying bows. So I got some inexpensive ribbon and adorned some of the presents. We got together with my sister-in-law and her husband and took some pictures of our kids together and filled two giant picture frames with 15 pictures each of the kids. I can't show you the frames here, unfortunately, because my niece's face can be seen in them (privacy and whatnot).

My kids learned all about their Polish roots through my mother-in-law on Christmas eve by helping her and my sister-in-law make homemade pirogies from scratch. My kids are an 1/8 Polish and the pirogies were good!

We spent Christmas Day at my [adoptive] parent's house. We talked about what traditions are in our family there and they had never thought about whether we have any or not. We all decided that we really (really) like ham though.

The second picture there is my dad and me, our fingers locked together. I think he was about to arm-wrestle me (we always arm-wrestle, why, I don't know because he always wins) but the wrestling-match never came to fruition I suppose because he recalled all of the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu classed I've been taking and decided against it.

I had these awesome ruby-colored shoes made for my niece at this shop on Etsy. My friend Diana sewed a purse for my [original] mom from fabric she had admired when we visited Diana's studio. I have to mention that although Diana is not adopted, we would probably make her an honorary member of our community. She's followed my blog since day one judgement-free; what more can you ask for in a friend?

I made these, one for my mother-in-law, and one for my [adoptive] mom (I will probably send my original mom one too for her birthday). If you can't see them very well here, it is the first initial of each grandchild written in sand with a starfish. I grew up five minutes from this beach and I love it there. These pictures are very meaningful to me. I stood out there one windy day in late October capturing these. That sounds more adventurous than it was, considering that my genes are from New England and my friends and I growing up have been known to have been out there swimming as late as November. These combine my love of family, the ocean, and photography all in one.

And it was W's first Christmas. Here's big brother showing him the ropes.

Stay tuned for the corresponding post tomorrow.

Enjoy!

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T22:15:00.000-05:00

What a Wonderful World!

Merry Christmas from my family to you and yours!

Epic Linkage Saturday

2011-12-24T12:00:00.000-05:00

Preview of this week's "Stack." Click here to see the real thing in all its awesome-ness!

I am using Delicious to make "stacks" each week, which is just a simple, organized, way to save links and "stack" them together. I hope you will check out my "stacks" each week and read some of the cool thinks I read.

A Genuine Way to Help Adoptees....Genuinely

2011-12-23T00:01:00.007-05:00

I wrote a post on Wednesday about how much I have benefited from being exposed to a broad spectrum of thinking on adoption from everyone from other adult adoptees, to fostered adults, to original mothers, to original fathers, to the siblings of adoptees, to adoptive mothers and fathers. I have gained and gleaned so much from the experiences, wisdom, and sharing of others who share adoption in common with me, and perhaps a few other things as well, but who walk completely different paths and have completely different experiences. It has allowed me to see adoption in a bigger picture instead of simply how it impacts me as an adult of private, domestic, infant, same-race, agency adoption. This post will not be how other perspectives have benefited me, however. This post is about employing sensitivity when supporting adoptees: knowing what is appropriate when it comes to offering adult adoptees support with the experiences of others and what is not.

One example: imagine being an adoptee who was adopted from foster care whose original parents truly and honestly weren't fit to be parents. You have a different experience within adoption but do share some things in common with many others in an adoption support group you are attending. Imagine someone hands a flier to you, written by an original parent who recently surrendered to private domestic infant adoption, who feels she made the right decision but wants to let others know how hard it is for her sometimes. Furthermore, she writes about how wonderful adoption is because it was there when she wasn't prepared to parent.  Because it involved adoption, someone gave it to you because you are adopted and therefore, it should help you but it isn't really what you want to be reading right now. You're mourning the loss of a family that can't be repaired: you don't want to hear a positive spin on losing the opportunity to be raised by the only parents you had thus far in your life ever known.

I have some experience with group work but I will tell you right now in the interest of self-disclosure I am by no means, any way shape or form at this point, an expert. However, I know enough about group work to know that everyone who participates within a support group needs to be getting something out of it; not some members benefiting but not others. Even furthermore to be avoided: some benefiting at the expense of others. Proprietors of adoption websites who wonder why you have no adult adoptee traffic, by the way, there is your clue. Consider the content of your site: is it really, at all, helpful to the adoptee population or is it full of "we just adopted" or "how to adopt" stories?  If you have a variety of constellation/triad/web/hellagon/triangle (whatever you may personally call it) members within a group, they each need to benefit from being there. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard adult adoptee friends report from support groups that they felt like they had to validate the views of another "triad" member but then withhold their own views in order not to hurt someones feelings. It is true that we (everyone impacted by loss, grief, adoption, loss of identity) have so very, very much to offer each other: it's important to make good use of that common ground.

You have to think: what does that specific flier offer to an adult who was adopted as an older child from foster care? What does hearing about the placement of an infant and how wonderful it was offer to someone who was removed from their original family from indifferent, neglectful parents and is trying to come to terms with that loss? (I can tell you, many adults of infant adoption don't want to hear the "it's wonderful" stories either--not when you're in a stage of coping with loss, loss that doesn't feel wonderful to you).

People cannot use the "adoption" label to ignore the different experiences within adoption and how not everything adoption-related is going to benefit everyone. For those especially who are not impacted by adoption and can't readily identify with us, think about the person in your life impacted by adoption and their circumstance and then reflect on what the piece of support (e.g. the group or article, so on and so forth) entails and make sure it is really relevant and helpful before passing it along or expecting it to be some panacea of sort.  What I think is important to realize is (and believe it or not, many people just do not understand this): just because one person finds something that involves the topic of adoption heartwarming does not mean it is helpful to everyone else who has adoption in common. Sensitivity is key.

Photo credit: ddpavumba

They Will Never Stop the Humming Birds

2011-12-21T23:45:00.005-05:00

At one time, the earth was ruled by animals who lived peacefully together. Centuries passed and the animals gradually began squabbling with one another until the clamour grew so loud that the earth's creator could stand it no longer. To quiet the animals, the creator spread a great big blanket of midnight blue across the sky, cloaking the earth in darkness. The animals were quiet at once, not knowing what to do. Growing restless with not being able to see anything, the biggest and strongest of the animals took turns trying to climb up to the blanket to tear it down. This was to no avail. Finally, tiny little humming birds cluttered the sky and began poking the slightest holes through the dark, woven fabric with their beaks until tiny, bright white beams of light sparkled through the blanket in brilliant patterns. Before long, the animals, humbled by the effectiveness of the tiny humming birds and calmed by their ability to see more clearly through the darkness, stopped quarreling. They were stunned by the clarity brought by the light as well as the beauty of the new night sky. Pleased, the creator pulled back the blanket so that the sun ruled the sky once again; he returned the blanket with the intricate dots of light for a few hours each day to remind the animals of what they had learned.

Whenever anyone asks me "what made the difference? What made you change your views on adoption?" I give a few main reasons. What happened was more or less a series of events that broke down a wall, or penetrated a fog rather, that lead to me being able to listen to and accept the viewpoints of other people. As I see it, closed records, closed adoption, and little-to-no-information about my origins, surrounded by a largely non-adopted society, and thus, with no information, accepting stereotypes as truth, these things were the threads of that blanket. Woven tightly together, I couldn't see. I could not read my own records. I could not see my own original family or original mother. I could not so much as reach out and touch a face that reflected my own. I could not ask nor could I hear a voice that could tell me the truth about who I was before I was adopted. What I could see was what was closest to me: what my parents knew about my adoption via the agency and what I noticed and made sense of social issues around me in my tiny community. What you must realize is that they could not see either. This is what closed records does: it expects you to make important resolutions regarding something as significant as your origins on this planet with little-to-no-information, if not complete hearsay.

Then came my humming birds. People who, whether I liked it or not, caught my attention and began poking holes in the tightly woven blanket of adoption secrecy. First, a health scare. Then, pregnancy and childbirth. Later, arguing on a parenting website about abortion and adoption and coming across my first non-sunshine-and-roses article about adoption. Then, finding the Adoptee Rights Coalition logo on a message board when I was learning about information on reunions. Finally, I was blogging, trying to find my original mother and found other blogs through my first visitors here, like Von and Susie. The holes in my blanket allowed me to see the adoptee next to me and open my eyes to new information. I now had enough knowledge to find books and read research that pointed me to factual information, not stereotypes. More holes appeared and I could see not only the women standing next to me and begin, as a mother and adoptee, to understand the disservice adoption-done-wrong is to women in the community, our nation, and the world. I saw past myself and my own desire to feel positively about adoption as a whole for my own validation and to global feminism and how adoption is, is not, could be, and should be serving vulnerable populations. I was empowered by my adult adoptee and allies friends. I was comforted by the original parents who shared their stories with me while I was waiting to reunite and by the adoptive parents who weren't ones who would say the words "my kid won't be like you" when I stood up and spoke out about reunion, rights, identity, stereotypes, and respect as an adopted person.

At this point, I had gathered many holes in my blanket and I finally unsealed my records, unsealed my original birth certificate, and reunited. I had my own story and my own truth. I owe it all to the humming birds, really. People, I've illustrated as humming birds using an old Boy Scout campfire tale, who changed my life. Without them, the stir to find my roots would have gone without comforting, I would have never found validation and empowerment, and I never would have known how to find my information. Essentially, it was the humming birds that gave my mother back to me and a daughter back to my mother. They returned to my adoptive parents a daughter who really knew herself, was proud of what she believed in, and felt whole.

People ask me, when did I decide to change my views? The truth is, I never decided. Yes, there were moments when a light tearing through the sky shone brighter than the others, so much so that I felt myself squinting in pain: the first research article by an adoption agency I ever read, watching the only newborn pictures I had ever seen of myself tumble from a government file into my lap, birthing the first genetic relative I had ever known, and seeing the letter my mother wrote to the confidential intermediary telling them that they must give me everything that is in my file and her name because it is mine. My views and opinions formed because information was within my reach to become informed: my personality and worldview dictate what beliefs are formed after reviewing that information. Is that what the agencies and lobbyists who fight us are afraid of? Is this why they demand to continue to be the middle-men, the intermediaries, the keepers of our identities? What would happen if every adoptee had unhindered access to everything that transpired: their original mother and family, the ability to review the adoption process and records, and the ability to therefore apply those things to greater ethical issues in the world? Perhaps they fear the empowerment that could come from respecting our rights and allowing us to be totally informed; it stands to challenge conventional wisdom and the uneven balance of power too much. Perhaps the resulting collective voice would become too loud. While adoption professionals squabble as the animals did, as they do in our Adoptee Rights hearings, as to who has it right and what mega adoption entity does adoption the right way, do they see the humming birds collecting in the sky? Do they worry that our collective voice will lead to us having more of a say in how things are run--instead of the bureaucracies whose goal is to first and foremost stay in business and out-do the adoption bureaucracy next door?

They can work night and day to keep our records under lock and key but they will never stop the humming birds.

Photo credit: suphakit73

Is it OK to "Out" an Adult Adoptee?

2011-12-19T00:01:00.001-05:00

I'm sitting at a diner munching away at my chicken Caesar wrap. I should say I'm picking away at it because the lettuce is always wilted and the chicken swimming in a sea of dressing. Somehow, the ladies and I get on the topic of adoption and I state my opinion on the adoption-related topic at hand. I look over at my friend, who I know would agree with what I've said, who doesn't look up. I think about kicking her under the table or shooting the paper tip of my straw in her hair to get her attention. She has loads of adopted siblings. If anyone in this restaurant needs a reality check on adoption, step right on over to table with the "order 89" tab sticking up from the holder in the center, there's an adult adoptee and the sister-to-many-adoptees who like to keep it real. But she's not saying anything. So I sigh and let it go remembering another time.

Flash back to a few weeks ago I am at a baby shower eating cake. I am anticipating the on-coming sugar rush when the mother of a good friend starts asking me about my reunion. I happily answer her questions seeing she's genuinely curious. She then turns to someone I don't know who is sort-of eavesdropping on the conversation and tells them that I'm adopted and I've reunited. I'm not mad but I am thinking would all adoptees want someone to randomly tell another person they're adopted like that? It's then that I remember something else.

Go back months prior and I see an acquaintance in the parking lot and she and her husband, who I discover is a board member of a prominent Pro-Life group, walk me and my adoptive mother to my car. They point out my Adoptee Rights bumper sticker and I explain what Adoptee Rights is. I see the look on their faces that I would recognize anywhere and the words form on their lips "who's the one who is adopted?" and I know they're assuming that I have adopted children (the concept of "adult adoptees" does not exist to many people, remember?) and my a-mom chirps in "she's adopted! Isn't my daughter wonderful?" If you know us you know this was both heartwarming, amazing, and irksome at the same time. Heartwarming because my mom totally loves me. Amazing because she's actually voluntarily, proudly, talking about adoption in the context of difference whereas before our family's focus has always been on how we're no different and adoption has no relevance. And irksome because I would not have been chosen to be "outed" as an adoptee to a staunch Pro-Lifer. That stands to open me up to a world of comments that I do not like to hear. I do not want to hear about how lucky I am because I wasn't aborted or about the "selfless" choice my mother must have made. I do not want to have to ruin everyones day by getting my "angry adoptee" (I'm being facetious) and "my-mother's-choices-are-none-of-your-business-feminist" hats on and going against the grain.

Luckily, no such response was made and we went on our merry way.

Those who memories are precisely why I wouldn't "out" my friend. Her experience as the sister to quite a few adoptees is her own experience and if she's not chiming in, there is a reason. Her adopted siblings' narratives are their own to tell as well. I have to treat her and her siblings the way that I would want to be treated. Usually, I am very open about being adopted and open with my views on most adoption topics. However, there are instances where I wouldn't choose to share something with someone or wouldn't want someone to share something on my behalf to someone else. Someone may be itching for me to share something about myself to someone else about being adopted whether to make a point or because they thought the story was cool. But that person needs to remember that they don't have to deal with the aftermath. They don't have to deal with what adoptee may very well end up having to deal with when being adopted gets brought up: the probing personal questions into every aspect of your life people like to ask adoptees or the insulting stereotypes or heavy subject matter getting dragged out onto the table that the adult adoptee just doesn't want to address with a stranger right a the moment. Obviously, not everyone responds that way but it does happen.

I am not talking about not telling anyone an adopted child is adopted or saying it's better in-general that people pretend adoption connections don't exist or aren't relevant--because I don't believe that's right. No, this is about conversations, new friendships, and acquaintances and adult adoptee-directed self disclosure. This is less about keeping secrets and more about respecting boundaries. I realize the importance of this the more adoptees I meet. Some have families who talk about adoption openly and you can mention it at any time. Other adoptees are welcome to talk about it in front of some family members but not others. Some adoptees have friends who are more supportive than others. In essence, it's generally not a good idea to open up a can of worms for someone else when you're not going to have to deal with the repercussions of what you've disclosed.

Photo credit: David Castillo Dominici

Inspirational Sunday: Support this Documentary!

2011-12-18T00:01:00.001-05:00

YOU FOLLOW: A Search for One's Past from sharmila ray on Vimeo.

(From the "about" page):

YOU FOLLOW is a documentary film that follows Nisha back to India to begin her search for her birth mother.

Nisha was adopted from Goa 28 years ago into a beautiful American family. Since then, she has always wondered and dreamed about where she came from, who she physically resembled, and if she would ever get the chance to meet, thank, and hug the woman who gave birth to her.

Before she left to begin her search in 2009, she had no information except her mother's name and the village she was from. You would probably think those details were enough to find someone, but with keeping her safety and privacy a number one priority, Nisha was beginning her search from scratch.

After a month of keeping her identity disclosed, meeting with adoption lawyers, exchanging emails with the orphanage owner, historians, and artists, Nisha did not make any progress until the last couple of weeks when she met the one person to offer his help. It was then, Nisha knew she was doing the right thing.

Now it is time for Nisha to travel back to Goa to find out what has happened since she left, and to continue to follow the clues to finding her birth mother.

This documentary is not only following Nisha's search and personal journey back to India, but it is also going to touch on how her adoption effected her emotionally and mentally. She was and still is in search for her heritage she left behind in Goa.

Epic Linkage Saturday

2011-12-17T01:55:00.000-05:00

Preview of this week's "Stack." Click here to see the real thing in all its awesome-ness!

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

2011-12-14T12:20:00.004-05:00

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

Sensitive Help for Infertility: Where is it?

2011-12-12T00:23:00.000-05:00

Back before my first son was born, I had fertility problems. I remember asking my doctor "why am I not getting pregnant?" and him shrugging his shoulders (and I can still vividly picture this scene in my mind) and saying "you're not getting pregnant because you don't have a cycle. Your labs are fine so I'm not really sure...but it could come back. I just don't know when." Helpful! I was given the diagnosis of PCOS and put on a regimen of Metformin, Clomid, and some other pill whose name I can't recall, to force me to have somewhat of a normal cycle. It didn't really seem to be working, so I gave up after a few months (I hate taking pills). One day in February 2008, I took a pregnancy test; it was positive and I was all but knocked to the floor in shock. It had taken me 18 months since the time I decided I wanted to get pregnant to get pregnant. 16 months of trying for a second child, I got pregnant and lost the pregnancy. A month or two later, I was nearly-knocked-to-the-floor finding out I was pregnant again and 9 months later, gave birth to my second son. During the whole pre-pregnancy ordeal thinking I would never get pregnant, I hadn't thought to go to a specialist and I don't know that I ever would have gone to one. This was also during my pre-investigating-my-adoptedness days, I did look into adoption, and I decided it wasn't for me. People slapped the "just adopt" cliche out there but other than that, there was no sensitivity for what I was going through. For some reason, I resisted talking about it in-depth with my adoptive mother who is herself infertile. Especially when friends who are in the same age group as me start having fertility problems, I can't help but wonder what support there would have been for me if I had never been able to have kids and having to hear "just adopt" pushed in my face constantly, when I didn't want to. Where is the sensitivity to both infertile people and adoptees (whom people are essentially implying will fix the infertility problems of their parents?)

People who are experiencing fertility problems who know this about me and know that I am also adopted have come to me asking about my experiences. If I could guess where they are in their thought-process on the whole infertility and parenting ordeal, it would be at the time they are starting to consider that their first preference of biological birth might not be possible and are looking to me to either provide hope that they could be pregnant someday because I got pregnant (what did I do? Improved my nutrition and saw a therapist--not sure that's the ticket for everyone though) or they are looking for comfort about adoption, something they may be beginning to consider. I suppose they want me to tell them that adoption makes everything better, that I love being adopted, and that it's just miraculous for everyone involved.

In the past, I do not know how helpful I have really been. My opinion has always fit into one sentence really: find healing for the pain caused to you by infertility so that if you do decide to adopt (and I mean from foster care because I don't, as a whole, tend to support other types of adoption if someone asks me for my opinion on that) you can then help a child find healing. This is because I do not believe adoption is a cure for infertility, nor do I believe that the stress and pain caused by infertility magically goes away just because someone adopted. My experience with this is my own, being adopted by infertile parents. My parents always made me feel loved and wanted and let me know I was a real member of their family. However, as someone who loves and am close to my parents, the pain losing the option of biological birth was absolutely not lost on me. I was a smart and intuitive kid (I think most kids are that way). In an effort to try to assuage their pain, I didn't talk a whole lot about adoption or our differences or my identity outside my adoptive family (things I probably really needed to talk about) because I was afraid of hurting their feelings. My conclusion about this, right now as a young adult, is that people slapping "adopt!" in my mother's face as a "cure" to her infertility wasn't all that helpful to her. Her pain was still there: that elephant that always marched into the room whenever I thought about bringing my adoption up kept me from really asking and saying what I wanted to say, to talk about what I really needed to talk about.

I didn't want to ask a question and then hold my breath while she answered trying to keep her voice from betraying any of her pain. She didn't even need to speak it; I could feel it.

This wasn't fair to either of us.

I was privy to a conversation a while back where someone said a really positive thing about infertility was adoption. I didn't say anything because explaining how I feel on the topic means that I have to divulge what I've just divulged now and explain why I feel that way, meaning, I have to talk about my and my mother's experiences with infertility problems and I just didn't feel like doing that at the moment. But it was eye-opening to me that when so many people hear "infertility" they think "adoption makes it all better." "Adoption" is the one and only resolution that many people slap out there to infertile people. When I hear it, I envision a room full of emotions and I giant door with "adoption" painted across it. The person says "just adopt" and the words cause the door to slam shut on the room. The emotions and loss are there, ever present, swirling around. But the nice advice-giver is satisfied that they can't see the emotions any more, case closed, door shut, I fixed your pain for you: "just adopt."

It also makes me wonder if people ever consider the other end, the child, whose job they've announced that it should become to fix the infertility issues, the pain, the loss, the disappointment, of the parent(s) in their life.

As I said, I do not think adoption just magically fixes infertility. I really think we can do better than this for women, for my own mother. While adopted children are not second-best to biological children, we are clearly just as awesome, adopting is not the same as giving birth. Perhaps it is really important to someone for whatever reason to experience pregnancy and have a biologically related child. Adoption professionals and law have really tried to make it the same with trends such as: matching based on appearance, adopting in ages that reflect a biological birth order, amending and sealing birth documents, the "as-if-born-to" part of the law, and the whole "paper pregnancy" stuff. These efforts are more a denial of difference and denial of reality than a transformation of adoption to the equivalent of biological birth. A mother denies that she is very hurt by not being able to be pregnant and having a child with her DNA by saying adoption was the exact same experience. Likewise, an adoptee's reality of having two different families and two different entrances into those families and the importance of those things to the adoptee gets denied. I don't see how it is truly possible to honor an adoptee's reality and connection to two families while simultaneously pretending that the adoptive family is identical to a biological family in every single way (remember, "different" does not mean I'm saying "worse").

And then there's another possibility: perhaps the person does not want to adopt or be a parent at all. Perhaps they've decided not to become parents at all after their ordeal with infertility. Who offers these individuals support?

I have some friends struggling with infertility who I think may soon come ask me about my experiences. I will give my usual sentence but I'd actually like to be more helpful than that. For one thing, what does "find healing" mean? I do not know of any support groups in our area. I know of one major infertility newsletter but it is provided by an adoption agency and major themes are tied in with adopting or waiting to adopt. Every time I've read it, I felt like it served to keep couples focused on adoption as a resolution to their infertility, like the agency was making sure to preserve its long line of waiting customers. I do not want my friends' pain and emotions used that way. I also do not know of any good books or resources. Are there books and resources out there for people who are experiencing infertility that are sensitive to the fact that someone may not want to adopt or that someone might want to deal with infertility on its own, rather than having "just adopt" as a major theme in how or why the author of the book claims they are going to be healed? I believe women simply deserve better: to have a sensitive response that points them in the direction of healing and support. I want adoption to always be seen as being about what a child needs, rather than persisting as this insensitive retort that people slap in the faces of infertile people as though it is some service that exists for the primary purpose of assuaging their pain.

For those wondering what I think about this, no, I do not think that giving birth magically makes erases all of the pain and losses caused by infertility and pregnancy loss either. I spoke specifically about infertility and adoption because this is an adoption blog, not for the purpose of making that contrast or implication that biological birth eradicates all losses. I personally feel relatively unscathed. However, having friends who had a far more strenuous ordeal than I did to get pregnant, I know that some losses simply don't magically go away without help and sensitivity.

Any books, websites, blogs or other suggestions for the people I am thinking of who I think might come talk to me, that do not involve "just adopt; all better now!" that I could refer to my friends: please, let me know.

Photo credit: winnond

Epic Linkage Saturday

2011-12-10T20:19:00.000-05:00

Preview of this week's "stack." Click here to see the real thing in all its awesome-ness!

The Balance of Power and Adoption

2011-12-10T16:17:00.003-05:00

This entry was actually a part of another post that I have been typing over a period of time. It was getting long so I decided that I would separate it into it own blog post. There have been several posts made recently, both on my blog and on other adoptee blogs, where more adoptive parents and prospective adoptive parents than likely usual have come to read and comment here and on other adoptee blogs. I'm not used to having a lot of adoptive parents comment on my blog when talking about adoptee issues (the ones who do, you = awesome!) and when I get traffic like that, it is usually because I've written something that specifically includes adoptive parents as a topic. Usually what happens on these posts is that adoptive parents state that the adoptee was not nice enough or that generalizations were made. The adoptees in turn feel censored, knowing that the disapproval of our voices and opinions, the only ones in the triad who can tell anyone what being adopted is like, means that fewer people are listening. I have been thinking long and hard about how to explain how many adoptees perceive the balance of power in adoption and thus, who gets listened to, which is one reason many of these discourses go awry.

On a blog entry written by Malinda, an adoptive mom I adore who writes about issues in adoption, someone commented to her that they like the entries where she doesn't blog about pointing out problems in adoption. The commenter then went on to say that Malinda should write about different things instead of how terrible adoptive parents are for adopting kids. The thing is, Malinda doesn't write about how terrible adoptive parents are. Sure, she's called out ignorance where she's seen it--calling out the ignorance, not labeling a whole group. People should understand, adoption is an institution, not a person. Calling out huge problems for what they are does not mean any individual person or a whole group of people are being insulted. We have to talk about problems as they exist and as they arise. It is not fair to the most vulnerable populations on our earth not to.

I feel like it is very important to groups with power in adoption to promote ethics and reform in adoption as well as make sure that those whom adoption impacts who have less of a voice are heard. And I really mean heard not "heard......if I like your experience or views and have given it the seal of approval." In the "constellation" there are some people who have more power to make change and be heard than others. One group that tends to be heard more than others is adoptive parents. For one, they tend to be of a higher socioeconomic status than other constellation members and with money comes power. For another, in our culture and society, they simply tend to be the default, go-to people whenever someone wants to know something about adoption. I have written many times in the past about how adoptive parents are often asked to speak about adoptee rights in national media without even one adult adoptee being present for the discussion. One most poignant example of this was a radio show last year on adoptee rights where an adoptive father and head of an adoption organization debated an adoptive mother professor/lawyer about what adult adoptees and original parents should have or not have, do or not do, with not so much as one adult adoptee or original parent present to speak for themselves. This was despite the fact that an adult adopte lead, Adoptee Rights organization, who was overseeing an Adoptee Rights bill that was pending in that particular state's General Assembly, was available for comment located not 45 minutes from where the interview took place----and was never once approached to be included.

A physician I once worked with when I coordinated Social Services for the rehab unit of a nursing home once sheepishly admitted to me that he didn't even realize adult adoptees existed. "I've dealt with many prospective adoptive parents needing physicals to adopt." Explaining his picture of adoption from his perspective. "Of course I know that adopted children grow up and become adults. But it never dawned on me that they'd still be adopted and that they'd have something to say about it. It makes sense now that you mention it. But it just never occured to me that way. I just never thought about it."

Oh, to be invisible. Right there, willing to share, but invisible.

It is not as though I cannot empathize. Another power-holder in the adoption constellation are Social Workers, namely, adoption workers (but a group people often blanket as just being "Social Workers"). In my community, I hear all about how people felt disservice was done to them by "Social Workers" or how they felt that the "Social Workers" are "this" or "that" as a result of the imbalance of power in an institution that impacts lives. I am a former Social Services professional and am a Social Work major (not adoption work). I can honestly tell you that it does not bother me to hear people say they do not feel they were well served by Social Workers when it came to adoption: that is their opinion from their experience. They are entitled to it and their own perceptions as someone who did not have power in a situation or institution. It does not bother me when someone who has been adversely impacted by adoption perceives that "Social Workers" (meaning "adoption workers") don't "get it" or that their experience has been that Social Workers they've talked to do not understand their loss or experience. I do not feel like I am being judged. I do not feel like they are painting us all with the same brush, even if they did not put a million disclaimers in what they said adamantly letting everyone know they meant this Social Worker or that Social Worker not all Social Workers. I believe it is really important for Social Workers, no matter what line of work they are in, to listen to how their influence has impacted those whose paths they have crossed.

I know there are people who won't like this blog entry and I can't help that. Yes, I know that there are always instances where people are being unkind to each other and of course saying how genuine rudeness makes you feel is understandable. But talking about your place as a minority in a system where there is unearned power held by other people, whether it be by race, class, sexual orientation, religion, so on and so forth, is so much beyond that. It's beyond being about hurting feelings or being rude. To be in a place where you have the least amount of power and be told your message must cater, please, or portray only in a certain light those who have power, or else the power-holders will not hear you or let you be heard, is a perfect example of what being on the powerless end of a system is like. To the APs who have emailed me, so very many of you, who have often said "I felt generalized at first, or didn't understand, and then I flipped it to imagine how the adoptee felt and then I understood"--thank you. I think many adoptees I know would appreciate hearing something like that. Those of us who have power where others do not need to, nay, have an obligation, to listen to those who are invisible, vulnerable, or otherwise oppressed. And it is not up to us to say who is valid or who is not. It is not up to us to say that only those who speak nicely enough about their experience as an oppressed, invisible, or vulnerable person are allowed to be heard.

Photo credit: worradmu

When Being Adopted Really Isn't Relevant

2011-12-07T16:28:00.003-05:00

I spend a considerable amount of time on my blog explaining the ways that adoption and being adopted are, or can very validly be, relevant in a person's life. This is not to portray the idea that adoption is always at the root of every action and emotion a person ever has. No, rather, it is to combat the general societal opinion that adoption can't matter and is always irrelevant that I offer considerations otherwise. So you might be shocked that I would write something about when adoption really isn't relevant but I think you'll see where I'm going if you keep reading. There are times when I bristle when people mention someones adoptedness and other times when I don't and I feel like I can now explain why there's a difference in my reaction and perhaps ask if others reading this feel the same way. This isn't a post about discrediting how someone may or may not feel adoption has been relevant or irrelevant in their life. This is a post about language and being aware of what we're implying, the concepts and ideas we are condoning, when we speak---perhaps even without knowing it.

I thought of several vignettes of conversations I've heard to demonstrate what I mean:

"I was dealing with a customer at my store, an Asian girl, who was very picky. She kept nit-picking and nit-picking and caring way too much about what colors were on the shirts she was considering buying. I was so annoyed at her."

"This Black woman was at the cash register using her EBT card to buy all sorts of candy and name-brand products. No wonder they have money problems if they don't know to buy bargain brands when they're poor and now my tax dollars are going for her to be able to buy nicer brands than I buy for myself!"

"There's this gay guy at my job who is always picking ridiculous arguments with co-workers and being hysterically upset about the littlest things. I've never seen someone be so dramatic."

"My neighbor got upset and kicked her trashcan the entire length of her driveway this morning. She must be bi-polar or something."

"I have friends who have an adopted son who has really bad behavioral problems. He's always acting up in school and really seems like a complete basket case."

Let's set aside for a moment that none of these things are particularly nice to say anyway....

What I'm trying to emphasize here is what happens when one bit of information about a person that's not really relevant to the conversation at hand, gets singled out in what is said. Why was it important for me to know that the annoying, nit-picky customer is Asian except if the person meant for me to somehow understand that they were being annoying because they are Asian? Why was it important for me to know nothing else about someone except that they are a woman and that they are Black when telling me a story about what they used their EBT card for (I bristle at comments like that in-general anyway) unless it's relevant, meaning, somehow the person is using their EBT card for things someone doesn't approve of and has money issues because they are Black. Why does it matter if someones overly-dramatic co-worker is a gay man unless there's supposed to be some understood agreement between the talker and listener that him being gay explains the story or explains his actions and behavior. Likewise for the allegedly bi-polar neighbor. Does she being bi-polar give me some sort of extra understanding of why she irrationally kicked her trashcan down her driveway? Perhaps she is bi-polar and she wasn't having a manic or depressive episode at all. Maybe she was just having a bad day and felt like kicking her trashcan?

But the words are already out. It's been injected, absorbed, and accepted in the conversation now, without even realizing it, that her seemingly irrational reactions are explained by her bi-polar disorder.

Here's where I really don't want to hear if someone is adopted or not.

Unless they're suggesting that being adopted is exactly why their friend's son misbehaves, why is mentioning his adoptedness, of all things and nothing else about him, relevant? Can adoptees have behavioral problems? Absolutely. Can adoption-related issues be relevant as to why someone may have a behavioral problem? I think there have been enough experts to agree that, yes, this is a possibility. However, this vignette mentioned wasn't about the impact of adoption-related losses on children with sensitive discussion in a purposeful direction. It was a conversation about "bratty" kids where someone who happened to know a "bratty" kid chimed in and happened to mention in doing so that the kid is an adoptee. For all we know, the kid isn't really "bratty" at all, the adult describing them is just rude. But the words are already out and, stereotypically, lead everyone listening to believe that being adopted is automatically relevant and explains why they behave the way that they do.

In my humble opinion, there is a time and a place to mention someone being adopted. I'm not talking about hiding it in shame, playing the "as if born to," denying the reality of how someone came into a family, or promoting erasure or "colorblindness" here. I am talking about mentioning it when it is relevant and hopefully, in an adoptee-directed way, meaning, the adoptee is in charge of when and how it is shared. I like it when people enter into discussion about being adopted and adoption in general, when people question the institution, and challenge their perceptions and assumptions. But if someone is speaking negatively of, making fun of, expressing their annoyance at, or disclosing all of the problems someone else has in casual conversation--here is one very clear instance that no one really needs to hear that they're adopted. If it's not relevant to why you don't like them or approve of what they're doing, why mention it? Why perpetuate the stigma?

Photo credit: Stuart Miles

"I Wanted to be an Adoptee": a Foster Kid's Desire for Love, Family. and Security

2011-11-30T22:37:00.003-05:00

Guest Entry by Nathaniel Christopher

Nathaniel, a photo from that summer

Nathaniel is a foster alumni, the son of an adult adoptee, and a freelance journalist in Vancouver, British Colombia. More of Nathaniel's work can be found at his website.. Here is one last post for National Adoption Awareness Month.

“Who was that couple who dropped youoff?” asked an older girl sitting next to me on the swings at Franklyn StreetPark in Nanaimo.

“Uh…,well I live with them,” I respond,digging my feet into the gravel, desperate for a cushion of ambiguity.

“Are they your parents, or what?”

“No, they're my foster parents,” Isaid, tightly grabbing the chain.

I wished they were my real parents. Theywere young and had ambition for their future. I saw them going places and desperatelywanted a place in that future, but every so often someone reminded me it wasall a façade.

It only took one question to blow thefantasy.

“Why are you in foster care?” said thegirl, her face fixed on mine.

I was desperate for an exit but hercalm mannerisms and probing interest in my affairs kept me shamefully tetheredto the red metal frame.

That previous summer my first foster mother, who lived two blocks from thepark, had enrolled me in a summer program there. My new foster parents, wholived on the other side of town, ensured that I remained in the program for therest of the summer. At the end of every afternoon, like clockwork, they wouldbe there to pick me up in their blue Chevrolet Cavalier.

Revealing the truth of my situation made mevulnerable. It had only been a year, but I had undergone a huge identity shift.I was no longer the "old" Nathaniel who was disruptive, hyper, and chaotic.I was now the “new” Nathaniel who was nice, good and calm.

Talking about my status as a kid in fostercare in 1991 meant addressing my shortcomings as a child and student.

Judgeme by what I am now, forget everything about who I was, I said to myself.

The previous week my foster father, astraight 23 year old man visited every record store in town in aquest to locate a Nancy Sinatra album I wanted. “Do you have ‘These Boots areMade for Walkin’’ by Nancy Sinatra?” he asked each cashier without ahint of embarrassment.

He and my foster mother stood up forme, protected me, and loved me. When people referred to me as their son Iwouldn’t correct them - nor would they.

They fought with my social workers to getme a new bike; they bought me new clothes, drove me to school every day andeven mused about getting me braces. "If kids ask you what happened to yourteeth you can just say you lost a fight with a lawnmower!" said my fostermother with pride.

Although my social workers me asa foster kid in their notebooks, it wasn’t an identity I clung to. I saw myselfas part of a new family unit the foster kid label s a necessary and unpleasantstep toward my goal of family stability.

My plans were derailed when their marriage ended and I went on to live with myfoster mother. Eventually that placement broke down and I bounced off to yetanother home.

I thought the world revolved around meblamed myself for the breakdown. I felt intense anger and grief over the separation.In her status report my childcare worker noted my struggle with loss, anger,and confusion.

"To come to terms with his losses,Nathaniel will need to attend to his feelings about his relationship with hisfoster parents and process his change from extreme attachment to extremeseparation from his foster mother,” she wrote.

Aside from a few board games and a record that I liked, school was the onlything I had left from that "golden era" of family, stability andhope. My new foster parents and social worker wanted to move me to a schoolcloser to my new placement, to their practical reality of who I was and where Ibelonged.

“If we, as professionals, have Nathaniel's best interests in mind, we willallow him to complete, perhaps his happiest year of school life, at Chase River Elementary School,” wrotemy grade six teacher in a letter to my social worker.

My request to stay at Chase Riveris one of the few things I said that resonated with my social workers. "Myfriends are there," I said in an attempt to mask my desperation forfamiliarity with a facade of childlike enthusiasm for friendship.

Eighteen months and four homes after mysummer at Franklyn Street Park,it was up to me to maintain any links with my past.

To that end I took two GMC "goldfish" city buses to school and backevery day. I paid the 75 cent fare with a book of light blue bus stampsprovided by the British Columbia Ministry of Children and Families.

"Is this seat taken?" asked a smartly dressed woman of perhaps 80years who ignored the many empty seats in favour of the aisle seat next to me.Perhaps it’s her wisdom of age or my dazed, dejected expression, but she lent awise and intuitive voice to my grief that I thought invisible to others.

"I was young once like you, many years ago." she said in a flatalmost inaudible tone. Her clipped British mannerisms belied her forwardobservations. "I was alone," she said looking straight ahead, buttalking directly to me. "So I turned to God."

November's Online Art Exhibit: Lina Eve

2011-11-30T12:58:00.001-05:00

Lina Eve

From the 1960's-1980's in Australia, over 80,000 mothers lost their babies to adoption during an era of forced and coerced adoptions. Lina Eve was one of these women. She expresses her thoughts and emotions on this experience through the song and video (below) as well as through other artistic media. You can check more of her artwork out at www.linaeve.com.

"Clayton's Mother" Lina Eve, mixed medium on board

"Loss" from the "Bad Girl" series, Lina Eve

Artwork and video/song copyright Lina Eve. Used on this blog with permission.

The Family that Never Considered Disruption

2011-11-29T11:55:00.000-05:00

Guest Entry by Anonymous Adult Adoptee

Amanda says,

Last year, on an adoption site professing to be for everyone in the "triad," there was a post about adoption disruption that sent many reeling--adult adoptees especially but original and adoptive parents too. The majority of the adoptee opinions were offended by having such a post on a site that included them as an audience: they wondered why anyone would think we would want to hear about an adoptee being re-surrenderd, going without a family. Few of the people who aligned against the adoptee opinions stopped to consider what it felt like for many adoptees to have arrived into your family in a different way than your non-adopted/biologically-raised siblings and worry if your place there was just as permanent. It was a very real feeling for many adoptees, not necessarily because their childhoods were bad or their adoptive parents did something wrong (so hold that stereotyping please), many simply because this is how they viewed adoption through their own lens and personality, to feel they had to earn their place. Sometimes it's the very reasons someone is adopted, innocent enough to be shared with an adoptee, that sends the message "I was adopted for this purpose, to fill this need, to correct this problem. I better behave or I won't be welcome here." You can imagine what it feels like, then, to have felt your place was conditional or that at least society views you that way, to happen upon a page about disruptions--then to be called unhappy, mal-adjusted, and judgemental for expressing how it made you feel.

As someone who was raised as an only child, I've often wondered what it was like to grow up with an adopted sibling who had serious emotional and behavioral problems. What did that adoptee observe in their sibling or in their family: how did it make them feel, what worries did they have? And, whatever happened to their sibling? I happen to have a good friend whose adopted sibling has such problems who I've been fortunate to learn a lot from. A different friend of mine contacted me, wanting to share the letter below with my readers. I mentioned the above fiasco in prelude to the post to prevent the same thing here with my friend's letter: a letter designed to share how having an adopted sibling with severe emotional and behavioral problems and the topic of adoption dissolutions makes her feel.

Dear Readers,

Way back in the 60’s, long before there were a list of acronyms to label adoptees, one family showed that forever, actually meant forever. There was no knowledge to be gleaned from others. There was no mental health services available. No post adoption specialized support. For this adoption they knew going in there was possible mental illness within the family, but chose to proceed anyway. When my sister reached puberty the rages started, and our parents did their best walking through a minefield of unknowns. They responded with gentle voices and only showed love in return. The rages happened daily and you could watch my sister turn from happy and engaged to raging in an instant. The raging was verbal and physical and severe, primarily directed at our mother.

At one point they thought perhaps staying with a family friend who had children her age might have helped her. For a while, it did. However, this honeymoon period did not last and her uncontrollable outrage returned. Our parents tried to place her for a short stint in a hospital, the staff promised they could help. Soon our parents realized the professionals had just turned her into a zombie on drugs; they brought her home.

The entire family, all of us, toughed it out.

We did so, day after day, never knowing what would happen or when the fits of rage would be unleashed on us. Holidays were times of walking on egg shells always waiting for one of her episodes to bring an end to the festivities. Was it hard on us, the other children? You bet. Do each of us carry emotional scars because of it? Absolutely. Was holding on to her as a family member the right thing to do?

Yes.

Now half a century later we're still family. To my parents, when they adopted, they adopted for life. Adoption is a commitment for life the same as when you bring a child into your life through birth. You seek help but when the help doesn’t work you still preserve and look for other ways and things to try.

No, there are no easy answers. The many years that the rages lasted with her episodes coming and going, her long-term ability to be a productive adult never materialized. This never made our parents falter or turn away from their responsibility to their child whom they had chosen to adopt and made a commitment to. They willingly took on that responsibility and through good and bad they continued on. That child, now adult was treated exactly the same way they would have treated a biological child: with support, forgiveness, and love.

Looking at the disruptions that seem to be happening with increasing frequency, it is hard not to judge those families. It is hard not get angry and upset at another adoptee, losing yet again, a family that should by all rights be their last family.

Signed,

One of the Other Children in the Family

Guest Entry: Should Adult Adoptees Have Access to Their Own Records?

2011-11-28T16:47:00.000-05:00

Guest Entry by Gina Miller

Gina Miller is an adult adoptee who wrote the following piece for an English Composition class. She gave me permission to publish it here.

In 1965, Jeff Hancock was born in the city of Buffalo and had lived in Western New York State his entire life. Jeff was used to crossing the U.S./Canadian border for business and pleasure as a routine part of his life. In late 2006, the U.S. State Department announced plans to require all U.S. citizens to possess a U.S. Passport for the purpose of entering and returning from Canada. Jeff began to get documents in order, and requested his birth certificate from his mother as part of the application process for a United States Passport. His mother was very reluctant to give him his birth certificate, and only provided it after Jeff mentioned that he could purchase a replacement copy through his state’s Vital Records Department. This is how Jeff found out at age 41 that he was adopted.

At this point the term “birth certificate” needs to be defined. Adoptees actually have two birth certificates. The first certificate is the “Original Birth Certificate,” otherwise referred to as an “O.B.C.” The second is referred to as an “Amended Birth Certificate.” The differences between the two are fundamental. The O.B.C. contains the adoptee’s name at birth, the name of the birth mother and father, attending physicians, hospital, time and date of birth, and location. In contrast, the Amended Birth Certificate lists adoptive parents as birth parents, and is void of any information that reveals the adoptee’s pre-finalized adoption past.

Due to current passport application requirements that are only revealed on his O.B.C., Jeff will never travel outside of the United States of America again. He will never lay on a beach in Mexico, climb the Eiffel tower, or kiss the Blarney Stone in Ireland. How frightening to think that every person whose adoption is completed more than a year after their birth is to be denied their birthright to possess a passport? Jeff and other adoptees that were in foster care past their first birthday are living in betrayal through the hands of the only government they have ever known. Presently there are only eight states in the U.S.A. that are considered “Open Access States.” These states offer unlimited adoptee access to his or her OBC. Unless an adoptee lives in Tennessee, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, Kansas, Oregon, Alaska, or Alabama, access to their original identity is forbidden. Jeff’s story is only one example of how adoptees are discriminated against in the United States.

Adoption has existed from the time that Pharaoh’s daughter drew Moses from the waters of the Nile. Adoption was common in ancient Rome, where Patricians that did not have an heir that they deemed suitable would adopt someone to become their heir. Julius Caesar adopted Octavian to be his heir, and Octavian adopted Tiberius. Adoption has been around as long as human life has existed. From the beginning of time, there have been mothers who have been either unable or unwilling to parent their babies.

Betty Jean Lifton accounts in her book, “Journey of the Adopted Self” how in the time of the ancient Greek myths Oedipus was a victim of lies and secrecy in adoption. Oedipus was an adoptee who was unaware of his adoption. His father was warned by the Oracle at Delphi that he would grow up to kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus grew up not knowing he had been hung by his pierced heels from a tree, and survived because a kindly shepherd cut him down and gave him to King Polybus and Queen Meriope of Corinth to develop as their own child. Like so many well meaning adoptive parents, the king and queen kept Oedipus’ past from him. When he eventually found out his history, he confronted his adoptive parents, who lied to him. Oedipus fled to another kingdom, and on the way he murdered an imperious stranger, then marrying the stranger’s widow. Had Oedipus been told the truth from the beginning, he would not have fled. The man he murdered was revealed to be his birth-father and the widow he married was indeed his birth-mother. The lies and secrecy surrounding his adoption led to his fulfillment of the oracle’s prophecy. (22)

However, adoption records were not always sealed. E. Wayne Carp in his book, “Family Matters, History of Secrecy and Disclosure in Adoption” tells of the history of adoption secrecy. From the time of World War I social workers were more concerned with keeping families together and kinship then they were with placing children for adoption. Many states began to require registers of births and deaths so that the whereabouts of these people could be tracked. Child placement agencies took every step when the children of unwilling or deceased parents were placed for adoption to conserve the information that may be of vital importance to the adoptee at one point later in his or her life.

An official of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Children stated, “It is better to write a thousand records that are not used than to fail to be able to supply a vital bit of family history when it is needed. By the beginning of World War II collecting family information by adoption agencies and social workers was considered ideal. Ora Pendleton, executive secretary of the Children’s Bureau of Philadelphia and vice chairman of the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Association of Social Workers, insisted that “information may be desired at some future time either by the adopting parents or by the child who has been adopted. These people should have access to whatever part of it they need.” While there may be many who never would ask for the information; Pendleton insisted “they are entitled to it if they do want it. The very knowledge that it can be made available to them if they want it is in itself a reassurance to them.”

As late as 1946 at the National Conference of Social Work Grace Louise Hubbard, supervisor at SCAA Child Placing and Adoption Committee, stressed the importance of “preserving the child’s true heritage through complete records.” Post World War II, agencies and child placement workers began to be concerned about the stigma of illegitimacy, and began looking for ways to prevent the adoptees from being discriminated against due to their illegitimate status at birth. It must be stressed that initially records were sealed to prevent outsiders from having access to whether or not an individual was illegitimate. There were separate cultural stigmas at the time, and mothers who were pregnant out of wedlock were highly discriminated against. Opposing the stigma birth-mothers faced was the stigma of infertility that married couples faced.

Children were perceived as being of bad blood, and were discriminated against because of the stigma of illegitimacy. Records were never intended to be blocked from access to any members of the Adoption Triad (Birth-Parents, Adoptive-Parents, and Adopted peoples). (37-101) Today this stigma no longer exists, but adoption records remain sealed in all but less than 10 states.

One reason for this is because adoption has become a multi-billion dollar industry. It is largely unregulated, and sealed records have allowed in the past for corrupt deeds to go undiscovered. Seymour Fenichel was an adoption attorney out of New York. He is one of many corrupt adoption facilitators, and one of the very few who was caught and imprisoned. Seymour Fenichel would encourage young mothers to give up their babies, and set up prospective adoptive parents with the possibility of an infant adoption. He would charge high rates, and the amended birth records were falsified with phony birth dates, locations, and names. He is only one of countless unscrupulous facilitators that saw a cash cow in providing babies to infertile couples.

William and Lila Young, Thomas Hicks, Dr. Katherine Cole, Bessie Bernard, and Georgia Tann all were unscrupulous providers of adoption services. Their practices charged outrageous fees to prospective adoptive parents. They charged huge, imaginary “fees” while relying on secrecy in the practice of sealed records to cover up their trade of human flesh. These baby-thieves would set up shop in one state, advertise in another, and send expectant mothers to yet a third state while finalizing the adoption in a final fourth state. Mirah Riben, author of Big Business in Babies: Adoption, the Child Commodities Market, is a biological mother of an infant lost to adoption. Riben states that, “Expectant mothers are isolated from their families, and a dependent bond is created with them by having prospective adopters pay their living and medical expenses, and virtually hold them hostage, blackmailing them to relinquish or pay back those expenses. The babies are then placed with a family after the family pays tens of thousands of dollars in fees.”

Closed records facilitate countless dastardly deeds in adoption by denying adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents any knowledge of the origin of these children. Alex Caldez, Jr, spokesman for the California Department of Social Services, says, “Essentially, [adoption facilitators] are required to have a business license, publish a list of their services, and [have a] $10,000.00 bond before they hang a shingle.” These untrained specialists can charge between six and ten thousand dollars simply to introduce prospective adoptive parents to a mother who is only considering adoption. If the match fails the facilitator can collect the fee again and introduce the couple to yet another expectant mother. Adoption is a gold mine for the unscrupulous that see only dollar signs when they speak to unfertile couples and unwed mothers.

Adoption has become an industry intent on fulfilling a childless couple’s wants, rather than a child’s needs. There is empirical proof that this secrecy in the 42 states that remained sealed is devastating to the adoptee. In the book “Being Adopted; The Lifelong Search for Self” Dr. Brodzinsky, Dr. Schechter, and Ms. Henig clearly show that individuals feel incomplete without knowing heritage and history. Discovery of their roots perpetuates mental health in that it gives the adoptee some feeling of control over his or her history, even if the search results are not good ones. (142)

“National Council for Adoption” is one adoption business that perpetuates several myths in their quest to keep adoption records secret. First is the myth that the birth parents want and were promised confidentiality. Linda Gale (a natural mother) states, “I was not promised confidentiality and did not want it either. Being concerned about me was the last thing on the agency's mind.... I feel angry when they try to deny adoptees the truth about their own lives by blaming it on me and other mothers."

Reasoning that the concerns of natural parents outweigh the needs of adult adoptees also ignores one basic and central tenet of adoption law: the best interest of the child (adoptee) controls. Adoption does not exist as a legal policy for the benefit of natural parents, but for the benefit of adoptees. There is no indication that when an adoptee becomes an adult his or her interest is suddenly usurped by perceived (and empirically false) desires of their natural parents.

A second myth perpetuated by the adoption industry is their claim that there will be more abortions should Original Birth Certificates be unsealed. Actual statistics reveal this claim to be entirely false. The Guttmacher Institute’s independent research indicates that in states with recently unrestricted access to Original Birth Certificates abortion rates have declined from 16 to 25 percent as compared with the nation as a whole. Both Kansas and Alaska have the two lowest abortion rates of all. This stands entrenched in complete defiance of the myths spewed by the NCFA when considering neither Kansas or Alaska have ever sealed away Original Birth Certificates in their states histories. Independent research has determined that birth mothers prefer to relinquish their child, whom they feel unable to care for, when the strong possibility exists for them to later reconnect. The thought of carrying a child to term and never seeing that child again is a terrifying thought for mothers.

A third myth is that open adoption will decrease the number of adoptions. The Guttmacher Institute’s research indicates the opposite. Alaska has the nation’s highest adoption rate followed by Kansas and the other open records states. The evidence appears that open access to Original Birth Certificates will increase adoption, rather than reduce it. The National Center for Court Statistics shows that the rates of adoption are 31.2 per 1,000 nationally. For the perpetually open states of Alaska and Kansas the adoption count per 1,000 live births are 53.3 in Alaska, and 48.8 in Kansas. Rates for surrounding states with sealed record laws are much lower. Colorado’s rate per 1000 live births was 26.0, Missouri is 27.5, Nebraska is 42.4, and Oklahoma is 27.6. The question has to be asked; why the secrecy? Could it be that the adoption industry has something to hide? As an adopted adult, along with countless other adoptees and birth parents who have fallen victim to the human trafficking perpetuated by these unscrupulous individuals and agencies, we scream “Yes!”

A fourth myth perpetuated by the multi-billion dollar adoption industry is that open records will break up adoptive families. This argument is completely absurd. Any parent who has given birth to a second child knows that there is always enough love to go around. Rather, secrecy and lies tend to break up the adoptive families. As in the example of Jeff Hancock’s discovery of a lifetime, and the lie he was forced to live for most of his adult life, the relationship he and his adoptive family have may never recover. Judy Sickler, an adoptive parent from Kansas City Missouri, states that she was never closer to her adopted children than when she searched and reunited them with their birth parents, and proudly displays photos of her children with both sets of parents. It is not debatable that honesty and trust go forth hand-in-hand.

Nancy Verrier is an adoptive parent who did not understand her adopted child’s angst. In her groundbreaking book, “The Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child” Verrier researches the all-to-real trauma caused to children by abandonment of the biological mother at birth. Through her research Verrier discovered that adoptees could never feel completely whole without knowing why they were adopted, what their roots and heritage are, and having an opportunity to reunite with birth family.

Myths aside, a valid reason to open adoption records is for access to medical history. When an adoptee goes to the doctor, their answer to the questions about family history of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, etc. is always, “I don’t know.” Why should adoptees be denied access to their own medical history? It is a legal form of discrimination that should be eliminated. When a member of the general population needs a bone marrow transplant, or a kidney, they turn to a family member. Adoptees simply do not have that option in closed record states. One Kansas adoptee recounts the story of finding her medical history. “When I found my mother, the first thing she did was to tell me to be tested for pernicious anemia. I tested and was found positive. Pernicious anemia is a dreadful disease and is rarely tested for unless it is genetically indicated. It begins with a loss of the use of extremities, moves into numbness in the hands and legs, and eventually creates dementia and early death. It is controlled by a simple B-12 shot that is administered for pennies a day. The stakes for living are high risk across the adoptee community.

Had I been born 12 miles to the east, I would be a native of Missouri. I never would have found out this important medical information about my self. My career and my life would have been over simply because I am an adoptee.” In Missouri, and approximately 40 other states, judges simply refuse granting of adoptee’s requests. Legally adoptees have the right to petition for the court release of their files. Nearly 100% of the time judge’s reply will state that the adoptee fails to show “good cause.” Apparently medical history is not sufficient. Courts state privacy issues and confidentiality of the mothers as their primary concern. However, most mothers would be horrified to learn that their offspring were ill, dying, or unable to obtain their own history.

Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan. B. Donaldson Adoption Institute states that adoptive parents are inadequately prepared to care for their adopted children, not knowing what types of diseases to prepare for, or to take preventative action against. And ongoing contact is indicated as necessary, as the natural parent ages and health issues such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer could develop. The children that they give birth to, and keep will have this information. Why is the adoptee any less entitled to the same information?

The veil of secrecy has shrouded adoption since the World War II era. However, research indicates that this is simply absurd. In today’s society, to continue to perpetuate the lies and secrecy that a closed adoption system advocates, protects no one yet endangers many. The statistics shown above regarding abortion rates and adoption rates in open records states vs. closed record states bear out internationally.

Adam Pertman states in his book, “Adoption Nation” that “Sealed birth certificates are a destructive anachronism. They didn’t exist before the middle of the last century… and one day they will be viewed as a misguided historical aberration.” Unless adoptees had the good fortune to be born and adopted in a state with open records, they are looking at years of frustration, endless hours of searching, huge costs in legal fees to open court records, possible expenses with investigators, travel, fees for Confidential Intermediaries, as well as DNA testing, which the general non-adopted public does not have to pay. The 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution clearly states that “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.” Adoptees seem to be left out of the protection of the 14th amendment, being denied their own original birth certificates and adoption records, being discriminated against, and in the eyes of the law, perpetually children, who need to be protected from their own acts. Legislation refers to adoptees as adopted children, regardless of their age.

No other group of people is singled out and told who they can and can not have contact with or a relationship with. Adoptees are the only group of citizens in the United States denied their own information because of what they “might do.” Most birth-mothers are not opposed to the idea of contact and reunion, in fact, many welcome it. In the event that the biological parent does not want contact, a simple statement or letter to the adoptee can convey that feeling without the state being involved. Adopted individuals are adults with the right to make decisions about their own lives, and to know their own heritage, medical information, and history. As author Alex Haley states, “In all of us there is a hunger, marrow-deep, to know our heritage- to know who we are and where we have come from. Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning. No matter what our attainments in life, there is still a vacuum, emptiness, and the most disquieting loneliness."

The quest for identity is a common one, yet adoptees are met with slammed doors, stamps of “Denied” on their requests for records, and mountains of bureaucratic red tape that exclaims, “You are not worthy to have your own information.” Robert Harrington Wilson McCullough, a Missouri adoptee, summarizes the dilemma with the following words, “Until I hold my original birth certificate in my hand, I will never know who I am, only who I am not.”

Works Cited

Brodinsky, David, PhD, Schechter, Marshall,M.D., and Henig, Robin. Being Adopted. Random House 1992

Carp, E. Wayne. Family Matters. Secrecy and Disclosure in the History of Adoption. Harvard University Press

Gale, Linda. Personal interview. 16 September, 2011

Hancock, Jeff. Personal interview. 8 October, 2011

Kaiser Family State Health Facts.org. Hall), Mike. Kaiser State Health Facts. Web. 10 Oct. 2011.

Lifton, Betty Jean. Lost and Found .University of Michigan Press 1979

Journey of the Adopted Self . New York: Basic, 1994

McCormack, Patty. "ISTG - Black & Gray Market Babies." Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild. Web. 24 Oct. 2011.

Pertman, Adam. Adoption Nation; How the adoption Revolution is Transforming Our Families and America. Harvard Common Press, 2011

Verrier, Nancy. The Primal Wound. Understanding the Adopted Child. Gateway Press, 1993

Understanding Other Elements of a Person's Identity is Vital in Understanding their Adoptedness (and Vice Versa)

2011-11-27T15:06:00.000-05:00

You may (or may not) have been wondering why I include so many guest bloggers and why I try to include as many issues of diversity as possible when it comes to what I write about, what my guest bloggers blog about, and what I link to on Saturdays or tweet on my Twitter feed. I don't particularly like being spoken for or speaking for others so including guest bloggers has been really important for me. The fact of the matter is, I am a White, cisgender, heterosexual, Christian, middle-class, married, mother and adoptee. When you're a member of a majority (either by power or by number) it can be really easy to think that what you (or what another person with privilege) experience or or how you view things is representative of how things really are for everyone. It's very important to me that adoptees be heard and a part of that is not singling out the adopted part of them and pretending it is all that is relevant. I do not want to forget that there are people who are not only adopted but are adopted and women, adopted and transgender, adopted and gay, adopted and have a disability, adopted and are a member of a racial or ethnic minority group, so on and so forth.

I can't forget how other elements of people's identities come into play in their adoptedness and how they view and experience life because I know what is true for myself, even if I do not share the same things in common. Being a wife, a mother, a woman, a Christian (of a minority belief system in Christianity): these are not separate identities, separate roles I play, or separate people I become by turning one off and another on. I used to believe that I could switch the adopted part of me off and pretend it had no relevance in my life. Doing that didn't cause adoption to have no relevance: it just made me unconscious of what parts of me were viewing something through an adopted lens or being impacted by something because I am adopted.

I am adopted and a Christian and was raised in Christianity which means that my immediate environment has always been to hear adoption spoken about in terms of "saving orphans," "saving babies from abortion," and "saving souls" because "we're (Christians) all adopted." Feeling like your adoption status makes you a charity case, someone who "could have been aborted" (and thus, needs to be "grateful" you weren't), or that being surrendered and adopted is "the same as" Christ "adopting" his people (humans fell from God, were destined for hell, and Christ redeemed and adopted us which in parallel is actually saying surrendered children = responsible for their own surrender, original families = hell, adoptive parents = God, and adoption = heaven/salvation) are things that I had to process that perhaps other adoptees may not have.

As an adopted, Christian, woman who was raised in a very conservative branch of Christianity, I also had to take into account what that meant for me as an adopted, Christian, woman. Not only do I have to process the message of being "saved" from abortion but as a woman, I also have to process additional messages that come along with the arguments that some Christians tend to make about abortion/adoption issues that include women being promiscuous or incompetent to make their own decisions. I am a woman: am I promiscuous and fickle? Was my mother who surrendered me to adoption? Do people take two seconds to think about who might be hearing what they say before they say it?

You get the point I am making. The other day, something happened that drove the point home ever more that it is important for oppressed groups to be heard. I was at a friend's social gathering and someone there randomly decided to go off on a mini-rant about "homosexuals." What they had to say was absolutely awful. I felt my cheeks burn with anger as I got up and left the room, feeling like a coward. Grunts of approval of his message spread throughout the room and I knew saying something would have been am angry and heated argument where children would have been in the next room.

Over the next day, I thought about the scenario over and over again. As an adoptee, there are plenty of things that have made me uncomfortable like the countless conversations I've been in where people talking about motherhood and having babies where someone randomly decides to say "and you know, I could never adopt. I could never love a kid that wasn't mine" or "my mother never had any trouble getting pregnant, I bet I won't have trouble either. I would hate to have to adopt." Or like the children's birthday party where the uncle of the birthday boy randomly decided to adapt "How Much is that Doggie in the Window" specifically in reference to his joke about adopting a kid some day. As an adoptee, specially an Adoptee Rights activist and woman, I regularly notice quite a few indicators that the world just doesn't quite "get" adoptees or adoption-related issues yet. We're not quite real full-fledged people yet but we sure are entertaining as adoption-type themes fill an incredible amount of movies and TV shows people watch.

So I sat and I thought and thought and thought about the discomfort I've felt in an adoptist environment or a sexist environment and my heart.just.ached for adopted people (and all people, really, but this is an adoptee blog so you get why I am specifically framing it around adoptees) who are also members of other oppressed groups. What if one of my friends who is gay had been in that room? How would that have made them feel? What are the challenges they face everywhere, if, at a children's party, the parents there can't even behave, show a good example of maturity and kindness, and delve off into homophobic rants? It make me absolutely sick to my stomach that I know people whom I love who experience this every day of their lives. It bothers me that I wasn't quick thinking enough at the time than to do anything more than grab my child and storm out of the room. It still bothers me that I still don't know if it was the appropriate time and place to have stayed there and argued instead. I feel like I have to do something; my blog is my space and I have a responsibility to make it known that hatred towards oppressed groups needs to end. NOW.

Has anyone asked themselves what it means to be a lesbian in a heterosexist community or environment? What about to be an adopted, lesbian, woman of color in an adoptist, heterosexist, sexist, racist environment?

I once met an adoptee who told me that she was more afraid to talk about being adopted with her religious family than she was about being gay. There are friends and family members in her life who do not know she is adopted and she never plans on telling them. The thought terrifies her. I've known adoptees who have felt the opposite. We think we can stack and rate the oppressions that people face and quantify which is better or worse or deserves the most advocacy or support but it doesn't work like that. It's about supporting the individual and all that they face, embracing all that makes them who they are. This is why I include guest blogs and try to blog about different issues because you can't just single out being adopted, define everything that goes along with it, package it and label it. Other factors come into play where ones adopted experience varies from another persons. We can better learn how to meet people's needs, broaden society's understanding, and combat ignorance when more people are heard. I want my children to grow up in a world where the example they hear from adults is to treat others with kindness, appreciation, and understanding.

Epic Linkage Saturday

2011-11-26T11:28:00.000-05:00

Preview of this week's "stack." Click here to see the real thing in all its awesome-ness.

Welcome to another Epic Linkage of Saturday. Each Saturday I share links from the previous week that usually have to do with the topics such as adoption, feminism, women's rights, foster care, surrogacy, and donor conception. I do not always agree with everything each author at each link had to say but share, nonetheless, links I think people ought to read.

I am using Delicious to make "stacks" each week, which is just a simple, organized, way to save links and "stack" them together. I hope you will check out my "stacks" each week and read some of the cool thinks I read.

This month has a lot of themes. I have tried to include as many as possible in my Delicious stacks this month to help raise awareness:

This Month:
American Diabetes Month
National Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month
Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month
National Family Caregivers Month
National Hospice Palliative Care Month
National Lung Cancer Awareness Month
COPD Awareness Month
National Adoption Awareness Month
Native American Heritage Month
Child Safety Protection Month
National Epilepsy Month

Days this Month:
USMC day 11/10
Veterans' Day 11/11
World Prematurity Day 11/17
National Adoption Day 11/19
National Survivors of Suicide Day 11/19
Universal Children's Day 11/20
Transgender Day of Remembrance 11/20
Thanksgiving Day 11/24

On the Catholic Conference and New Jersey's Conditional Veto

2011-11-25T11:10:00.002-05:00

Guest Entry by Susan Perry

Susan Perry is a 61 year old adult adoptee who has been an Adoptee Rights activist for the past 12 years. Below is a piece that she has submitted to several news outlets, including the Philadelphia Inquirer about her views regarding New Jersey's recent adoptee birth certificate legislation.

November is National Adoption Awareness Month, but NJ adoptees unfortunately have little to celebrate, since last June Governor Christie vetoed the legislation that would have allowed NJ adoptees access to their own original birth certificates. That legislation had been fully debated and passed, by the NJ Senate in 2010, and by the NJ Assembly in 2011.

In his “conditional veto,” Christie deleted every word of Senate Bill 799 and Assembly Bill 1406, and in its place, inserted his own version of the law. That law, which never received a public hearing or vote, almost repeats, word for word, the proposal that the New Jersey Catholic Conference of Bishops had encouraged the governor to approve instead of the pending, fully-vetted legislation.

In this day and age, is there anyone who really thinks the Catholic Conference of Bishops opposes adoption reform because of concern for original mother privacy? Statistics show that 95 percent of original mothers actually welcome contact from their biological offspring. And those few who don’t were protected by opt-out provisions in the NJ law that Governor Christie rejected.

To put this scenario into context, note that in July, 2011, the Catholic Church in Australia issued a national apology over past adoption practices, described by many as a “national disgrace.” In Australia, thousands of unwed mothers were forced to give up their babies – it is not a stretch to surmise that many unethical adoption practices were facilitated by the Catholic Church here in America as well. Is there something the NJ Catholic Conference of Bishops is trying to hide?

For those who still don’t know, birth mothers were never promised anonymity under any state law, and the vast majority of birth mothers don’t want it. As Gerald R. Gioglio writes, “I was the NJ DYFS Adoption Registry Coordinator for six years. I can count on one hand the number of [original] mothers who did not want contact with the children they placed for adoption”

For years, the adoption community has been gathering data showing that secrecy and sealed records do not serve the best interest of the adopted child. And yet ideally, adoption exists to serve the child’s best interest. Although the facts are clear to anyone with an open mind, monied and powerful special interests continue to thwart common-sense adoption reform.

Fortunately, lawmakers in other states are beginning to see the light and stand up to special interest groups like the Catholic Conference of Bishops and the State Bar Associations, which apparently feel a change in the status quo might impact the hefty fees attorneys earn from facilitating domestic adoptions.

The state of Oregon has allowed adult adoptees access to their original birth certificates since the year 2000. Four years after the reform measure passed, Program Manager for Adoption Services Kathleen Ledesma wrote, “I am happy to report that, despite the fears of original parents and others, there has been nearly no negative fallout from the open birth records measure/legislation.” The state of Maine enacted adult adoptee access in 2009; the state of Rhode Island passed an adult adoptee access law in July, 2011. In New Hampshire, original birth certificates have been available to adoptees, 18 and older, since 2007.

Few people outside the adoption community – and those professionals who profit from the adoption industry – realize that antiquated laws sealing the relinquished child’s identity are still on the books in the majority of the United States.

And adoptees from other, more enlightened nations, are aghast. In April, 2010, Nicole Burton wrote, “As a British adopted person who received her original birth certificate when the UK opened up its adoption records 33 years ago, I consider America to be a barbarian, backward country in the way it treats its adopted citizens. Nothing less than full human rights are at stake.”

I hope the New Jersey powers-that-be, and legislators in other states, will soon recognize that human identity is a basic human right and that every adult adoptee deserves access to his or her original birth certificate, just as non-adopted people do. The government should never be in the business of sealing a person’s identity, under any circumstances.

As NJ adoption reformer Pam Hasegawa notes, “Adopted persons are the only humans in the 20th or 21st centuries over whom a contract is signed in which they will never have a voice.”

As a 61-year-old adopted person, I felt the sting of discrimination ten years ago when I attempted to access my own birth records. Eventually, after encountering many roadblocks and spending a great deal of money, I found what I was looking for. The search for one’s own DNA should not be so difficult or so expensive.

As Martin Luther King wrote back in 1963, “There are two types of laws. There are just laws and there are unjust laws.”

An unjust law, says King, is one that a majority of people inflicts on a minority, and one to which the majority is not expected to adhere. And a law is particularly unjust, explains King, when the minority had no part in designing or enacting that law.

NJ Adoption Law, rooted in shame and secrecy, has been on the books since 1940, and according to Martin Luther King’s definition, is clearly unjust. We all know that power and money have an undue influence on the political process. But eventually justice must come to light. And it is way past time to update adoption law so that it serves justice and reflects best adoption practice.

I am not even Kidding...Best Thanksgiving Ever

2011-11-24T22:17:00.002-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving from my family to you and yours.

Dividing up our time for each holiday is always a challenge with having just two sets of parents (in-laws and my a-family). It gets harder when your in-laws go through a change and now dad-in-law lives here and mom-in-law lives there. Then there's my reunion so I have a paternal family here and a maternal family there. How do I spend time with everyone, how do I not make it seem like I am rejecting someone when I'm really not--I'm just one person? Well, I am thankful this year to have spent time with my a-family today on Thanksgiving, a family day for the in-laws on Saturday, and I hope to travel to see my first family at the end of December.

The Good Stuff
I loved this Thanksgiving. After working out who I/my family could be together with and when, I still faced the daunting task of getting through the actual holiday. Don't get me wrong: I love Thanksgiving and Christmas. However, I struggle with the emotions involved. Not my emotions: everyone elses. People carry their own narratives with them as well as the narratives and memories of others. Christmas and Thanksgiving are two such holidays where all of those memories are in the forefront of people's minds and the emotion, the joy, the memories, the happiness, the missing those who have been lost, the loss--all of that is cranked way, way up. And I can feel it. Sitting down to dinner during a holiday I scan the faces around me and I can see them remembering, reminiscing, mourning, and rejoicing. It flows from their faces, exudes from their bodies, and echos in their voices. It makes a thick cloud in the room that collects until the walls are about to burst. It is overwhelming to be surrounded by all of these memories and emotions, especially since I carry my own memories and thoughts to ponder through, and oh-the-nostalgia.  I'm young-ish, nostalgia is new for me. It's sometimes enough to take the breath right out of you.

When my parents let me know there was a community dinner at their church to serve those in need in the church's surrounding area, I was delighted. A big open space for the high emotions to waft away in and not make a thick net throughout the room.  I would be serving--plenty to keep myself busy with. I like serving people. It was great. My husband and kids were there my parents and grandmother were there. Friends I grew up with were there. It was probably the most relaxing Thanksgiving I've ever had.

The Funny Stuff
Meanwhile, I was texting on my phone......
Me: "Happy Thanksgiving!"
Family Member I Thought I was Texting: "Who is this?"
Me: "Amanda."
Family Member I Thought I was Texting: "Amanda who?"
Me: "______'s daughter."
Family Member I Thought I was Texting: "Who?"
Me: "Oh, I think my family member must have cancelled her phone without telling me and the number got assigned to you? Well, Happy Thanksgiving."
Them: "That's OK. Maybe we was s'posed to meet. How old r u?"
Oh wow, a complete stranger is waxing philosophical with me and being kinda creepy via text.
Them: "My name is Tony."
Picture me, rolling my eyes, assuming that this was a teenage boy, and trying to come up with an answer that would end this series of texts.
Me: "I am almost 30, married, mother of two."

Never heard from "Tony" again!

Inspirational Stuff
We had lots of left over food so we packed up to-go boxes for people to take food home with them. I carried one woman's boxes to her car. "Thank you" she said, "I appreciate the Meals on Wheels program but these leftovers will be much tastier than those meals have been." She added "they didn't want to come on a holiday, I am glad your church was open." She asked me my name and told me hers. She told me that she is 90 years old, she gave me a hug, and got into her car.

On my way back into the building a man was about to leave on his bicycle.  I thanked him for coming. He responded that he needed to leave before it got dark. He had been hit by a drunk driver on his bicycle almost 10 years prior. The injuries have left him unable to work--but he can still ride his bike to get to where he wants to go. "They told me I would never walk without crutches" he laughed. I watched him unlock his bike and go.

Yep. It was the best Thanksgiving ever.