I've had a break from blogging this past week. Hubby took a week off and we did the "Clean Sweep" thing to our master bedroom and walk-in closet and got a good start on the garage. It's amazing the things you can accumulate in 18 years. Goodwill and the landfill were enriched.
I came across a lot of old stuff from my reunions with my surrendered children in my cleaning frenzy....things I had written back when I was still calling myself a "birth"mother. Those things were at the beginning of a 14-year odyssey of education and enlightenment and I cannot believe how far I have come from that timid beemommy that wanted my children's adopters to like me so that I could, at least, maybe have a little place in their lives. Coming out of that fog is so empowering.
For instance, I read another study this morning, on a blogspot blog like this one, that only reiterates and emphasizes the things that many of us have learned long ago. This study, 'Degenerative Policy Design: An Examination of Sealed Adoption Record Policy by Larry Watson, LMSW-ACP ', shows how the laws governing closed adoption records evolved over the years. One sentence, in particular, stood out to me. "Laws closing adoption records to the parties were enacted not as a shield to protect birth parents from their adult children's ever learning identity, but as a sword to prevent them from interfering with the adoptive families raising the children."
I am so happy to see this on a blog that adoptees read. When we lose our children to adoption, everyone tells them it was our choice...our fault. When they are denied their own history as adults, again, facilitators, adopters and others blame us in the name of "b****mother confidentiality." Those of us who have seen the surrender papers or facsimilies can attest to the fact that there is NO clause or reference to a guarantee of anonymity for mothers. MOST mothers find the idea of needing protection of our confidentiality from our children to be laughable.
No, indeed. The entire idea of mothers of adoption loss as a group desiring such "protection" is just another fabrication by the industry, facilitators, adoption attorneys, etc., who want to protect the REAL client/customer...the adopters. This is just one more of the lies that the industry and adopters tell our children and our children believe it and we wonder why they get angry at US??
Looking back, I can see a time when I bought this whole line of garbage, including the idea of "confidentiality," hook, line and sinker. I, personally, didn't want anonymity and "protection" from my children, but I believed it was a promise made to those of us who lost children to adoption. I can read my naivete' in the old, saved writings of early reunion and awakening. What a difference a good education can make in one's perceptions.
There is more information available now, than 14 years ago. There are more mothers speaking out and telling the truth about our loss, pain and frustrations. People are starting to listen and learn. I just wish the process could get faster and less painful. I also hope it doesn't take the next awakening Mother of Loss as many years as it has taken me to accept and embrace the truth.
3 comments:
Robin, I also read Larry Watson,LMSW and adoptionist's , article on the blogspot. He used to be the director of the Methodist Mission "home'..a Texas maternity 'facility' and adoption agency. He is knee-deep in adoption..
While his article does state the truth that the records were sealed to prevent natural parents from "'interfering"' with the adoptive family...adoptionist Watson still seems to agree with that idea..and holds us responsible. He says that [birth]parents are seen as a dependent and /or deviant group and that we "relinquished" our rights to open records(this is false...an infant surrender is not a surrender of open records, and adoption existed long before the records were sealed). He says that adoptees should separate themselves from our causes, inclduing open records for ourselves..and that the only thing we can do for open records is to support adoptees in their quest for open records for themselves.He contradicts the statement that we didn't "ask for confidentiality" when he says that we relinquished our right to open records.
Either we did or we didn't...which is it. He also states that only NCFA and some powerful adopters and a few agencies are against open records..this is untrue..there are many more players in the "keep the records closed" game..the ACLU, PLanned Parenthood, most adoption agencies whether they belong to NCFA or not, are against opening records, to anyone. They want control.
I don't know what this guys game is, but it wouldn't be the first time an adoptionist has tried to pretend to be a "friend"....
I think I was just concentrating on that one statement which is good for us in that a known adoption proponent is telling a home truth....one that many advocates of closed records and no adoption reform have denied over the past few decades.
I found some disturbing things in the rest of the article, but I wanted that one fact pointed out to everyone....we didn't get records closed...adopters did.
Robin,I can see that it appeared that he was saying something revolutionary..but that isn't so... I think other adoption proponents and social workers have admitted that the records were sealed to protect adopters...Baran and Pannor, and Adam Pertman have said it, and adoptee reformer Jean Paton pointed it out decades ago. She was herself a social worker but did not do adoptions that I know of.
Watson is now working at the University of Texas:Arlington in the School of Social Work. He has a link on his website to the NCFA infant adoption awareness grant.He is clearly pushing adoption.He is no friend of natural parents.I wonder what he wrote this paper for...and what exactly he is trying to prove.
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