Friday, September 15, 2006

The Trouble With Blogs

For some reason, today, I am unable to access my blog. I get one of those annoying white screens and my paranoid mind wonders why. I am hoping that this message will be there, in any case, when the cyber-Gods deign to restore my blog to public view. Maybe they are doing maintenance or maybe the ghost of Bill Pierce, former Dark Prince of adoption now deceased, is haunting the Internet.

The trouble with these things is also that you need, at least, a crash course in html and a lot of computer savvy to make it look right. My friend, Claud, has her blog, "Musings of the Lame," looking so professional. I am considering hiring her to format mine. I am just wondering what her price might be...Claud couldn't possibly come cheap. She's a class act. Maybe I can appeal to her by making her pity my blundering attempts at formatting? Hmmmmm

In any event, I have to be glad that I have a little corner of the Internet in which to say my piece and hope I am heard. So far, I've only had a couple of, shall we say, "challenging" comments and they were a bit too "angry" so I did my little trash can thing. That's funny....I thought just us mothers of loss and adult adoptees were supposed to be the angry ones.

Today, the conference in NYC gets going and I get going down to my lonely appointment, in 45 minutes, with the out-patient surgery department for a sciatic nerve block and steroid injection to try to ease the pain of my chronic sciatica. It ain't easy gettin old! Guys, have a good one and I really would rather be with you than where I am going. The good part of it is that I'll get a little bit of petting from hubby and children and an excuse to lie down (on my left side only).

An old counselor buddy of mine would have had a field day with this sciatic nerve thing. He always maintained that our bodies demonstrate our issues with their aches and pains. He had chronic back trouble up to the time of his death which he said came from taking all the troubles of the world on his back. I can just hear him now saying to me, "Robin, I think that adoption has become a pain in your ass!" and I think he would be right. I remember that, after they passed that stupid 24-hour law here in Florida, I had a migraine of monumental proportions. So, we see another problem with blogs being the fact that old ladies can complain about their ailments and that can drive a lot of people up the proverbial wall.

So, we come to today's bit about statements I have read here and there on the online forums. This concerns a good beemommie who said, in a way to attempt to make OUSA look less than sharp, that we moms from earlier days (The BSE) can't go back and "fix" what happened to us. Well, DUH!! Gee, and here I have been slaving over a time machine to do just that. Seriously, we do have enough gray matter under our hair to know that we cannot change the past, but we can sure enough bring it to light, show the injustices that occured, point out the responsible parties and the damage done, and make the adoption industry a bit more cautious and the government a little less likely to dismiss the single mother as a "problem" to be solved. We might even get to the point that we can actually get an official admission of the wrongs done and an apology. It's been done before. Now, none of that will change the events of the past, but it will validate us in our motherhood, allow the nation to see us as women empowered by self-esteem and, hopefully, change the path of adoption in the future.

Right now, the single mother is still an object of discrimination and scorn, even though a lot of the old stigma has been removed. Now, rather than seeing her as a slut and shameless hussy, she is seen as a drain on the coffers of the government and "unready to 'parent'(and parent is a noun..NOT a verb!)" even though she may be an exemplary parent. Whether we were shamed or are blamed, the result is the same. We are second-class citizens and I don't like that spot.

So you see the trouble with blogs....we are empowered to say things that so many people want to dismiss, denigrate and ignore, but we just keep on saying it. Now, I am going to go get that pain in my ass fixed....for a while, at least.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Robin,

I am always amazed at the poor logic shown by those who are trying to shame us into shutting up.

If the whole reason for speaking out about our mistreatment were to somehow "fix" what happened in the past....then why would anyone bother to speak out about any injustice or crime? Why bother to have penalties for crimes?Why have laws? Why bother to try to change anything that is or has been, wrong??
We can never 'fix" the past..but we can work to prevent it from being the way of the future..and we deserve to be acknowledged.Our experience has been hidden for too long, even though it was common knowledge that mothers were sent away and coerced into adoption.

I think the "good beemoms" and the adopted people and adopters just don't want it to change...Obviously, the system is a good thing for adopters. They want children.
I think that some of the adopted people and the 'good beemoms" don't want to face what happened. It is too painful for them apparently.
But their refusal to speak out against adoption/family dismemberment makes them accomplices in the destruction..some of them will wake up, after awhile, but some of them never do.

FauxClaud said...

Oh my dear Robin....silly you..all you have to do is ask..lol...I would be more than pleased to help!!! Goose.