Not a Gift

Maybe I need to stay off the internet. Much of the time, I just find things that annoy me. And then I feel the need to go onto one of my blogs and begin ranting about it. So I guess it's good for you, my reader.

Unless what upsets me causes me to say something that upsets you. Hmmm... It's a conundrum, I suppose.

I'm tired of seeing people refer to children as gifts. Once was enough. Children are not gifts to be given to a couple that cannot have their own child. Whatever you think about adoption, thinking about children as gifts to be given away turns them from people into objects.

For me, though, it is a thousand times worse when I see the "gift" talk coming from a first mom. It's not just a slap in the face. It's a stab in the heart. I don't want to be told that it was for the best that I was given up. And I don't want to be told that I was a gift.

I know that not every first mother had much choice. I know that many of them have been hurt by adoption, too. And I don't hold it against them. But I don't want to hear that my pain was for the best. And I don't want to be reduced to an object given away to strangers.

I am not a gift. I never was a gift. I am a human being. And adoption hurts me every day of my life. Good things have happened to me in spite of my adoption. And I have not let my adoption drag my down so far that I can't pick myself back up. But I am not a gift. And every time I hear someone say it, a first mom say it, I feel reduced just a bit more.

So please, say whatever nice things about adoption you want. But do not call it a gift. My pain, my life, is not a gift.