I’m having trouble concentrating on work today – I keep going back and looking over the email we got from Liz a few days ago. I have a little folder of these now, although I know I should be deleting each one as soon as we find out that it isn’t our baby whose situation the email describes.

This isn’t always how it works, I’m finding out. Some agencies don’t tell Liz or us when they are showing profile books. But there is one particular matching agency that does it this way, and we’ve been shown quite a few times through them. It goes like this: I get an email from Liz and my heart skips a beat. The title is something like “African-American Baby Girl due _______.” Then I realize that this isn’t my child’s birth announcement and I can breathe again. Dummy, I think to myself, when you’re actually matched she will call you. What follows is an email with information about a pregnant woman and the child she is carrying. I forward it to Andrew, we both read it and discuss the details and make a choice about whether or not we want to be shown. I spend a few dreamy days re-reading the email, imagining that maybe this is my baby boy or girl. Then a few days later there is another email from Liz, which again stops my heart but differently. Crap. I think. When we’re actually matched she’ll call.

As Liz learns where our boundaries are – so far we haven’t been offered a situation we’re not okay with – she will feel able to put us in without sending that email. Or, maybe, one of these days she’ll actually call.

So now there that there is once again such an email sitting in my inbox, I’m thinking about the Transracial Adoptee’s Bill of Rights. Some of the emails that have landed in my inbox from Liz this way have had truly, truly heartrending stories inside of them. They are stories of women who are very brave, yes, but also of babies who really need a start at life that their first mothers can’t offer to them. Each one comes with a warning:

Caution: We are very sensitive to the fact that reviewing information of children weighs heavily on the heart. Please read the following with caution:

I’m not kidding. The emails actually say that. I laughed, the first time. But now I get it. My instincts kick in and I want to be the one to offer these little ones something better. And that’s the danger. Not that I might be hurt by reading a sad story, but that I might let that feeling of wanting to be a savior be the main reason I say yes.

Every child is entitled to parents who are not looking to “save” him or to improve the world.

It must be hard to be family with someone who has “saved” you. It must be hard to be family with a person who you have “saved.” The victim, the saved one, owes their savior something. Can you imagine growing up with parents who feel entitled to gratitude from you? Who became your parents because they pitied you?

And it gets even more complicated when you stir racial difference into this savior/saved dynamic. Savior=white/adult/financially secure. Saved=black/child/poor. Do you see?

Families are made of equals, ultimately. Sure, we are different ages from our parents and our children. This means the roles we play are different – disciplinarian, coach, teacher, provider vs learner, eater, grower, etc. These roles are fluid, they change as children grow up and parents grow older. In a transracial family there are other less fluid differences – skin color and natural aptitudes, for example. But savior and saved are not healthy familial roles.

One of these days I might get an email from Liz with a story about a baby I want to save. That desire is different than the desire to parent. I will do my best, when this happens, to recognize it, and to say no.

• Adoption Carnival VI: the Racism Rainbow
• My Bipolar Child: a whole new world
• Kid Dumping in International Adoption
• The Memory Keeper’s Son
• Sunday Showcase-Positive Stereotyping is Not Always Positive

It was our childrens’ favorite moment of the church service.  The trays holding small cups of wine were being passed down the aisle.  With many little ones, this is a precarious moment each Sunday, but with lots of practice, we rarely spill a drop.  A prayer was offered and we lifted our cups to our lips.  As a way of reminder, I whispered to Honeybee, “The blood of Christ.”  Her eyes grew large as she pulled the cup from her mouth.  “But Mommy, what if Jesus has HIV?”

My daughter lives under the shadow of a virus…a very tricky virus that, as yet, has no cure.  Despite the fact that she is in excellent health, with ARV’s that are working well, she never forgets that HIV lives in her body.  She fears that people can tell that she has HIV when they look at her, and while I assure her that they cannot, she bears the weight of her anxiety.  She knows what HIV can do.  Many of her friends died, her parents died, and her country is losing a generation of men and women.

I have become so accustomed to living with and loving my children with HIV, that I am prone to forget how significant this virus is.  Yes, the medication is amazing.  If you saw a picture of my family, and were asked to guess which children were HIV+, you would be hard pressed to figure it out.  Although an educated guess might lead you to my Ethiopian children… you could be wrong.

Yes, we are careful with blood and body fluids, but to be quite honest, it is a rare day that I don gloves to take care of an injury.  In fact, I can’t recall the last time I did.  A folded paper towel used as a barrier is often adequate.  Despite that, I carry gloves, paper towels, and bandaids in my purse and car.  We are relaxed, but we want to be wise.

But back to her question, “Mom, what if Jesus has HIV?”  I quietly explain that as far as I know, there was no HIV during Jesus’ life and that we are drinking wine, not blood as we celebrate communion.  In Jesus’ time, it was leprosy that was greatly feared and carried a weighty stigma.   But Jesus loved the lepers; He touched them and healed them.  As they walked through the streets crying out their warning, “Unclean, unclean”, this Jesus made them clean.

He has given our family the opportunity to love our children, to say that they are not “Unclean”.  Their stigma was great in their home country, and without good education, that stigma continues here.  Yet, in our family and our community, they have the opportunity to be loved, accepted, and respected as wonderful, beautiful women.

Now if we can just get their hearts to believe it.

Lisa writes about her life as the mother of eleven children at A Bushel and A Peck.  You can find more information about HIV+ adoption and raising children with HIV in the FAQ’s of her blog.

• What Does Therapy Look Like? Part 2
• What Does Therapy Look Like? Part 1
• Who Could Possibly Want HIV+ Children?
• Three Therapeutic Tips for a Merry Christmas
• Fighting HIV with “Powerful Medicine”

The study reveals that in countries like Spain and France that families are choosing to adopt healthy, white children from international countries instead of children from their own countries, mainly of ethnic minorities.

The media, as well as the study, have labeled this the “Madonna-effect” after the singer’s high profile adoption from Malawi in 2006.

“Some argue that international adoption is, in part, a solution to the large number of children in institutional care, but we have found the opposite is true,” said child psychologist Professor Kevin Browne.

“Closely linked to the Madonna-effect, we found that parents in poor countries are now giving up their children in the belief that they will have a ‘better life in the west’ with a more wealthy family,” Browne said.

“Some celebrities have unwittingly encouraged international adoption, yet it has been shown that 96 per cent of children in orphanages across Europe and probably across the globe are not true orphans and have at least one parent, often known to local authorities,” he added.

Do you think this is true or is this just media frenzy? Will children have better lives in other countries?

Do we SAVE them?

• Were they Orphans? Does it Really Matter Graff?
• Oh Mercy, Madonna
• Is Adoption the new Celeb Fad?
• Facing down the judges in Malawai
• Family Building; A Matter Of Public Scrutiny?

Originally posted 2009-04-07 14:46:44. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

But, with the United States in one of the worst recessions in history, more and more people have been turning to drinking to ease depression. Experts recognize losing a job as one of the top ten most stressful life changes one can go through and many people do turn to drinking to cope. A more logical approach would be to turn to friends, family, or social workers, right?

But, as the old saying goes, “When the going gets tough, the tough get drinking.”

Even pregnant women can turn to drinking during stressful times, which means that the rate of fetal alcohol syndrome might increase during such a stressful time within our country. Let’s take a look at a little research… I’ll use Russia as an example because of it’s high rate of FAS children in adoption.

Drinking habits of modern societies are pretty much determined by the historical customs of it’s people. This might be why the Russians have such boisterous drinking habits. A good friend recently told me that the Russians and alcohol, especially vodka, have a long, close relationship.  In fact, the diminutive of voda, which is Russian for water, is vodka. Russian history is steeped in drink. Drinking was once the joy of Russia, a way to escape from reality, the middle stage between socialism and communism, and infinitely, a way to get drunk and forget their slave-like existence.

A little history: Back in 1991, the Former Soviet Union was in turmoil. Boris Yeltsin overthrew Gorbachev, the Communist Party sat in ruins and the economy tanked because Russia had to assume the economic hardships of other republics.  It’s no wonder that in 1993 the number of alcoholics in Russia  rose by 40.8% (and in females by 48%).

Suffice it to say, when the economy flops, people drink. This goes for Americans, too.

As the stock market continues to fall — hitting lows that haven’t been seen since the mid-1990s — and economic stability deteriorates, Americans are flocking to bars and liquor stores in record numbers. Studies have shown that throughout history, in the United States and around the globe, increased economic turmoil has resulted in a spike in alcohol sales.

As Americans, we don’t always turn to Russian Standard Vodka. Instead we may opt for  beer or wine. Or maybe a fruity drink? Or a Chocolate Martini? Whatever your taste may be, if you’re pregnant… do you drink?

According to the CDC in April 2009, about 1 in 12 (8.3%)  US women report using alcohol during pregnancy and 1 in 30 (3.3%) report binge drinking (four or more drinks). The extraordinary fact is that the drinking rate has actually decreased since the early 1990’s mainly due, in my opinion, to the national campaign against drinking during pregnancy and subsequent media attention.

The prevalence of any alcohol use among pregnant women increased from 12.4% in 1991 to 16.3 % in 1995. Compared with 1995 data, prevalence was lower in 1997 (11.4%) and 1999 (12.8%). In contrast, the rates of binge drinking and frequent drinking reported by pregnant women in 1995 remained substantially unchanged in 1997 and 1999: binge drinking rates were 2.9% in 1995, 1.8% in 1997, and 2.7% in 1999, and frequent alcohol use rates were 3.5% in 1995, 2.1% in 1997, and 3.3% in 1999.

If you look closely at these statistics you will see that the early 1990’s are marked with binge drinking and with many women reporting alcohol use during pregnancy. If you recall, the 1990’s was also a period of recession in the US. Remember the Gulf War? The Savings and Loan crisis? Gas and Oil Shock?

Is it possible that women drink more during times of stress and, therefore, that women drink more during times of economic hardship? Could be. So is it also possible that women drink more regardless of being pregnant? Statistics show this is true. If we connect the dots (based upon recent history, of course) we can theorize that women are going to be more likely to drink more during this recession AND during current pregnancies than in the last few years.

Now, I am not saying that every woman is going to drink or that every pregnant woman is going to drink. But, based upon previous statistics from both Russia and the US during VERY recent and similar recessions, can’t we assume this will happen? AND, if women are going to drink more during pregnancy, can’t we ALSO assume that there will be more children with fetal alcohol syndrome or with fetal alcohol syndrome affects as a result?

What is your opinion?

• What are the Symptoms of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome?
• Alcohol Study has Wrong Message
• Russian Tea Cakes
• Russian Holy Supper
• Grandfather Frost

Adoption is, in its perfect form, suppose to be about finding homes for children that need them, not about finding children for parents that want them.

That’s the perfect ideal, for the perfect world, someplace we all know we do not live in. What seems to be missing are some very important adoption facts. That doesn’t mean statistics like how many children are adopted each year, or examples of great gifts for an adopted baby, or even simple logistics such as where to find an adoption agency in Va. I’m talking about the pull your head out of the sand, stop listening to heart-warning stories on Oprah, and acknowledge some cold hard, adoption facts:

There is nothing inherently wrong about wanting to be a parent, but it can become wrong depending on how you go about becoming a parent.

I will never judge anyone for wanting to have a child. I would not think less of anyone or negate their parenting if they became parents though adoption. In fact, despite my disgust at the system, there are many parents through adoption who I like as people, trust as friends, work with to achieve mutual goals. I would even go so far as to say that I am understanding when I hear someone spout off some absolute blatantly ignorant statement; I shrug and think that many of the times the perspective adoptive parents haven’t even had a clue.

It’s not like they were trying to be cruel or uncaring. I know that. They were just doing what the industry and professionals told them to do, what was “acceptable practices”. I blame a system that hides the real hard truths from all the parties involved. It is only afterwards, when we can come together, usually then, when the real truths are exposed and fears disassembled, that the “other” side becomes real people with real feelings, and do many of us realize that we played a part in this misuse of an emotional crisis.

I know that many adoptive parents might resist really looking deep into the way their children’s adoptions were handled.

They might fight to look into their earlier thoughts and often stereotypes. They could, understandably, desire to remain ignorant of the losses involved in their path to parenthood. They might begin to think now, with regret, about some of the practices of their lawyers and other professionals that they trusted. I’m not judging that. I know that’s how it works.

I think it works that way for many parents who surrender as well.  Many do not want to look at it deeply and fully. It really can hurt emotionally, in a way that is completely indescribable and words could never do justice.  Often, by the time we do allow ourselves to feel deeply regarding the relinquishment of our children, we have years invested in self denial.  Because it cannot ever be undone and all we can do is live though the time, mothers and fathers who relinquish their child to adoption have a great resistance as well and often, anger, at seeing adoption in a real light. This is especially true for newer first mothers who still must function at a level for survival as they work through their grief.

The very same can be said for the adoptee, especially for the ones who insist that they “never think about that I am adopted”. From some of the most honest and real, courageous and brilliant adopted persons I have known; I have had the honor to learn that many of the feelings that come from adoption do not always invoke feelings of gratitude, or contentment, but loss and primal rejection, as well as confusion, anger, many unanswered questions and  often unsatisfactory love.

What it comes down to, bottom line; even if an adoptive parent technically participated in some questionable actions in the past, I don’t care. I don’t care if a posse of card carrying content birthmothers really thinks relinquishing adoption was the best thing ever for both them and their babies.  I don’t care about how thankful you are that you were adopted.

It’s not about you, really, but it is. It’s not the past I am concerned about, it’s the future. It’s not how you got here, but what you are willing to do now.

Can you face the cold, hard facts?

******
By 2012, Adoption Will be a 5 BILLION Dollar Plus industry

Even the banking and insurance industry has more regulations applied to then than adoption and we know what they do to try and make money at all costs.

An industry analysis of Fertility Clinics and Adoption Services by Market Data Enterprises of Tampa, FL, has placed a $1.4 billion value on adoption services in the US back in’ 99. No other government or private agency has bothered since then. With a projected annual growth rate of 11.5% to 2012, this makes adoption the largest unregulated industry in the US.

Do the math; even if we follow those conservative projections, because the market has exploded since this last study was done making 11.5% is very mild of a percentage, we have a number that is in excess of 5 billion dollars by the end of 2012 with a growth rate of at least a half billion a year and growing.

Let’s all repeat: NO REGULATIONS PLUS LARGE SUMS OF MONEY EQUALS CLIMATE FOR CORRUPTION. That, folks, is human nature.

Adoption Laws In the USA are Antiquated

Many were placed on the books decades ago based on child development and human nature beliefs that we now know to be wrong.

The amount of knowledge that we have has changed, but the legislation has not been updated. Current changes have been made to benefit the adoption professionals and the industry in general because they have the money to pay for the lobbyists and the influence. The National Council for Adoption, a lobby group with a deceiving name and even more disturbing game, is paid for by the agencies, pro-life groups, and federal tax funds and grants to promote adoption.  They like to separate families not protected by money or the Godly union of marriage in favor for a legally married heterosexual couples. Consent times, like in California and Pennsylvania, have been reduced, because lawyers and agencies want it and they are the ones speaking out to the politicians. It makes adoptions and the profits go though the system quicker.

Birthmother Grief is Real and Traumatic and Lifelong

Many, many mothers did indeed lose their children to adoption and suffer what can only be described as a real diagnosis of “birthmother grief”.

Whether they were downright forced and given no choice, or if they were made to believe they had a choice, but still felt they had no other options, or whether they felt they had options, but were not really given the accurate information regarding long term ramifications of relinquishment for them and for their child. These are women who are and could have been good parents. These children were in no danger of being bump around in foster care for years. No threat of abuse. If it was not for the happy adoption seduction dance of coercion, these families would just be. They would have parented. Maybe they would have had a few first years of lean times, maybe it would have been hard, but look at us now? Suz, Jenna, PoorStatue, Barb for example; all hard working, goal minded, strong willed ladies. I doubt any of us would have sunk to child beating, crystal meth, stripping, and getting beaten by our men just because we had a baby in tow. In fact, I dare to say that we would be more apt not to, because of the need to love and provide for our kids.

There is a huge difference between child protection and child surrender.

Erik Smith said that at the ‘o7 ACC conference, and I think it is brilliant.

Child protection is CPS and state removal for the benefit and welfare of a child. While that system does have concerning issues as well with lots of abuse and corruption, it does result in children that need homes. It is involuntary, it is necessary; it is for the good of the child.

Child surrender is voluntary, it is often not really necessary, but made out to be beneficial. The real “good” of the child is questionable depending on your personal interpretation of what is “better”. Often fraught with myths, and misinformation that sways the participants to be involved for the benefit of the agency and, often, the desires of the paying clients, the perspective adoptive parents. It is finding children to fit the needs of the industry which is based on transferring the parental rights from one party to another for a profit.

The rights of the unwed mother and the unwed father’s rights cannot be ignored no matter how easy it might be to judge them, or worry about the future financial burden on the taxpayer’s money.

Adoptees, Our Children, Pay the Price

There are enough adoptees who search, who are in damaged, who hurt or are just not thrilled that they are adopted that we should care.

They might not hate their lives totally or even at all, but adoption adds a whole bunch of baggage to their load that they must carry. Some had parents that rocked and some had parents that did harm, mostly though, I bet they had parents that tried their best, made mistakes, and loved them lots. The fact is though, that if a child does not need to be separated from their original family, then the great majority of child welfare professionals, from the United Nations to UNICEF plus many others, agree that children are best off with kin. It is a person’s birthright to be with family.

To top it off, many voluntary infant adoptions in this country never were and still are not necessary. Imagine growing up with the most important and foundation building relationship of your life, aborted without logical reason, before you could even voice your own opinions. Call it a Primal Wound, call it adoptee issues, call it a matter of adoptee rights, our children had no choice and they had no voice. Now, they do.

The Need for Adoptee Rights Can NOT be Ignored

Adopted persons are denied their civil right to have access to the Original Birth Certificates and are frequently torn and caught between two sets of parents who have their own needs and issues.

They are not abnormal, or damaged, nor bitter, nor angry, but they are people who we all need to learn from so that we can do better for the next generation. They have the keys to tell us what we need to fix in adoption.

There are enough adoptees and natural parents searching for each other that we cannot humanly deny that it is a primal and necessary urge in many cases.  It’s not a whim, not a phase, nor a sign if immaturity, nor selfishness, nor of poor adoptive parenting, or anything else might we believe. It is just the truth: adoptees have two sets of parents, adoptive and birth parents, and often a need to know and have relationships with both.

We must look at both Sides of Adoption

We cannot say “adoption is always wonderful” nor even focus on only the positive and refuse to see the Birth mothers grief and adoptee loss.

While there are many happy adoption stories, many parents who adore their children and children that adore their parents; there are also enough stories of adoptees who got bad deals, adoptees who got good deals but still have enough issues, and relinquishing parents who just totally got screwed in various degrees. It can be good, it can be bad and it can be all the variants in between. The negative, though, is very bad and threatens all our good. We should all care enough to make it much better for not just our own needs, not just for our children, but as a legacy of improvement to leave behind for future generations.

Don’t Dismiss The Adoption Message with Generalizations

I may generalize and state that “adoption is bad”, BUT I don’t mean YOUR adoption necessarily.

I still don’t need you to tell me how you were above board, super ethical, checked out everything, or begged your child’s mother to seriously look into parenting. I don’t need to hear about how she really IS a crack whore or how she really couldn’t manage it, didn’t want to parent, had a great agency. I don’t need to know about how sure she was, or her reasons for giving you her child. And I don’t buy it when you tell me that she is just fine…really, even if she is. Let me talk to her in 18 years when the taste of the Kool-Aid gets all stale and metallic, without you there so she could speak freely.  Then I might believe it, but I don’t even need to do that. It’s not about proving that you are horrible person, less of a parent, or a baby stealing troll.

Really, I don’t care all that much about what was already DONE. It’s over, that’s the past and none of us can change it anyway.

If you gave your baby to adoption and  you’re all content and peaceful and still think you made a great choice for your baby, and you have no regrets about adoption…OK. I’m glad for you, I really am. I am happy that you escaped the bullet. I can only hope that your child is in complete agreement with you when they can speak for themselves. And if that is not the case, of you ever feel that “hmmm…this is not what I expected, this is a bit more than I was warned about” or if that stale and metallic taste gets to heavy on your tongue, then I am here for you still. I know that deal all too well. And if you are super pissed off and angry and hate adoption with every breath of your being, well I get that too and ever stance of conflicting emotions in between.

If you are adopted and it is all peachy for you…..great!! You have only one mother and father, you have four, and you have six. ok. I cannot tell you how to make your heart beat. Your feelings are not about me, though I will listen and learn from you so I can understand my son more, but really the only one who I need to care about as far as the ultimate decree of my motherhood is my kids. If you want to be angry, I say that you are entitled to your feelings. If you feel abandoned or rejected, all I can do is hear you and try to help you understand what your own mom might be thinking or have felt, but even then..I can’t really speak for her, unless I do know her.

Adoption past is the past and we can really do nothing to change it.

But, we can speak of it, we can document it, we can be truthful about it.

That is all I ask: that you be truthful, to me, to the public, to yourself, to your children’s other parents, to your kids. Just speak the truth, even if it is hard, even if it makes you uncomfortable, even if it hurts you inside and makes you question yourself. No need to explain or defend this stuff to anyone, especially of you really are still trying to explain or defend this stuff to yourself. That is your journey. I got mine.

Even if your adoption was perfect, even if it was the most ethical thing on the face of this earth, even if you saved your child from certain death; it doesn’t matter to me. If you are somehow immune from being part of the problem, are you willing to be part of the solution?

I am still going to say things that make you uncomfortable about adoption.

I still want you to think, I want you to know that it goes beyond your personal experience, it goes beyond mine. I want you to behold such truths to be self evident, that adoption as an industry has a long way to go before it reaches that perfect ideal that we all strive for. I want you to care about more than just you and your child, but the child of that poor woman who looks like she just needs a break with decent day care. Or care about that really pissed off angry man who keeps getting a bad deal at work and can’t get insurance for his family to be or gets crooked out of his parental rights because an industry is running him down. Care about the young girl down the block who looks like a kid pushing a doll in a stroller to school every day with a loaded back pack of books, don’t judge her, or him, but remember, we all could have been in those shoes.

Yes, you; if the stars have aligned differently, if life handed you different cards.

I want you to stop and think about what it means for a mother, never mind if she is a young mother or a poor mother, as neither can measure love; what it might feel for a mother to lose a life with her own child. I want you to stop and really think of what you are asking her to do by relinquishing her baby. How do you feel when you hear of a missing child abducted? What emotions do you find OK for a mother to feel at that time? Do you sympathize with a mother when you hear about a tragic accidental death of her baby? And then explain to yourself what makes one mother’s grief over the loss of a child more worthy of our understanding than another mother’s loss because adoption was involved?

I want people to realize that even if, on the short term, it seems much more logical and sensible for the too young, or too challenged to give their unplanned children to those that have planned, waited and prayed to be parents; that infant surrender is sentencing both mother, child and extended family to a lifelong altercation, often with unpleasant results.  What is exactly a few years of social support, non judgment, and maybe assisted day care and housing compared to a life time of unnatural grief? A life time of loss or a few lean years and maybe some tax aided support?

What is the greater evil? Trauma for life or public assistance?

I want you to think about the world we allow to happen for our children and their children; is it good enough? Would you want your daughter to have a story like mine, or Nic, or Suz? Do you want to have a universe, a climate in this country where the government spends money on known programs that fail, like abstinence only policies, that spends tax dollars on studies to find out who to make adoption appealing so that they can convince women to relinquish, that supports and promotes maternity homes like Gladney for political favors, that teaches professionals downright lies such as the infant adoption awareness training, that allows corrupt influences in your children’s schools like Stephanie Bennett, that has no regulations and no oversight and makes your daughters and sons venerable to an industry that is above and beyond reproach.

It’s not about what you did; it is about what you can do now.

Are you an adoptive parent, and do I make you angry? Do you care that you got what you wanted? Is that all adoption is to you, was to you, a way to be a parent and now it is done? Then why are you here? Why bother; go live your happy life.

Do you care about being the best parent for your child?

Which means that adoptive or original parent; you need to listen to the adoptees and what they have to tell us about our own children. It means making this world, this society, a better place where ALL understand and acknowledge what the adoptees tell us of their feelings so they do not feel they have to perform or lie or keep quiet at their own expense to protect those they love. So they do not feel alone and confused.

Think of your own children facing an unplanned pregnancy. Imagine being separated from one of your kids. Could you do it? Do you want anyone to feel the pain and grief of these adoption losses?  Do you care about making some real changes in adoption practices and beliefs so that things are better for the next generations to come, our children? Can you put your money and your actions where your mouth is? Yes? Then come on, let’s go. We have work to do.

Think Beyond Your Own Adoption Experience

You can have the greatest adoption experience on the face of the earth, and still help.

It’s not about you, but it is. You don’t have to say what you did was wrong or right, but let’s go further now. Let’s make it ALL right for everyone.

And that means accepting the bad parts of it, even if you did somehow contribute to it. I will not say that makes you a terrible person, it means that you have learned and grown. We, as a society, as a community, as a people, have to be able to see, recognize and call out what is wrong in order to make it right. If you don’t all into the category of what was wrong then that statement is not about you. Don’t make it about you. If the shoe doesn’t fit, I am not forcing it on your foot. Just acknowledge that the shoe is there.

The Real Truth About Adoption IS HORRIBLY Raw, Frequently Ugly and Often Unjust.

I know that is hard, I really do. It hurts, it makes us uncomfortable and it makes us question everything we ever thought, everything we ever believed, every decision we ever made. It’s hard, but that is the crux of the issue; Adoption is HARD. It’s is difficult to navigate for us all. If it was easy, then none of us would be here. We would just do this one time act: adopt, be born, relinquish and never look back. It really would be the same as having a baby, being born to one set of parents, or never having a baby, but it doesn’t work like that.

The adoption industry wants us to believe it is the same, they say it is, but they are wrong, it’s a lifelong process for us all.

Sometimes, it gets to be too much.  It is just too darn heavy of a load to carry. It becomes too deep, too convoluted, and our heads and hearts spin. We get freaked out, we need a break, there is so much to battle, so many venues and issues. It wears us all down. People need to recharge and not think about adoption for a little while; we go back to denial for a while, pretend to be normal. People say things that get us upset, generalizations are made and we feel on the defensive, we have to speak up, the negativity gets us down, nothing will ever change.

Adoption Facts are Just That: Facts.

You cannot change the truth.

Adoption will not change if we hide in our holes, in a safe area, and do not test ourselves, push the envelope, get discouraged, run away, or bury our head in the sands. Then in 20, 30, 40 years, we will be old and gray, drooling, and our children will be facing the same issues, writing on blogs and boards trying to make sense of it all.

It’s not about what you did or did not do. It is not about what I did or did not do. It is not about who is right or who is wrong. It’s not about what you knew or didn’t know. It’s not about whether you fit that generalization or not. It’s not even about what offends and hurts you. It’s about being able to speak clearly and make others understand, talk about the truth, the hard stuff, process that, and then improve it. It’s about growing and changing. It is about understanding. It is about seeing my mistakes and yours and learning how to not make them again.  It is about the collective body of knowledge that we all must “get”. Adoption is too vast, too wide of an ocean with too many nuances. We only have one life and we cannot all live though every aspect of it for a total picture. We have to learn from each other.

Every time one of us speaks one iota of truth to someone else, the knowledge of truth grows. Little by little, one person at a time, we can make a difference. The adoption community can touch each other, we can support each other.  We all grow, we understand adoption better.  As players in the adoption arena, we have a moral obligation to make things better. If not us, those who live it, then who?  I challenge everyone to stretch the boundaries of your mind and unlearn what you think you know about adoption. Find truth. Speak truth. Accept truth. Spread truth. And then think what the next step? What can you do to make adoption better? How can, we, as a society, not care about fixing adoption as a corrupt and antiquated institution?

I don’t care about how you got by my side, who you are, color, creed, place in the triad, age or adoption era; all I care about is if you are at my side or not. We all need to work together, use our collective voice, and cry out to fix adoption. Face the facts about adoption, then you must demand ethical reformation.

In fact, take a step right now.. and VOTE to Return Adult Adoptees the right to their Original Birth Certificates. Our Children need all the votes they can get from now until March 12th.

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I originally wrote this as a long rambling rant on my blog called “It’s Not about You, But It Is” in Mach of 2007. It’s worth poping over to there as the comments are really interesting. I have edited a bit since then so it’s not as long and rambling, but I still find it to be one of my favorite pieces of writing and  core to all that I do.

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Seriously. Lime Green. Lime as in Jello lime.

We call it the Pickel chair for obvious reasons and it is the most comfortable chair in the house.

It was actually my grandmother’s chair although I don’t ever remember it being in her house. The first I remember it being was in my parent’s bedroom next to my father’s side of the bed. He used to read in it late at night, TV on.

So, when I had my first classroom I requested that chair…the Pickel chair. It became mine. The kids loved it. Sank into it and read.

When we adopted AJ it became his. His relax chair, his calm chair. His chair.

The Pickel chair.

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Looking at his baby book brought back all of these memories for me, and I felt a huge sense of grief for the joys of first-time motherhood I missed out on, for the magnitude of stress I lived under when Jafta was a baby. I found myself sobbing as I thought of the tightness in my chest I felt making that book. But then, I felt relief. I allowed myself to look at all the pictures in a new light. I gazed at the family photos as just a happy, PERMANENT family. I allowed myself to feel grateful that I will be the keeper of this baby book. I will be the one who adds to this catalog of memories. I will be the one who shows embarrassing baby photos to high school sweethearts. I will be the mother watching these photos in a wedding slide show.

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We missed our Sunday Showcase last week because of the Carnival. We’re back this week with a fabulous article from Uncharted Parent. She originally gave me this post,  How Much of Your Child’s Birth Culture Should You Incorporate into Your Home?, to showcase but after reading this one I couldn’t help but grab it for you. I loved it too much. Tracy is an insightful writer and obviously a mom who really thinks about adding  culture to their home life and assisting her daughter every day.

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Five minutes before I sat down to write a blog post yesterday, four-and-a-half year old “Emmie” and I stood on the pool deck of our local YMCA, waiting for her swim class to begin.  A dozen or so senior citizens finished their aquatic exercise class and climbed out of the pool, and Emmie and I moved aside to allow one of the men in the class to retrieve his towel and flip-flops.

After claiming his belongings, the man stepped in front of us and stopped.  He turned to me.  “Where’s she from?” he asked.

I hesitated, wanting to answer with the name of the town in which we live, or at least insert a common courtesy into the conversation—perhaps some form of greeting, like “Hello.”  But despite my intuition that I knew where this was going, I decided instead to try a more positive approach and view the question as an opportunity for education.

“Korea,” I said with a manufactured smile.  I noticed that I had begun to twirl Emmie’s ponytail in an unconscious move to draw her to me.  Don’t mess with her, my physical contact proclaimed.  I resisted another urge to counter-inquire where the man was from or why he didn’t ask the same question of the mothers of any of the white kids on the pool deck.

He nodded, and then actually thought for a moment before he spoke these next words: “The Koreans are hard workers.”

Oh, for the love of God.

“They always try to outdo the Japanese,” he added.

Yes, that’s why I got her, I thought.  Her middle name is “Hyundai” and as soon as she can read and do arithmetic, I’m going to set her to work designing super-efficient automobiles. Plus she can do lots of chores around the house.

I could almost feel my daughter waiting to hear how I would respond to this man, though I’m sure she couldn’t fully understand what he said.  I lifted my head and grew my smile.  “They’re individuals just like everybody else,” I said to him.

He stared at me for a few seconds, his mouth open in surprise.  Then he huffed—or was it chortled?—and walked away.  Which was just fine with me.

Folks, positive stereotyping is still stereotyping.  Asian kids—whether parented by Asian, Caucasian or any other race parents—often find themselves confronted by expectations that they will be exceptionally smart, hard workers who excel in music and math and will be docile and obedient to their parents.  But the truth, of course, is that many Asian kids don’t exhibit these characteristics, because they are not all the same.  Imagine the unnecessary pressure felt by a young child whose violin lessons are going poorly because, contrary to expectations, he has little ability in music, or because she just isn’t interested and won’t apply herself to the learning the instrument.  Kids in this situation face not just disappointment from the adults they respect, but carry the burden of allegedly letting down their entire race as well.

This problem is a common one.  Yesterday’s encounter wasn’t my first since adopting an Asian child.  Over a year earlier, in the same YMCA, I mentioned to a fellow mom whose teenagers were dancers that Emmie had expressed an interest in taking ballet classes.

The mom mentioned a few dance studios in the area that in her opinion offered superior training.  Then she nodded in Emmie’s direction.  “She’ll probably be good.  Asians are generally very good dancers.  I’m not being racist when I say that; it’s just true.”

If you feel the need to clarify your remarks with the statement that you’re not being racist, then guess what?  At the very least, you need to take a careful look at those remarks.

All kids face enough pressures just growing up in America today without saddling them with an  ill-informed list of achievements they are “supposed” to accomplish solely because of their race.

I hope, of course, that Emmie will turn out to be a smart, hard-working child (and later, adult) who excels at everything she tries.  But the truth is that she’s going to do well in some areas of her life and poorly in others.  She’ll have successes and failures, good traits and bad, just like the rest of us.  For the most part, I don’t yet know what any of those things will be.  And neither does anyone else.

Yes, Emmie is Korean.  But more importantly, she is a kid.  Any assumptions you make about her should begin and end there until you take the time to get to know her as a person.

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How does this work for Mommy Bloggers?  Here goes…

First, let’s assume the fictional case of Joan Smith…Mommy Blogger extraordinaire.  Between her unpaid jobs as nanny, housekeeper, chauffeur, cook and private investigator, she finds time to blog to 25,000 unique visitors each month.  Her blog has attracted some sponsorship and paid links to the tune of $1500 per month, with further growth projected.

To understand how Joan can turn these funds into retirement savings, it is important to understand how IRS views Joan’s blog.  Simply, if the blog is making money, IRS is going to want its slice of the pie.  If the blog is losing money, Joan may or may not be able to deduct the loss.

The problem here (at least to tax geeks) is called “hobby loss.”  The hobby loss rules prevent a taxpayer from deducting a loss on his or her tax return if the loss is not sufficiently business-related.  Note: IRS has no similar limitations for recognizing non-business income.  If you win a free tour of Sweden because you bought the 1500th Glombulabagr couch at IKEA, IRS will be expecting you to add the value of the vacation to your income for the year.  On the same note, if Joan is netting $1500 per month from her blog, IRS would expect her to hand over some tax.  On the other hand, if Joan’s blog operates at a loss for the year she may or may not be able to deduct that loss from her other taxable income.  This depends on whether IRS concludes that Joan does or does not have a “profit-motive” in running her blog.   No profit motive = hobby.

The factors of whether an activity is a hobby or not for tax purposes could be the subject of five more posts.  The bottomline, though, is that before Joan starts deducting blog losses from her taxable income, she needs to make this hobby/business determination.

Assuming Joan can get past the “hobby” problem with her blog, she can get to the tax strategy…retirement savings.  Joan can reduce her income currently by saving some of her blog’s earnings in one of several types of qualified retirement plan.  The most common type of qualified retirement plan is a standard 401(k) for which most employees are eligible through their workplace.

As a blogging entrepreneur, Joan has several options in choosing the type of qualified plan she wants to utilize for her retirement savings.  Generally speaking, a Solo or Owner-Only 401(k) would be her best option.  This offers all the advantages of a normal 401(k), plus it allows Joan to save more than she could with other varieties of these types of plans (SEP IRA, Simple IRA, etc.).  The administration costs of these types of plans are usually quite low, allowing Joan to save as much as possible for retirement while reducing her current income.

So there you have it…hopefully one day Joan can retire from her five jobs and instead blog about laying on a beach in Fiji with all her retirement savings.

Clint Costa is a licensed Illinois attorney and registered Illinois CPA practicing with the Chicago law firm of Shaheen Novoselsky Staat Filipowski and Eccleston, PC (whew…that’ s a mouthful). Clint focuses on transactional and estate planning matters, including tax, real estate, contracts, business formation and succession planning, estate plan drafting and administration.  Clint can be reached by phone at (312) 621-4400 or by email at ccosta@snsfe-law.com.

Brian Gray is a financial advisor with Wells Fargo, specializing in the formation and investment of qualified retirement plans.  Call him at (312) 648-5192 or email him at brian.gray@wellsfargoadvisors.com for additional information on setting up a qualified retirement plan or rolling an old 401(k) into an IRA.  Brian’s services and further information about him can also be found at his website.

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