We Need To Talk

A friend of mine would like to get married.  Not right now, but someday. She hasn’t found the right girl yet.  She’d just like to think that she could get married when that woman does come along.  She feels that this is her right.

I’d like to have a copy of my original birth certificate.  I already know what is on it.  I’d just like to think I could have it. I feel that this is my right.

We get each other.  We both have watched and participated in the state to state battles.  We’ve made phone calls, written letters, testified, even marched in the streets.  We’ve seen victories and defeats.  We’ve seen our friends go into courthouses and get the the documents they want, that they should have, just like everybody else.  We know it will be a long time before either one of us will be able to do that.

I listen to her rants, and she listens to mine.  We watch the progress of bills and initiatives together.  She’s not adopted, and I’m not gay, she has her birth certificate, and I’ve been married for 25 years.  I’ve always been in favor of gay marriage, but she didn’t have a clue about adoptee rights.  I do have a better understanding of the gay marriage issue after spending time with someone who works on the political side, and she has a much better understanding of the adoptee rights issue.  We have both learned a lot.

When we first met, I knew who she was and where she stood almost immediately, she talked about it without reservation.  I didn’t bring up that I was adopted.  I never bring that up when I don’t know someone well.  Sometimes it never comes up in the course of a friendship.  I really need to change that.  We all do.

Adoptees can easily pass, even trans racial adoptees, in many situations, at least for a while.  It’s not like we grown-ups have our parents walk us into our first day at work, or they are coming to pick us up from the party.  We don’t have to tell anyone that we are adopted, and most of the time we don’t.

I’m as guilty as anyone else of not telling people I’m adopted.  I do it for all the same reasons everybody else does.  I don’t want to deal with the stupid questions and the assumptions about how I feel about my adoption.  I don’t want to hear the story about somebody’s adopted second cousin.  I don’t want to educate everyone I meet about adoption, it’s a royal pain in the ass.  It’s sad and maddening when they don’t get it.  It can ruin your day to be told that you should just be grateful that someone took you in.

But we do need to tell people that we are adopted, that we have adopted children, that a child of ours was relinquished.  As hard as it can be, it’s now necessary.  Adoption has changed, not everyone is aware of that.  We all need to tell them.

For some reason that I don’t understand, there still seems to be some shame attached to adoption.  We are told over and over again that there shouldn’t be ashamed.  But when we confront certain situations we wonder if others still think it’s shameful.  Adoption used to be very shameful for some adoptive parents, many told no one that their child was adopted, including their child.  They said that it was for the sake of the child, but I’m not so sure that most of the time it was to make them feel more comfortable.  These days you can’t shut an adoptive parent up.  They tell everyone, everything, about their adoption.  Heck many times you don’t even want to get them started unless you have quite a bit of time to spare.  Adoption used to seen as something they had to do, now it’s seen as something they wanted to do.

For the rest of us, the adoption experience isn’t quite the same.  It wasn’t something we wanted to do, or really had any control over.  That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about it.  Especially the need for adoptee rights.  Conversations about adoption can bring up personal, painful things, but we can just tell folks what we want to.  If someone gets too personal, I try to ignore it.  If that doesn’t work I distract them with something like suddenly looking out the window and exclaiming, “Is that a grizzly bear!”

We need to talk.  We need to find allies outside the adoption community, not just because there is strength in numbers, because many will understand.  The more folks understand, the less I have to yell about grizzly bears.

You can read more about adoptees and bears at…According To Addie