My maternal grandmother was from the hills of Tennessee. She used to call herself a "ridge runner." She had only a grammar-school level education, but she was a smart lady. I remember talking to her about the Civil Rights movement of the 60's (she was a die-hard Democrat) and how it seemed that people couldn't see the injustice right in front of their eyes.
Her words to me were, "There's a lot of wrong that goes on in this world, and most folks turn the other way and don't look. Them as don't want to know, ain't goin' to learn."
I look around me at the people involved in adoption, on either end and see so many of "them as don't want to know." I see mothers cozying up to adopters and facilitators and undoing years of hard work done by many of us older moms as we tried to lay the foundation for protest against this heinous and unnatural practice. I see people who accuse others of "adopter bashing," just because some of us hold adopters responsible for creating the demand that fuels the market for womb-fresh newborns. I see younger moms coming along and booting us BSE moms out of the way and demeaning our years of experience and knowledge. I see adoptees searching just so they can attack their mothers rather than listening to the truth.
At a natural mom's forum, we had the usual adopter post that stated how she was offended by us calling ourselves "natural" mothers because that indicated that her "motherhood" was unnatural and "it would confuse adoptees." I submit that the only things that confuse adoptees are adoption itself and the many mixed messages they get from those who adopt them. It's like the ultra-dogmatic acceptance of one belief without even exploring another. It is the desire to remain ignorant if learning the truth upsets the status-quo and the adoption applecart.
Heaven forbid that the holy adopters might get knocked down off their self-constructed pedestal and be seen as human beings who coveted, didn't care about the pain caused to the mother, and became obsessively possessive when reunion occurred. Nope, let's still see them as the saints the industry and they have painted them to be. That way, the adoptee can feel free to abuse the mother and protect the adopters, regardless of the hostility and demeaning treatment they dished out to the mother.
Nope, we are not going to be able to "educate" a great number of people because they are, as my grandmother said, "them as don't want to know." We need to look to the general public with our educational efforts and stop giving adopters any credit for anything except getting what they wanted.....period.
1 comment:
I have no time for being coy these days so I like to get right to it, and your post did just that. No frills, no bells and whistles, and no grammatical hocus-pocus. No siree.
Just tell it like it is, and I feel you did that quite well. Adopters are, just that, adopters, they accept and act in accordance with a plan, an agenda, and now days that appears to be to convince us that adoption is natural and they are entitled to our children because that is their agenda. And what just blows my mind is that they actually take themselves seriously. Arguing that we have no right to be called natural mothers because that would make them unnatural mothers? Hello, earth to adopters, you are not someone eles's child's mother and will never be their mothers. Period. You may parent them, but thats about all I will give you credit for.
My advice to adopters is simply STFU!
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