I'm reminded once more of the pitfalls of having only casual interactions with people on Facebook.
One of my brothers, one of my bio-father's sons, posted something on Facebook asking why deer always wait to cross the road right before a car comes. I was feeling badly that I hadn't really written to him in a while, so I wrote something back about getting to the other side, and then said I hoped everyone was okay.
He wrote back and said that they were. But this morning, a friend of his wrote that he thought it had something to do with chickens. And my brother wrote that it wasn't funny.
And I got worried. Had my lame attempt at humor offended him? I don't know him, and he doesn't know me. Had he misunderstood my comment? Or had he understood, but thought it was in poor taste? I don't know him, so I don't know how to take his response to his friend.
This internet reunion thing is crazy-making. Maybe if we met in person he would hate me.
Why do I care? Why do I fret about this? Why does it matter whether someone I don't know likes me?
Ugh. Some days I wish I could just forget all of this.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Poser
I'm not sure why, but sometimes I feel like a fake. I can't quite explain it.
I know adoptees who were abused. Adoptees whose biological parents were lied to. Adoptees who were lied to for decades about being adopted. Adoptees who have been denied by their biological family. Adoptees who have found graves or never found anything.
What do I have to complain about? What pain have I experienced?
I feel like I don't have the right to talk about adoption. I feel like I had it good, and I ought to be happy with what I've got.
Maybe that seems silly. Or maybe it's the gratefulness shtick. Or maybe something like Catholic guilt. I don't know.
I just don't feel right being upset about adoption.
And yet, I am upset about it. And I don't know how to stop being upset about it, so I just keep hoping no one finds out that I have no right to complain.
I know adoptees who were abused. Adoptees whose biological parents were lied to. Adoptees who were lied to for decades about being adopted. Adoptees who have been denied by their biological family. Adoptees who have found graves or never found anything.
What do I have to complain about? What pain have I experienced?
I feel like I don't have the right to talk about adoption. I feel like I had it good, and I ought to be happy with what I've got.
Maybe that seems silly. Or maybe it's the gratefulness shtick. Or maybe something like Catholic guilt. I don't know.
I just don't feel right being upset about adoption.
And yet, I am upset about it. And I don't know how to stop being upset about it, so I just keep hoping no one finds out that I have no right to complain.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Conflict of Interest
I just got back from my monthly search/reunion support group. It's open to adoptees, relinquishing parents, and adoptive parents. And it's run out of a family services center. A service center that facilitates adoptions. And I try not to think about that.
You see, when this whole thing started, I needed to be able to talk to people. I needed face-to-face support. I think I still do. And I also want to be there for other adoptees going through this emotional roller-coaster of adoption, search, and reunion.
And yet, it's a group, run by an agency that, among many other helpful services, facilitates adoptions. And the group is facilitated by social workers who both search on behalf of adoptees and natural mothers, as well as oversee adoptions.
As a result, it's hard to feel free to speak my mind about adoption. I don't want a group I do nothing about rant about adoption. But I want a place where I can be angry about adoption. Where I can express my anger about society's views, the proliferation of adoption, and the denial of basic human rights to adoptees.
When we are talking about individual stories and situations, the social workers are helpful and supportive. The group is good. But every now and then, somehow we get on the topic of adoption in more general terms. And I feel like I have to sit there with a fake smile plastered on my face. I glaze over and wish I were somewhere else.
I wish I had an unaffiliated support group to attend. Especially one just for adoptees. But I will still go to this one for now. I do find it helpful. And I do want to be there for others. I just wish that it was more socially acceptable to question adoption. Until people begin to understand the harm adoption inflicts, there is no incentive to look for alternatives.
And yes, that makes me angry.
You see, when this whole thing started, I needed to be able to talk to people. I needed face-to-face support. I think I still do. And I also want to be there for other adoptees going through this emotional roller-coaster of adoption, search, and reunion.
And yet, it's a group, run by an agency that, among many other helpful services, facilitates adoptions. And the group is facilitated by social workers who both search on behalf of adoptees and natural mothers, as well as oversee adoptions.
As a result, it's hard to feel free to speak my mind about adoption. I don't want a group I do nothing about rant about adoption. But I want a place where I can be angry about adoption. Where I can express my anger about society's views, the proliferation of adoption, and the denial of basic human rights to adoptees.
When we are talking about individual stories and situations, the social workers are helpful and supportive. The group is good. But every now and then, somehow we get on the topic of adoption in more general terms. And I feel like I have to sit there with a fake smile plastered on my face. I glaze over and wish I were somewhere else.
I wish I had an unaffiliated support group to attend. Especially one just for adoptees. But I will still go to this one for now. I do find it helpful. And I do want to be there for others. I just wish that it was more socially acceptable to question adoption. Until people begin to understand the harm adoption inflicts, there is no incentive to look for alternatives.
And yes, that makes me angry.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Twin Traumas
There are two things that seem to be everywhere. Adoption has popped up in the strangest places, as though it won't let me forget it. That seems to have been increasingly the case over the last few years. The other one is divorce.
I've been "lucky" enough to live through both. And they each affected me in different ways.
Brodzinsky, et al., compare and contrast the losses suffered by children of adoption and children of divorce. I get to reflect on how they can reinforce one another. After all, when one set of parents abandons you, it sets you up to think that relationships are impermanent things. Who knows when the next person will leave.
And with divorce, they do just that. You go from two new parents, back to one (depending on the custody arrangement). And when it happens at a relatively young age, it's hard to really understand that it's not about you, and that it won't keep happening.
So as I'm watching the season finale of Mad Men tonight, I'm struck by the scene where the two leads sit the children down to explain that daddy won't be living in the house anymore. All I can think about is how unfair this is to the children. I want to scream at the parents that their own shit is stupid, that they need to suck it up and do what's right for their kids. Never mind that they can't figure out how to make their relationship work, they have a responsibility to those kids, and their divorce is going to mess with them for the rest of their lives.
My reaction to this story is nearly as visceral as my reaction to every dumb adoption story I've seen on television since I started seeing adoptions stories on television. I hate how children are treated, and I hate how self-absorbed adults can be. Yes, it sucks to be responsible for another human being, but you had a kid, suck it up and be the adult.
I know it's just a television show. And I know this is the sort of thing that happens. But it still bothers me. I hate that it happens. What bothers me more is that we have little trouble recognizing the harm that divorce does to children. But we are still so unwilling to acknowledge the harm adoption does.
Maybe I just need to quit watching television.
I've been "lucky" enough to live through both. And they each affected me in different ways.
Brodzinsky, et al., compare and contrast the losses suffered by children of adoption and children of divorce. I get to reflect on how they can reinforce one another. After all, when one set of parents abandons you, it sets you up to think that relationships are impermanent things. Who knows when the next person will leave.
And with divorce, they do just that. You go from two new parents, back to one (depending on the custody arrangement). And when it happens at a relatively young age, it's hard to really understand that it's not about you, and that it won't keep happening.
So as I'm watching the season finale of Mad Men tonight, I'm struck by the scene where the two leads sit the children down to explain that daddy won't be living in the house anymore. All I can think about is how unfair this is to the children. I want to scream at the parents that their own shit is stupid, that they need to suck it up and do what's right for their kids. Never mind that they can't figure out how to make their relationship work, they have a responsibility to those kids, and their divorce is going to mess with them for the rest of their lives.
My reaction to this story is nearly as visceral as my reaction to every dumb adoption story I've seen on television since I started seeing adoptions stories on television. I hate how children are treated, and I hate how self-absorbed adults can be. Yes, it sucks to be responsible for another human being, but you had a kid, suck it up and be the adult.
I know it's just a television show. And I know this is the sort of thing that happens. But it still bothers me. I hate that it happens. What bothers me more is that we have little trouble recognizing the harm that divorce does to children. But we are still so unwilling to acknowledge the harm adoption does.
Maybe I just need to quit watching television.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Confusion
I think I have search on the brain right now. I'm not exactly sure why. But there it is, and I figure I should just run with it.
However, in my fixation about thinking through the issue of search, I want to be clear about something. The NCFA and other opponents to equal rights for adoptees would have you believe that open records is about search and reunion. It's not, and that is important.
By conflating the two issues, the NCFA avoids the equal rights argument and tries to suggest that what we are fighting for is the right to have relationships with our biological families. Of course, no one has the right to any relationship, so it seems easier to refute this position. It's called a straw man, and it's a fallacy. But if done well, it can be rhetorically effective.
The fact of the matter is, adoptees have a right to access government documents about themselves, the same documents every other citizen has access to. It doesn't matter for what purpose they want them. These are their documents. They have a right to them. We have a right to them.
Open records is simply about giving us the same rights everyone else has. It's about providing us access to documents that no other person is denied.
The issue of search is important. And it requires each adoptee to decide how to approach it, how they need to go about answering the questions, for themselves. Some may never search. But it is their decision.
The issue of open records is about equality and civil rights. We are owed these documents. And any discussion that avoids that simple observation is really avoiding the true issue. This is what it's about. And anyone who cares about adoptees should support open records.
However, in my fixation about thinking through the issue of search, I want to be clear about something. The NCFA and other opponents to equal rights for adoptees would have you believe that open records is about search and reunion. It's not, and that is important.
By conflating the two issues, the NCFA avoids the equal rights argument and tries to suggest that what we are fighting for is the right to have relationships with our biological families. Of course, no one has the right to any relationship, so it seems easier to refute this position. It's called a straw man, and it's a fallacy. But if done well, it can be rhetorically effective.
The fact of the matter is, adoptees have a right to access government documents about themselves, the same documents every other citizen has access to. It doesn't matter for what purpose they want them. These are their documents. They have a right to them. We have a right to them.
Open records is simply about giving us the same rights everyone else has. It's about providing us access to documents that no other person is denied.
The issue of search is important. And it requires each adoptee to decide how to approach it, how they need to go about answering the questions, for themselves. Some may never search. But it is their decision.
The issue of open records is about equality and civil rights. We are owed these documents. And any discussion that avoids that simple observation is really avoiding the true issue. This is what it's about. And anyone who cares about adoptees should support open records.
Friday, November 6, 2009
The Rhetoric of Marginalization
There are a number of commercials on television now whose first line of dialogue begins with the word "Fact!" Indeed, I just saw an Advil commercial that begins that way.
Of course, many times, what follows the exclamation "Fact!" in such commercials is almost never an actual fact. This is a corollary of something I often tell my students: Whenever someone uses the word "clearly" or "obviously," what follows is almost never clear or obvious.
I thought of this as I was doing a little bit of research for today's post. I was looking through various materials trying to recall where I had read that, according to the NCFA, few adoptees search for their biological families. Sure enough, it was in their "Adoption Factbook IV." In several articles, they claim that few adoptees search. Those who do are in the minority. And yet, curiously, they don't cite evidence for this "fact." They simply assert it over and over again. (This is the same method George W. Bush used to "prove" that Iraq had WMD.)
Of course, the NCFA has a vested interest in maintaining the perception that few adoptees search. There are political and economic motivations. Further, in perpetuating the perception that few adoptees search, they help discourage more adoptees from searching. If adoptees who are considering searching are told that it is abnormal to search, they are less likely to do it.
The reasons why are clear enough. There is, as I pointed out yesterday, a great deal of ambivalence for many adoptees regarding searching. There are emotional obstacles to doing so. Putting out the message that they would be in the minority of they searched simply reinforces those inherent obstacles.
I think that's part of why that passage I quoted yesterday from Being Adopted seems so important to me. Every adoptee searches. Every adoptee goes through these questions. How they resolve them varies. And I won't sit here and say that there is only one right way to resolve them. For me, I needed to hear the story from her. If someone else doesn't, that's okay. But that doesn't mean the person hasn't thought about the story, hasn't asked him or herself the questions.
Every adoptee needs to know that it is not unusual to ask these questions, to want to find some answers. They should be allowed to grapple with them in their own way, at their own pace, to be sure. But this repeated message that "most adoptees don't search" is harmful. Adoptees who hear it learn to stuff their curiosity and their emotions regarding their origins. However they decide to resolve these issues, they should be allowed the freedom to do so in their own way. They shouldn't have to hear, over and over again, how one way of doing so is strange and something most (normal?) adoptees never do.
Of course, many times, what follows the exclamation "Fact!" in such commercials is almost never an actual fact. This is a corollary of something I often tell my students: Whenever someone uses the word "clearly" or "obviously," what follows is almost never clear or obvious.
I thought of this as I was doing a little bit of research for today's post. I was looking through various materials trying to recall where I had read that, according to the NCFA, few adoptees search for their biological families. Sure enough, it was in their "Adoption Factbook IV." In several articles, they claim that few adoptees search. Those who do are in the minority. And yet, curiously, they don't cite evidence for this "fact." They simply assert it over and over again. (This is the same method George W. Bush used to "prove" that Iraq had WMD.)
Of course, the NCFA has a vested interest in maintaining the perception that few adoptees search. There are political and economic motivations. Further, in perpetuating the perception that few adoptees search, they help discourage more adoptees from searching. If adoptees who are considering searching are told that it is abnormal to search, they are less likely to do it.
The reasons why are clear enough. There is, as I pointed out yesterday, a great deal of ambivalence for many adoptees regarding searching. There are emotional obstacles to doing so. Putting out the message that they would be in the minority of they searched simply reinforces those inherent obstacles.
I think that's part of why that passage I quoted yesterday from Being Adopted seems so important to me. Every adoptee searches. Every adoptee goes through these questions. How they resolve them varies. And I won't sit here and say that there is only one right way to resolve them. For me, I needed to hear the story from her. If someone else doesn't, that's okay. But that doesn't mean the person hasn't thought about the story, hasn't asked him or herself the questions.
Every adoptee needs to know that it is not unusual to ask these questions, to want to find some answers. They should be allowed to grapple with them in their own way, at their own pace, to be sure. But this repeated message that "most adoptees don't search" is harmful. Adoptees who hear it learn to stuff their curiosity and their emotions regarding their origins. However they decide to resolve these issues, they should be allowed the freedom to do so in their own way. They shouldn't have to hear, over and over again, how one way of doing so is strange and something most (normal?) adoptees never do.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Every Adoptee Searches
When I started actively searching for my first mom, I started getting a little crazy. The emotional turmoil of deciding to move forward with a search, the waiting, the wondering, the ambivalence, the feelings of disloyalty... All of it drove me a little mad. (For those that know me, a little MORE mad.)
I began scouring the internet for resources to help me. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I didn't really know anyone adopted when I was growing up (or really, until I got into reunion), so I didn't know how other adoptees felt about this. I just wanted some insights into what I was going through.
I stumbled upon a review of Being Adopted: The Lifelong Search for Self by Brodzinsky, et al. I ordered it from Amazon and began devouring it immediately. The book was a life-saver in many ways: for the first time in my life I realized I wasn't alone in how I felt about adoption. I think that's why the book is still the first one I recommend to anyone when it comes to books about adoption.
One passage, in the first half of the book, has stuck with me:
Those questions are some of the earliest ones I can remember. Asking them helped shape my childhood and, ultimately, my identity.
We usually take "search" in such a literal way. And it is heavy with implications and pitfalls. What does it say about our feelings towards adoption, towards our adoptive family, towards ourselves? But I have to believe every adoptee searches, in precisely the way that Brodzinsky and his co-authors suggest.
Some adoptees may resolve those questions without ever performing a literal search. Or some might abandon the search before it ever gets that far. But I have trouble believing that any adoptee never asks these, and related, questions. Never wonders about where they came from.
Those questions, that wondering, is a form of search. We may forgo carrying it through to the end, to finding out real answers, but the questions are always there to be asked.
I'm glad I found some of my answers.
I began scouring the internet for resources to help me. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I didn't really know anyone adopted when I was growing up (or really, until I got into reunion), so I didn't know how other adoptees felt about this. I just wanted some insights into what I was going through.
I stumbled upon a review of Being Adopted: The Lifelong Search for Self by Brodzinsky, et al. I ordered it from Amazon and began devouring it immediately. The book was a life-saver in many ways: for the first time in my life I realized I wasn't alone in how I felt about adoption. I think that's why the book is still the first one I recommend to anyone when it comes to books about adoption.
One passage, in the first half of the book, has stuck with me:
We are often asked, "What percentage of adoptees search for their birth parents?" And our answer surprises people: "One hundred percent." In our experience, all adoptees engage in a search process. It may not be a literal search, but it is a meaningful search nonetheless. It begins when the child first asks, "Why did it happen?" "Who are they?" "Where are they now?"
Those questions are some of the earliest ones I can remember. Asking them helped shape my childhood and, ultimately, my identity.
We usually take "search" in such a literal way. And it is heavy with implications and pitfalls. What does it say about our feelings towards adoption, towards our adoptive family, towards ourselves? But I have to believe every adoptee searches, in precisely the way that Brodzinsky and his co-authors suggest.
Some adoptees may resolve those questions without ever performing a literal search. Or some might abandon the search before it ever gets that far. But I have trouble believing that any adoptee never asks these, and related, questions. Never wonders about where they came from.
Those questions, that wondering, is a form of search. We may forgo carrying it through to the end, to finding out real answers, but the questions are always there to be asked.
I'm glad I found some of my answers.
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