The Myth of the Triad

Probably the most misleading concept to be brought into the adoption arena is that of the so-called "Triad." No one has said it better than Bastardette did in this post to her blog back in 2007.

No matter how it is drawn, triad means triangle...three equal parts with equitable powers that make up a whole. Adoption "Triadinists" use the natural mother, the adopters and the adoptee to symbolize their concept of a triad.

I've said it before and I will say it again. There is no such thing as an adoption triad. First of all, and thank you for this sentence, BD, "surrender does not equal adoption!" I just love that truth. We did not surrender our children to adopters. We were backed up against the wall and had to wave the white flag for agencies, the state, lawyers, our parents and social workers. We were the source of supply, only, and our rights ended where the facilitators' began. How can we be considered an equal partner when we were stripped of all autonomy from the get-go? There is NOTHING equal about what happened to us or to our children who are still being denied, in many states and provinces, the simple right to their own, true identities.

If we held up a scale, and placed the powerful on one platform and the powerless on the other, we natural mothers and our children would be hanging on for dear life to keep from sliding off. If the industry ever gets honest, which I believe will happen when it snows two feet at the equator, the general populace will be appalled.

The triad is another myth, misleading as were the things that were said to us when we were being warehoused and stripped of our parental rights. It's just another industry trick like "open" adoption and post-birth "counseling." In my opinion, a social worker with an adoption agency counseling a mother who has surrendered is like a murderer counseling the loved ones of their victim. This is why there are so many groups for mothers to get together and for adoptees to share experiences with each other. We cannot get compassion, understanding or cooperation from anyone but our own.

That triad weighs a million tons and it is sitting on our backs. Getting out from under is a fight but we are a scrappy lot. Adoption is an INDUSTRY and big business and the bottom line and spin doctoring have no place when the life and future of a mother and her child are concerned. The self-entitled are the market and the facilitators are coming up with all manner of ways to fill the demand. They have to be more creative, these days, than they were in the EMS, but, they still manage to play that religion card, appealing to the puritanical and the rigid.

So, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are a triad. Executive, Legislative and Judicial are a triad. Peace Love and Hope are a triad. But, there IS NO TRIAD IN ADOPTION.

Silver Linings and Rays of Sunshine

In these hard times and with the uphill battle so many of us are fighting, good news is always welcome. While we are pursuing recognition and redress for the mothers of the EMS, we are also normal people living our lives.

That's why is it so easy to delight in less "news-worthy" but very important good things. A friend, out of work for months, finally got a job. Home prices in our neighborhood rose a bit making our imminent retirement a tad easier and we have received two inquiries already. A friend's granddaughter decided against surrender and is going to keep and raise her expected little boy. A family member with liver failure finally received a transplant and is doing well. My sister-in-law is recovering well from her surgery for early-stage cervical cancer and another sister-in-law is making her way through the grief of the death of her son after three years and is taking a great deal of comfort from her faith. She has also adopted her late son's dog and the two of them have become very good friends. A little girl in my husband's family who was dealing with some hard times and parental neglect has been taken in by her aunt and is loving her new neighborhood and school and has made three new friends.

Those are the things of everyday living, but we tend to fail to appreciate them if we are too single-minded. We can also give the impression that all we are is the sum of our issues and debates online. That's why Internet communication can be misleading. People can seem so one-dimensional.

We mothers who lost our children to coerced surrender during the EMS are everywoman. We live lives that are very similar to everyone else's. Our lives are not constant bitterness and pain. We laugh, we celebrate when appropriate and we fight for justice when appropriate. We are in every walk of life from housewife to artist to secretary to teacher.

I think it is important to stress this so that those who oppose us know that they are not dealing with overgrown teens stuck in the past as has been charged. We were victims then. We are NOT victims today. Our very survival has made us strong. We won't back down from a fight. We have loving families that have our backs. We have adult reunited children who care enough to try to understand.

I would suggest that some of these folks who attack the EMS moms on Yahoo Answers and Craigslist not underestimate us. There is more to us than what you see on a message board.

This is just a FYI that is overdue.

See Next Page

I am feeling feisty and frustrated, this morning, tired of the Birthers and the Death Panel screamers and the Chicken Little tactics of the far right. Please see my post, The Sky Is Falling, on my other blog, Slightly Left of Center.

More on Responsibility

My friend, Musing Mother, just posted a piece that was written tongue-in-cheek with her usual funny sarcasm. Her post addresses the idiocy of the agencies, NCFA and others on that end who are scrambling away from any responsibility for the many injuries of adoption.

Her idea is simple but effective; if they want to keep the records closed, then let them and the powers that be (government) finance and institute regular DNA testings for the markings of possible disease characteristics. When faced with that kind of financial drain, they would be only too happy to open the records. It's like anything else in this sappy, happy, capitalistic society of ours. Threaten the bottom line and you get results.

The whole idea behind the "required mothers' medical history" touted in some open records proposals is their way of transferring the responsibility onto the mothers along with possible law suits and jail terms. Luckily, we have HIPAA protection as does everyone else in the country. Of course, it wouldn't be the first time that the industry tried to circumvent the law for their own benefit.

It's still such a simple thing. Let adult adopted people have their OBC's and give them to the mothers, as well. We were still the parents of record when these documents were created, yet we were not given a copy of the OBC just like we were not given copies of our surrender documents.

If the industry wants to follow the path of least resistance and look a bit better in the eyes of the adopted people and their mothers, then let us find each other, develop whatever relationship we wish and share information the tried and true, old-fashioned way.

Unless, of course, they have anything to hide..................?