Do you really need to share your adoption story to all?

Dear people adopting or even have already adopted – I watched one of the thousands of adoption video’s this morning. This is how I feel after watching it. Please listen to my words and consider them. 

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Oversharing

We’ve been watching AGT for the last few years, can’t say I’m particularly a fan, but I don’t mind it most of the time. Except for the sob stories used to garner votes. I don’t mind hearing their back story of how they got to where they are, I just don’t want to hear a blatant pull-on-your-heart-strings sob story.

 

Grumpy rant

I’m old and most days can easily become grumpy at the drop of a hat. That happened yesterday on a comment thread on NYT’s FB post of an article. My grumpiness wasn’t over the article, it was good, it was because the PAL crowd got terribly upset in a how dare you way and we demand you fix it, and fix it now (which the NYT did)

Their issue in the headline: Given up for adoption… 

 

The lie always finds the light in the end

The road to this post is sort of long, please bear with me. Mom’s parents immigrated from England to Canada back in the early 1900’s, if memory serves they knew each other in England before they immigrated. They married in Canada and lived out their lives there; this story takes place after they were all gone. Back then, trips home to England were few because you had to go via ship, but they stayed in touch with family through regular letters written in ultra-small script filling every inch of the page. So, mom grew up knowing her cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents though letters and stories told. When travel got easier (airplanes), mom visited several times over the decades, she would spend several days with each family, they also kept up the letters so everyone knew what was happening in the family. 

 

Can we stop being so shallow in the adoption community?

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…

 

Is it really that hard to accept that your child has another family?

 

Dear people who adopt, want to adopt,

Your child’s “birthmom’s” mom is your child’s grandma, not “birthmom’s” mom (well, she is that too). I get that you may desperately want to be your child’s only family, but that isn’t how it works when you adopt (and you know me well enough to know my answer is if you can’t accept that and haven’t adopted yet, then don’t adopt).

 

Regrets are prefectly normal

Just a quick note to Prospective Adoptive Parents, 

 

My child’s story is different…

Yes, every adoptee’s story is unique. There are also similarities found in all adoption stories for the one adopted, and if you can’t see that, then I don’t know what to tell you on how to get there, but I do know you need to get there.

 

What the first mom study said to me

I didn’t have time to delve deeply into the first mom study in my last post.  Today I want to talk about what it said to me, but before that, I want to reiterate some of my feelings on first moms and domestic infant adoption.

 

I read a study on first moms that sparked this question…

If an adoptee offers anything online that could be considered less than positive about adoption there is a common reactionary statement that goes something like this: Most happy adoptees are out living their lives and aren’t on adoption forums (often littered with I’m sorry you had a bad experience, bitter, ungrateful, the I know an adoptee,  etc.).  I haven’t met an adoptee online who hasn’t had that said to them at least once, if not multiple times.

The same is offered to first moms online – different but similar to what is offered to an adoptee.

 

I was silent over Mother’s Day

I couldn’t find any words over the last week to talk about Mother’s Day that could form a cohesive post, I tried, I failed.  Instead, I read old posts and it’s surprising how many reference mom and/or dad.  Then I found a post written in 2011 about what it means to be a family, I also read the comments including the following comment:

 

Insecurity and adoption

First Mother Forum posted about the latest adoption letter to the Ethicist at the New York Times here.  I read both the letter from the adoptive mom and the response to her letter by the Ethicist, but what I really want to talk about is this…