Can we stop being so shallow in the adoption community?

Originally posted 2018

I’ve tried every which way to help people, specifically adoptive parents in the adoption community to move on from labelling an adoptee as having either a positive or negative adoption experience. I’ve failed in all previous attempts and I don’t like admitting defeat, so here’s one more try…

 

Dear pro-life would be adopter…

Originally posted 21 Sept 2015

Readers know I don’t use the term ‘adopter’ lightly, and it applies only to a few out there. I read a very disturbing post today by someone with infertility, who is pro-life and also wants to adopt. I was ready to rebut her post, it felt good writing thoughts down, but it wouldn’t have done any good. Instead, I decided to write this post, perhaps she’ll read it, or someone just like her. Perhaps it will trigger reflection, perhaps not, but I’ve tried in the kindest way I know…

She’s not ready to adopt…

It takes a lot of empathy, being able, and willing, to see all the different sides in adoption. To see the trauma the other sides go through, so you get what you want most, a baby. Some people never get there, and that’s okay, provided they don’t adopt.

To me, to be ready to be adoptive parents, it takes…

 

Didn’t sleep well last night.

Woke up in a mood you could politely say was cranky, that mood was because yesterday was a terrible day for women in the USA, a day foretelling the very real possibility of Roe v. Wade being struck down. And yes, I understand that the states could enact their own laws re abortion, but even if some states do, other states won’t and it will leave many without recourse, let alone a real choice, and yes, many women will have no choice but adoption.

 

Dear Adoption Agencies

Please do your research before putting out inaccurate articles about adoptions that happened in the past. Trust me, there’s a wealth of adoption history just waiting to be read on the internet and it costs nothing but your willingness to delve into the history of adoption. The quote below comes from a current adoption agency website.

 

Adoption Triggers

Adoption writers, adoption meme makers, adoption agencies, facilitators, consultants, people wanting to adopt an infant, and whoever else I’ve left off that does the following.

 

What if “the vocal adoptees” are right?

Post written in 2016.

The theory: That most adoptees are just living their lives and those who are vocal are not the norm…aka angry adoptees, had a bad experience, ungrateful, mal-adjusted, anti-adoption, etc.,…

 

Endless cycle of non-adopted knowing all.

It’s been awhile since I’ve seen these types of comments shown below in italics that are made in response to someone talking about the hard parts of being adopted, and that, the feelings are not necessarily once and done. I thought we’d been there, done that, and had entered the new age of not using a single adoptee as the voice of all adoptees and all things being adopted. Instead, it’s me choosing to avoid people who speak to what they don’t know, haven’t experienced.

 

If you don’t know adoption history…

I don’t have a problem with the article at all, just one statement that is factually incorrect and something I’ve seen happening far too often; this desire to pretend that knowledge about what adoptees need didn’t exist until now, and that it is news.

“We are discovering that information about a child’s past is so incredibly important to them and that purposely withholding information about their origin can be incredibly damaging; it can create a void they may spend a lifetime trying to fill.”

 

Adoption Narratives

I stumbled on an interesting study from 2011 on Adoptees and how our “Adoption Entrance Narratives” may shape how we view our adoption. It’s relatively short and starts off on how adoption researchers rely heavily on minute differences between the adopted and non-adopted children, and how they need to take a more nuanced understanding of the self-concept variables in the adopted population. (Ya think…)

 

Moving past Positive Adoptive Language

It’s been awhile since I’ve seen the the topic “Is Adopted” or “Was Adopted” discussed on an Adoptive Parent Facebook Page. It amused me after a quick scan of Adoptive Parent replies using “Was Adopted” and how being adopted didn’t define their child, with a few who had more nuanced answers to give. The irony of Adoptive Parents being on an Adoptive Parent Facebook page talking mainly about all things Adoption and Adoptive Parenting seems to have escaped them; as most say they use “Was Adopted” and some expanded that it happened in the past and doesn’t define their child or their family.

 

Lucky

I’m one of the “lucky” adoptees from the era referred to as the Baby Scoop Era (BSE). I’m lucky for all the reasons listed below and more. I also wish I never needed to be “lucky” in the first place.

And my use of the term Lucky is not giving any non-adopted person permission to use it in regards to an adopted person.

 

Who is the client in adoption? Who should be?

There was an article posted that garnered lots of comments in a closed FB group I’m in, none of the comments were good that I remember. The post was pulled down from the site it was published on. You can read about the specifics on Lori’s post, see link below.