Adoption-Speak / Fantasy Speak

I am going to go out on a limb here (bada-bump!), and echo the words of an adopted friend who says that many adopted people hate the term, "Forever Family." Move over, friend, and make room for your natural mothers. We hate it, as well, and that is because we can see the fantasy/legalized lie it promotes.

Courts, agencies and adopters do everything in their power to erase us, diminish our importance to our children and superimpose their personal history on infants and children who have heritages of their own. That covers everything from the horrible "birthmother/baby-donor" title they have hung on us moms, to the specious "Pregnant by Adoption" and "Paper Pregnant" tee shirts and the fact that people refer to adults as "adopted CHILDREN." I wonder when they are going to be allowed to grow up and be respected as adult citizens with rights to their heritages and to communication with their natural families.

I guess that is why I look upon adoption as a manifestation of emotional illness. The whole idea of "as if born to" is man playing God and impossible to truly accomplish. That leads to dangerous and emotionally abusive games in an adoptive group and the child's heritage is that large, pink and purple, polka-dotted elephant in the living room that everyone ignores. At best, it is only given token service, ie., "your mother couldn't raise you so she loved you so much she gave you to us." Oh, Puh-leeeeeze. Now tell them the one about the three bears.

The reality of coercion, psychological manipulation, industry machinations and legal loopholes belie the fairy tale and what all that creates is often very unhealthy. Language is powerful and the industry knows that. These cutesy, little catch-phrases, horrific celebrations, such as "gotcha day" and the skewed "compassion (wink, wink)" for the beemommie are all tools used by the adoption moguls and their customers striving to keep the fantasy alive and/or profitable.

I wonder if adopters realize the silent or implied message they are sending their adoptees about the quality of their heritage, which translates into the quality of the adoptee, themselves? My children, surrendered and raised, have a great and interesting, natural family background...one that anyone with sense would be proud to acknowledge. But that is not what my daughter was told. The truth shook both my surrendered children to the soles of their adult bootees. Self-esteem cannot be "grafted on" by a non-genetically connected family. Neither can traits, talents and traditions.

Someone asked me how it would have been better had I raised my surrendered children. I said that I guessed that depended on what you consider "better." They would not have had the material goodies they enjoyed in equal abundance, but they would have had firm knowledge of who they were, where they came from, why they look and act as they do, devoted nurturing and a warm, caring family. Isn't that all any child really needs?

The twists and turns of adoption-speak are, in my opinion, totally contrary to any ideas the industry and the pro-adoption organizations have touted concerning "adoption reform." Potential adopters need to understand, if they absolutely must adopt and if some poor mother does gets pulled into the web, that they are raising a child who is NOT their own, who has a family, a heritage, and questions that deserve honest answers with no warm-fuzzy fairy tales to confuse and confound their little minds. Face it.."as if born to" is something that no legal document or wish or hope can accomplish. The truth is out there. Wanting to believe otherwise won't make the truth go away.

My children, surrendered and raised, have, in truth, a "forever family" and I am part of it, along with my family and their natural fathers' families. It's a truth that might hurt, but a lot of the truth does hurt. Tinkerbelle does not exist and there is no fairy-dust vernacular that will alter genes and DNA. I don't think that the industry, in going back to the drawing board, is going to be able to find a way to pull THAT rabbit out of a hat.

And to those women who take hormones in order to lactate so that they can "nurse" their adoption-acquired infant.....Oooooooh, YUCK! Those drugs are not good for baby or for you. You must be pretty desperate for a fairy tale ending.