Friday, August 08, 2008

Adoption-Speak / Fantasy Speak



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

11 comments:

Robin said...

To the person, Anonymous, whose comment I just rejected. Your argument is not germain to what I wrote about. I was also a stepmother and lost my stepson to suicide when he was just 17. I always let him know that his mother was his true mother and that I loved him but that I was only a step-parent. His mother hated me with all her heart, but I still deferred to her as his real mother.

Please note again, that my blog is not a forum to argue the possible "benefits" of adoption. That just is not part of this program.

Robin said...

Good for you. Much luck and go in peace. This site isn't here to uplift but to shine the light of truth on what truly, honestly happened and still happens to mothers and children separated by adoption.

As I said, what you wrote before had nothing to do with the blog's subject matter. You just wanted to debate the "benefits of adoption as you see them."

Unknown said...

The thing is that the benefits for adoption are all on one side. It is the adopters and the industry they created and control that are the only ones who benefit from infant adoption. Thank you for stating it so clearly and so openly.
Sandy Young
Senior Mother

Anonymous said...

As a first mother I couldn't have said it better. Adoption is a lifetime entity that doesn't go away and doesn't erase the fact that the daughter I relinquished belongs to my genetic line, no matter how much she is in denial of it. She doesn't want me out of her life but at the same time she resents and feels rejection from me and vents her anger at me for wanting to include her in her first family. She wants to only be friends, but doesn't always treat me as she would a friend. I love her and always have since I carried her under my heart, but she is firm in her belief that I am not her family and never will be. It's hard being a first mother when my daughter wants me in her life but doesn't. It's confusing but I accept this relationship for what it is. It's SO much better to know her than not to. :o)

Teri Brown
Adoption Records Handbook
http://www.CraryPublications.com

Anonymous said...

Robin, well said! Somedays I wonder if anyone outside of we the mothers will never, ever get what it is those words really mean. They don't want to get it for one thing, and all they really want is our children. After they have acquired them they then go on and on about us evil, drunken Pre-crak or crack whore "barfmuggles". I really wish all of us (meaning mothers) could actually get our shite together and make things change!

Not a Senior Mother, just your basic 1984 pre-crack whore mother..
Mary

Anonymous said...

O! ROBIN! Please, please say it ain't so!!! Tinkerbell (Tink for short) isn't for real?? No, No, never...Tinkerbell is a real live being, as is Peter Pan...and so is The Madhatter, The Cheshire Cat and the Queen of Hearts!! They are all part of my 'Forever Family'!!!!!!! LOL!

Anonymous said...

Right on, Robin! The selling of adoption as creating a "forever family" is the most fake sales-pitch ever.

At least 1/4 of all adoptees even in closed adoptions go back to having a parent-child relationship with their natural families against post-reunion. You and I BOTH have our lost children back in our lives as family members. For them, their "forever families" are their natural ones.

Anonymous said...

If my amatueruish researching capabilities are telling me anything...Seems this 'Forever Family' was ripped off by the Adoption Industry, from, no other than the Mormon Religion and their idea of the 'Forever Family'. The Mormon religion believes that a Mormon family will be a 'Forever Family' after death and right into eternity. Genealogically (of which LDS is famous for) they are correct. But I think they meant Forever Family for anyone who is a practicing Mormon. Pet owners and pet sellers...for a very long time have used a 'Forever Home' for pets. Of course 'Forever Home' cannot be guaranteed no more than an adopted 'Forever Family'. Pet owners leave their supposed dearly loved pets on sides of roads and adoptors can also 'return' the children they adopt, if those children don't make a 'good fit' into the designated 'Forever Family'. There are no guarantees in life, period! No one can promise to a pet or an adopted human a 'Forever Home' or 'Forever Family'. The only time 'Forever' can actually be truthful, is in regards to blood-line genealogy. And pet owners and adoptors, as we all well know, are not genealogically connected to the pets they buy and the kids they adopt. My now adult child lost to adoption decades ago..genealogically is most assuredly part of a 'Forever Family', that of her genealogically connected relatives, yesterday, today and tomorrow. Any adopted person who is able to reconnect with his/her natural family (even if he/she does not embark on a close-up and personal familial relationship)is then able to participate in the world-wide genealogical community. Something that adult adoptees who do not know from whence they came, cannot participate in. And doing genealogy searches on an adopted family, is not 'genealogy'!! Rather is just 'family history' noted about the family one is adopted into. The adopted family has no genealogic connection to the adopted child, unless that child was adopted by a relative of the natural parent.
'Forever Family' as presented by the Adoption Industry is pure hogwash and untruthful. Of course, one can have their fantasies, fantasies can be fun...like my 'Forever Family' that I fantize about, that includes Tinkerbell! But at the end of the day, I am no more genealogically familially connected to Tinkerbell than I am to the Man in the Moon! Or am I?? I don't know who my Daddy is!!! Could it be possible??

maybe said...

Right on to Chris! The only "forever family" possible is the one joined by blood. Blood ties can never be broken. Ties made by paper (i.e. adoption, marriage, deeds, contracts) can be broken, sold, annulled, transferred. Only blood lines are permanent, into eternity.

Unknown said...

Imagine some anthropologist, 1000 years from now, digging up bones, and finding yours and compares them to those of some woman he found 1000 miles away. He would know, from testing, that she is yours. He will probably be confused,tho, as to why she is not near you, and is in the ground next to those strangers...hmmmm, adoption and forever families, my ASS. How about we recoin some cliches of our own, like Blood is thicker than water.....

Anonymous said...

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http://cedartrees.wordpress.com/