The Room Smells Like Bananas

My youngest son has been agonizing over spending the holidays with members of his father's family. He is very NOT religious while certain members of the paternal clan are, shall we say, fundamentally and terminally dogmatic? One person, in particular, could try the patience of Buddha.

My maternal grandmother was a great believer in the value of tact. Though a strict Southern Baptist and a active, life-long Democrat, she did abide by a rock-hard rule. When in a social situation or enjoying time with family and friends, one should according to Grandma, never discuss politics and religion. I know that is a good idea, in theory, but there are times when the harder one tries to avoid the sticky subjects the more aware everyone is of those issues. Sometimes, that 800-pound gorilla in the room just won't stay invisible.

There has been so much that I have learned to avoid in discourse with my reunited children. Unfortunately, I still make my opinions known here on my blog and curiosity prevailed and all the avoidance did no good. I tried to make it clear to my two adult, reunited children, where I stood on the subjects of adoption, adopTING and adopTERS. It seems though,  that once that gorilla is ignored enough, erroneous assumptions are made about who sees what, how and why.

I don't hate adopters. I know many that are good people. I also know many who have lied, given conditional love and have a very self-entitled attitude or have done even worse things. The hard truth is that I know more of the latter than the former. The problem is not the people who adopt, but the fact that they DO adopt. Those who adopt infants, especially, help feed the greed of a going industry that is reaching out into the world to obtain product to meet the demand. If there were no demand for adoptable infants and toddlers that would effectively break the back of that big industry. I will always maintain that adopters fuel the industry and no one can ever really debate me to the point of changing my mind on that. I am just as persuaded in my mind that a better system of kinship and legal guardianships would be preferable to adoption of older children. I can't help it...adoption is a legalized lie and I can't see it any other way.

I have been in situations where there were adopters present. I bit my tongue. I have heard my own child tell me that it was "meant to be" for me to lose her to adoption and to her particular adopters. I tried to express my disagreement, but gently. And I bit my tongue. My tongue is sore from biting and I wonder if it would be reasonable to ask that these pro-adoption stories not be told around me? Could my viewpoint be respected? It seems that it is either agree to disagree or just let the lies sit there like a big, hulking brute taking all the air out of the room.

That is my son's problem. He is an atheist. That is his choice and I respect it. But certain other family members feel it is their place to correct his (as they see it) erroneous thinking. So I ask, if he isn't preaching his ideology to you, why should you feel you have the right to preach yours to him? Segue into the topic of adoption, and if I am not trying to force you to look askance at adopters, why should you expect me to listen to you extol them?

In a way, I am glad things came to a head on that subject. It was often frustrating and hurtful to talk to my own child and hear things I knew were not true. I spoke the truth about MY experience on MY blog and was raked over the coals for it. I take that from no one. It's healthier to know where everyone stands and then try to build from there. If we don't stay honest with each other, then all we are doing is trying to ignore the 800-pound gorilla in the room.

Even if we don't look at him, we know he's there because the whole room smells like bananas.