National Adoption Day

National Adoption Day has come and gone. There have been many stories about the joy felt by families across the country.

Of course, there are no stories (that I've seen) about the harm of adoption. No sense of what these children have lost.

We celebrate (and by "we," I mean "they") the positive. And hope that the children never talk about the negatives. Never talk about what was lost. Never wonder where they came from. Never think about the lies written on a piece of paper about who gave birth to them.

And when those children do speak up, they are expected to be grateful. If they hadn't been so luck to be abandoned by their parents, they might have wound up an abortion. That's what we are told.

Abortion. The great mallet to hit people over the head with that might raise doubts about the benefits of adoption. Never mind that they are separate issues. Since I could have been aborted (though, truly, I couldn't have been... my mom didn't even know about abortion), I am expected to be happy and thankful I was adopted. And I should be quiet, so as not to ruin it for everyone else.

I, for one, am glad that children who were in foster care have some permanency in their lives. In as much as National Adoption Day raises awareness of the needs that children have, I'm all for it. But that's not what gets talked about this day. We hear talk about "forever families" (whatever that means), and the happiness experienced by the new parents.

But we don't talk about the legal fictions that are created on this day. We don't talk about the wounds formed by adoption. These subjects are still taboo in our society. They might hurt someone's feelings, after all.

Hogwash.

It's a day to celebrate lies and bury the truth. It's a sad day. But we don't hear about that. Those of us who live adoption every day are told to shut up, sit down, and be grateful. How can I celebrate that?