Dear Friends, how are you doing this month? Were you dreading it as much as I was? I’ve been disconnected in many ways, specifically in not feeling in the mood to venture into the fray this month creates, staying in small trusted circles until now…
Before I reunited with my maternal family of birth – I loved every reunion story I read, watched. Now these many years later I’m more likely than not to pass them by because of the emotions that bubble up inside of me, that normally, sit just under the surface. Emotions that run the gamut of happy they finally met, to sad for all those years missed, years when they should have built a lifetime of memories to sustain them throughout life. Anger at all the reasons why because of adoption that they don’t have those memories. Emotions from my lived reality. And often, a healthy dose of disdain (not the right word) for the reactions of adoptive and birth parents of being happy for them, because they can never, ever, understand how little reuniting fixes anything unless they too, have lived it. Read the rest of this entry »
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. Read the rest of this entry »
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… Read the rest of this entry »
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…
Read the rest of this entry »
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). Read the rest of this entry »
Just a quick note to Prospective Adoptive Parents, Read the rest of this entry »
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. Read the rest of this entry »
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. Read the rest of this entry »
I’m in a few adoption groups on facebook, closed groups. Groups that lean-to opposite sides of adoption, i.e. adoptive parent heavy or first parent heavy. The message promoted in each group is often weighted on based on the predominant voices in the group. I hear a very different message presented in each, two sides of the same coin where the scales tip to the side of the prominent voices in the group. Read the rest of this entry »
This Day in History
