November Adoption Awareness Month – Day Eleven

“K” is for Knowledge of the past which can also be the lesson for the present…

Knowing your entire truth is the first stept to accepting all the different parts of who you are.  I have always known that knowledge equals power.  Knowledge is something I have pursued my entire life.  But the knowledge that the video below talks about is beyond my comprehension.  I have read reports on this before but today I watched this video on Holt Survivor’s blog and although it is just over 20 minutes in length it is worth the time spent watching.

As I watched the video I tried to imagine what it would be like, but no matter how hard I stretched myself, it was impossible to know what it would feel like to grow up loving the people you only knew as mom and dad, the ingrained loyalty that comes hand in hand with that love, and then to find out that you were raised by your parents enemies.  To find out as an adult that everything was a horrific lie.  That your mom and dad had a hand in, or supported the ones, who physically took you from your mother and father and in some cases, caused their deaths.  I really cannot even begin to imagine the internal war that would ensue inside your soul or how it could ever be resolved.

The innocent victims of Argentina’s Dirty War are the babies taken from one side and given to the other side, and now as adults those same babies are having to face the consequences of other people’s choices and action long ago.  And just like the diversity amongst the adoptees here, all have varying feelings and personal choices they are now forced to make.

Despite all the pain and anguish they suffered, the grandparents of these babies who were stolen from their children never gave up.  They fought an incredible up-hill battle to find their grandchildren and bring them home.  They never gave up or forgot.

 

Knowing that we now have DNA testing that could be used in each and every adoption to confirm relatedness – doesn’t it make sense to mandate this technology be used in International Adoption and done by people who have no stake in the outcome?