Never thought of that…

I continue to hear/read about how adult adoptees speaking up with concerns in how adoption is currently practiced, tarnish adoption, and they should just be quiet.  It is a pretty common shut-down tactic used in the on-line commentary, but I don’t think I have ever heard it used against an adoptive parent, except when abuse is part of the story.

Imagine my surprise in reading these paragraphs in an article in the Salt Lake Tribune yesterday by Brooke Adams.

Open adoption is norm; should arrangements be enforced?

On page 2…

Laura Trinnaman, executive director of For Every Child Adoption Services and an adoptive parent, said failure of some adoptive parents to honor agreements is one of the most frustrating things an agency confronts.

“From an agency standpoint, it can make and break a country’s program [and] an agency just by a few families not being willing to follow through,” said Trinnaman, whose agency deals mostly with international adoption. “A huge expense of our agency is post-placement coordinating to ensure that both parties are following a schedule and getting what was agreed upon.”

She favors enforceable open-adoption agreements that allow parties to use mediators when disputes or problems arise, and so do many of her clients, who say that failure to live up to agreements hurts children and birth parents and tarnishes adoption as an option.

She’s right though – if anything can tarnish adoption it is broken promises.  Promises broken because some agencies uses the hook of open adoption to get the mother into the agency, and for some mothers - the only reason adoption was an option.  I am sure that the agencies tell the mother that openness is not enforceable, but when you are being courted by the prospective parents, put up on that pedestal of selflessness and all that is good, it has to be hard to even consider that “their word” isn’t good enough.  If the mother then choose to go ahead with an open adoption, and the door is closed by the [adoptive] parents – all you have left is broken promises.

To me advertising a non-enforceable option seems very close to that line in the sand that you shouldn’t cross - but of course without having an enforceable agreement, the agency has “no control” over the actions of the other party.

Quite frankly in my opinion - if an open adoption agreement isn’t enforceable in the state where the agency operates and the adoption will take place, then it should not be part of the advertisements to the mothers – once a mother contacts them they can tell her about an openness option – but must also clearly (and repeatedly) indicate can be closed at any time by the [adoptive] parents, and should not factor into her choice of either parenting or adoption.

 

Realty TV Shows and Adoption don’t go together…

I started this post a week ago in reaction to Oxygen’s new show “I’m Having Their Baby” and never finished it.  I was going to call it Dear Diary.  Today, Amanda at The Declassified Adoptee made a brilliant point in her post, Oxygen’s “I’m Having Their Baby:” Oh Look, Another Show I Won’t Watch! that we need to consider talking about it because it matters.  Of course her post is clear, concise, well written, and I recommend those who have not already read it to take the time to read it now.

Last time a new version of this type of show aired, I did the post Adoption Should Not Be Entertainment – but like Amanda noted, we need to name it and get others to see the flip side.  That post said this, and I also said at the end that “It’s all pretty hypocritical if you ask me.  When it is your adoptee – they must be protected, but at the same time, you watch another adoptee exploited.”

What strikes me most though is the invasion of privacy for the adoptee, and if I am being completely honest, humiliating.  It is one thing to have pictures of arriving home to your new family, it is whole other kettle of fish to have the video of your surrender and everything leading up to it, shown on TV and forever available to any and all for their viewing.  It was hard enough for me as a mature adult to read my surrender court document of my mother giving me up – I cannot imagine watching it on TV and having friends whose parents watched it as well, because you know it will come out.  Unbelievable.

When the Time cover last week showed a mother breastfeeding a 3-year-old the outcry was intense – that picture will follow that boy throughout his life.  He will be teased and bullied in school.  He will be so embarrassed.  He will be so angry his mother did that to him by allowing that picture to be taken.  What about his privacy and how could he give his consent as a 3-year-old.  There was such an outrage that any mother could do that to her child.  Yet show a mother giving up her baby and another couple adopting – oh well isn’t that just a beautiful tear-jerker – what the hell?  Does no one realize that being adopted makes you a subject for teasing, bullying, snickering, ignorant comments in school? But of course you recognise that, because that is a subject on blogs and message boards, and how horrible it is for the child and how outraged the parent is.  How one (the breastfeeding picture) is oh-so wrong, and the other one (watching a mother surrender her right to parent) is oh-so-beautiful, never ceases to amaze me.

Getting back to the points I wanted to make is that this is something that has serious potential to hurt the child in the future.  Understanding and accepting being adopted can be difficult when you are a child as your cognitive abilities grow and your understanding of the outside “normal” world expands.  One day you realize that not everyone is adopted.  That most kids live in the family they were born too in some version.  Then of course comes the bullies, and believe me that anything out of the ordinary is fair game for a bully, and they will use it any way they can.  Hence my Dear Diary post which is really a continuation of the above post – this is as far as I got in imagining what it would be like as the child - because it upset me just thinking about it.

January 2015 – age 7 - At the store I saw a picture of my birth mom on the cover of a magazine.  Mom didn’t want to talk about it.

January 2017 – age 9  – I woke up last night and went to get a drink and found mom watching a show where babies are given away.

January 2019 – age 11 - Christmas holidays are over and guess what happened the first day back in school?  Tommy was saying something about his mom watched my adoption on TV.  Mom didn’t want to talk about it.

January 2021 – age 13 – Remember me talking about Tommy and my adoption on TV?  He sent everyone but me a link to a video about my birth and my birth mom giving me to my mom.  They were making fun of me.  Why would that be on TV?

July 2021 – age 13 and 1/2  - I found the video and I watched it and it hurts – why did they have to put it on TV?  What was wrong with me that my birth mom didn’t want me.

At the same time, I also wonder if those creating or promoting the show did any research into how stress affects both the mother, and child in the womb?  They have done research and are doing more research into this, and a mother considering adoption is already under stress.  Why are they promoting adding MORE stress on the mother and the impact on the child in the womb – how is this even considered ethical?  How do you handle stress? This post provides details on exactly how the stress on the mother is transferred too, and affects the baby in the womb and the long term consequences to the child.  Three different articles are linked – read them please.

I will never watch those shows – they are in extremely poor taste and set a very bad example by exploiting not only the mothers but the children as well.  I am against pre-birth matching as it is practiced today and detail out exactly why here – I don’t like the methods used today.  A snippet from that post below.

I am against prospective adoptive parents being at the hospital watching the mother go through labor, and even more so when they are in the delivery room. It reeks of entitlement and co-opting of something, that is at it’s fundamental core, is a very private and spiritual event between a mother and her child. A child she has nurtured in her womb for 40 weeks. The birth of your child is one of the most intimate moments of your life, and having an audience, especially the audience who is there because they want your baby cheapens and degrades the experience. It must also damage the ability of mother and child to bond because there is always that elephant in the room. I believe it enhances an atmosphere ripe for manipulation of the mother to ensure the outcome is surrender, rather than parent.

That is why I am adamantly opposed to creating a reality tv show that pushes the exploitation envelope even further.

Just say no – boycott the show and tell others why they should too.

 

How you treat adult adoptees on-line today may be how your child is treated tomorrow…

Have you ever considered that?  That thought runs through my mind each and every time I see an adult adoptee called names and treated badly on any forum, facebook page, or blog.  Even those adult adoptees who are using all the required disclaimers and couching all statements with a “I feel” or “some” or “may or may not feel” or “it could make them”…

I started this post after reading a very disappointing exchange on a forum.  I first wrote here “Deep breath required because I am angry right now…counting to ten and beyond”.  For once, I followed my advice and waited a few days, and yet I still wish to offer some thoughts, or perhaps understanding, on how normal it is to want to make things better. 

The topic that got me angry: “it isn’t because you are adopted”

Followed by that being adopted and adoption does not cause any issues or challenges.  That people need to stop blaming their problems on adoption and hurting “adoption” and then followed with - that the adoptees speaking had “botched” adoptions.

For those who still believe their parenting and love will ensure a seamless fit into your family, and their child will not grieve the loss of their first family, or have any issues, challenges, or feelings at all on their adoption thoughout their life – have you ever considered how your child will feel when they find out you should have known and been aware to help them?  That not only was research and knowledge available, that adult adoptees were willingly on those forums to help you understand?  To find just the right words to make the penny drop?

Anyway, how can we ever hope to understand each other when any concerns that are raised by the adoptee who lived the experience, are summarily dismissed, mocked, and are told they are adults and can fix the issues in their life, and are hurting adoption by speaking about it.  For shame – how dare you speak about any negative in adoption – adoption is always good and always a positive.

I was your typical adopted person that everyone points to as not having problems.  Many most likely forgot I was adopted – even those who have known me my entire life.  Heck – a childhood friend and a cousin adopted their children because I showed them that adoption wasn’t scary.  The problem is that they never asked me if I had challenges or concerns about adoption because they saw me as a typical child and later a typical adult – just like they were.  Just like everyone else - who may also at the same time, have challenges and issues brought on from something – be it infertility, divorce, victim of a crime, miscarriages, domestic abuse, infant death, abuse as a child, bullying - honestly the list is endless and some people will have multiple impacts - but I would state that the pain someone feels or the ongoing challenges and wishing to see change can be directly linked to the cause in each of those challenges.

Sometimes any of those challenges, issues, and pain can be lifelong, and you still wish to talk about it, push for better understanding - change it for the next generation.  I see this in the counterpoint often discussed with adoption – infertility – the need for research and solutions and the ongoing pain felt, mom has even talked about it resurfacing now at her point in life.  Do I tell her that her feelings have nothing to do with infertility?  Pretty sure it does because she is sad because she would have liked to have had a child with their genes.  Do I take offense?  Not one bit - because it takes nothing away from me or my role in the family, rather it provides me with empathy for her, and those currently going through it.  Would I tell mom as an adult she has the ability to fix this issue she has?  Of course not!  Do I tell her that people going through infertility today don’t face these struggles or pain, because they have new and improved infertility treatments so it isn’t like it was when she first went through it?  Absolutely not – I am sure that pain is still very much there and like her, will always be there and come in waves, and perhaps the frustration level they have is more now because of all the treatments available and hope given by the treatments.

But yet there are still some that feel that when an adoptee speaks about adoption challenges, and what needs to change, and wants people to understand and do better for the next generation – those challenges cannot be because of being adopted…

Stop and ask yourself of all the different things people are challenged by, you are challenged by - should they (and you) just wipe the slate clean – never speak of it again – allow it to continue as is - without speaking about it to make it better for the future?  This lack of willingness by some to accept adoption does impact the adoptee in some way, shape, form, or time, in the adoptees life – regardless of the type of adoption or when it took place, or whether they ever speak about it to you.

Striving to make it better for the next generation is really not something to bitch about, mock, and put the adoptee down.

 

Child Abuse Trial…

In January of this year this post talked abuse in adoptive homes and how we needed to start talking about it.  Included in that post was a report from The Office of the Family and Children’s Ombudsman of the state of Washington.  On page 104 of that report the details about one of the cases closely mirror a horrific case in the news about the Trebilcock family.  I also linked news articles about the case in that post.

The Trebilcock trial is happening now and reports from it are breaking my heart.

Daughter in child abuse trial: ‘If we cried, they poured water on us’

The first girl told the court Tuesday that her adopted parents would make her and her siblings eat outside and wash their clothes with cold water in a bucket.

She said that, when punished, they would be hit with a board or slapped in the face.

“If we cried, they poured water on us,” she said.

The investigation began when Rebecca Trebilcock took her then-13-year-old son to a Longview clinic. The boy weighed only 49 pounds and stood 4’4″ tall. A dietician told the court that the Trebilcocks’ 13-year-old’s weight was what a healthy 6 year old should be. The prosecution said he wasn’t the only one starved.

“I got toothpaste,” the second girl testified today.

When asked why she took the toothpaste, she said, “Because, I was hungry.”

The Trebilcocks’ defense attorneys said the kids were fed three meals a day and the kids’ stories don’t match up, but both children who testified today said they didn’t like living in their adopted home.

That three meals a day comment certainly does not match with what the doctors say in this story.

Adopted son takes stand on Day 1 of Trebilcock trial

Smith said the boy was severely malnourished and near death when he was rushed to a Portland hospital last year, his body perilously cold and his heart beating so slowly one doctor was surprised he was conscious, according to Smith and witnesses who testified Monday.

The boy’s body was covered with sores from eczema, Smith said, and he had four broken ribs.

The boy, then 13, weighed only 50 pounds, half the normal weight for his age, when he and his four adopted sisters, ages 8 and 13, were placed in protective custody in March last year, according to authorities. All of the children rapidly gained weight and improved in health once they were away from the Trebilcocks, Smith said.

On Monday, Smith showed a photo of the boy sitting in his hospital bed last year, grinning awkwardly, his face sunken, a bony arm poking out from a hospital gown.

Perched on the boy’s nose were a pair of bent and taped bifocals which, Smith said, the boy was forced to wear even though he didn’t need them and they made his vision worse.

Doctors testified Monday that the boy had wasted away so badly that his condition was consistent with terminal cancer patients. Hospital staff had to give him only small portions of food at first so he wouldn’t go into shock and die from the extra calories, witnesses said.

Authorities have said the couple’s four biological children, most of them in their late teens, were well-fed.

I don’t know what the answer is but there has to be a solution - especially when it comes to children who have already suffered tremendous loss already.  It’s just not right and anyone looking at a 13-year-old boy who was only 49 pounds would raise questions that need to be answered.

 

Morning snarky thoughts…

There always seems to be a current blog post or thread on an adoption forum highlighting the fact that media or someone else highlighted the child is the adopted child vs just child and why do they always need to point that out.  That the media needs to stop defining the celebrity’s children as either biological or adopted.  Couple that with the ongoing never ending debates over whether adoption is an event and therefore you were adopted and why it is important not to use you are adopted - because being adopted does not define an individual.

Often I see the two points above combined into one post or thread…

So if you agree with the point that the two subjects seem to intertwine in people’s mind - highlighting the adopted status and why people think it is wrong because they were adopted vs they are adopted and adoption does not define them.  Can you please explain why it seems like every single adoption agency, many adoptive parent blogs, adoption forums alway seem to have a Famous Adoptees list pointing out that they are adopted and everyone goes gaga each time they find out so and so is a Famous Adoptee…

Because if you truly believe and use PAL (positive adoption language) and that an adoptee was adopted and being adopted does not define them, and their adopted status should not be referenced - then you would not highlight or go gaga over that FAMOUS ADOPTEE…because they were adopted and not are adopted and being adopted means nothing…

Or did the reality that you can’t have things both ways change?

*

Ps…whether or not the media over-does the adopted children thing is not the point of the post…

 

It happens to other people myth…

and adoptees now get a medical history at the time of adoption so all is well – right?

Story in today’s NY Daily News: One twin gets breast cancer in 2006 and both twins (thankfully not separated) get tested for the BRCA 1 gene and both have it.  They wanted to warn their family, doctors request records unsealed and then they find out there was another daughter - who eventually gets tested and finds out she has the gene as well.  Sadly their mother died of breast cancer in 2003.

Medical history provided at the time of the adoption is not the solution – life and death happens after the adoption, but I have not heard a single peep out of the adoption industry or specific agencies on any type of proactive solution to ensure this gets fixed.

Potentially deadly gene mutation brings long lost sisters together

Definitely did not make me happy reading this…wonder why the paper didn’t turn to their trusty “experts” in adoption for a comment – you know like the NCFA or any number of adoption agency professionals that are always willing to promote adoption…