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.

Illegitimi Non Carborundum

It seems that, of late, there have been more and more cases of persecution of the innocent and those who speak the truth. Three friends go hiking in the Middle Eastern Mountains and are arrested by the Iranians who charge them with espionage. A young woman wants to marry someone of another religion and she is stoned to death. A whistle-blower is fired and persecuted in an attempt to silence him.

And, the far right and the religious fundies are on a tear in this country for no other reason, when you strip away all the rest of the palaver and specious reasonings, than the fact that our President, duly elected, is a mixed race man with features of the African American race. I think they would be just as nasty and irrational if the chief executive were a woman with liberal leanings. The Old Boys Club took a  beating and they are pulling out all the stops and using the ignorant and bigoted in their campaign. Their campaign has been so successful that a full 20% or more of our population now believe that Mr. Obama is a non-American-born Muslim. This, as we all know (or I hope we do) is slanderous Poppycock and the usual scare tactics that target the less astute citizens of our nation.

Now, we also have anti-choice zealots bemoaning the fact that adoption referrals from Planned Parenthood are decreasing. The number of infants surrendered by single mothers is also decreasing and the Industry and its backers are perturbed to the point that they are doing all in their power to persuade young women to "make an adoption plan(yuck)" and "place" their newborns with a "deserving couple." The message here is that the mother who dares to become pregnant while, single, poor or not having completed her education is NOT deserving of her child. It's a subtler and more insidious version of the same old persecution. The idea of a family headed by a single, young, less-than-affluent woman seems to really scare the bejeesus out of the Good Old Boys.

Along with the tea parties, Palinist goofball rhetoric and other such right-wing nonsense, we are now seeing an upswing in the attacks online and in the general media against adoption reform, open records and those investigating questionable adoption practices and the overzealous actions of the various state Child Services and Social Service agencies. The agencies, including the church-affiliated agencies, are pulling out all the stops and even haunting the adoption forums online to press their agendas.

This can, at times, really get me down. But I have adopted a new slogan, one that was used by General "Vinegar" Joe Stillwell in the Latin, "Illegitimi Non Corborundum," and used as a theme for a popular song by the Toasters, "Don't Let The Bastards Grind You Down." I have spent most of my adult life with opinions that were less than popular or politically correct as in "ain't adoption sweeeeet?" I have learned to hold fast to what I know to be true and understand that the more someone fights to change my views, the more they must feel threatened by them.

Well, to our adult children and my sister mothers, congratulations. They are lining us up in their sights and hauling out the big ammo. Adoption reformers and anti-adoption activists are the target du jour. They are afraid of those of us who are Senior Mothers because there was a lot of paperwork flim-flamming going on back then and the agencies, private, church-run and state-run, want to cover their precious behinds. That is also why they are trotting out an unprovable adoption myth, that of the non-existent guarantee of anonymity for the surrendering mother, to deny adult adopted people the right to their original birth certificates. We already know many, many reunited mothers and adult children who have discovered the lies of their surrender. That must really bother the ones who perpetrated those lies.

We have many, many mothers who don't remember ever signing a surrender document. We find that our children, whom we were promised would be swiftly taken to their adoptive homes, often were kept for months in foster care, without the knowledge of the mother, so that the officials could declare them abandoned. That nasty word is even in a lot of the paperwork. The bitch of this is that, had I known the time frame I had to change my mind and that my children were in foster care, believe me I would have done all I could do to get them back. The social workers of that day knew that, hence the prevarication. With reunions and the campaigns for open records, the secrets and the lies are circling around to the hindquarters of the social workers and agencies, trying to line up a good bite.

So, along with the decision I have made to refuse to allow these conscienceless bastards to grind me down, comes the satisfaction of another truism...what goes around, comes around. Karma is staring the Adoption Industry in the face and Karma can be a real bitch.

There's a little bit of hope for the good guys, yet.

Nothing Says It Like "Distraught"

dis·traught   /dɪˈstrɔt/ ;–adjective 1. distracted; deeply agitated; distressed. 

This is always the word I think of when I try to describe how I felt when the social worker brought the papers in for me to sign while I was still recovering from the birth of my firstborn. It's hard for me to get past that and into what was on those pages. I read them through a blur of tears, knowing that I had to sign them or the consequences would be dire for both me and my newborn. I had caved, surrendered, given up and presented my sword. There was no more fight in me. I was emotionally and mentally defeated. I had been abandoned by the father of my child and isolated from my family and friends by my parents. Now, all that was left to me was to wish my child a loving farewell and trust that the people who got her would treat her like the treasure she was.

I don't remember signing anything when I lost my second child. I tried to hold out a bit longer and I think they just got my mother's or father's signature or forged mine. I don't know. I'm still waiting for the paperwork and am getting a royal runaround from the state of SC.

Musing Mother has posted about the fallacy of "Anonymity" on her blog. Rightfully, she calls those who state that we were, by law or any other contract, promised anonymity, privacy, confidentiality or any other such nonsense from our own children the Liars they are. That entire argument is a myth and an excuse to delay and deter the availability of the Original Birth Certificates of our adult children. The ONLY reference to any kind of protection I remember was a thinly veiled threat of legal consequences should I try to find my children.

On Bastardette's blog, she has posted about the claims of the ACLU's Deborah Jacob's that she has a "pile of anonymous letters," praising the ACLU for their efforts in  keeping the putative letter-writers' shameful secrets safe. I have two questions about that claim. First, if the letters are anonymous, how can she prove that they came, indeed, from mothers of adoption loss? Second, I think that the thousands of us who signed the old MORE (Mothers for Open Records Everywhere)  letter, when it was online, would outnumber a "pile" of letters.

The ACLU and others interested in keeping the OBC's under lock and key are using a lie and twisting any truth in an effort to keep a government-sanctioned BUSINESS going. I guess those with the money and influence can say anything. When we were sent to the maternity homes, our parents were told that no one would know we were there. That was only for the duration of our stay in the maternity prisons. Once we left those places, we were on our own and no one was protecting any of us from anything.

The ones who are the recipients of any considerations of privacy are the adopters. They were more worthy of that commodity that most of us mothers didn't even want. They were the righteous saints that rescued our endangered infants from us sinning sluts. Boy, talk about the Bad Old Days. Whenever anyone tries to claim a legal "right" to confidentiality for mothers, I have to, like Musing Mother, scream "LIARS!" They are lying to an entire nation and getting away with it if we don't speak up.

While I have found a measure of recovery from the pain of my experience, 17 years of reunion have brought it all back to me in crystal-clear memories. I remember the grief, I remember the lies, I remember the emptiness of my arms when I left the hospital and I can remember a somber girl, now a childless mother, just going through the motions of life for a long time.

She was hurt, she was helpless and she was distraught.

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.

So Many Demons, So Few Awards

Pound Pup Legacy is sending out the request for nominees for its next "Demons in Adoption" award. There is a blurb about it in the left-hand column of this blog page. The former winners are notable and deserving. The NCFA, every one's favorite, could almost be re-nominated every year. The adoption propaganda machine in Hollywood can be justifiably proud of the damage done by the movie "Juno" and Bethany Christian Services truly earned their win.

The big question is who to nominate? There are as many demons as there are flavors at your local ice creamery. I am having a difficult time sifting through all the most notable examples of adoption demons in order to choose the most worthy. The list is endless and many of those nominated would not really be good choices because they come from individual situations and could earn the nominator a libel suit.

But, here are my top ten choices:
1-Adopters everywhere deserve this "honor" because it is their desires and demands that keep the wheels of the Industry turning.
2-The National Organization for Women, NOW, for refusing to see the appropriation of a woman's child for adoption as a "women's issue."
3-The Evan B. Donaldson Institute, a wolf in sheep's clothing that presumes, along with the NCFA and others of that ilk, to speak for mothers who are capable of speaking for themselves.
4-On that note, Adam Pertman would be a good choice for something he said that was overheard in a discussion about helping mothers keep their babies. Per Mr. P., "If we helped them then we wouldn't be parents."
5-The government of the United States of America for their Adoption and Infant Adoption Awareness Programs and Initiatives. We can stick it to both sides of the aisle with this one.
6-"Birthmom Buds," a saccharine group of good beemommie shills for infant adoption.
7-"Birthmother Ministries," another example of the same treacle.
8-Any and all Crisis Pregnancy Centers that offer help only to steer mothers towards surrender.
9-Patricia Irwin Johnston for giving us "Respectful Adoption Language."
10-The "Safe Haven Laws" that encourage parents to leave their babies off at designated sites in an effort to reduce the instances of babies placed in dumpsters (overstated..numbers are not that high) rather than offering protection and help for both mother and baby and producing another generation of closed, secret adoptions.

I could keep on and on with an endless list of those who have caused undue pain and suffering to adopted people and mothers of appropriated children. I could add numerous celebrities, such as Nicole Kidman, Tom Cruise, Sandra Bullock, Callista Flockhart, Michelle Pheiffer, Jamie Lee Curtis, Sharon Stone, Madonna, Rosie O'Donnell, Hugh Jackman, Angelina (the mouth) Jolie with honorable mention to Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker, for using surrogates. And that is just a small portion of the famous and infamous that have accessorised with adopted children.

I am sure, Dear Readers, that you can come up with a list of your own. So give it some thought, go to the Pound Pup Legacy link (above) and give someone a chance to reap a bit of payback for what they have sewn.

And remember, Demons are as Demons do.

Separation of Church and Adoption

With all the involvement of various Christian denominations and religious entities in the Industry of adoption, I find it ironic that one of the most revered icons in Christendom is that of an unmarried mother with her child. Of course, they would have to say that it's all right because the child was conceived without "sin." I have my own thoughts on that front but this isn't a theological debate.

This is a rant against the various religious establishments who, for whatever reason, have involved themselves in social engineering through adoption and who would deny women control over their own reproductive system. Right off the top of my head, I can name Catholic Charities, Lutheran Services, Bethany Christian Adoption Services and the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (or, as I like to call it, Smith's Stooges). Just about every so-called "Crisis Pregnancy Center" you can find is church-related.

These self-righteous womb raiders are hand-in-glove with the Industry of Adoption, the NCFA,which is its lobbying arm, and other well-funded organizations such as the Evan B. Donaldson Institute. Together with their supporters in the various state legislatures and in the Federal Government, the religious right has become a force to be reckoned with, and one with their noses so deep in our government and laws that there is no way they should be tax-exempt.

They can, arrogantly, call church related adoption services a social outreach to those in need and the Goobers, Gomers, Buffys and Bimbettes buy that line of excrement. For the Industry at large, it is the bottom line and that is, at least, provable and identifiable. But the religious involvement in this heinous activity is more insidious. I believe, after much reading and visiting sites that turn my stomach, that it is social engineering of the self-righteous kind which constitutes the work of these sacred entities. What better way to increase the population of church-swayed voters?  The LDS contingent already owns Utah and they are big on being fruitful, multiplying and womb-raiding.

This is nothing new. Surrender of the child of the unmarried mother to adoption as an avenue for redemption for her sin of "fornication" is old news that is being made new again. It really never went away. It just was under wraps for a while, ruminating. In Rickie Solinger's scholarly examination of the EMS, "Wake Up Little Susie; Single Pregnancy and Race Before Roe v Wade," we see that the powers that be in both the religious and psychology communities saw surrender as necessary punishment and treatment. In this manner, we miscreant mothers who "went and got OURSELVES pregnant," were both spiritually absolved of our sins and psychologically cured of our deviant natures. All it took was the sacrifice of our children to the adoption machine. Funny...I didn't feel either redeemed or cured of anything.

In the past 4 decades or so, our society has done an evolutionary cha-cha-cha. We went a step or two forward and, now, we are taking several steps back. The church that everyone sees as so benign (just as society views adoption) is quietly and efficiently becoming, again, the big, sexist bully of days gone by. Combine their aggression with the big business of the adoption Industry and you have one of the largest, most effective oxymorons functioning in the nation and abroad, today.

I have to wonder at the return to Paulism and this anti-woman disrespect for the most natural and sacred bond there is...that of natural mother and child. I have a dear friend that calls it "Woman's inhumanity to Woman" and she is pretty darn right on the mark. Christianity found its way into Roman society as a cult among the wives of the politicians of the Empire. I have to wonder at that since Saul/Paul, who claimed a vision on the road to Damascus and declared himself an apostle, seemed to really hate women and was definitely an adherent to the patriarchal customs of the Jews. In any event, you would think that, in 2000 years, we would have evolved spiritually and socially as well as technologically. It boggles my mind that we haven't.

In any event, we need to remind our elected officials that we are citizens who deserve the respect and representation that is, supposedly, a right of all Americans. I am writing letters, every day, to representatives, senators, and the print and Internet media, and I have yet to receive an answer that satisfies my questions. If the trend of the adoption Industry and the church holding hands and lobbying in our halls of government continues, unabated and unchallenged, we have more to worry about than just closed records.

We have to worry about a loss of our most basic, constitutional rights. It doesn't get any scarier than that. All it takes is for good people to continue to believe blindly and do nothing.

Religion needs to step away from our babies and our government.

Get Me A Labrador And I'll Retrieve It

I grew up on Looney Tunes cartoons. I loved Disney, but I got my real, deep, belly laughs from Bugs, Porky, Daffy, Elmer Fudd, Foghorn Leghorn, Charlie the Dog, Marvin the Martian, Wylie Coyote, the Roadrunner and all the rest.My all time favorite cartoon is "What's Opera Doc" followed closely by "Often an Orphan." The latter stars Porky and Charlie and is totally priceless from start to finish.

The cartoon opens with Charlie being "taken for a ride in the country." A man opens the car door, Charlie bounds out, the man throws a stick, Charlie gives chase and the man jumps back into the car and roars away, leaving poor Charlie with a stick in his mouth on the side of the road. Charlie then goes into all his "adorable dog" poses until along comes Porky and he is rescued...we think. It is not long before we learn why Charlie was cut loose by his previous master. He's just a bit obnoxious. Being over-eager to please, he goes into con man mode.

My favorite exchange between Porky and Charlie is; P:"What kind of dog are you, anyway?" C: "Why I'm a Labrador Retriever." P: "You're not a Labrador Retriever." C: "Oh Yes I am. Get me a Labrador and I'll retrieve it!" P: non-plussed silence. C: "Do you even have a Labrador?" P: *sputter C:"Do you know where you can get a Labrador?" P: "Well, No." C: "THEN SHADDAP!"

It wasn't until I watched this cartoon in its entirety again, that I saw, in the body of the film, the bits and pieces of a lot of reunions. Charlie is over-eager to please and over-needy to the point of being obnoxious. Porky is having trouble getting his bearings and wants to be a kind person but is being pushed to the edge. The cartoon ends with Porky taking Charlie for another "ride in the country," only Charlie pulls a fast one and jumps in the car and drives off while Porky is throwing the stick. Now it is Porky's turn to sit at the side of the road and try to be adorable.

I think that the roles here are interchangeable. There always seems to be one who pushes and one who retreats in the reunion dance and that can change from one to the other as the years pass. Charlie wants to be the center of the Universe and, while Porky is willing to give food, water and shelter (*love and acceptance), he does have a farm to run. The Mother and the Adoptee wear both faces in this analogy. I have seen some mothers try so hard that they lose what they might have had of themselves in the need to connect with the child they lost. I have seen adoptees pushing and testing and needing until the mother is drained and they, the adoptee, are angry and emotionally exhausted, not understanding why they do it.

And I have seen both Mother and Adoptee so angry that "THEN SHADDUP" is the only thing left to say. It's a dance to discordant music and with no rehearsal. In a way, it reminds me a bit of the Apache dance of the Parisian streets of the early part of the last century. The dancers exchange slaps and pushes and drags and there are intense but mixed feelings in every movement. The Apache dance is, to me, passionately sad and cruel. But what was done to us and to our children is also sad and cruel. And it has placed a barrier between us that is very hard to penetrate all the way.

There are times when I want to just wish, so hard, that I could go back and have a do over and not have my children appropriated for adoption. I put my sanity at risk if I dwell on that tragedy and what happened to them very much. I have to make room in my life for all the others who are integral parts of my world. But the gap between me and my adult, surrendered children is keenly felt and the bridges we build are not all that sturdy. It's like the paste we used to make in kindergarten. Too much water, and nothing holds together. Adoption dilutes the bond of blood and love and we have to find new ways to strengthen it. If we are lucky, we can add more of the original bond until it "takes." Or not..... Too often there is a gate in the center of the bridge and the lock on that gate is, most often, the adopters.

If ever there were anything that would make me want to scream, it is the confusion of this unnatural thing called adoption and the treatment dealt out to the mothers of the EMS. I know we are not going to get anywhere by sitting on the side of the road trying to be adorable. We learn, too quickly, that it just doesn't get the job done. That's why you will see mothers of the EMS, representing SMAAC, in San Antonio next July. We're done chasing the sticks that anyone, including the Industry, throws and are throwing a few of our own. 

Whether we are a fast-talking Charlie or a befuddled Porky, we are all mad as hell and are not going to take it anymore. When it comes to getting justice for us and our children of the EMS, you just get me a Labrador and I'll retrieve it.

Life CAN Be Good

I have to pause, every once in a while, and let people know that those of us adversely affected by adoption do manage life quite well. In fact, we probably appreciate the good times more for the pain of our trauma. I don't think it is an accident that we have artists, songwriters, poets, lecturers and writers among the numbers of exiled mothers and adoptees. Two of my adoptee friends are stand-up comics. And yes, they are funny.

For some of us, the humor of the absurd is very attractive. After all, what could be more absurd than the assumption that a child would be better off without the mother to whom he/she was born, especially if she is a normal, decent human being? What a farce to think that such a mother would be content, nay, even happy to surrender her precious infant to strangers? When we have been pushed into such an unnatural situation, anything natural or "normal" is almost foreign to many of us. So the comedy of the outre' variety is really appreciated by us.

I used to, before I got old enough to start going to bed with the chickens, love to watch Saturday Night Live. There was a sketch done by Eddie Murphy in his persona as Mr. Robinson of "Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood" that had me gasping for air from laughing so hard. He carried on just like a children's TV host but with very adult and shady activities. This particular bit had Mr. Robinson entering his apartment, carrying a blanket-wrapped bundle. Seems that Mr. Robinson's girlfriend had presented him with a little surprise. As the landlord pounded on the door demanding rent from Mr. R., he was ducking down the fire escape, singing, "Tomorrow, tomorrow, I'll sell this kid tomorrow for a cool five grand."

When this particular episode ran, I was just getting into the idea of search and reunion and had attended a meeting where I got a crash course in the dark underbelly of adoption. When I watched the SNL episode with the Murphy segment, I had a, "Well, there you go," moment. Rather than being offended, it affirmed for me the fact that our children were seen as products to be sold and our feelings in the whole transaction never really mattered to anyone. There was a black-market adoptee in that old group and her battle had been a long and arduous one so I knew that this was not so far off the mark. If we can't laugh at ourselves, we are, indeed, sad specimens.

Then there was the SNL skit about "The Whiners," a couple that whined about everything. Sure enough, they wound up in a fertility clinic wanting a "baay-beeee." When they were given the bad news and the doctor suggested adoption, the Whiners, as one, moaned, "But we want our OWN Baaaay-beeee." The upshot of the sketch was that the world was better off if these two never procreated. It was hilarious.

If we spent all our time concentrating on the path that led us to these forums, blogs and groups, we would be a sad and sorry bunch. But, especially if we have reached a stage in recovery where we realize we deserve some enjoyment of life, we don't do that. We have this issue as a PART of our life rather than our lives being a part of this issue. Yes, it has done a lot to form who and what we are. But it is not everything in our world or our lives.

People have been able to find humor in the worst things that can happen for untold years. I still get a chuckle when I remember being rushed to the Savannah, GA hospital in fast labor with my second child. I was being transported by the "house mother," a rigid, prudish. Bible-thumping Baptist who had a special place in Hell reserved for me (a two-timer) and one of my roommates who had the audacity to be Catholic. The pride and joy of her life was her show-room new, 1963 Buick. Imagine her consternation when my water broke all over her brand-new, unprotected, suede-trimmed seat covers. Although in the throes of the final stages of labor, I laughed all the way to the delivery room while Ms. R. surveyed her passenger seat in dismay. I swear she believed I did it on purpose.

I'm not quite sure where I am wanting to go with this, except to say that it would help a lot of us if we lightened up a bit. Certainly grief, anger and pain are normal, But sitting in any of it 24/7 doesn't help us or our adult children. Getting offended at everything anyone says is wasting time that could be spent laughing.

I saw an adopter get all offended by a picture someone had photo-shopped of a social worker turning an infant over to eager adopters. The artist, trying to convey the secrecy and lies surrounding closed adoption, had fitted all in the picture with paper sack masks, including the baby. Everyone else in the room saw the picture as funny, even the adopter's adoptee (whom he referred to as "our precious angel). His "precious angel" was uptight, scared, obese, plain and looked like a prisoner of war with an adopter sitting on each side of her like prison guards. We got the message. If this girl was determined to search, then the adopters were going to be in complete control. I do think she was reunited with her mother, but I don't know the outcome. Seeing those adopters, I can certainly hazard a guess, though. A friend and I still chuckle over that one.

Humor is a satire of life, especially its incongruities. Things can't get more off-kilter than in adoption and adoption reunion. We can't change the past, and while tears are appropriate, so is laughter. I am thinking about donning a purple dress, a red hat and heading out to lunch, somewhere.

And if people laugh at me, I'll laugh right along with them.

So Much For Lock Step

Not too long ago, a couple of friends and I were accused of various sins, felonies and misdemeanors. Someone was not happy with the things we opined on different public forums and got testy about it. When we circled the wagons and tried reason, we were accused of "marching in lock step" with each other and unable to think independently.

While my friends and I are of a single mind on many things, which is wonderful serendipity and the thing from which many friendships are formed, we are all, also, very much thinking women who have minds and varying opinions of our own. Sometimes we see things differently and that is OK too. If I had to be your clone to be your friend, it just wouldn't happen.

Yesterday, one of those areas of disagreement was very evident in the blog post I wrote about the way the industry is using the self-interest of vacuous beemommies of the younger variety to keep the supply coming. I evinced pity for these young women, thinking that they, like the generation after us, would awaken to the true consequences of their loss and have a hard time forgiving themselves. For a few, that might well happen.

But I have had my eyes opened to something that I wasn't seeing when I would suppress my gag reflex long enough to read from those saccharine essays. The industry has managed to create a whole, new class of addictive disease. I am not sure what to call it...maybe Martyrism or Heroine-exia? In the discussion, I saw that some of these pathetic beemommies were addicted to the head pats and adopter gratitude and saw themselves as sooooo special for helping to "create a family" for someone else. WHOA! Yes. These kids would be willing to do it again! They are "affirmation junkies."

I have to say it. From the experienced viewpoint of someone who was forced to do it twice, You'll be so-reeeeee! I don't think they will immediately suffer from the same grief and pain that I experienced. Nope, what will happen is what is already happening as adpoptees from the 'open adoption' era reach their teens and adulthood and are starting to express their own feelings and ask the hard questions. I opine (and my dear friends are free to disagree) that they will take a hard, swift and painful belly flop off that beemommy/angel pedestal on which they think they stand. As addicts, they will have to experience withdrawal. Sorry Ladies, but I really pity these fools.

I think that, in the midst of all the attention in the post given to the Judas Goat Beemommies, the main point was badly expressed. And that is how, after feeding on our hearts and souls and the identities and self-images of us and our children, the Beast has evolved. We were the blood and guts it consumed to morph into this Machiavellian entity that is able to take an entire nation (one, by the way, which is becoming increasingly incapable of individual, independent thinking of just about any kind) and blow pixie dust in their eyes to the point that they are getting young women hooked on their own victimization. Ya gotta love the business-like approach. The bottom line has no conscience or morality.


One friend mentioned that she no longer felt guilty about being silent in the decades post-surrender and pre-reunion. We had to awaken in our own way. She's right. When we were able to realize what had truly happened to us and to our children, we read, we learned, we talked to each other and now we are speaking out to everyone. For me, speaking out and telling the truth about MY experience has caused a rift between me and my oldest child. As much as I love her, I will not keep silent. Adoption is a Beast, adopters are complicit and lies were told.

So while we are seeking justice and recognition for what was done to us in the EMS, the Industry Beast is forging ahead with a new, faster, more efficient model for the present day. I can't stop these bimbos from trying just a bit of the drug. If they start main-lining relinquishment, they and their innocent children are the ones who will suffer.

My time and efforts are better spent on the important things like the mothers of the EMS. And that is where it will always, first and foremost, be. But, for what little good it might do, some humane, soft-centered part of me wants to give these Barbie Dolls a map that shows the road to pain and that there be monsters, there. Another part of me wants to slap them silly and tell them to snap out of it. Still another part of me wants to ignore them. But, I'm, personally, not comfortable with the idea that what they are doing now is part of an attempt to dismiss our truth about our experience as something that happened "back then" and pointing to the good beemommies of today as representative of the Industry's benevolence. The Beast is clever and these young women are not very motherly.

Maybe we could send them all to a boot camp for motherhood. I'd volunteer to be a part-time drill sergeant.

As The Brain Is Washed: Part Deux

When the axe comes into the forest, the trees, upon seeing its wooden handle, say "Look, one of us."
Hasidic saying (Thanks CB)

I get so tired of hearing the treacle spewed by those young brood mares such as the ones who post to the blog Birthmothers For Adoption. These young women are only a couple of years out from their loss, if that, and have a lot to go through, yet they are putting themselves up as "experts" in the area of surrendering a child for adoption. I'm not quite sure of the significance of this amateurish logo. The pink ribbon is a Breast Cancer Awareness logo, the heart is, well, a heart and the wings??? Well, all I can think of is, maybe, a breast cancer survivor in love, riding a Harley?

You only have to read a few entries to know that the mothers on that group (and no, I will not do them the disservice they do themselves by calling them "birth"mothers) have sipped long and deeply at the Adoption Kool Aid spring of denial and misinformation. They are still in the pink cloud of self-delusion encouraged by the Industry and the adopters that say they are loving mothers...GOOD mothers, even, for turning their infant over to genetic strangers. I have to pity them because they are so damn clueless.

While I abhor the fact that these young women are actually promoting adoption after losing their own children to the Beast, I hate, more, the fact that the Industry is getting so good at making that Kool Aid taste like fine wine. They are honing the brainwashing of the American public to a fine, sharp edge. The blade is so sharp, the Beemommies don't even feel the cut.

I felt a brief moment of hope when I read an entry "Adoption Wasn't For Me," only to find that she just hadn't been introduced to the LDS adoption machine. Well, obviously it is all in the way it is presented.  I couldn't read too much more because I was saddened, sickened and felt an uncomfortable twinge of guilt.

The guilt I felt was at keeping silent, as we EMS mothers were ordered to do, for so many years. Our silence aided in the beguiling of these naifs. When the phenomenon of search and reunion started, the Industry was, only then, starting to hear faint rumblings from the mothers of appropriated infants. Their response was the infamous "Focus Groups" where mothers were blindfolded, made to relive their pain and tragedy and then sent on their way with $100 for their participation. Out of that dastardly action came the idea of "open adoption," which was nothing more than a way to entice more women into surrender and not worth the paper on which it is printed. It was crumbs when a feast was in order.

To make a bad situation worse, they now have, in some church supported agencies, especially the LDS, relinquishment and "binding" ceremonies. How on earth could any mother survive these indignities and torture unless she was thoroughly, emotionally anesthetized? I watched a short video of one such ceremony and it was barbaric. It was like forcing the lamb to celebrate its own slaughter.

I watched a horror movie, recently...one so bad it was almost funny. The vampire was turning people into vampires and then sending them out to make more vampires with an eye to world domination (what would they subsist on when all the humans are turned..enquiring minds want to know?). The Industry turns mothers-to-be into beemommies and then sends them forth to entice more beemommies. That's scarier than the scariest horror movie.

The bad part, the hard part, for me, is that I understand their denial. I was in the "Good Birthmother" fog for quite a few years. It took reuniting with two damaged, adult children in great pain to realize that I had been HAD. I'd love to be able to get through to these young handmaids and let them know that, when they realize that pink cloud is just water vapor with food coloring, they are going to fall and fall hard. They are still floating and feeling all heroic and righteous. And if they believe that idiocy about their children "rising up and calling them blessed," they can forget THAT in a big, fat hurry. That very seldom happens and, when it does, it is usually temporary and a prelude to "goodbye forever."

The Industry is pulling out all the stops and these young sisters have been swept up in the wave of anti-choice, guilt-inducing, Madison Avenue glitz, smoke and mirrors. I have to do my small part to counteract the poison they are spreading with what they, mistakenly, probably see as good intentions. If they really, honestly think that giving up their babies is so damn wonderful, then I am doubly sorry for them.

If and when the awakening comes, it is going to be a rude one.

A Soul Sickness

There is a new Facebook page that is about adoption healing. Two friends of mine have written books about healing from adoption. Many others seek counseling and other means to heal from the ongoing pain of the adoption malady. And yet so many say that no one ever really heals from the pain of loss and unnatural separation and lives lived with shame, fear, distortions, secrets and lies. They are right on the money.

There is a Latin Proverb that states, "The sickness of the soul will renew itself." There are too many reminders in  daily living for us to be free of the pain all the time. Just as memories of any tragedy will cloud your mind with sadness, so will the reality of the strange and incomprehensible life of lies and seekings and painful realizations take you to that place of bewildered grief. Many mothers I know have referred to this unhealable pain as an open wound. What scar tissue that may form is thin, soft and easily torn open.

When we lost my stepson to the illness of severe depression which culminated in suicide, we sought whatever help we could find. The best help came from our peers...other people who had lost loved ones in this horrific manner. It was at one of those group sessions that I first heard the words, "It's not something you get over. It's something that becomes a part of who you are and you learn to live with it." This was my husband's only child. But his response was a lot quicker and more sensible than mine. I sat in anger for a long time.

My husband, however, decided that the best thing he could do would be to make his life a memorial to his son by living it the best way he possibly could. He has done just that, and pulled me out of my fury to take the journey with him.

Oh yes, I was furious with my stepson for throwing away the life he was given, knowing how badly he would hurt those that loved him. With time, I learned that he was dealing with life the only way he thought he could..by ending it. He was in a place of darkness with no hope. He was blinded to the light at the end of the tunnel. And he had a fatal sickness of the soul. I know, in my heart, that he has found peace.

While my stepson's soul sickness was fatal, the malady that attacks exiled mothers and adoptees is more chronic, although there have been suicides related to it. Getting to the point where the pain is manageable and intermittent takes some drastic measures, chief among them being the acceptance of the truths of our experiences. For many, that is a big, terrifying step to take. Mothers and their adult surrendered children are often the queens and kings of denial. Accepting the unacceptable as truth was often how we managed to make it until we found some way to see through the fog without letting it overpower us. Then we have to learn how to live with it.

We mothers have to accept the fact that we were not in any kind of control of the "decision" we made and that the assurances we received....you will 'forget,' you will 'get over it', 'you will have other children that will fill the void'.....were all lies and illusions. While the joy I have in my raised children will never be diminished by anything, you cannot replace one person with another. Each child has their own place in our hearts.

We have to accept, when we reunite, that our babies are gone from  us forever and the adult we meet is a familiar stranger with our features and talents, perhaps, but with ideas formed of the lies they were told and the big lie they were forced to live. We have to expect that the people who raised them, the people they see as their parents, were not the ideal paragons described to us by the social workers, but flawed humans, just like anyone else. We have to look on the damage done to our children and deal with that red-hot rage at those who inflicted it on them and on us.

The adoptee has to struggle with the reality of what they find versus the lies they were told. They have to struggle with the feelings they have long harbored of abandonment, especially when they don't jibe with the truth. Hardest of all is acceptance of their adopters' roles in their experiences that have wounded them. Going from living a lie to accepting the truth is a huge and terrifying leap. The adoptee harbors fantasies about the mother, as well. One mother relates the attitude of her reunited adult child who opined that it would have been better had the mother, with whom she reunited, been a drug addict or slut. For some reason, that would have made it easier for her to accept her separation from her mother. That is one of the most telling of the soul sickness symptoms...the clinging to a lie.

My own adult child asked about her father, quickly letting me know that it was all right if I didn't know who he was. Well, I was floored. OF COURSE I knew who her father was. The fact that she thought such a thing might be possible was an indication of the lies she had been told and the assumptions that separation of mother and child create.

There is the undeniable fact that both the adoptee and the mother exist with the presence of living ghosts, hovering just beyond the veil of separation. And when reunion tears that veil and the vision is cleared, it is earth-shattering.

All those are symptoms of the soul sickness of adoption separation. There are too many to list. I have laid a couple of my own symptoms to rest..those of shame and guilt. I medicate myself with life, with truth, with work, with facing the beast, even to baiting it in its own lair. And I realize that, like those suffering from the soul sicknesses of alcoholism, addiction and depression, that I can recover but am never cured. I can be gentle with my soul and strict with it when I need to be. And I can follow my husband's example and make my life count for something. Which brings to mind another Latin Proverb.

“Live your own life, for you will die your own death.” When my time comes, I want to know I did the best I could. Until then, I live with what was and what is and make the best life I can make.

A Real "Resident Evil"

Some time ago, a video game was created called "Resident Evil." That game has been made into a series of financially successful horror films starring Milla Jovovich. As for anyone wondering what a grandmotherly sort such as I would know about this genre...well, I love it. In this genre, you usually have to sift through a lot of dross to strike gold, but there have been some shiny nuggets to enjoy.

The story begins in a futuristic (but not too far in the future) Metropolis called Raccoon City which is owned by a large bio-engineering corporation which is under the protection of the government. Jovovich's character and her lover are both subjects of the genetic manipulation by that big business with no conscience. All this chicanery takes place in an elaborate facility beneath the main building of the corporation.

In the story, the worst happens and there is an industrial accident in this buried laboratory. The biological agents are free to contaminate all who are there and they become ravenous, grotesque, flesh-eating zombies, even down to the guard dogs. Each bite to a human spreads the affliction. Jovovich is compelled to battle this menace, not remembering her own involvement as a lab animal for these villains. She is considered, with her superior fighting skills, strength and agility, to be a "success" for the corporation. Her lover is pushed even further into an unrecognizable mutation, huge, malevolent and violent.

As the subsequent films emerge, we see Jovovich and the few human survivors fighting hordes of corporation zombies, vampires and other genetic mutants who wish to feed on the humans and capture Jovovich to turn her to their master plan. And, for those of us who love horror movies and do not take them seriously, a good time is had by all.

BUT, as I opined in my previous post, there ARE monsters among us. Substitute social engineering for biological engineering and there you have it. I like to see mothers and adopted adults who came out of the adoption fog as very like the heroine in "Resident Evil." We are in a battle to take down the very entity that made us what we are....angry warriors.

We don't need special effects to see the  spread of the virus of entitlement and baby-bartering. For every good beemommy who walks into the maw of the Industry, we get a Stepford Mom, spouting scripture, beaming in joy and farting rainbows about adoption. And, because human beings like to think as little as possible, they can spread their pastel poison at will. Add to that the Industry's Madison Avenue approach and the support of another evil....the religious right wing....and we are battling monsters in our own back yards. As in the films, for every one that is vanquished, two more take its place.

I don't think that the people who create these games and films have to look very far for inspiration to add to their imagination. The monstrous nature of Big Business is becoming more and more a feature of our daily lives and it is something that is hard to combat. When it comes to Big Adoption, our weapons are knowledge, experience and the ability to see past the mirrors and smoke screens and into the reality of what is happening. Is it any wonder that I see Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" every bit as horrifying as any of the horror movies and books that I love? The Industry is a horror of the many-tentacled variety. The NCFA, the EBDI, the church-run agencies, the independent agencies and the elected officials who accept the gratuities of the lobbyists are all the arms that reach out and bring the victim into the hungry maw of the monster.

The monsters look just like you and me. They are, to all appearances, normal human beings. What sets the adoption facilitators and promoters aside is that, somehow, they have lost their compassion and had their vision skewed. We are not seen as mother and child with a sacred and natural bond. We are seen as money to be made, mistakes to be corrected, and a chance to create a society in the image of their imagined Utopias. The adopters seem to be fitted with an entitlement gene that assures them they are more deserving of a child than that child's own kin or even country.

At the end of one of the RE films, Jovovich's character is forced to battle her unrecognizable lover, now a killing machine of flesh and cybernetics. At the climax of the battle, a tiny light of humanity is seen in his eyes and he refuses to destroy his former love of his human life.

I keep looking for that light in the eyes of the Industry and its adherents. So far, I haven't seen very much of one. But I keep hoping.

Snacks For The Dragon

I think one of the most vivid symbols I get in my mind whenever I think of mothers and adoptees harvested and appropriated for adoption is that of a dragon devouring us. The dragon (the adoption industry) grew fat and strong during the EMS and now, is having to subsist on snacks which it hunts in disguise and beguiles into its trap. In the old legends, the fear-filled townspeople would choose a young girl, a virgin, and bind her to a post outside the dragon's den. Thus they ensured that the dragon would leave them alone.....until it got hungry again. Now that the young girls are less respectful of the town elders, the dragon has had to find another avenue to procure its favorite food.

The problem is that the dragon stays hungry. It wears many faces but they are all the faces of greed, envy, covetousness and self-entitlement. The dragon is the PAP lusting after the womb-fresh infant of another woman. The dragon is the adopters poisoning the adoptee's mind against the woman who gave him/her life. The dragon is the NCFA, lobbying in the halls of our government. The dragon is the elected official lusting after the votes and whatever other goodies the lobbyist offers. The dragon is the fundamentalist, reactionary, right-wing church, seeking to expand their numbers and prevent a woman from making a choice. (I believe it has a large lair in Utah)The dragon is every facilitator of adoption who profits from the tragedy of the separation of mother and child. The dragon is the media, ignorance of the truth about the tragedy, and the collusion of state, church and the Industry.

The dragon has so managed to cloud its true nature, that the victims go to it, thinking they are going to be saved, when what they get is devoured. Then, once these gullible snacks have passed through the dragon's gastric system, they laud and glorify the dragon as benevolent, warm, fuzzy and, Golly, just so RIGHT.

The dragon crosses oceans and skies to find its meals. The hunger in its belly, created by its own mythology, never goes away, is never satisfied and is always looking for ways to increase its food stock. It sings its siren song from pulpits, television and movie screens, social service departments and the ignorance of the townspeople. It is politically correct, brings a sweet tear to the eye and is a daggone, Martha Stewart-type, all-around GOOD THING. No one but the ones who have been eaten by the dragon really see the fiery breath and the dagger-sharp teeth.

We speak up, we shout, we write, we demonstrate and we sign petitions and so far, the progress is minimal. I have stopped wondering why it is so hard for the general public to listen to us. I know we are going to have to turn the dragon's fire against itself by chipping away at the myth and the stereotypes. We can try to keep new mothers from entering the dragon's cave. But we can't save them all.

The dragon consumed me and I passed through. But I am not going to be dragon shit. If anything, many of us, mothers and adoptees, are proving to be similar to another mythical creature...the Phoenix. We are breaking free of that draconian dung-heap to which we were consigned and refusing to let the blazing belches of the dragon silence us. For us, there is nowhere the dragon can hide and no way it can disguise its true nature from us. We know the Beast.

Hey, if it has scales, big teeth and breathes fire, it's a dragon.

Being Offended

Most thinking people I know would be rightly offended by this picture. It exemplifies all that is wrong with religion, racism, arrogance and hate. But then, we are offended by many things.

I am offended by gratuitous vulgarity that is used only for shock effect rather than to make a point. I am offended by most Rap for this reason. I am offended by people who don't know how to behave in public with dignity and kindness. I am offended by badly-timed red lights and stores that run out of the special offers before I get there. I am offended by wife beaters, child abusers, date-rapers, loud car stereos, bullies and door-to-door missionaries. I am offended by Glen Beck, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Richard Riley and Mel Gibson. I am offended by people who use handicapped parking spaces without a tag or mirror hanger. I am offended by political commercials that sling mud. If I tried really hard, I could spend most of my time being offended.

Richard Dawkins, an Atheist activist from the UK, presented a speech at UC at Berkely with this as the theme. He presented it well. There are times, he opined, when it is appropriate to be offended. There are times when something goes against the grain so badly, that so scorches your sensibilities to the core, that taking offense is the only way to respond. He is so right. I am not an atheist but I am an un-churched free-thinker and much of what he has to say appeals to me.

For me, it is the carefully crafted and ongoing efforts of the religious right and the government (on both sides of the aisle) and the adoption industry to turn back the clock and return us to the bad old days of maternity homes, shame and selective social engineering. What is especially offensive is the use of young, bubbly, natural mothers to promote this kind of horrific activity. Their website and facebook page are so saccharine as to nauseate. "Birthmom Buds," "Birthmothers Ministry" and "Ask A Birthmother" are among the greatest offenders.

I have, in the past, referred to these women as "Judas Goats" who cheerfully lead other animals to slaughter. It's really worse than that. They are participating in doing to the nation and to millions of young women what was done to them..brainwashing. The religious zeal that targets abortion rights has been handily incorporated by the adoption industry into a way to continue to promote infant adoption.

That brings me to another thing that I find offensive. Why do the adopters of infants insist on the idea that they are "rescuing" an infant from a fate worse than death? Why do they, in fact, want only the womb-fresh, healthy infants? Why do these self-entitled, Yuppie paragons ignore the multitude of older, special needs children in the foster care system that truly need the comfort of a home and people who care about them?

If what I have seen is any indication, they will have their fresh, warm, still-damp babies. The industry and its spin doctors and the churches and the pundits are carefully grooming a new generation of brood mares for the more entitled and that is what offends me the most...that there are those who believe that they are more entitled to a child than a child's own mother and that a mother-to-be will willingly walk into the beemommy trap believing the same damn thing.

1900 years ago, give or take a few, a cult was given a jump-start by a tax collector turned evangelist and prolific writer who claimed a vision on the road to Damascus, much like Joseph Smith later claimed a vision in the US that led to the LDS church. Both men were of questionable character and I can't see, from the teachings of either, where that was improved by their, so-called, divine messages. If you look at the dogma of most Christian churches, you will find, if your mind is open and you are Bible-literate, that they practice more Paulism than Christianity. Saul/Paul was a misogynist, judgmental and arrogant....all the things that the Jesus who is portrayed in most scriptures was not. The message of love gets lost in the regulation handbook, and religious extremism is spreading like wildfire.

Today, almost two millennia later, this dogma is being used to perpetrate the disregard for the most natural, biological and spiritual bond there is...that of a mother and her child. They have no trouble using God as a wedge to separate infant from mother and they do so with impunity. If nothing else, they use the old hellfire and brimstone fear tactics and lead the mother to believe that she will only be saved if she repents and surrenders her child. SS, DD.

So, yes, I am offended...I am offended by the machinations of an insidious industry that preys on the vulnerable in our society and I am offended that a religion, supposedly based on love, along with our national government, is in collusion with them. This treads badly on the principle of separation of church and state. I am offended by the unnecessary pain of millions of mothers and their surrendered children.

And if that offends YOU, too bad.

The Woman In The Mirror

"I'm Starting With The Man In the Mirror.
I'm Asking Him To Change his Ways.
And No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer.
If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself And Then Make A Change
(Take A Look At Yourself AndThen Make A Change)" ~Michael Jackson/Man In The Mirror"

I received quite a few private responses to my post about Stockholm Syndrome. One of the most profound and moving was from a woman who has experienced this from both ends, as an adoptee and as a mother whose firstborn was taken for adoption. Things are dicey on both counts for her and she is seeking answers.

I was in bed with my laptop, reading, when I got her message. I sent a reply but felt it was so inadequate. When your mother is fearful and your adult child is distant, with what are you left?

Well, we are left with what we all have...ourselves. My parents are dead. My children, raised and surrendered,  live 600 miles away. My oldest just ended a 17-year reunion and my reunion with my second surrendered child is a hit-or-miss proposition. I live with my husband, my little dog and ME.

The past 25 years or so have been both the best and the most trying of my life. There has been divorce, remarriage, reunions, tragedy, joy and sorrow...the mixed bag that is life. But, for the past two and a half decades, something has been happening to me that makes it all worthwhile. Every day, it seems, I discover more of who and what I am. It's a journey, not a destination, but I am happy with what I have found, so far. The imperfection of a decent human being is no longer a cause for ashes and sackcloth. I no longer depend on others to define me.

And I have learned that whatever happens to my children, my family, or my friends is NOT ABOUT ME. Sometimes I think the years of this journey have been a steady chipping away at ego and replacing it with self-esteem. It is not something that is done overnight, although I had an epiphany of sorts that started me on my way. In fact, there have been a number of epiphanies that have kept me moving forward rather than resting on my fat, smug self-satisfaction.

My raised daughter was having some serious gynecological problems that landed her in the hospital and she was scheduled for a laparoscopy. I was in the doldrums, worried about what the outcome might mean to her and shared my mother's angst at a group session I attended each week. Afterwards, the group leader came up to me and said, "Robin, I'm not going to tell you that IT will be all right. But YOU will be all right." It dawned on me that this was not about me, it was about my daughter and that I needed to take my angst and shove it and be there for her, strong and without panic or pressure. I did no one any good by taking their problems on myself, crying, beating my breast and intensifying the drama.

Wow...what a wake-up call! This wasn't my first epiphany and I hope, not my last. But what I have learned from that is that my happiness, peace of mind and self-esteem are all inside me. I cannot let other people decide my state of mind or my self-image. And, should any of my loved ones turn away from me, I have to let that be their choice and their problem. As long as my love for them remains constant, I am the one who gains. You just can't stay sad 24/7 or you have a major problem. I've been down that road and it went no where.

While I was never a great fan, I loved Michael Jackson's "Man In The Mirror." The song is a lesson in the fact that the only thing we can change is ourselves. We can help "effect change" in laws and government policy if we are persistent. But changing other people is not possible nor is it healthy to attempt it. The biggest crime is making other people responsible for our emotional welfare and self-image. Adopters do this without even realizing that they are doing it. That child is supposed to take away their pain of infertility. Big job for a little one, huh? The more we depend on others for our happiness, the more disappointed we are going to be. And, we have no one to blame for that but the face in the mirror.


It has been helpful for me to learn from adopted people the things that help me understand my own adult children. But understanding the person does not change them...just me. That leaves me with what I am going to do with the understanding and that is where my responsibility to myself comes into the picture. What am I willing to do for the relationship and what am I unwilling to do? When it approaches the territory of changing my persona or my deepest held values to meet the needs of someone else, I call a halt. Sometimes the answer is "Love and let go."

Abraham Lincoln opined that most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be. Having looked within, I have discovered that he was very right. My children, my husband, my family, my friends..they are all off the hook. My happiness is my own package to wrap.

Dearest Ones, you are the icing on the cake...but I am the cake.

Stockholm Adoptees

One of my dear adoptee friends made a comment on my  blog that had me doing some digging and research. She said that, while many adoptees strongly resist being compared to victims of Stockholm Syndrome, she found the similarities too real and too alarming to ignore. This was in response to  portions of a blog where I spoke about the adoptees feeling responsible for the emotional welfare of those who adopted them. This is the other side of the coin from mothers who suffer from PTSD and also suffer from the same emotional stress suffered by families of service people missing in action. For us it is suppressed, unresolved grief and anxiety. For the adoptee, it is survival and adaptation. All of the above is based on fear.


Per Wikipedia: In psychology, Stockholm syndrome is a term used to describe a paradoxical psychological phenomenon wherein hostages express adulation and have positive feelings towards their captors that appear irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims. The FBI’s Hostage Barricade Database System shows that roughly 27% of victims show evidence of Stockholm syndrome. The syndrome is named after the Norrmalmstorg robbery of Kreditbanken at Norrmalmstorg in Stockholm, in which the bank robbers held bank employees hostage from August 23 to August 28, 1973. In this case, the victims became emotionally attached to their captors, and even defended them after they were freed from their six-day ordeal. The term "Stockholm Syndrome" was coined by the criminologist and psychiatrist Nils Bejerot, who assisted the police during the robbery, and referred to the syndrome in a news broadcast. It was originally defined by psychiatrist Frank Ochberg to aid the management of hostage situations.


The Wikipedia page goes on to explain: In cases where Stockholm syndrome has occurred, the captive is in a situation where the captor has stripped nearly all forms of independence and gained control of the victim’s life, as well as basic needs for survival. Some experts say that the hostage regresses to, perhaps, a state of infancy; the captive must cry for food, remain silent, and exist in an extreme state of dependence. In contrast, the perpetrator serves as a 'mother' figure protecting the 'child' from a threatening outside world, including law enforcement’s deadly weapons. The victim then begins a struggle for survival, both relying on and identifying with the captor. Possibly, hostages’ motivation to live outweighs their impulse to hate the person who created their dilemma.


My friend called herself an "AdAptee," readily adapting to whatever situation in which she found herself. It seems to all come down to survival and doing whatever it takes to make the most of the life into which they were placed. Even those adoptees who are the most devoted to their adopters will acknowledge the feeling of not fitting in with the rest of the adoptive family.


While I have no right to say that all adoptees suffer from a form of SS, I still have to say that this answers a lot of questions for me about some of the adoptees I know. That some would take this dependence on the good will of the adopter past the grave only shows how strong the conditioning can be. I remember being urged to consider the feelings of the adopters and thinking, very rightly, that the adopters sure weren't being urged to consider my feelings. If we dare say anything negative about adopters or adoption within the hearing range of some adoptees, we can expect a furious reply. Defending everything the adopters do, right or wrong, becomes, for some, a life-long vocation. It is a form of self-validation for many. For others, they are protecting the adopters' "as if born to" fantasy by stating, "I am of them. I am not of you. All you did was give birth to me." Even after all barriers are down and the truth is staring them in the face, they still cling to the image of the created 'family' over the blood bonds to the mother.


So, when we challenge or question any of the adopters' words or actions or even, as I did, relate our own, personal experience with adopters, the adoptee can react out of a learned fear for their survival and identity. These adoptees take upon themselves the duty to do battle in defense of the adopters as a matter of course, never stopping to ask themselves if the adopters really did do or say something outside the realm of decency. They believe it is their job to stand guard at the gates to the fantasy and only let those in who will support the illusion.


There is a new breed of Stockholm Syndrome survivors. These are the good beemommies (Such as the Birthmom Ministries group on Facebook) of today who praise the Lord, rail against abortion and simper about how glorious and good giving your own child to genetic strangers can be. It isn't just the adopters who perpetrate that dependence, but the industry as well. The clever facilitators, especially in the church-based agencies, know that they have to manipulate the mother's perception of their loss to show something they can live with..heroics and sacrifice and loving, if quickly deleted, motherhood. It's not just the adoptees who praise the takers and revile those who recognize that the Emperor is naked.


I have to thank my friend. I wish her honesty were catching. But she gave me more vital information that helps me understand my own adult, reunited children. That may not bridge the gap or reverse the damage, but it helps me, and hopefully, others, mothers and adoptees, to understand that the results of our experience have deeper and more complex roots than we knew in the beginning.


I don't have any answers to this dilemma. I am back to the truth that we can only, each, heal ourselves by accepting the truth and looking within.


That is a lot harder for some than for others.