Yesterday, I read a post written by a birthmother who doesn’t think adoption is considered normal in society, and needs to be normalized, and also needs to be normalized for adopted children too.
So please, either take the survey or leave a comment on what you think, and if you’d be so kind, if you are adopted was it always your norm, if you’re an AP is adoption your child’s norm.
This thread on FB is well worth your time: Yes I’m Adopted. Don’t Make It Weird.
If you don’t know who they are, they are two adoptees who cater their message to adoptive parents. I’ve only watched a couple of their video’s and they just aren’t my cup of tea, I find them flippant, dismissive, surface level and skirt any deeper feelings, and that doesn’t go well with me, it may be your cup of tea. Whatever. The above thread linked is because they used the old trope adoptive parents use when they don’t like what an adoptee says by calling the adoptee bitter:
As an adoptee you can choose to be bitter or better. Both are justified, one is just better for you.
Nope, you don’t get to call adoptees bitter, you just don’t.
Grab a coffee and dive into a really good pushback and to their credit, they took it. The pushback is not only because they called adoptees bitter, but because they lumped every adoptee into an either/or narrative that remains static. The message also assumes any adoption related feelings are once and done, instead of the reality that adoptees will process being adopted throughout their lives when their lived experiences trigger them.
We aren’t puppets, we are human.
I struggle to contain my anger when an adopted child’s entire world is taken away from them, I can’t explain in any cohesive way how devastating just the thought of it happening is, nor can I contain my outrage for the industry that placed them in that home.
On Harlow’s Monkey is this article that she was asked to contribute too, about the current story that is reverberating through the adoption community.
Adoption is complicated—and the Myka Stauffer controversy proves it
Personally, I want the National Council for Adoption to weigh in, to task themselves with the challenge of changing the harmful narratives of adoption is beautiful, adoption is love, all those sappy sentiments the adoption community and public recite by rote; and return to the basic premise that finding the right home for a child who needs one is the most important aspect in adoption.
I’m still to upset to even begin to expound on the story, how it highlights the problems with how adoption is viewed both inside the adoption community and in the public’s eye.
If you comment, you can be angry, but please remember to remain civil.
A post from a while ago that links to many posts on the problem of oversharing which this story shows the view when it is taken to the extreme.
“It is impossible to talk about the single story without talking about power. There is a word, an Igbo word, that I think about whenever I think about the power structures of the world, and it is “nkali”. It’s a noun loosely translates to “to be greater than another”. Like our economic and political worlds, stories too are defined by the principal of nkali: how they are told, who tells them, when they are told, how many stories are told, are really dependent on power.”
Chimanda Ngozi Adichie – “The Danger of the Single Story”
If yes, this post is for you. If you see yourself reflected below, do better, be better, because that’s not the moral standards an adoptive parent needs to have. Read the rest of this entry »
The feelings of loyalty that I feel (and expect others feel in varying degrees) can play a significant role in how we talk about our adoption experience; both to our parents throughout our lives and as adults to others. I’ve wanted to talk on this subject for a while, but worried, I couldn’t tease out a cohesive post explaining why I think it happens. This is my attempt to explain many of the different factors playing into it that I see around me. Read the rest of this entry »
This is my interpretation of what an adoptee can experience delving into being adopted. As per normal, include #notall as you need too. Read the rest of this entry »
Talk is going round the online adoption world about an expected influx of expectant mothers to adoption. I’m not in the know so I can’t say if that is correct, yet it wouldn’t be surprising if it was true, with all the lost jobs, the panic over not being able to pay your rent or groceries for starters, let alone no idea how long this will last, how long before normal returns. Read the rest of this entry »
Reading this post on Adoptive Families Facebook page is the reason I’m talking about this again. Maybe I’ll be able to change some hearts and minds and, maybe no one has explained well enough so it makes sense. What likeminded people in adoption are trying to do is to get you to take the time to see and set a line on what’s okay to share and what’s private (not secret, just private) of your families adoption story, especially your child’s story. Read the rest of this entry »
In June 2018 I did a post on a recent first mom study of mothers who’d relinquished their parental rights within the last 25 years. I talked about what I took out of it, I also copied the recommendations from the study, who knows if any adoption service providers read the study or considered those recommendations. If any agency did, I’d love to hear about it, if they’d already practiced that way, I’d love to hear that too. Read the rest of this entry »
This post is wandering into a place that makes me uncomfortable and maybe it will be for naught as those who need to hear it, will likely not hear or understand the reason why I’m going there. Do understand #NotAll applies without me needing to say it each time.
It’s a fact that infertility plays an oversize reason why people turn to adoption, and specifically, to domestic infant adoption (DIA). It’s also a fact that many of those have suffered through multiple losses first, and for that, I’m sorry. Read the rest of this entry »
Lightly edited.
This post is going to focus on the opposite of what people have asked adoptees like myself who are vocal, that really ignorant question that means; “what did your parents do wrong so we won’t make those same mistakes your parents did”. How’s that for a slap in the face to your parents and to you all at the same time…
[2014] Earlier this week the Today Show included a segment on a daughter meeting her mother for the first time. A daughter that resorted to using Facebook to try to find her by putting her personal information out on the internet (risky), but it paid off, and a reunion happened. So what happens in the comments on the Today Facebook page after the segment aired? (Be warned that I am using adoptive parents repeatedly throughout because that is what was used.)
This Day in History
