What would you say if I said I wasn’t thankful I was adopted?
Would you say that I must have had a bad experience and you’re sorry?
Would you also tell me that you know other adoptees who are thankful they were adopted? That they love being adopted? That they are thankful they weren’t aborted? Read the rest of this entry »
The post below is a slightly edited post from 2019 there is no pop quiz and with the covid-19 pandemic happening I’m hoping that people have become both more aware and motivated to know their family health histories; to document them, to know them, especially for their children they adopted who won’t have grown up in their biological family. Please comment and talk about ensuring this Thanksgiving you will do it, or update it. It’s important.
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We all know that having an updated and robust Family Health History is invaluable, that the older we get, the more important it becomes. Long-time readers of this blog know that I was that adoptee who was too busy living my best life to focus on adoption and being an adoptee, until I wasn’t. Until the lack of any family health history changed my life, completely, a life I never could get back. Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday was good, oh so good, historic, restoring. This morning I woke up thinking it’s a new dawn, new day.
Now hopefully good can happen, people can come together and change hearts and minds. And right now during National Adoption Awareness Month may the Adoptee Citizenship Act pass. I can’t think of anything more important in the adoption world than that. Read the rest of this entry »
With National Adoption Awareness Month mere days away, I have a challenge for you. Don’t worry, it’s an easy challenge. The challenge is to be aware of both your own instinctual bias in regards to adoption, but also in the different roles (Adoptive parents, Adoptees, First Mothers) whatever that may be, and to be aware of the bias in articles, posts, memes being put out during NAAM.
Instead of trying to explain what I mean I’m linking to this post about stereotypes, hierarchy and bias in adoption. Give it a read through (and the comments) and then actively see where the stereotypes, hierarchy and bias lands in NAAM this year. Which triad position in adoption is seen, heard, believed, held up as good, why it is, where did the credibility come from, which role is pushed back on, things like that. Talk about what you see this year in the comments of this post if you’d like.
(Lots of online discussion on adopting due to the recent SC nominee so it seems timely to re-up this post and hopefully make some think)
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…
When did it become okay to treat Adoptive Parents as the enemy? Yes, they benefit from how adoption is currently practiced and many of the practices are wrong anyway you look at it, but the question remains – when did it become okay to be nasty for the sake of being nasty?
Maybe I’m just too old to understand.
Maybe the other Adoptees are right and I’m wrong.
Maybe I’m right and they are the ones who can’t see that being nasty doesn’t work.
Maybe the world changed; people changed and shaming is the only way to change anything. If that is true then we are all in a heap of trouble with no way to move into a kinder, gentler world. I hope not. Read the rest of this entry »
Please tell me you’re in this time? That you take this egregious mess seriously? That you don’t want one more adoptee who was brought to the US, legally, complete with a path to citizenship, by their new Adoptive Parents (US Citizens) to be deported because their parents failed to follow through and get their child naturalized. Parents, who for whatever reason, lack of understanding all the way to just putting it off till it was too late and the immigration paperwork expired when the child turned 18 failed to take this last step. There are thousands of adoptees in the US who live in dread they will be sent back to the countries they were taken from as babies and toddlers and it’s just not right, or just.
This post gives you more details on the whole back story mess with the CCA of 2000 with sections quoted from the National Council for Adoption – Adoption Advocates publication. It should give you a better understanding of why this needs fixing, and why the time is now.
This time I’m hoping for Adoption Agencies to also climb on board promoting getting the Adoptee Citizenship Act HR2731 passed, and to show up on twitter and support the adoptees, regardless if your agency did international adoptions, or not, an adoptee is an adoptee and every adoptee matters.
On Twitter, you’ll find all the information you need to know, even retweeting adoptee posts with the hashtag #Citizenship4Adoptees helps. It’s happening Wednesday, September 23, 2020, between 11am PST and 2 pm EST. If you can’t make it then, go later and retweet (quote retweet) and include the hashtag #Citizenship4Adoptees
I want to see a concerted shift in how the adoption community talks about adoptee stories, specifically, the labelling adoptee stories as positive or negative. Stay with me a minute while I explain. Read the rest of this entry »
Once in a while I’ll check out adoption provider websites to see what’s changed; what’s new, what way the industry is trending towards. Agency / adoption provider websites used to spell things out on their websites detailing all the steps an expectant mother would need to know about. It was good. Read the rest of this entry »
This Day in History
