Bless Their Hearts

If you have ever lived in any part of the South for any amount of time, then you know that the women of the South have a way of softening the harshest criticisms by adding one little phrase:"Bless his/her heart." It's all part of that manners thing. Yes, I said that southerners are polite. I didn't say they weren't human. Gossip is as prevalent in the South as anywhere else.

I remember being at church one Easter morning when I was about twelve and overhearing what I refer to as the "Biddy Brigade" critiquing the clothes and hats that other women were wearing. One spoke up and said, "You know, I think Malvena is color-blind, bless her heart." Malvena (not her real name but close) was resplendent in day-glow, hot pink. Her cheeks were pink, her lipstick was pink...even her shoes, bag, corsage and eyeshadow were pink. I sang in the choir and all eyes in the loft were constantly drawn to that eye-blinding spot of pink in the congregation. I know she thought the looks she received were admiring and I had to give her an A for having Chutzpah (chooots-pah?) enough to wear what she liked.

These days, people are prone to just put out those zingers without adding the softener at the end. But I have a lot of hearts I want to bless. For instance:

The adoption industry seems to smugly believe that we Mothers are no threat to them, Bless their Hearts.

That PAP bashed me online because she is still insecure about adopting, Bless her Heart.

My child's adopter went into a nasty tailspin when my child found me, Bless her Heart.

Those folks seem to think they are more entitled to our children than we are, Bless their Hearts.

Everyone connected with adoption seems to think that we mothers should take a back seat and suffer. How silly, Bless their Hearts.

Gee! We are still treated like teenage delinquents and our adult children are still treated like infants. These people are seriously deluded, Bless their Hearts.

Michelle Bachmann is bat guano crazy, Bless her Heart. (Sorry...had to throw that one in)

So, you see that any allusion to or critique of delusional, greedy, arrogant and rapacious behavior, such as that which abounds in the world of surrender coercion, the Industry of Adoption, and the rabid market for babies can get the Steel Magnolia treatment by just adding a "Bless his/her/their Heart(s)" with a sympathetic smile, to the end.

Then you look at your friend, grin really big, and wink.

Wheel's Turnin' Round and Round

Have you ever crawled into bed at night, so tired and sleepy that you can't wait to hit the pillow only to lie there, wide awake, while your brain goes into overdrive? I had one of those nights not too long ago. It seems that the more I tried to stifle the inept problem-solver between my ears, the harder the wheels turn.

It's not an uncommon phenomenon. My hubby is the world's worst at being unable to sleep in. Once he wakes up, no matter how early, his active brain won't let him go back to sleep. That is why I find him asleep in his recliner so often. All those thing he felt MUST be done, that wouldn't let him stay in bed, don't get done. It's a vicious cycle.

But I digress. I started thinking of all the things that I had discovered about surrender, society, adoption, reunion, closed records and the memories of my time in the Unwed Mother Hot Seat. I started playing "what if" and imagining what I would have done differently and how. I flashed back to April 30, 1993 and my first reunion (I had two that year...WHEW!) and what I might have done and said had I known then what I know now.

I remember that contentious phone conversation with the woman who adopted my daughter and I went through a litany of other things I might have said. When she told me to "cease" the "nonsense" of reunion, I just replied that I was leaving that up to my daughter. I came up with quite a few much better responses 18 years too late.

One of them was a keeper, though. It was a point we Mothers have discussed among ourselves on many occasions. Say it takes 18 to 22 years to raise a child to productive adulthood. Once our children have reached that point, they become responsible, in every way, if we did a decent job, for themselves. But, even though my daughter was in her 30's at the time of reunion, divorced with two children she was raising, the woman who adopted her still seemed to think of her as a possession...an eternal child. I wish I had said, "She belongs to neither of us. She is her own person, an adult. We have no control over what she needs, wants or does. Live with it!"

If we do our jobs well, and forge bonds of love with the children we raise, then there will be a relationship after they have left the nest. But their decisions, their relationships and their lives are their own. No one "owns" them but themselves. It is a natural part of life that children grow and go, form partnerships and start their own cycle. It is natural but it seems that, in adoption, there is an "eternal child" clause. Someone once likened it to slavery and it does have its likenesses.

There are many Mothers who have had an adopter tell her that she was their worst nightmare. That is the insecurity that goes with adopting. The one thing that the courts of this land cannot create with their almighty decrees, contracts, agreements and judicial signatures is that blood bond. That has to be what the adopters can't face. The fear of losing the child they raised to the Mother who bore that child tends to interfere with a fully healthy relationship. If they have done their job well, then that shouldn't be a problem. And it wasn't for my daughter. Her love for those she calls her parents never wavered. But their fear still invaded what could have been a wonderful reunion.

I understand the fear, but I don't condone holding an adult hostage to it. My daughter was threatened with having herself and her children cut out of the will. What should have been parental love became conditional. I felt sad for all of us. While I respect my daughter's feeling where the people who raised her are concerned, I found that I had little feeling for them one way or the other once I worked through the anger. It wasn't about them...reunion was about US.

All that should be a moot point by now, since both of them passed away within a couple of years of each other a few years back. I have neither resentment nor any other feelings for them. They were not and are not a part of my life.

Yet, in my daughter's life, their ghosts loom large. Though several years have passed, she can tell you the exact date of their death without having to refer to any paperwork. She still mourns and I wonder if it is them or the idea of the dream of the "ideal" life and family she had that she mourns.

My mother passed away 43 years ago. The only reason that I can remember the date is because she died at Christmas. I can't tell you the date of my father's death. I remember them on Mother's Day and Father's Day and sometimes will have a memory that makes me smile. I miss them but know that this is the cycle of life. I do NOT post paeans of praise and love to them on the anniversary of their deaths, nor have I held my grief to me like Linus held his blanket. Grief is a process with a beginning and an end and reaching acceptance and peace is the goal.

That's when I realized what was keeping me awake. I was trying to free my daughter with my mind. No can do! The only one who can release her into a full and happy life is HER. I can toss, turn, suggest, obsess and you name it and it won't do a lick of good. I needed to let go and let IT go. "What if" is a dangerous game to play when you need sleep.

I finally nodded off and slept late the next morning...if you call 8:00 AM, sleeping late. The problem was solved by my recognition of the fact that I can't solve the problem. I had a chuckle at my own expense, talked about it with my friend, and, for the most part, am letting it lie. I took a mental health day, yesterday. I didn't watch a minute of news, chatted a bit online with some friends of like mind, and took an afternoon nap with hubby and pooches.

It felt so good, I just might do it more often. And I slept so well, last night.

Conjectures, Urban Legends and Fantasies

Nothing could possibly be more surreal than the landscape of our dreams and imaginations, especially when fueled by half-truths, lies and rumored legends. I'm not denying that there is a visceral memory and early childhood memories that are real and true for the adoptee. But over the years, adopters avoiding questions, the industry and adopters telling convenient lies, the social perceptions of adoption and being adopted, the mythology and the deepest wishes can create a picture worthy of Charnine or Dali.


The real and valid feelings the adoptee experience are the brush, but, too often, misinformation and unrealistic expectations are the paint with which the adoptee creates an idea of what might be. Meanwhile, Mothers are often busy either trying to blank out the canvas or, at least, present a fairy-tale image of happily ever after for their lost babies. This is why we meet each other across a barrier of warped images, coping mechanisms, preconceptions and a consciousness tainted by an unnatural separation. There is nothing natural about surrender or adoption and there is nothing easy or natural about reunion from what I have seen and experienced.


When I was in treatment at the Rader institute (for bulimia), we had a wonderful group leader who made a contract with each new patient when they joined his group. We had to promise, on a scale of one to ten, to not kill ourselves, not kill anyone else and not go crazy. I managed a ten on the first two but had trouble getting past six on the last one. He kept at me until I got to a ten. I kept trying to figure out why that going crazy thing was so attractive to me that I was reluctant to let go of it. I guess, like everyone else, I was looking for an easy way out and a way to live without having to face life. I was way past insecure and into the melting clocks and purple trees of self-loathing.


I had constructed an image of what life should be, for me and for my children, and it wasn't happening. I was not ready to step out of the fantasy and learn how to enjoy and appreciate and cope, healthily, with reality. I made a lot of progress at Rader. I grew up a lot. I accepted the process and the imperfections of life, people and myself. This all happened a few years prior to reunion. I shudder to think what might have happened had I not been through that particular refining fire.


I'll be honest that reunion took me a few big steps backwards and I had to retrace my steps to reality and sanity. None of the hopes and dreams I had for my two oldest children had come true. Their expectations and imaginations had created just as unreal a scenario as mine had. And it has been so hard to admit that we can't fix each other. It's like going into a museum and looking at a piece of surreal or modern art. Each of us see something different in the painting. Sometimes I wonder if we are even speaking the same language. All we know is that the connection is there and still strong.


Someone told me that no one could understand adoptees but other adoptees. They're right. The same holds true for Mothers. So we are often at an impasse with many of our number in seeking cooperation to achieve goals. There are those that see only the dark and those that won't give up the rose-colored glasses and then there's the pain competitions. That's the reality based on the surreality. So what we need to do is find a way to accept the reality of the other, even if we don't understand it.


Once again, I have set the bar pretty high, even for myself. I can accept that the adoptee FEELS abandoned, but MY children were NOT abandoned. And it is almost impossible for people in the generations following us to even begin to understand the pressure of society and family shame. Conversely, it is hard for us to understand how it feels to be a lilac on a magnolia tree..grafted on to another family and expected to be totally okay and comfortable with that. I can't begin to imagine how it must feel to experience that "otherness" and yet be expected to behave as if it doesn't exist.


So, we would all fit right into a painting by any of the surrealists...trying to get into each others' heads, walking on eggshells and traveling through alien territory. And we are trying to do this with a road map that is drawn from lies, suppositions, our own fantasies, manipulations and the official picture of surrender and adoption presented by the industry, government and society and (all too often) the church. It takes courage to toss away that poorly-charted map and do some serious exploring without any preconceived notions to shed false light on the path.


All this is a fancy way to say that we all need to get real. Where is the logic in, for instance, saying that "my mother is the bitch from hell so I am going to hate 'em all, mistrust 'em all and call them all 'birthmothers' regardless of what they want?" It makes about as much sense as saying that "my adult child is a selfish, whining, demanding monster so all adopted people are mean and childish." But there are Adoptees and Mothers who will say just those things. These folks are still out there with Bugs Bunny meeting up with the Dodo Bird. It's a fear factor...if it is true for them, then it needs to be true for everyone...illogical but human.


I don't know how long it will take for us to meet on a common ground that is acceptable to us both. For all the mistrust and misunderstanding, there is a need for connection, love and acceptance that is just as great as any of the hostility. I just hope we get there. There are a few willing to find common ground. There are those of us who want records open for adoptees AND mothers, who want the Industry investigated and past practices put under the microscope of public and congressional scrutiny and we are willing to stand up and identify ourselves.


What really pisses me off the most is that the main architects of this surreal social experiment are uncaring of the weird world they have created. There's money in it and they are not ready to see that their "wonderful solution" only created more pain and problems. Some of these geniuses passed thinking they had left behind a perfect legacy. And the Industry and PAPs and adopters are the ones who gain along with the high-paid lobbyists and the congressional palms they grease.

Them that has, gets.

What Adoption Can't Do

(This is Jocelyn. She thought she could improve on nature.)

It is amazing what people believe about adoption and what it can accomplish. Those of us in the arena already know that it doesn't guarantee a child a better life. We can only hope. We have to wonder, "better, how? More toys, money, and things?" Some people have searched so long and hard for "better" that they have ignored the good they have. Sometimes, you just can't improve on Nature.

It certainly is no longer a matter of saving a child from the scandal of being born to an unwed mother. Even today, many adults who were adopted as infants call themselves "Bastards" with pride. Of course, that is a good, English word that has been in effect for centuries and means, strictly, one who was born out of wedlock. It is unfortunate that it has also been used to mean a bad or cruel man. "Adopter" is also a correct, English word that has been around for a long time and means just what it implies...one who takes on someone or something to themselves as if it were theirs to begin with.

That egregious term, "birthmother" has only been around for a few decades and there are many of us who have engaged in a battle against it for years. Where has everyone been that some don't know this? We were given so little respect as single, pregnant women. Who does it hurt if we ask for a bit, now? Just an aside...back to the subject.

No, adoption is all about saving the ones who adopt...from what? It's about social engineering and making money. Here are a list of some things I wish my parents and I had known and that I wish everyone knew about adoption and what it cannot accomplish.

1-Surrender for adoption does not restore one's virginity or remove one's status as a mother. Once you give birth you are a mother and you cannot regenerate a hymen by signing away rights and responsibilities.

2-Adopting does not cure infertility. A couple can adopt until the seams of their McMansion bulges and, if it is either or both of them, the infertility is still there and the children they wanted of their union will never exist.

3-Adoption does not "create a family." Nature does that. Saying that a man-made institution can go one better on Nature is like patching together some polyester fabric and calling it a silk duvet cover. It can create attachments and generate loving relationships but that is the people involved doing that...NOT adoption.

4-Those who are adopted do not come to those who adopt as tabula rasa..a blank slate. They are who they were born to be and, if anything, adoption confuses and warps that. Personality, talents and physical characteristics are inherited, period. This idea causes so much harm to adopted children and people still insist that it doesn't. Grrrr.,

5-There is no such thing as a "birthmother" and having a child taken for adoption does not create one. For nine months, a woman's body, emotions and mind are conditioned for motherhood. Not being able to fulfill that function creates unresolved grief and escape into denial for the mother. Even the notable exceptions to the loving mother rule are, non the less, mothers. Nothing anyone calls us can make us less than the mothers we are.

6-"As if born to" is a crock!

7-Heritage and bloodlines DO matter and ARE important to the individuals. Our children had theirs stolen and we, or the image of a few of us, are being used by the industry and those who benefit from the industry, to try to place barriers in the way of our children recovering that heritage.

And what adoption CAN do is;

1-violate the civil and human rights of the mother...

2-violate the civil and human rights of the adoptee...

3-enable those who adopt to never face their issues in reference to their infertility....

4-make a lot of money for the Industry....

5-give smug satisfaction to those who wish to be social engineers...

6-tear apart a potentially viable family to meet the needs of others with more money, a marriage license or the right connections......

That's my list, can and can't. It saddens and sickens me to see it still causing rifts and wedges in the ranks of those who should be working together for the benefit of both the mother and the adoptee. As I get older, I lose the incentive to keep fighting. I get tired and I get frustrated and I want to chuck it all and say, "you're on your own, Kiddos!"

For instance, lumping together all mothers and calling us all barfmuggles is not right. Yes, there are some who are decidedly un-motherly, a minority to be sure, and it is sad that some of my adopted friends had to draw the bad ones. But tarring us all with the same brush is the same as saying, say, that all teenagers are irresponsible just because some of them are. It is demeaning and untrue. We all deserve to be judged as individuals and not by the lowest common denominator in our populations.

You see, in the battles for records, recognition, redress, and the disagreements concerning terminology, it seems to escape the notice of many that we are all just asking for the same damn thing....respect. Is it too much to ask or do I hang up my activist's hat and enjoy San Antonio with my friend as a vacation?

Do we just let adoption, which cannot do so much, win this one?

Just Sayin', You Know?

This is a news story from KKTV in southern Colorado. This is also one, gigantic OOPS, for the CPS, adoption and all concerned. The problem is, two little boys had to suffer while people fiddled around, doing nothing and remained blissfully unaware. Two little boys, both adopted by this couple, were recently discovered to be missing. The problem is that they have been missing for more than a decade. How in the Hell did this go undiscovered for so long?

Austin and Edward Bryant seem to have gone missing around the first part of the last decade and it was never reported by their adopters, according to this report:

"Austin and Edward are the adoptive children of 58-year-old Edward Bryant and 54-year-old Linda Bryant, of Texas. Deputies tell us the Bryants lived in a home located on Granite Circle in Monument from 1999 to 2005. Property records show they owned the home at 18060 Granite Circle from 1999 to 2006.


"I don't really remember them, but they seemed like shady people. Something just wasn't quite right," said one neighbor.

Linda and Edward Bryant have been contacted and arrested in Texas for receiving an ongoing financial subsidy from the El Paso County Department of Human Services despite the fact Austin and Edward were not residing with them. They have been extradited to back to Colorado and are in custody at the El Paso County Criminal Justice Center. "

Once again, we are shown that adopters are not saints and that they put their knickers on, one leg at a time, just like the rest of us lowly natural parents. They are just as prone to abuse and worse (maybe more prone if you take into account the lack of a blood connection) as anyone else.

But the real problem, to me, is that they went uninvestigated, still making money as if these boys were with them, for so long. I'm just saying, if this had been natural parents whose children went missing, they would have been jailed, judged and juried in a heartbeat, guilty or not. The scales are definitely not balanced when it comes to our misguided national love affair with adoption.

This also makes one question the fairness and wisdom of the adoption subsidy. We natural parents are lucky to get a tax deduction on our raised children. Why should someone receive money for adopting? I thought they wanted a child "as if born to." Subsidies do not fill that description one bit. To say that money is not a consideration in many areas of adoption is to be blind to the realities.

I am waiting to see if this receives national attention and if these children are ever found. The least crime of which the Bryants would be guilty would be fraud. The worst would be murder of the most foul variety. It breaks my heart that these kids not only went missing, but were used as income for such a long time as if their presence or absence meant less than nothing.

For the sake of Austin and Edward, I want some answers, Mr. and Mrs. Bryant. It's past time to come clean.

(You can read more about this in the El Paso Times.)

Put A Plug In Pertman

Adam, Adam, Adam. Once again, the talking head of the adoption-pushing Evan B. Donaldson Institute is speaking for those who are perfectly capable of speaking for themselves. I am so glad to know that adoptees are as fed up with this nonsense as we Nmoms are. Dammit, we are adults and we can speak for ourselves.

I was especially interested to read Mike Doughney's Blog on the subject. Baby Love Child has also entreated Pertman to shut his pie hole and let the adopted adult speak for themselves after his patronizing piece in the Huffington Post. What? Adoptees are citizens, too?? Thank you, Mr. P. We, of course, were too stupid to know that...NOT.

We Nmoms have been screaming at these self-ordained puppet masters to let us speak for ourselves for a few years, now. Mr. Pertman is an adopter. The EBDI was born from the dubious environs of the Spence-Chapin adoption agency. ANY adoption-promoting or adoption-friendly entity that presumes to speak for the Natural Mothers  OR adult adoptees, especially on the issue of open records, is bogus in its actions and questionable in its motives.

There are those who have said that adopters are needed in the fight for open records. I question that. I think that WE are needed much more than the ones who benefited from the closed records from the get-go. We are the ones who were divested of our infants and kicked to the curb, enjoined to be silent and told our children would never need us or want to know us. We are the ones who were fed specious, vicious lies such as, "you will have other children and that will take away the pain," and "you will make a life for yourself and forget." SOMEBODY, both then and now, doesn't know shite from Shinola about motherhood.

So to see the very Industry and those who benefited from our loss, writing op-ed pieces, publishing "reports" and otherwise putting words in the mouths of many very intelligent and capable women and their adult children is infuriating. They managed to intimidate Nmoms into silence for a couple of decades, but no more. Shame, lies, convoluted "reasoning" and patronization no longer work. The condescending nature of this activity does not win Nmom friends and influence adoptees. It just pisses us off, mightily.

Yeah, I know I have posted about this in the past. I will probably post about it again and again. As long as these institutes and agencies and lobbyists and their minions and sheep continue to try to wrap a simple human right in pages of double-speak both punitive and nannyish (I coined a word!), as long as adopters and agents try to tell us what we think and how we feel, there will be a need for us to retaliate with a simple phrase; "Adam and Friends, Shut the F*** up and let us speak for ourselves!!"

I am delighted to see more adopted adults and Nmothers becoming disgruntled and protesting this sham. No one can talk with authority about that which they have not experienced in this arena. Mothers know how we feel and think and what we want. Adult adoptees know their own minds as well.

The Industry and those who are its beneficiaries are managing to keep the proponents of open records at each other's necks with a lot of their blather. Well-meaning people are walking down Primrose Paths to advocate legislation that won't stand up to a Supreme Court challenge and place restrictions on the seekers and the sought.

So our message is simple...probably too simple for the talking heads to understand. Open all identifying records to the adopted and mothers and let us take care of the other decisions, ourselves like the grownups we are.

Oh, and to our children and sister mothers...don't forget to bring pictures!

What Do We Want?

You know, FAQ bullet-point answers are all well and good, but when it comes to the question of what the Natural Mothers of SMAAC want, in my opinion it just can't be power-pointed into a nice little sentence or two. We do our best, but there is so much dangling over the sides that I keep wanting to expand the platform. I guess that is what these blogs are all about. Here, I can expand.

I remember when I was active in the early feminist movement of the late 60's -early 70's. I wrote a letter to the editor about something, I don't remember exactly what, and it was published. Of course, my name and location was also published.

I was appalled to receive a call from some strange man, the day after my letter appeared in the newspaper, asking me, in an exasperated tone, "just what do y'all want??" I told him I wanted the right to express my opinion without having a total stranger call my home and invade my privacy. He apologized, which surprised me, and said goodbye.

It's funny that now we are still trying, as Natural Mothers, to have the right to speak for ourselves and to educate others on the difference between privacy, confidentiality and anonymity. That's number one on my personal "I Want" list. I want other people to stop speaking for me. By other people, I mean anyone who supports adoption, benefits or profits from adoption and I do mean the likes of Adam Pertman, the NCFA, the ACLU and adopters. HOW DARE those entities speak for us?

I have to use the analogy of my friend, Musing Mother, who, in a discussion of the matter, said that a male adopter (Pertman) speaking for us is like a woman describing what it is like to pee standing up via a penis. It does not compute. WE know how we feel. For people like Pertman to presume to advocate for us (in a way that is sure to keep adoption a going concern) is more than just questionable...it is insulting.

Now, let me warn some FB friends from the get-go. I consider anyone speaking on behalf of Pertman and in his defense to be violating my rules about no pro-adoption or pro-adopter rhetoric here. I am not one of those who believes that for us to succeed we need adopters on our side. That's like the flies inviting the spiders to dinner. I can not conceive of there ever being a proper addressing of the crimes against the mothers and equal access to information happening with the assistance of those who adopt. It certainly won't happen with the "help" of the NCFA or the EBDI.

More than anything, I would love to see all these people stop their jawing and ask US what we want and then LISTEN. They might be amazed to learn that we are not frail, fragile, ignorant, deviant, amoral, careless or without respectability. Those few fear-ruled, shame-infused, coward moms that protest open OBCs need to put on their big girl panties and deal. Those of us who are not afraid of our pasts, are not ashamed of our lives and who care about the children we lost to adoption are stronger and more plentiful than these few, pitiful, shallow women who are being used  by the industry.

Fast on the heels of wanting to be able to speak for ourselves and be heard, comes the wish that we could all come together, mothers and adopted people, without egos, rancor, stereotyping or arguments about trivia. If we could agree on one thing, that Natural Mothers and Adopted Adults deserve the human and civil right to know their origins or the welfare of their children without government, agency or any other institutional interference, that would be a start.

The ego thing, unfortunately, figures large and looming in the effort to organize and find common ground. There are a few that are so much more concerned with being the star of the show, more wounded than thou or leaving a legacy as the consummate experts on adoption that they draw back and unconsciously sabotage the rest of us...come to think of it, some of that sabotage has been pretty darn deliberate. There are a notable few who can disagree without being disagreeable. These folks can let others have their say, have their own and leave it at that.

Then there are the ones who hammer at a disagreement until they have alienated scores of people..people whose minds have not been changed one whit. That these people would shut the f*** up, is way,way up there on my Want List.

So, you see, when it comes to FAQ's, just getting past the first one..."What Do You Want?"....takes me a whole lot more than a couple of succinct sentences. But I am also a realist and know that attention spans are short and sound bites and Power Point presentations are the communication of the day. So SMAAC and ARD do a good and effective thing with the FAQ's.

But thank the Cosmos for blogs. Sometimes you just have to elaborate.

Elitist Feminism

I find my best inspirations, here of late, in the blogs and comments of adopted people. Amanda's blog on Adoption, Surrogacy and Feminism should be a classic. It seems that protection of women and upholding the rights of women, including reproductive rights, seems to stop at these issues. Mothers with unplanned pregnancies are seen as incubators and surrogates are actively recruited as such. This is something that those of us who have been around the activism block knew but deserves retelling.

You would think that the use of women for breeding purposes for those who wish to adopt would be a Women's Issue, now wouldn't you? A movement that purports to uphold the reproductive rights and autonomy of all women should be up in arms when told our stories, shouldn't they?

NOW was approached, a long time ago, by activist mothers and they gave out the same kind of crap they give out now. They see adoption as a "reproductive right," but for WHOM? It is my observation that the right to adopt and to have a living incubator for a child is the exclusive, if unjustified, right of the women who wanted it all and didn't count on the biological clock and other factors. I have scary visions of a special class of incubator women who produce children for the elite faction of the so-called feminist movement. NOW is top-heavy with adopters as is the media and the entertainment industry. Margaret Atwood wasn't too far off the mark with "The Handmaid's Tale."

So, perhaps the feminist movement was so intent on proving that women were as capable as men that they forgot that there is one area where we are unique. The fact that we are the gender that brings life into the world is left in the dust of equal pay for equal work and the attempt to crash through that glass ceiling. That's where we start seeing, to quote my good friend, Celeste Billartz, "Woman's inhumanity to woman." Rather than seeing the need for more assistance and education to help women with unplanned pregnancies, they are falling back on the old "abort or surrender for adoption" garbage.

Just a bit of support would have been enough for most of us who truly wanted our children. An organization for women's rights should, in my mind, be in the forefront of the effort to provide ways for women and their infants to stay together and make a good life. Instead, they are putting on the steel-toed boots of the patriarchy and kicking us while we are down. Thanks for nothing, Sisters.

I really think that "Wake Up Little Suzie," by Rickie Solinger should be required reading for everyone who wants to become an advocate for the Natural Mothers of the BSE. If our children want to understand us, that book and Ann Fessler's, "The Girls Who Went Away," can help with that endeavor. To know how the same injustice has been carried into the present day, all we have to do is look around us and learn.

I am proud to be a woman. I think that I have intelligence and aptitudes that are the equal of any man. BUT, pregnancy and childbirth are exclusively issues of women. And the feminist movement has been so caught up in birth control and abortion rights that they have overlooked the multitude of women who have suffered a grievous injustice just because of their fertility. They seem to have very selective vision.

SMAAC will be joining the adoptees in San Antonio in August. I would love to have a sign that says, "Where are you when WE need you, NOW?" I wonder if they would notice?

Man Rescues Dog..Dog Rescues Baby Girl

This is supposedly a true story from the Mother Earth News. It seems a farmer in Scotland found a litter of puppies alongside a country road. Only one of the puppies was alive. She was bleeding from the head but was breathing and had a strong heartbeat, so he took her home and nursed her back to health. The puppy grew to be a valued member of the family and gave birth to a couple of litters of her own before she was spayed. She took care of her people and all the farm animals.

One day, she returned to the farmhouse with a bundle in her mouth and deposited it in her bed. The farmer took a look and was amazed to find a little, human baby...a girl, suffering a bit from exposure but otherwise healthy. The little girl went on to grow up and become a nice young lady. Her farmer friend and canine savior had long since passed away.

When I was born, my grandparents had a female lab, shepherd mix named Smoke. She was a really bright and well-behaved dog. From the minute they moved my crib in and placed me inside it, her place to sleep was under my crib. If I awoke, she alerted the household until someone came to see about me. She worked guard duty when I began toddling, pulling me away from the stairs by my diaper. My memories of her are blurry, but the stories told to me by my parents and grandparents are precious to me. I have a badly faded photo of baby-me and Smoke under the Christmas tree with bows on our heads.

It has recently dawned on me that, for these deluded mothers of today who are "choosing" specific adopters and "adoption plans (yuck)," that they might want to make sure that the PAPs have a dog. That way, since Mommy is being edged out of the picture, they could check out the canine family member and be sure that their little ones are getting unconditional love of the highest order. My Grampa once told me that Smoke would have fought off a grizzly bear to save me.

She didn't adopt me. She didn't see me as a replacement for pups she didn't have. She saw me as her human responsibility and a pack leader in the making. My mother would cringe when Smoke gave me a kiss, but I would just chortle in delight. Smoke fetched my cup, my blanket and my toys and would present them to my mother to wash off and return to me. I first walked holding on to her back. She was Nana, Lassie and Rin Tin Tin all in one. Her love for me was uncomplicated by her own needs and fiercely protective.

I was a lucky kid. I was 9 when she died. I do remember that as a very bad day. She stayed with Gramma and Grampa when we moved to SC because she was already getting on in years and the trip would have been hard on her. It was a tearful goodbye and would have been worse had I known it was our last time together.

Perhaps the smart thing to do to screen PAPs, better than the home study, would be to have them adopt, YES, ADOPT, a dog that really needs a home from a local shelter or rescue group. These canine babies come with issues and that would test the unconditional love factor. If they pass that test, then MAYBE, if there is a child that needs the guardianship of others not of their kin, then they could assume that legal responsibility. But no game playing.

Oh, we call ourselves, "Mommy and Daddy" to Dolly but we have better sense than to indulge in a fantasy that she is our real child. Indulging in that fantasy with children born to other families is just as dumb and very damaging in the long run. When the need to fulfill that "as if born to" impossibility becomes obsessive, you have very screwed up children growing up with a lot of heavy baggage. What we do to our children in adoption, we wouldn't do to a dog.

Right now, there are more domestic, companion animals needing homes than there are homes for them. Thousands are euthanized every week. It is such a simple thing to spay and neuter our little friends. It is such a simple thing to teach our adolescent children about birth control. It is such a simple thing to put the money we were putting into 5-figure tax breaks for adopters and tax cuts for the affluent into helping a mother and her child get a fair start in life. It's such a simple thing to honor the mother-child bond without bringing judgment and Victorian attitudes into it. It's such a simple thing to recognize and address the crimes committed against these mothers and their children over the years.

It's all as simple as a dog's devotion to people that would move that so-called "dumb" animal to rescue and guard a human child. Nature's wisdom seems to beat out the assumed wisdom of humanity every time.

Thanks, Smoke.

A Confusing Duality

There has been much said about Natural Mothers who, after surrender, suffered from secondary infertility and never had another child. Many of these women have been on support forums and their situation is a painful one, but easy to understand.

What I have real trouble understanding (and this is going to get me blasted by a few) is the Natural Mother who suffers the loss of her child to adoption and then goes on, herself, to adopt. I don't get it. My own response to this is also strange. I feel, somehow, betrayed by one of my own.

I have a dear, online friend, an adopted person, who calls adoption "woman's inhumanity to woman." I agree with her. That is why I have a hard time understanding how a woman who had her infant appropriated for adoption could turn around and do that to another woman. I can only surmise that there are some painful dynamics going on in her psyche.

I have a couple of theories that may or may not apply. Since the single mother has been denigrated for so long, and adopters are seen as the next thing to saints, it could be a desperate lunge for redemption and respectability. I know one such mother who would much rather be identified as an adopter* (not her term) than the mother of a child surrendered to adoption. There is some kind of psychological exchange going on there. I do think that this is not on a conscious level.

Some have expressed adopting as their duty, to do for a child what was being done "for" their lost child. After talking to adults who were adopted and to other mothers, I can't see holding on to that rationale. The true raison d'etre for the majority of adoptions is all about an infant for a home...not an altruistic thing at all. So that explanation just doesn't wash in the light of the facts of adoption.

One woman, a friend, actually, has confided in me that she adopted after losing her firstborn to adoption so that she could have a child to raise but remain "loyal" to her lost child. It took her many years of counseling to see the contradictions in that. It really came to her, fully, when she reunited with her daughter and realized the difference in the bond. She knew her adopted child better, but shared more with her surrendered child. And, though she didn't want to admit it, or to have her adopted child know, the emotional aspects were definitely not the same. She has been very troubled by this for quite a while, now. She withdrew from all the groups and is trying to make peace with what she can't change.

Adoption as an industry exists because there is a demand, especially for healthy newborns. What was done and is still being done to procure that product is heinous, slick and devious. The demand by those who want to adopt has not decreased, even though the number of adoptable infants has gone way down. The prospective adopter is the one who creates this assault against her sisters. Her desire becomes another woman's tragedy. A little family is destroyed in order to give her what she covets.

With that view, I cannot imagine ever adopting and putting another woman through what I experienced. I have to raise an eyebrow when a sister Natural Mother does just that. Why? What's the REAL reason for this? Can it be that, by adopting, a natural mother might feel justification for what she sees as her own role (guilt) in her loss? Freud would have a field day with this. Of course, the emotional damage done to Natural Mothers has never seemed to be a very important issue to the community of mental health professionals with a couple of notable exceptions, one being Dr. Geoff Rickarby who submitted his conclusions to the inquiry into adoption practices in New South Wales.

The bottom line is that the woman who loses a child to adoption knows all about that kind of pain. So when she goes on, herself, to adopt, I have to wonder at the rationale. I guess I will never understand it. Of course, I am not required by these women to understand it.

I am also not required to either like it or voice approval of it.

It's All Right...You Can Come Out Now

November is OVER and so is that pile of politically propagandized excrement called "National Adoption Awareness Month." Mayhaps, I can open a newspaper or magazine without seeing some saccharine article about the joys experienced by children saved from who-knows-what by saintly adopters.

Perhaps I can see less denigration of natural families and a slow down in the beatification of adopters. One can only hope. I realize that the best I can look for is an ebbing of the tide. We are far, far from the point where we can sing, "Ding Dong, The Witch is Dead."

Of course, as an adopted friend of mine noted, with December comes THE family holiday and the time when the absence of that someone-who-ought-to-be-here is keenly felt. Ya just can't win.

I have often preached on this blog about the fact that Natural Mothers cannot fix their surrendered, adult children and they can't fix us. In the long run, we are the only ones who can fix ourselves. If, after reunion, we still feel empty and blown about by every gale, then we need to turn inward for the answers. It's funny how "The Wizard of Oz" so reminds me of the adoption struggle. I have to note that Dorothy is an orphan, but is lovingly raised by her Auntie Em and Uncle and does NOT call them Mom and Dad. All of the protagonists in the story feel something is missing inside them and for Dorothy, the missing piece is the most poignant. She misses her home and kin.

Would that there were a good witch, Glinda, who could point us down the yellow brick road to self-realization. My biggest life revelation was discovering that I had, inside me, what I had most longed for...the ability to mature, find peace and be happy. Brain, heart, courage and home...they were all inside me all the time. Maybe it takes a tornado, a wicked harpy, some flying monkeys and a dissembling wizard to point the fact out to those that of us that are more stubborn than others. Well, that is a lot like reunion which can be a total cataclysm.

We do a lot of floundering about, I have noticed, while searching for the answers to why, and how and who. Too often we DO look to the reunion as the end when it is only the first step. The rest is up to us. I watch one very beloved person in my life trying to control every situation that even obliquely concerns her and becoming sick and frustrated with the attempts. The only control we have over anything is self-control. That helps us get through the storms created by others in our lives. My yellow brick road took me to Al-anon where I learned that lesson. So I leave "fixing" up to the powers of the cosmos and just see to my own issues.

We who have been torched...er, uh,..touched by adoption learn to gird our loins as we approach the Holidays. As if that were not enough the NCFA throws that Nasty November at us. Well, they can do their worst. We are finding, within ourselves, what we need to get through. C'mon, put 'em up!! Put 'em up!!!

And November? Eat our dust. We're off the see the Wizard.

Ding Dong! The Witch is dead. Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!

Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is dead.

 

 

 

Truth Can Really Be Inconvenient

"An Inconvenient Truth," the documentary film with Al Gore, made a point about more than just global warming. While that was the focus of the film, another fact it brought home to me is how much we human beings like to be told just what we want to hear. If it impacts our lifestyles, gets in the way of our wants and desires, or throws a bit of a monkey wrench into the gears of the commerce that keeps us fat and sassy, then we don't accept it or listen to it.

It's like the church in the middle ages. They held a lot of power and they definitely didn't want to hear the truth about the nature of the Universe. Just in the late 19th century, there was a battle between superstition and science brought about by the discovery of the probability of evolution. Now we have a bunch of Bible-thumpers wanting to call the "theory of intelligent design" a science. I wonder when and if our human race will ever grow up and stop trying to engineer life and science in our own image?

Here, on this blog, and on others, the truth is being told about adoption, about loss, grief, pain and the dark underbelly of an Industry that traffics in human babies. People don't want to hear this. They don't want to think of the pain experienced by the mother and the pre-verbal grief and identity problems of the adopted person. They just want to see that warm, fuzzy story where an infant is presented to Mr. and Mrs. Perfect, fairies and unicorns frolic and fart rainbows, and all live happily ever after. MYTH

Those who have adopted and those who plan to adopt want to look upon the transaction as that kind of fantasy. They want to believe that the mothers are all willing and ready to turn over their babies without a qualm. The ones who didn't know us, loved to manufacture images of careless tramps or courageous sacrificers. Those that are in open adoptions are so sure these mothers wanted nothing more than to place their infants in the homes of the adopters. MYTH...they don't want to hear that the industry and the government and churches have done a real bang-up job with their brainwashing and that the greatest help they could give a young mother would be to help her keep and raise her own child. They don't want to know that the mother bites her tongue in order to protect what little contact she has been able to get with her child. I know many adult adoptees who wish someone had been kind to their mothers, kind enough to help them stay together.

People don't want to hear that most of the mothers of the BSE were stripped of every last bit of fight and self-respect in an ongoing campaign to take their babies. They are, again, sure that we wanted our "shame" erased. They want to see us, now, as fragile flowers, hiding in the closet and demanding anonymity. MYTH...This is very clever manipulation, again, by the industry, to put adoptees and their Natural Mothers at odds with each other. They blame US for closed records when the truth is that the only reason records were closed was to protect the adopters from the upsetting intrusion of the Mother. When in doubt, follow the money.

Oh, and about the money....I have heard insistent arguments that "no one made a penny off our adoption." MYTH....Really? Did the attorney that drew up the papers do so pro bono? Did the agency workers or the social workers decline their salaries? I've seen actual agency price lists with newborn, Caucasian females at the top of the list. These are some expensive little girls. It's a business, people! It brings in excess of $1.6 BILLION big ones a year. And, as a business, it follows the bottom line and that line has no room for caring about the welfare of the mother or the infant "product."

And, the noble adopters...MYTH...This industry is not about a home for a needy child, but about a baby for a needy adult who cannot accept their lot in life. There is NOTHING of altruism in infant adoption. These people are NOT saints and they are NOT noble. They are human beings who want what they want when they want it and they don't want to know they are hurting someone in the getting of it. Those that do get an inkling of the truth are quick to redirect their thoughts.

Yes, the truth about adoption IS uncomfortable, inconvenient and not very politically correct. It's a mark of the insanity of a society that is on the wane. The "leading nation of the free world" is woefully behind a lot of other countries in correcting this melange of money, coveting and social engineering. Adoption, in the US, is sanctioned by both church and government which really makes me want to go back and read the Constitution, again because something stinks.

Here is the scariest truth of all. Right now, in this country, the Industry, in collusion with Right Wing Christian reactionaries, is trying to drag us all back to the bad old days of Victorian attitudes, homes for "unwed mothers" and twin beds in the bedrooms on TV and in the movies. Like the Puritans of old, they are showing more interest in what goes on in the bedroom than in the boardroom where the real sinning is taking place. I am sure that getting people all riled up about the supposed cost of unmarried mothers is a great distraction and keeps the wheels of commerce turning.

Well, we Senior Natural Mothers have been there and that is a bad place to be. We don't want our daughters, granddaughters and great-granddaughters victimized again by a heinous double-standard. I'll be damned if I will let some fat cat in an Armani suit force any of my descendants to sacrifice their own children to Mammon.

TRUTH: This is about men controlling women and women being in collusion with those men. Adoption, as a dear friend of mine says, is "woman's inhumanity to woman."

TRUTH: We need to take a close look at where we are going with a lot of these state legislations. Someone is doing some manipulation and it isn't Natural Mothers.

TRUTH: If the church and the government get any closer, they are going to be attached at the hip and then every family, wed, unwed, poor, middle-class, will have to worry about keeping their children.

TRUTH: People just don't want to hear this, do they?

Arrogant Assumptions and Oxymorons

Adopto-Land is full of them. The way the courts and certain churches treat adoption, is beyond arrogant. It seems that they believe they are as powerful as God/Nature. Even though the blank-slate/tabula rasa theory concerning the human infant has been scientifically disproven, they still sell that "as if born to" idea to the masses. It's even in the adoption decree. Boy, aren't we powerful, though?

The picture to the left is very sweet. But anyone with eyes in their head and a rudimentary grasp of zoology can tell that these two are entirely different species. When that little feline grows up, it is not going to swing from tree branches, have thumbs or be mostly vegetarian. A predator is a predator is a predator. What is the chimp going to say when she reveals her true nature? "We gave her all the love we had to give. Why is she LIKE this??"

Any adopter that raises the child born to another woman, thinking that said child will become like the adoptive family is seriously deluded. That adopter is also doing that child a heinous disservice. Supporting the adopted child as they are, and as they become, is the loving thing to do. My heart aches every time I hear another adoptee say, "I never felt like I fit in." Of course, it is my opinion that, barring the very worst of circumstances, a child belongs with his/her mother or family of origin. Trying to fulfill the needs of adults by supporting a legal fantasy is damaging to any child.

That leads me to my first oxymoron; "ethical adoption." How can adoption be ethical when it promotes lies, changes names, switches heritages and is based on, not the need of a child for a home, but the needs of adults for a child? Like it or not, there is a money-making Industry behind this and that makes it a flesh trade. The legal restrictions and requirements of that adoption document makes a life-long possession out of an infant. AND these "possessions" are supposed to be, and often are, grateful for their status as humans owned by other humans (See "Stockholm Adoptees" post).

How can it be ethical when it is bartering a baby for the purpose of supporting the emotional welfare of a childless couple? That is a hell of a load to place on a baby. How can an Industry or practice be ethical when it still uses new and improved methods of social brainwashing and coercion to achieve the goal of separation of mother and newborn? How can it be ethical when it is used to further the agendas of religious groups? How can it be ethical when it is supported by legislators whose palms are greased by the Industry lobbyists? That support has resulted in legislation that strips many mothers and their babies of their civil and human rights. Is that the American Way?

The next oxymoron is so self contradictory it is appalling; "Your mother loved you so much she gave you up." Like that is going to make any sense to a child? Listen up, Kiddo. Your mother probably surrendered you because her back was against the wall, she was brainwashed by adoption propaganda and your grandparents wanted a born-again virgin. Her love for you made her want to keep you. This society is steeped in adoption mythology and she either fell for the line or was forced over it.

This one is for all the good beemommies, still wallking around with that pink cloud engulfing what brain cells you have left.; "Surrendering Mother=Heroine". You know, when you read stories about heroics, a lot of those heroes die. William Wallace shouted "Freedom!" as he was being gutted, drawn and quartered. He still died. When we mothers of my experience were backed against the wall and forced to wave that white flag of surrender, we felt nothing like Xena, The Warrior Princess, "Forged in the heat of battle." I felt like the losing boxer in the match, being carried out, bloody and bruised, on a stretcher.

I wonder what it is going to take to show the general public, who, by and large, support adoption, that said Adoption, American Style, is a heartless and cruel business? When are we, as a nation, going to overcome the ridiculous ideas of our early, Puritan colonists and grow up enough to honor the bond of mother and child? When are we going to, as a nation, mature past the "I'm gonna get mine" self-entitlement that allows people to think they have a right to the children of others? This is what we have become, people. We are a country that barters babies and even raids other nations for newborns. As a society, we are as dysfunctional as they come and we bear the wounds of that dysfunction.

And the band aids we use to cover the wounds are assumptions, arrogance and oxymorons. That's like treating cancer with a placebo.

Escaping The Myth

The Legend of Daedalus and Icarus

Daedalus, King Minos' architect, built a labyrinth in which King Minos was able to hide the awful Minotaur, a horrible half-man, half-bull born to his cursed wife. Afterwards, Theseus, an Athenian king, killed the Minotaur and escaped with the king's daughter, Ariadne. At the failure of the labyrinth, Daedalus lost the favor of the king and was imprisoned in a high tower. Daedalus wanted to escape from his prison, but all sea-going vessels were searched carefully.

"Minos may control the land and sea," thought Daedalus, "but he does not control the air. I will escape that way."


Daedalus set to work fabricating wings for himself and his young son, Icarus. Daedalus put many feathers together over a frame of his design, beginning with the smallest feathers and adding larger feathers, to form an ever-increasing surface area with which to harness the power of the wind. The larger feathers, Daedalus secured with strong thread, but the smaller ones he secured only with wax. To his final creation, he gave a curvature like that of birds' wings.


When the work was done, Daedalus, waving his newly constructed wings, found himself buoyed upward on the currents and hung suspended, poised on the beaten air beneath his constructed wings.


But he could not leave without his son, so he had to build another pair of wings, smaller in size. Daedalus equipped his son with the smaller set but cautioned him, saying, "Icarus, my son, I charge you to keep at a moderate height, for if you fly too low the damp will clog your wings, and if you fly too high the heat of the sun will surely melt these wings of yours that I have created for you.

Daedalus kissed the boy, not knowing that it was for the last time ever. Then, rising on their wings, father and son flew off, escaping from the prison that King Minos had put them in. The boy, exulting in his new-found freedom, began to soar upward as if to reach heaven. The nearness of the blazing sun softened the wax, which held the smaller feathers together, and they came off in bundles. He fluttered frantically with his arms, but no feathers remained to hold the air beneath the wings. He cried to his father but fell to the ocean and was submerged in the blue waters of the sea in which he drowned.

Bummer. And the moral is supposed to be that you can't aspire beyond your abilities or something like that. It's probably also a fable about moderation. But I can also see all the trepidations and frustrations of motherhood in this one. You give your children wings, but where they fly and how high is up to them.

For our surrendered children, we were not there to give them their wings. Some of our adult, reunited children never learned to fly. They are still imprisoned in the tower. The tower is constructed of lies, misconceptions and fear. They can't fly, ie; please everyone, and they can't face the possibility of losing the only security they have ever known, however falsely fabricated, so they retreat to where they feel safe, even though their haven can also be their prison. Conversely, some mother stay mired in the prison of their secrets. It certainly isn't just the adoptee that does that, although it is an adoptee that inspired this post.

Facing and examining the truth is not an act of disloyalty and has nothing to do with love unless love has been a conditional thing for an adoptee. Perhaps the perception of adopters as paragons has to do more with the way they were taught to love than the actuality of the love that accepts the person, warts and all, and has no need to try to deny the human faults of the loved one. The adage that "The truth shall set you free" is not wrong. Retreating into the den of denial and lies is not living a free and open life. Yet it is what many choose and it makes me sad to see it happen.

I'm a big fan of The Eagles. Their rough and ready poetry and rock/country sound are the go-to music for me when I need a certain kind of grounding. One of my favorites is  "Already Gone," a golden oldie. I like this phrase.

"So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains,

And we never even know we have the key."

The only key I see to the freedom of the adoptees and the mothers of the EMS is not in wings of feathers, wax and string, but in the key of truth. Towers built of lies are flimsy and shaky. They take a lot of emotional energy to maintain. And, they are never totally comfortable. If we face the truth and speak the truth, loud enough and long enough, maybe the walls of the prison will fall on their own.

It's scary to use that truth key. It is frightening to realize that there is much you believed that never was true. But I have found, for my own self, that facing the truth is better than tethering myself to the lies on the ground, never able to fly at all. It's like lancing a boil..one hurt to get over a bigger hurt. And, I have found out for myself that the real world isn't such a bad place after all, once you learn to navigate.

So maybe the real message in the legend of Icarus is all about fear. If the sun is the truth, then the implication is that the truth can kill you. Not so. The truth can hurt, but it can also heal. I much prefer truth to the lies of denial.

And the truth CAN set you free.

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.

Respect Vs. Emotional Caretaking

Here she is, the epitome of fecundity, Gaia, the earth mother, ancient Goddess of fertility. She is the personification, in her bulges and fleshy folds, of the fear ancient men had of the mysteries of the female who brought forth life....something they, as males, couldn't do. It is interesting to see that, once ancient man connected the act of intercourse with the production of children, men started owning and subjugating women so that they could be sure the offspring were of their seed....and, because they are bigger, stronger and they could.

We fertile women certainly took a tumble off that divine pedestal..from life-giver to breeder in just a few thousand years. Now, it seems that the child-takers, rather than the life-givers, are the ones who get all  the kudos and halos.

A friend on Facebook said something very profound in a discussion. I hope she doesn't mind if I cite it here. "All babies turn into toddlers and then kids then teenagers etc. They are supposed to learn to think for themselves and be independent people. It is not their job to shower parents ( either adoptive or bio) with gratitude. We are supposed to raise them to be independent and think for themselves. It is healthy if they feel safe enough to not try to cater to the parents and can show us even their worst side. If someone wants or expects something different don't have kids (either store-bought or born to you)."

This simple but pithy comment exemplifies, to me, everything that is dysfunctional in adoption, especially adoption as it has been practiced in this society. The infant goes to a home with expectations already on his/her shoulders. They are the cure for the adopters' infertility, the keeper of the "as if born to" myth and the caretakers of the adult adopters' emotional welfare. I get a daily "I love you" from my raised kids because that is something we have always done. But if I have emotional quandaries, they are mine, not theirs. And I would rather have their natural respect and love than be a burden on them, expecting paeans of gratitude and loyalty.

My raised children have never idealised me. They love me, warts and all, and we have butted heads just like all mothers and children have since families came into existence. I am taken aback when I see adult adoptees bending over backwards to express their gratitude and loyalty to their adopters. It really isn't natural. The premise for that behavior is also in error, said premise being that the adopters rescued them from a fate worse than death, that of being raised by their natural mother who, the adopters will intimate, "didn't want them." That idea is just more manure on the giant, reeking pile that is adoption mythology.

An adult adoptee was trying her hand at writing fiction. She liked the Sci-Fi/Horror genre, so that is where she was going with her writing. The monster in the picture was a sort of ghost,  vicious, faceless and female. The heroine bore the name of the woman who adopted her. This was prior to her reunion with her natural mother. Can we guess who that monster represented? But I was more taken up in the virtues and strengths she attributed to her heroine. NO WOMAN is that pure, good, strong and flawless in real life, including those who adopt. Such a person would bore me to tears and, I am thinking, would not make very good mother material. I would hope that a good mother would understand their children's flaws and love them unconditionally because she is totally aware and accepting of her own. In other words, she is REAL.

With some adopted adults, I have seen their growing-up years as more being indoctrinated rather than reared. Some become so immersed in the fantasy that there is no room for the natural parents if they refuse to worship at the adopters' shrine. I can respect the feelings of love and attachment the adoptee has for the adopters, but I don't think I should be required to deny my true feelings by giving lip-service to a fantasy.

I can think for myself because I was raised to do so by a mother who did not expect beatification or undying gratitude. She was a real rose, but she had her thorns. My emotions, therefore, are my own responsibility, not my raised or surrendered children's. How can they be expected to deal with their own lives and emotional growth while working to protect my view of my role in their lives? That role is something that is just there. It needs no bolstering or reinforcing. I have allowed them to get on with their own lives. That's what real mothers do. We let go and, if we are lucky, our children love and respect us for it.

I don't think there can be much respect for either the adopter or the adoptee if the emotional welfare of each is dependent on the other. This is co-dependence and it is very unhealthy for all concerned. As for me, I prefer handling my own emotional welfare. My adult children, all of them, should be and are, I hope, seeing to their own. I only worry about one who has enshrined her adopters in a way that has estranged us. I cannot join her in her illusions and that is not in her comfort zone. I miss her, I love her and I wish her well. I can't say that there is not the motherly part of me that worries about her...that worry is there. I think that comes with being female.  But it doesn't consume me.

And I would rather my children respect me than be responsible for my feelings, especially after I am dead and gone. And Kiddos? There comes a time when we are no longer responsible for your feelings, either.

Heeeere We Go Again

Just let any of us senior, anti-adoption Mothers post a word about adopters being part of the problem and the Stepford Adoptees come pouring out of the barracks, ready to do battle. Even though we do not disparage all who adopt and say that there are many kind, loving adopters, they still take issue with what we didn't say. Even if we did not mention their particular adopters, they take what we say personally and war is declared.

First, let me say that not all adopted people are Stepford Adoptees. There are many who know and accept the simple truth of what adoption is and does. The ones I am speaking of I call  Stepford Adoptees because they have been conditioned by their very situation, an unnatural one, to be the caretakers of their adopters' emotional welfare and defender of their actions. They all speak the same words, invariably praising the love they received and how grateful they are (1) to have been "chosen"/adopted (2) not to have been aborted (3) to have been loved so much by their nmom that said moms surrendered them for a "better" life (4) how thankful the adopters are for the "gift" the nmom gave them.

I have a daring concept to present to these Defenders of The Church Of The Adopters. It's called logical, independent thought. Let me say, again, that I am sure there are many, many loving, decent, humane adopters. That doesn't keep them from being part of the problem. As long as there are those who must have a child, regardless, there will be adoption, coercion, Third World theft of infants and toddlers and agency womb raiders. If these people accepted their lot in life and went on to spread the love around rather than looking for an adopted baby to cure their ills, there would be no Industry. Simple business truth. No demand=no supply=no Industry. That is NOT an insult....just a fact.

It's interesting that I receive these protests from the female adoptees. I can't remember the guys ever chiming in. I think that is because the gals are more prone to care-taking. I have to tell these ladies that I have gone head-to-head with a number of adopters and they can pretty much hold their own.

So here are my answers to the above listed responses. (1) You were not "chosen." There is not a baby mart with cribs up and down the aisles. There are agencies and social workers and, from our era, THEY are the ones who decided what couple would get what baby. If you are from the open adoption era, then, your adopters were chosen (with a bit of urging by her "case worker") by your nmom. (2) If you are an EMS/BSE-era adoptee, there was no legal, safe, medical abortion available for your mothers unless their parents were rich enough to induce a doctor to put his license on the line for them. If you are from the post Roe v Wade years, then, had a young women chosen termination, it would all be a moot point. Any one who goes that route is not really cognizant of a "specific who" when terminating. (3)Bullshit!Your nmom surrendered because she had her back to the wall, no choice, no recourse, NADA. If you are a more recent adoptee, your nmom was brainwashed along with the rest of society. (4) No nmom was put on this earth to produce children for another woman. You were not a "gift." You are not a set of coffee mugs or a picture frame wrapped up in pretty paper. You are a human being and the "gift" is to YOU, not your adopters.

I wish I could say that I am among the nmoms who were relieved to find that their appropriated children were raised by the finest possible adopters. What most of us find are that the ones who adopted our children were no better than we were at child rearing and some, not as good. Most of us can say that their children did not have a "better" life without us. It was different, but not better. Your adopters are not saints or paragons. They are normal human beings with flaws...some better, some worse, but all simply human.

So are we, and we love our children, most of us, unconditionally. But we are not objects, breeding stock, harlots or abandoners. We did the only thing we could do under horrendous circumstances. We were promised the impossible and many of us found damaged adults when we reunited. "Perfect" parents wouldn't allow their children to have emotional problems, now, would they?

Adopters assume their halos. We earned ours.

(Oh, and to my many adopted friends, I didn't mean YOU. 'kay?)

Why Adopters? It's Logical

Why, asked one, did I, in my previous post, nominate all adopters as potential recipients of the "Demons in Adoption" award? Was I not damning them all (painting them all with the same brush) and refusing to note those whose hearts were "in the right place?" Was I not doing to them what they do to us when they characterize us mothers as sluts and promiscuous tramps?

No, not really. We first look at the engine that runs the industry. Adopters are the fuel, the gas and oil that keeps the pistons pumping and the camshaft rotating. Without adopters, without people wanting to take the children of others and make them "as if their own," the engine would falter and cease running. You have to have both supply AND DEMAND in order to keep any Industry alive.

I know quite a few people who have adopted. Some, I have known for years. Without exception, I have watched these people, good and kind folk for the most part, change in a way that was fascinating and appalling. I watched the sense of entitlement, the lack of compassion for the mother of the child they coveted and the denial of any problems associated with adoption separation for the child emerge in people who were, formerly, very caring to any and all.

It has nothing, really, to do with their outward character and more to do with the inability to see the pain and suffering. While the adopter celebrates the acquisition of the child, someone, somewhere, is usually suffering a singular kind of grief. It is also difficult for them to get past that tabula rasa depiction of the human infant so they do not want to acknowledge the pre-verbal mourning of the child they have acquired.

Some do, eventually, get it and they and the Industry scurry like roaches when the lights come on, trying to formulate an answer that does anything but lead back to their role in the separation of mother and child. There are learned papers on how to help the child overcome their trauma. This has led to such barbaric practices as "re-birthing," which has led to the death of a child, and various "diagnoses" of RAD and even ADD.

The Industry has gone to such extremes to condition the public in order to serve the needs of adopters and make their profit, that there is now the new, improved, brainwashed beemommie who writes posts of sugary joy about her loss on the Internet to make these child-covetors feel better about their role in the separation. I wonder what would happen if just one set of PAPs were to tell the wide-eyed mother-to be that she didn't HAVE to surrender her child? What if (and this is a stretch, I know) they were to offer, instead, their help in keeping the mother and child together and on their feet? I have an outrageous picture in my mind of Industry minions roaring up in a black van with side doors open, sweeping the offending PAPs inside and taking them back to headquarters for more "conditioning." Well, I do have an imagination.

Some people argue that there would be abused, neglected children and overflowing orphanages if there were not adopters. The fact of the matter is that there would be abused, neglected children whether there were adopters or not. In fact, if anyone has watched the news or read the newspapers or online news services  within the past couple of decades, then they know that even adopters have been known to abuse and neglect. And orphanages get a bad rap. I have been in one where there were happy, clean, well-fed children and conscientious, loving guardians. We've been brainwashed by Annie and Oliver in our view of group care for children.

And poverty as a reason to "rescue a child" is as illogical as the two-parent family argument. We didn't have much money when I was growing up, but we always had something to eat and the knowledge of who we were and the love of our mother. I know many people of my parents' generation who grew up in the Great Depression and ate a lot of beans but they were loved and became responsible citizens when they grew to adulthood. Adopters are just as vulnerable to the recession as any of the rest of us and they are also just as prone to divorce, affairs and other pitfalls of life. And one has to wonder how many adopted children are turned over to Nannies to be raised while the adopters pursue success in their careers.

In any event, the people who adopt and have adopted are, for the most part, not idiots. I KNOW that the adopters from the closed, secret era were totally aware of the attitudes towards and the treatment of the unwed mother. You cannot convince me that adopters are ignorant of the pain that is being caused to the mother and to the child by this unnatural separation. But we humans are great at self-justification. The smarter we are, the more easily we justify. The waters of the river of Denial are wide and deep. That brings me back to the issue of stereotyping. We observe and see what adopting does to people. Adopters and others stereotype us as a means of justifying the taking of our children.

So I stand fast in my nomination of adopters as a group as possible recipients of the DIA award. I doubt that they will win it because there are too many people wanting to be "fair." But they will always be at the top of my list. The Industry is soulless. It is a venture of the Capitalistic variety. And adopters use this Industry to fill an emotional desire. It's not even a personal put-down of those who adopt. It's just pure, bottom-line logic.

The Adoption Industry and Adopters ~You can't have one without the other.