An adoption question was sent to an advice columnist. The usual happened, the adoption community weighed in. The background: Adoptive mom found out her daughter (age 17) has been talking to her mother by birth online, and now, her daughter wants to meet her mother by birth and asked her mom to go with her. Adoptive mother writes to the advice columnist for advice because *she* did a closed adoption and now this *woman* has appeared in her daughter’s life because her daughter searched for her other mother. This is not what she wants.
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If you’d known me then…
Back before I got sick you’d have thought I was an adoption success story. I’m not alone in being seen as having a positive adoption story, many adoptees now sharing online were also seen as adoption success stories until they started looking deeper into the effects, and they may still be seen that way to people around them. Some adoptees will always be seen that way and it may be their truth.
Adoptive Parents and PAL
I was going to do a post on adoptive parents who stood up. I started delving into old posts because I know those parents are there and just need to be pulled out and talked about in a post. One old post I didn’t remember was on Gertie’s Babies, which led me to click the 2015 NYT link on the story, which led me down the rabbit hole of reading the comments; on the whole, well thought out comments and discussion on adoptions that happened back in the day. Read the rest of this entry »
What were they thinking?
They are creating a pilot for a new comedy, I’m sure it will be swell seeing as it’s about a family that adopts a child. Apparently, it’s based on a true life story told by one of the older biological children in the family. Read the rest of this entry »
The Push and Pull…(2016)
From 2016 The Push and Pull. I wrote this a few months after mom passed and struggling with the waves of different emotions and memories.
I’ve done lots of thinking during the last few months. Mostly about family, the good, the bad, and sometimes – downright ugly. Funny thing happened just now when I typed that last sentence, I imagined some readers making assumptions about what I meant just then, what ‘type’ of adoptee I am, having just written that.
Although I used the term assumption above, we (everyone in adoption) know it’s true from years of having it proven true. True because of the desperation so many adopting parents have that needs adoption to be wonderful, always.
Nothing is wonderful, always, life always has good and bad components to it.
Getting back to the thinking part of my recent journey. Not just the good, warm memories hit me, bad memories too. Hard deeply emotional personal memories, some I didn’t want to remember, ever.
Good with the bad.
This post is for those who need adoption to be wonderful, always…
You can genuinely be part of your family, love life, just be, and also, mourn deeply for the life you would have had, should have had, all the losses not having that life entails. Too me, it’s a dichotomy. You can love and hate something at the same time.
If you can’t accept that, do some souls-searching on your experiences, pretty sure you’ll find something that makes the penny drop on what I’m talking about. Maybe it will help you understand what it’s like to live this life, being adopted.
The push and pull…
Adoptive Parents Missing the Obivous
I copied many of the replies from this post on the FB Adoptive Families Page a couple hours after it had linked to this post: “AFTER DECADES OF PAIN, MOTHER REUNITES WITH SON GIVEN UP FOR ADOPTION IN WYOMING 51-YEARS AGO”
#WhyILoveAdoptionChallenge
Probably a sweet idea created with the best of intentions by an agency. Probably something those who are adoptive parents would want to do, it might even lift spirits in this hard time we are all struggling through. So, I get it, I truly do, I hope it helps those who need a lift up. It’s also incredibly simplistic and unrealistic, not to mention disenfranchising to many in adoption. Read the rest of this entry »
Dear Adoptive Parents – Word of Advice
Pretty sure I’ve vented about this before. The child you adopted is not your adoptee. Don’t refer to them as your adoptee when you write about them.
“Don’t be afraid when your adoptee is disappointed with their first family.”
Random thoughts on ‘you did the right thing’…
Why do adoptees often say to their first parent (or parents) some version of: you did the right thing?
How do they know this?
How can anyone know this? Read the rest of this entry »
The language used in adoption.
They say language is important in adoption, it is, but maybe it’s not the words you think are important, that actually matter most of all. Read the rest of this entry »
When the now outsider is the family historian…
The other day I received a message asking me to help them fill in the blanks in their family tree. They were wanting me to tell them who their ancestors were, provide any pictures I had, fill in the blanks in the family story. Read the rest of this entry »
What I’m mulling on today
“I appreciate your personal experience as an adoptee; that is anecdotal evidence at best.”
Why are adoptee experiences so often noted (written off) as anecdotal evidence by adoptive parents? I know the same anecdotal evidence comments happen to first parents too. Read the rest of this entry »
