I love the idea in the original blog post about HONORING adoption instead of celebrating it, to honor birthmothers more. There is pain there, no doubt. If I look at the NAM objectively, without too much emotion, I don’t so much see it as this month where adoptive parents party and celebrate and kick up their heels because they adopted. I can see that part of the purpose of it is to get people to perhaps open their hearts and homes to children already in foster care who desperately need homes because they were removed from bio parents due to abuse or neglect or drugs or whatnot. I mean, one could even call it “marketing” for that purpose. But the reality is that those kids have already been removed from their homes and it’s dangerous for them to return, and now adoption is the best way for them to have a family life. If we need to have a NAM and it helps some of these kids get homes, I’m all for it. And arguably, haven’t we all seen cases where they OUGHT to have removed more children from their homes, but they don’t, and for some in abusive situations it becomes “too late.” They cannot be saved.

I am 40, an adult adoptee, closed adoption. I have never met my birth family. Sure I’m curious, but I’m not filled with angst and rage and unable to cope with the whole thing. I may never meet my birth family, and that is ok. (Again this is MY situation I’m not saying “how come YOU aren’t all like me”). If my birth mother felt it was the right decision to put me up for adoption, then I’m ok with it. How I came to that conclusion in adolescence and never felt suicidal or rage or depression, I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m so objective about it. It just IS. I had great, albeit flawed, adoptive parents, and who I am as I sit here today, well I would not be exactly ME if I had a different upbringing, and I’m fine with me. I am not rich, I put myself thru college and now I just have a govt J-O-B. My adoptive parents divorced when I was 11, we were not rich nor had boundless opportunities. But I love them and love my extended family, and as I sit here right now in my 2 bedroom apartment, with my own adopted child asleep in the other room, I can say if my life went as it was meant to go, being given up for adoption as part of it, and it led me to right here, right now, with myself being the self I turned out to be, flaws and all, and led me to this child that I am blessed to have in my life, then thank God for it all.

And for the record, my 6 year old child knows her birth mother in Haiti (as do i), knows her siblings there as her sisters, and yes, I know that tough questions and perhaps anger and confusion on her part will come, especially in adolescence, but we will always maintain contact with them and visit, and she will always know she has 2 families who love her very much. She won’t have the pain of not knowing, at least.

The hard part of this argument is the whole “if adopted, they have a better life, more opportunities, more food, they won’t get caught in the cycle” part of it. Those things are TRUE, for the most part, but the adopted child would never KNOW about what was missed if they stayed with their birth family. They would only know THAT. If my Haitian child grew up hungry and uneducated in a shanty in Haiti, likely selling wares on street corners and probably pregnant by 16 or 18, if she made it through childhood, THAT would be her normal. And she would have been with her birth family. But here she is now, soccer fiend, swimming fiend, smart as a whip, wanting to be a farmer or a policeman or rock star or who knows what. Her teachers say she has the personality to be a leader. So like, what….the WORLD is better off because she was adopted, and now she can go to school and be what she wants to be in life? Is that a reason? She may become a farmer, may become some kind of agricultural researcher and go back to Haiti and do some wonderful agricultural THING for her country. Who knows. And yes, it’s ALL built on the pain of her birth mother having made an adoption plan. All that happiness is built on her pain. But isn’t there ANY glimmer of happiness in her when she sees what her child is becoming or has avoided by being adopted? one of those “bittersweet” kinds of things?

Closed adoptions, I can see how much more excruciating the pain would be. Not to know. To HOPE that you should have that happy glimmer in the midst of the pain…that your child is happy and well, but not to know. Yeah. That would suck. I know my birth mother doesn’t know how I’m doing. And to think that she has such pain in her, well, that is reason enough for me to actually consider really trying to track her down. (Of course I have also heard of those birth families that do not want contact or anything….)

Anyway I am kind of rambling now, but….the point is nobody should judge anyone. Stephanie seems to have done what is right for HER, and is at peace with it, and so are the adoptive parents and the adopted child. Why is that bad? I think somehow finding peace, even if that means working hard to try to meet your birth child or parents, or at least initiate contact with them, if that will bring peace, then everyone should do it. I don’t know any other way for everyone’s very raw wounds, which are evident from these comments, to have any chance at healing.

Peace,

Stephanie #2

I assume you mean the opportunity to take part in the lucrative and unethical practice of separating mothers and babies across the world. This to me demonstrates how family abuse is perpetuated; you relinquish your child and the child becomes an abuser – someone who wants to continue the separation of mothers and babies. How swell.

Claud, Thanks for the post. It is very difficult to see all of this happy crap about celebrating adoption when we’ve lost something so precious as a son or daughter. Not only do we suffer the personal loss, but we have salt rubbed into the open wound by having an entire month dedicated to the joy of the adoptive parent despite our loss. And, of course the celebration is picked up by all of those hoping to get a baby, and all of those hoping to sell a baby and stay in business. It is the fact that while people suffer from this horrendous practice, it is yet cause for celebration, and that celebration, and the practice of encouraging young mothers to give their children to strangers when the known consequences can be so devastating, is what keeps the wound open and flowing for me.

Carol

Good for you that you get to be a part of your child’s life. He still has somewhat of a connection to who he really is. Does he know his father? If not, good luck to both of you when reality hits. He’ll be just like the rest of us adoptees who are lost without a connection to the foundation of our being. A connection that has been ripped away from us just as quickly as your baby was ripped out of your cut open uterus. We had no choice. We still have no choice. I have every material thing I could ever want but something, a very big something is still missing. Glad you can pat yourself on the back for how much you’ve “given”. I hope against hope you don’t give any more.

Whining? Does this prejudiced attitude towards the voice of a relinquishing mother have ANYTHING to do with adoption awareness? Your closed mind astounds.

This IS another valid voice, something you would conveniently dismiss. We can not always have our cake and eat it too. In your perfect world, you’d like to think that all relinquishing mothers are like Stephanie above, but that is just wishful thinking. You would like to believe that this is a win-win scenario for all involved so you can sleep at night and enjoy the fruits of her labor guilt-free.

But true awareness would reveal that Stephanie is the exception and Claudia is the rule. And Stephanie is not, herself, free of whining…

To my mind, we can’t even begin to have a real dialogue about adoption until ALL THREE members in the triad have an EQUAL VOICE. But Adoption Awareness only seeks to promote only the voice of ONE of the members. There is no room for dissenting opinion, and those that do are vilified – never mind that one of the parties had few REAL choices and that the other party had NO choice.

So go ahead and pat yourselves on the back this month for exploiting the vulnerable and gaining a child, but don’t call it AWARENESS. Call it what it really is: WHITEWASH

You’re right, it’s not just about that ‘beautiful’ life I was given. It’s about what caused my life to end up this way… meaning lack of resources or any help for my mother. She did not “choose” to place me.

I got pregnant at 18 and I kept MY son. I wasn’t about to throw his chances at a good life to the whims of fate. It was MY responsibility. I won’t say it was easy at all, but I always made my children my priority. Today he’s an amazing individual – smart, witty, kind-hearted, and extremely successful. I doubt any adoptive parent could have had a better outcome with him than I did.