The Numbers Game

How many adoptees want their original birth certificates? How many biological parents don't want their information given out to adoptees?

The first question is something opponents to open records like to use to argue against open records. The second question is ignored, or if it's addressed, it is argued that it's irrelevant.

The reason behind why opponents like to toss around claims about how many adoptees want open records is obvious. As I discussed last week in my post "The Rhetoric of Marginalization," opponents want to paint a picture that it's only a small minority of adoptees who want open records. Given that collecting such numbers is nigh impossible (because no one even knows how many adoptees are out there, much less where), such arguments should be easily dismissed.

Because of the trouble getting hard numbers, this is a hard argument to refute, but it should also be pointed out that it's irrelevant. It doesn't matter if only a few adoptees want equal treatment. It is something that belongs to us a civil right, even if only a fraction of us want to assert it. (This seems unlikely to me, but I don't pretend to have evidence.)

The number of biological parents who aren't interested in sealed records seems more clearly on our side. The range I usually see bandied about is that somewhere between 90% and 95% of biological mothers want their children to have access to their original birth certificate. The response, however, is obvious: we cannot allow the majority to trump the rights of the minority. It doesn't matter what the majority want; the minority has rights that should be protected.

In general, I believe, this form of argument has merit. The minority ought to be protected from the tyranny of the majority. But the specifics don't support sealed records; indeed, the case is the reverse.

Opponents of open records suggest that the majority of adoptees don't want open records, and that fact is somehow supposed to support the invented right of anonymity for biological parents. But no such right truly exists. And in as much as it exists in practice, it should be trumped by the adoptee's right to their identity, a human right if ever there was one.

It is incumbent upon the opponents to show the basis for the supposed right to anonymity, and then to show that such a right is somehow more basic than the right to one's identity.

Failing this, opponents attempt to change the conversation to a discussion about what the majority wants. This is a losing argument for either side to rely on. We cannot find definitive numbers (so either side can make themselves look good with bogus surveys and the like). And what the majority wants is irrelevant to what rights people ought to have. Human rights are not things that can be given up just because the majority want to (or, more commonly, want to take them away from some minority group).

Different But Equal

Problem-solving usually requires creativity. I always think of that when I get into discussions about being anti-adoption. People always think of worst-case scenarios and wonder, "what about the children?" (I'm going to ignore the rampant corruption for now, which too often gives the lie to the feigned concern for the children.)

If we don't have adoption, how we will care for the children who are abused, abandoned, or otherwise cannot be cared for by their parents?

The mere fact that the only solution people can think of is adoption points to the lack of imagination necessary to solve various problems. We think the only solution to children who need love and care is to falsify family records and relationships.

Adoption itself, the language used and the way it is viewed by society, helps to mask the problems that give rise to it.

Adoption, as I've pointed out before, involves loss. A child loses his or her parents. Either they cannot or will not care for him or her. That is a loss.

When we "create" familial relationships through adoption, we cover over the loss, making grieving that loss more complicated. Instead of acknowledging that loss, allowing the child to grieve it, acknowledging the complexities that arise with new familial relationships - ones created by the law instead of by biology - instead of all of that, we pretend as though the problem has been solved.

Rather, all we've done is bury the problem. We complicate an already complicated situation. By insisting on using the term "mother" for the adoptive mother, we confuse and obscure what is already an emotionally dangerous arrangement.

Don't misunderstand me. An adoptive mother may be as important, or more so, emotionally as the biological mother. But she isn't the biological mother. But because we think in such simplistic terms, we co-op the term, and then insist that it doesn't indicate the biological relationship.

I get the impulse. We want to make the situation as easy for the child as possible. We don't want to confuse him or her. Tell the child "I'm your mommy now" makes it easy for the child in conversations with other kids. Trying to explain the intricacies of adoption to the child in terms that will make it possible for the child to explain it to other children is too much for the child to accept. I'm sure that's how we can explain it in terms of thinking about the welfare of the child.

But is it worth to save the child that heartache only to cause more lasting problems? Instead of facing up to the complexities in adoption, and trying to address them, we'd rather ignore them.

I really think we need to jettison adoption and it's problematic terminology and thinking. We need to recognize that there are many important people in our lives, from our childhood on. Parents are important. But so are teachers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, mentors, friends of the family, and the like. For some people, like myself, there were other people who were crucial in our lives. They weren't our parents (biologically-speaking) but they raised us and cared for us. Did they do it only because we call them my parents? No. They did it for ten months before they legally became my parents. Why gloss over our relationship with the same words we use for other relationships? Why pretend that I didn't lose my parents at a young age by calling other people my parents?

We need to think about this in more robust ways. We can invent institutions and language that honors the complex origin of those people we currently call adoptees. I have to believe we, as human beings, have more creativity than this.

Understanding Loss

My sister-in-law had a miscarriage. This was a year ago. I know that it was a year ago not simply because of the brief blog post about it but because she posts about it on Facebook. She still mourns the loss of her son.

I feel badly for her. And I've certainly never noticed that anyone on her Facebook account has ever told her she needs move past it, to get over it.

I think it stands out for me because it reminds me of the loss inherent in adoption. I see this woman mourning for her child. And I see the outpouring of support for her.

And I'm befuddled by the failure of people to understand the loss of relinquishment. I don't pretend to know what she's going through. But I know she hurts. And she deserves understanding.

And it bothers me that the loss of adoption requires so much explanation, and is so easily dismissed by others. A parent loses a child, and a child loses a parent. And we are supposed to spend the entire month of November celebrating this sort of thing? Celebrating?

Further, no one doubts that my sister-in-law was her son's mother. No one questions that. And they shouldn't.

And yet, some of the insensitive people I've seen talk about adoption refuse to acknowledge that the biological parents ARE parents. They give weird definitions that entail your mother is the person who raises you, is the person that is always there for you. These descriptions would entail that my sister-in-law is not a mother, but I don't know anyone insensitive enough to make that claim. Yet people have no trouble doing it when it comes to biological parents who relinquish.

I have sympathy for my sister-in-law. And I'm not sure I feel right dragging her story into this discussion. I don't mean to minimize, in any way, the loss she has experienced and continues to experience. But the mind boggles when I see people deny the loss of adoption.

Miscommunication?

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.

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.

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.

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.