And There's Another One!!

Just when I find myself in the delighted position of not having to decline comments for a long time, along comes another PAP (or so she says) with her, "just curious" questions about my views on adoption. Here's her seemingly innocuous comment:

"Hi there-
I just stumbled across your blog, and I must say that I am intrigued. I am a soon-to-be adoptive parent and while I don’t expect rainbows and puppy dogs, I am excited. I was wondering if you think that adoption is ever a good thing? In a perfect world, I don’t believe adoption would ever be necessary. But since we live in an imperfect world, do you believe that there are any situations where adoption can be the best option (given the circumstances) for all parties involved? Interested to hear your thoughts."

Whatever would adopters, the industry and PAPs do without that good, old, imperfect world (crack-whore moms and undeserving, single teens) to justify them doing what they really feel, inside, they have a perfect right to do? Sorry, but I don't buy it, especially if said PAP is lusting after a womb-fresh infant or toddler. There they are, just like saints, waiting to take in the, seemingly, "unwanted." How convenient.

To the commenter: You don't really want to hear my thoughts. You want to try to argue me down or see what king of opposition there is out here in the real world. Often, agencies, church-affiliated, especially, will assume an identity and try to stir the pot among those of us who don't like adoption, especially as it was practiced in the last century. Unfortunately, we are learning from heart-broken moms, that coercion has just put on some pretty lace, powdered its face, spritzed on some Rainbow Farte parfum and still going at it. The ads are slick and the tactics are slicker.

Yes, I do think that there are some women who truly don't want their babies and I encourage them to seek out a first-trimester termination. Better yet, avail yourself of available and effective birth control and seek termination if that fails. Why reduce yourself to serving as a brood mare for someone who sees themselves as more deserving and subject a child to emotional pain? If you feel you must carry to term, then see about finding a way for that child to remain in his/her family of origin. There has to be a daddy somewhere, no?

I talk to a lot of adopted people every day. One thing I have learned is that the hardest thing for anyone to accept is the thought that their mother did not want them, that said mother saw them as disposable. That idea does a good service for the adopters and the facilitators, even if it often slanders innocent Mothers who were coerced. From what I have seen, Mr. and Mrs. PAP, the most loving, most nurturing adopters in the worlds cannot take the sting out of that abandonment issue. All the love in the world cannot heal that wound and "attachment therapy" is a ridiculous concept.

And as for reunion, there is no reunion that can make up for the years lost, the bond twisted and the misconceptions that grew and grew. It is a minefield born of the most unnatural separation there is. Even after 18 years, I find myself still walking on eggshells occasionally and suffering through periodic breaches in the relationships. I was not put on this earth to provide an infant for C. and C. S. or for K. and S. S. !! There is no "meant to be" or "God's Will" about it...just injustice, a sick, punitive society and the greed that marks us as nothing more than a garden plot from which a product can be reaped.

My children were conceived and gestated in MY body. It was MY job to raise them and care for them. I suffered and they suffered because I was not allowed to do my job. Don't expect any friendly words about adoption from me.

There. Those are my thoughts. Accept or reject them, but don't expect to change my mind or my message.

Adoption separation sucks.

From The Horses' Mouths

It takes a lot to make me jump in the air and click my callused heels, but Bastardette's blog from yesterday about the the things many adopters say and think, "Busted: Adoptive Parents Speak," definitely had me catching some air time. I say many adopters, but my personal experiences with those who adopt has ME saying MOST adopters. I read this one and let out with a loud "YES" which had one of my dogs barking, wondering where the intruder was.

Another mother and I were talking and we noted that people we knew before they decided to adopt were very different after that. They went through some kind of obsessive metamorphosis that didn't do a whole lot for their fairness and compassion factors. I know of one, whom I once thought of as the soul of tolerance, who began to utter disparaging remarks about "slutty, teenage whores." If she thought so little of the mother, why would she want that girl's child? And if the adopted child hears his/her natural mother spoken of in that way, how must it make that child feel about him/herself?

Here is one such quote from a blog entitled, 'Adoptive Parents Speak,' from which Bastardette culled the best bits for her excellent post.

"Holy Crap

The adoption option–

The baby’s mother– An immature irresponsible young women most likely from a Jerry Springer Show type of family. She will be extremly emotionally attached to her baby and is too immature to fully understand and cope with the boundaries of an open adoption relationship. Infant adoption is a catch 22. Mothers of good genetic stock aren’t screwed up enough to give thier newborn babies away to strangers…..If a mother is unfit enough to give away her baby she is unfortunatly not only unfit enough to parent but is also unfit where she shouldn’t be breeding and spreading her inferior genes. She is most likely a failure in school with a low IQ. I have read on adoption forums that if an adoptive couple checks off that they don’t want a baby from a birthmother who has smoked during her pregnancy that they will be on the waiting list for a long time….Birthmothers tend to come from families with drug abuse and alcholism. I have seen birthmother blogs and I have never seen an attractive birthmother. Most of them look like the trailer park white trash that they are. Ugly squirrely faces, buck teeth, obese etc. Birthmothers are deadbeat moms. Why would adoptive parents pay 30 grand for some loser’s baby? (spelling left intact)"

This one was among the more offensive that I read and I have to thank Bastardette for the post and the link. The Industry and the adopters themselves have created a monster of a person with little thought for anyone but themselves and an avarice that allows them to discount the humanity and dignity of the mother of the child they covet. They are intent on keeping the stigma of the "slutty, unwed mother" alive and treat the children they so avidly desire as horses at a livestock sale. Let's see...check hoofs, teeth, back and whithers...OK, this one'll do, pardner.

Perhaps the only way they can live with themselves is to dehumanize both the product and the producer. Their derisive attitude towards the mother is tinged with the envy they must feel for her fertility. Sorry, but this is 2011 and no one can tell me that all these wannabe mommies went to their marriage bed with hymen intact. I have to ask, since along with delayed childbirth, STDs are the foremost common causes of infertility, just what right any of these women have to judge the mothers whose babies they covet so fiercely? What if everyone started saying that adopters do so because they spread their legs and got a case of the clap? That kind of stereotype is what is laid on Natural Mothers to this, supposedly, enlightened day.

We mothers, mostly in private support groups, have been sharing our experiences and disappointments with the people who adopted our children for years. We can't express that to our adult children because they are, for the most part, very defensive of their adopters and that's understandable. But when we reunite with a seriously damaged individual whose ideas about motherhood, family, and relationships is badly skewed, and whose personal life is in shambles, it is hard not to be angry at both the adopters and those social workers who promised us the moon, adopter-wise. Ward and June were unavailable so our kids got whatever was behind door number 2.

We Natural Mothers from the BSE/EMS were, for the most part, coerced into surrendering our parental rights and responsibilities. But NO ONE could make us surrender our motherhood, our right to eventually know our child and our concern and caring for that child. And that scares the fetid feces out of the adopters. Deep down, they know this. They know we are torn and grieving.

So they attack our morals, our values, our worth as human beings as a way to justify their greed. They find the few who fit their description and label the majority by the picture of that tiny minority. I still wonder why that woman quoted above would want the child of the women she describes. It boggles the logical mind.

I hope that every woman with an unplanned pregnancy that is considering surrender will read that blog. They need to know into what kind of environment they are sending their innocent babies. I hope that informative blog stays up and adopters and PAPs keep adding their venom and arrogance to it.

Then if anyone wonders where the potential beemommy got the idea to change her mind about surrender, we can say, "she got her information from the horses' mouths!"

Wheel's Turnin' Round and Round

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Too Much Life Going On....

I was perusing the web looking for images of women juggling all the aspects of life. Most of the pictures were of women juggling home, children, mate and work or even items in a recipe. That's not really where most of us are, right now. The world is changing into a strange and scary place.

Most women are NOT singly focused on home and hearth or even jobs. We have our philosophies and our causes. These days, it's more like we are juggling chainsaws on a tightrope.

In every area of life, including the area of natural disasters, we are all cringing while waiting to see what comes next. The political scene, alone, is enough to make a grown woman cry. Like my friend said, there is more ugly stuff going on in the world other than adoption and some of it is worse.

That is not to denigrate the pain of those still working through the impact that having a child taken for adoption or being adopted has on one's life. It's just that if I had to pick a trauma, there are others that are a lot more crippling. I listed some of them in a previous blog. It seems we have a culture of victimology. "Get over it," is a bit harsh, but "recover and live" is workable.

I went through rape crisis counseling. One of the counselors said that, for her, it was about going through stages. First came the victim, then the struggler, then the fighter and, finally, the survivor. Funny, but she never referred to "victim" as a bad word. Also notable is the fact that many Mothers refer to ourselves, as a group, as survivors.

It was also important, in our recovery from being victims of rape to being survivors, to place the blame where it belonged. One woman wanted to blame her mother who was so insistent that she be "popular" that she encouraged her to date the guy who raped her. Many of us blamed ourselves for poor judgement of character or for choosing the wrong ride home, etc. ad infinitum. The fact is that we were afraid to narrow our focus on the person who was the real villain..the rapist. It was another way to avoid facing our fears and memories.

20th century psychiatry made blaming one's parents, chiefly the mother, for one's pain a popular concept. Many took that and ran with it. It gave them an excuse not to take responsibility for their own actions. It is always easier to blame than to examine who might be the real malefactor in adoption. It is especially difficult to blame a faceless Industry, a long-forgotten social worker and deceased parents. It is harder, still, for adoptees, to see the role of the adopter in the mix.

But once victimized doesn't mean forever a victim. There comes a point when it's not important how the jackass got into the ditch but how we can work together to get it out of there. As adults, we are responsible for our own survival, our own actions and words and how we respond to those in our arena of adoption activism. In every case where I have sought healing, I have found the tools were with me all along...inside me. So, if we looked inward for healing, perhaps we could look outward enough to work with each other and pull that damn donkey out of the ravine.

This issue is not 24/7 for me. As the title says, there is too much life going in. In the areas of financial stability, women's reproductive rights, the direction of our government, climate change and world-wide unrest, we are very busy keeping those chainsaws in the air. Our energies are being spread across a wider spectrum of causes and crisis. For OCD perfectionists like me, it is overwhelming. That is why the sniping, name-calling, carping, whining and otherwise making everything all about you in the adoption arena is trying my patience.

I am taking some mental health days...one or two a week. I'm retired, so that is no problem. Those are days when I don't worry about anything, turn off the news, step outside and know that the Universe is rolling along without the benefit of my august worry. While much of what goes on might somewhat affect me, not much of it is all about me...not even what happens within my own family.

Life today is frustrating. We are all survivors and we have earned a bit of serenity. There is no reason why we should allow our lives to be chaotic on a constant basis. Put down the chainsaws. Get off the tightrope. Now, breathe!

Doesn't that feel better?

Puzzles

I'm just doing some mental meandering, today. Perhaps, if I get these scattered thoughts out of my system, I can get a bit of focus going. For instance;

Why is it that almost every nasty, belligerent, argumentative comment on a blog is posted by some cat named "Anonymous?"

Why is it that misery not only loves company, but insists on repeatedly inviting you even after you have declined all previous invitations?

Why is it that so many people resist taking responsibility for their own responses and emotional welfare?

Why do adults continue to blame their parents for their bad behavior?

Why is it that we note other people with their heads up their butts while peeking out of our own anal orifices?

Why is it that some do not learn that the only ways to get respect are to (a) give respect and (b) respect yourself?

Why does it take us repeated attempts and failures before we realize that we cannot reason with (a) a drunk (b) a bigot (c) a door-to-door evangelist (d) a fanatic of any religion (e) drama queens and kings (*see the misery loves company question) (f) ultra-conservatives (g) an adopter or potential adopter (h)Donald Trump?

Why are there conspiracy theorists when there is no conspiracy and none to be found when there IS one?

Why are we, in the 21st century, having to fight to have our children taught pure science without religion? Creationism is NOT science.

Why would anyone vote for a guy named after a salamander for president?

Why does a biased media insist on calling itself "fair and balanced?"

Why do some people think it is OK to execute a prisoner but a sin to terminate an early pregnancy?

Why does anyone think it is any of their business what a woman does with respect to her own body?

Why does it take us so long to understand that we cannot "fix" other people or fix things for other people?

Why do Face book gamers think I want to mess with their farm, their fish, their questions or accept applications that will screw with my computer?

Why do I respond to demands by digging in my heels?

Why does anyone think they have a right to make demands of me?

Why are fanatically religious men so afraid of women?

Why did Princess Beatrice wear that hat?

And, Why, WHY does my female Rat Terrier go roll in the dirt the day after we bathe her?

An inquiring mind knows a lot of the answers but still likes to ask the questions.

Flat Earthers, Birthers, Good Beemommies, Adopters, PAPs and Mother-Hating Adoptees

Now what do all of these have in common? Willful Ignorance with a capitol "I." The Flat Earthers believe, contrary to centuries of scientific evidence, that the world is flat..not a sphere and many still opine that the earth is the center of the Universe.

"Birthers" believe, despite all legal evidence to the contrary, that our President is not a native-born American. Maybe they weren't aware that Hawaii is a state and has been for many, many decades? These are the same staunch Righties that believe Bush took down Bin Laden and that Donald Trump, Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann are viable presidential candidates. THAT is a shudder-worthy thought.

Those mentioned above also hold that a woman isn't really a rape victim unless she has been beaten, stabbed and near death. If she has a weapon used against her and submits to save her life, then it isn't rape. If she went out on a date with the Prick that assaulted her, then she asked for it, especially if her clothes were, in any way, what, say, Pat Robertson would consider "provocative." HR3, the bill that has, very recently, passed the house that calls for "rape investigation" before a victim can be granted an abortion, proves that we even elect the willfully ignorant to national offices.  Somebody either isn't voting or our nation is in deep ignorance doo-doo.

Good beemommies refuse to think, contrary to all they have been told, all the warnings they receive and all the good advice they receive from those of us who have been there, that surrender to adoption is harmful to both them and their children. They are of the "I'm different so that won't happen to me" school of thought. Yeah, right. Go live in La La Land and feed off the approval of adopters and religious pundits and see how happy that makes you in the long run. Call us older Moms bitter and angry. You'll get there, eventually. Meanwhile, I hope you can breathe with your head in the sand.

Adopters and PAPs? Well, what can I say? They are also "different." Their desire for a child is righteous, to them, and they cannot see the potential damage to the child and the pain of "their (blech)mother" for the strength of their own self-entitlement. The children they adopt are "grateful" and "happy" and have been saved from a fate worse than death...being who they were born to be. A good many of these candidates for faux sainthood still believe the human infant is a blank slate and that they will bond with whomever gives them nurture. The reject the idea that attachment is a survival instinct and that the adopted child is always dealing with abandonment issues, identity issues and general confusion while trying to do their job of keeping the adopters happy. Even a book written by an adopter that tells, well, most of the story, is ignored by the more rabid. Personal desires overcome education and THAT is willful ignorance.

The Mother-hating adoptee, and these are not as prevalent as they once were, are the ones who drank the Kool-Aid served by their adopters and society that says they were unwanted by their mothers. Some have some pretty bad natural mothers and have a reason for how they feel, but tend to want to tar us all with the same brush. Some stay angry at Mom regardless of how nice she is, how welcoming she might be because, like most who are willfully ignorant, thinking any other way is scary. I have to say that many of these people have learned a little and are not as resistant to the learning process as others. But there are still the die-hard haters who firmly believe we want confidentiality and anonymity and are fighting their quest for open records and little we can say will change their minds.

And what is really behind willful ignorance? Fear? Flat-Earthers fear not being at the center of life. Birthers are racist and fear any change, even for the good, in our society, especially if it involves those who are different from them. Good Beemommies are just scared, period. They fear the loss of the approval of those around them and doubt themselves in a big way. They are afraid of themselves and would rather remain insecure than growing a set and stepping up to the plate of their responsibility. Adopters and PAPs fear the loss of their fairy-tale and the Mom-haters fear the great unknown of their beginnings.

As we have seen, fear can make people vicious. It, like ignorance, is a weapon wielded by politicians, proselytizers and dictators to keep people in line and with the program. Some soak it in more readily than others. Racism, elitism, dogmatism are all Little Red Books of fear. HR3 brings out the fear of women having any autonomy in our society. The Good Old Boys Club is alive and kicking.

And coercion and warm, fuzzy propaganda still spews from the Adoption Industry and those who benefit from it. Willful Ignorance lives.

Sigh.

Mother Non Grata

She personifies the adjective "harmless" and "kindly." She simply and ingeniously expresses her love and her pain to those who take the time to listen and understand. She's never really done anything to hurt anyone. Her only "crime" is a non-crime. She gave birth, was unmarried and was coerced into surrendering her son during the Era of Mass Surrenders. She knows, now, who and where he is. But he wants nothing to do with her.

She doesn't want much...just a chance to look at him, a hug, some conversation. Her heart is full of love for him but it is now couched in the pain of his rejection of her. She is treated like a threat..this bright senior, who walks with a cane. She wonders how he might explain to the police if they were called to remove her from his doorstep. "Officer, this woman is stalking me?" Yeah, that is one dangerous granny, there, Fella. This is my dear friend and she hurts in her heart.

She has lost her child and that child's children and generations that will come. Would it hurt him to make those tiny concessions....to send her an occasional "Hi, How are you?" Who would he be betraying? His adopters might be putting pressure on him. He might be holding his anger to him like a toddler holds on to a blankie. As toxic as that misguided anger is, it is the devil he knows. To let go of that resentment, and to honor this woman's place in his life is a proposition that must terrify him. Anger is a surface emotion. Scratch it, and you usually find fear and sadness.

She still hopes and prays that he will give her a chance to see him, just once, to explain what happened, to let him know he was and is loved. Maybe that is what he is fearing. That the lies about the careless and uncaring beemommy will come tumbling down around him and the truth will put its light to the dark and unreasoning things he has been told or has imagined and made real. I fear he might wait to see that light until it is too late.

I've heard, directly from the mothers, of many such cases. Mothers aren't the only ones who reject. Even those of us with relationships often get reminded of how secondary we are in the lives of our adult children. When you are told, "you only gave birth to me," or "it was meant to be that I was adopted by my (adopters)," when you are treated as nothing more than a repository for medical information and are not even allowed to attend important events in your adult child's life, you know you are being punished. Because, because, because...no matter what kind of papers we did or didn't sign...we became MOTHERS when we gave birth to you. We've been slapped in the face enough for one lifetime, don't you think?

I think that some are dismayed to find that we are not sluts, crack whores or deviants. There is the occasional exception that proves the rule, but the majority of us are accomplished, educated, some of us married,  grandmothers with talents and self-respect. My daughter told me, when we reunited, that "it was okay" if I didn't know who her father was. WTF?? I know of another mother who is at the "it is what it is" stage who was told by her adult child that it would have been easier for her if Mom had turned out to be a drug-addicted prostitute or words to that effect. The stereotype of the surrendering mother doesn't help us a bit. I would hope that our adult children would love having a natural mother they can respect. We are not that kind of person now, and we weren't then.

Most of us understand that our children are going to feel love and loyalty for the people who raised them. But I can remember someone saying to me, about 17 years ago, "If a mother can love more than one child, why can't a child love more than one mother?" I dunno about that one. Usually we are all allotted only one mother and, if your family is like the majority, you had to share her with siblings. I wonder if sibling rivalry is all about fighting for the parents' attention? That has to be a part of it.

But I digress...or maybe not. I have also seen many an adult, who was adopted as an infant, resent the fact that the Natural Mother went on with making some kind of life for herself. It matters not to them that we carried the loss and the grief with us for the lifetime of that surrendered child. What matters is that they seem to often see us as, somehow, undeserving of any kind of life if we "abandoned" them. How dare we have other children? How dare we love those other children? How dare we laugh or love?

Not all the angriest adoptees are the ones who are rejected by their Natural Mothers. There are many who are wanted, welcomed, searched for and loved who just want that woman to bow, scrape, beg forgiveness and rot in solitude or, at the very least, sit in the back of the bus and only come forth when invited and then, the head must be properly bowed. In many cases, she is either pulled forward and pushed away at the same time, or else she is cut off, entirely. She is a non-presence in their lives. These are the ones who need to do a reality check and grow up, quickly, before their brain sets up like cement.

So rejection is a double-edged sword. It cuts both ways and leaves wounds on the mother every bit as often and as deep as those on the adult child. It's funny in that the adoptee rejects the mother because of all the lies they were told. The mother rejects the adoptee because of all the lies she has told herself. Either situation is dysfunctional and unfair to all involved.

To these adult children of surrendering mothers and to the mothers who live their own lies....it's time to grow up, gear up and face the truths and accept the love. There are a lot of us moms who don't have a whole lot of time left.

Logic 101

Today, we will have a short review of simple facts that should be common knowledge but are not, due to the way the adoption industry, greedy agencies, PAPs and their government toadies have of twisting things. Here goes another attempt to replace mythology with reality.

FACT: Being unmarried and/or young and/or financially dependent and/or still in the process of getting an education does not make any woman or girl less a real mother.

FACT: If a young lady is old enough to have a baby, she is old enough to be called a Mother. Babies do not have babies. At age 14 and up, our bodies are the bodies of women capable of fertility, passion and all the other things parents don't like to admit exist.

FACT: Antiquated religious beliefs and reactionary social mores have criminalized the act of love and the birth of a child outside the man-made institute of marriage.

FACT: Illegitimacy is a man-made concept for the benefit of the patriarchy and really has nothing to do with an innocent child or the marital status of that child's mother. Every child has a right to be here, whether the name he/she bears is the mother's or the father's.

FACT: Adult Natural Mothers and Adopted people can handle the same rights as everyone else and the freedom of association that will allow us to pursue or not pursue relationships as we choose.

FACT: Natural Mothers and Adult Adoptees do not need self-appointed spokespeople...especially from those who support the adoption industry.

FACT: Most Natural Mothers are NOT fragile flowers needing protection, anonymity or avuncular concern from institutes and organizations.

FACT: While we might disagree among ourselves on certain points, we all agree that closed records are a violation of our human rights.

FACT: It would cost less to help a new mother and her child than it takes to supply adopters with subsidies. A hand up is different from a hand out.

FACT: Coercion, conditioning and social mythology that bring about surrender are real problems that can only be solved by massive doses of truth.

FACT: If you accept your adult child/natural mother into your life, openly, your nose won't fall off and the world won't stop turning.

FACT: Blood ties DO matter.

FACT: NO ONE is entitled to the child of another woman by "virtue" of infertility.

FACT: The major causes of infertility are delayed childbearing, STDs, obesity, smoking and other lifestyle choices.

FACT: There is no such thing as a "Triad" in adoption. Natural Mothers and Adoptees have no power or equality. That commodity belongs to the agencies, brokers, adopters, workers and others who profit or benefit from our loss.

FACT: Those who adopt are not perfect saints nor or they better people than the majority of natural mothers.

FACT: Too many people don't want to accept or even know these simple, true facts.

FACT: It seems everyone who is not directly connected to adoption "knows someone" who adopted or who was adopted or surrendered a child who is just deliriously happy about it all.

*sigh

Just Sayin', You Know?

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Back To The Lair Of The Monster

"As I sat I heard a sound in the courtyard without—the agonized cry of a woman. I rushed to the window, and throwing it up, peered out between the bars. There, indeed, was a woman with dishevelled hair, holding her hands over her heart as one distressed with running.

She was leaning against a corner of the gateway. When she saw my face at the window she threw herself forward, and shouted in a voice laden with menace:— ‘Monster, give me my child!’ She threw herself on her knees, and raising up her hands, cried the same words in tones which wrung my heart. Then she tore her hair and beat her breast, and abandoned herself to all the violences of extravagant emotion.

Finally, she threw herself forward, and, though I could not see her, I could hear the beating of her naked hands against the door. Somewhere high overhead, probably on the tower, I heard the voice of the Count calling in his harsh, metallic whisper. His call seemed to be answered from far and wide by the howling of wolves. Before many minutes had passed a pack of them poured, like a pent-up dam when liberated, through the wide entrance into the courtyard.

There was no cry from the woman, and the howling of the wolves was but short. Before long they streamed away singly, licking their lips. I could not pity her, for I knew now what had become of her child, and she was better dead." ( excerpt from Dracula by Bram Stoker)




Of all the monsters of mythology, none seems to have captured the minds and imaginations of more people than the central character in a book written during the reign of Queen Victoria by Bram Stoker. Calling on legend, some historical fact and the stuff of the, then popular, "Penny Dreadfuls," he created a character that has been done and redone and still seems to draw an audience.


I was eleven years old when I read the original book. I have re-read it several times. Even with its stilted, Victorian prose, I couldn't put it down. It didn't scare me and I wasn't "titillated" by the thinly-disguised sexual nature of the book's theme. I was just enthralled with the imagination and vivid imagery that was between those pages. This genre has always been like a thrill ride at the carnival, for me. A fun ride but with the knowledge that there is very little real chance of injury. It bothers me that there are some so damaged that they would take this particular myth seriously and not see the messages, moral instruction and the bit of slap and tickle beneath the horror story.

Little did I realize that five short years later, I would be at the mercy of a man-made Nosferatu that would try to suck all the life from my heart. I never connected the excerpt above to the taking of children for adoption until I re-read it when I was 18. The picture of the woman screaming for her child brought me to tears.

Reading it again after reunion, I was more taken with the images of the brides. How different is the avid coveting of a child from the lust for blood by a vampiress? It seems to be an obsession for both. So I brought the picture together in my mind. The Industry is the source, the 'Wampir,' and the brides are the adopters he chooses to receive the children he takes. And all the cries of "Monster-Give me my child!," were unheeded and we were threatened with the wolves if we dared to even try.

People say that adoption is invulnerable, firmly entrenched and will never go away. That may be, but, even  Dracula had his weaknesses. Daylight was a biggie. If you can translate that into the light of truth, who knows what foundations can be shaken?

Dracula was able to move about in England because no one believed in such a thing. His persona was charming and debonair...even sexy (Frank Langella and Louis Jordan both made me swoon just a bit). The Industry masquerades as a benevolent entity, saving children from a fate worse than exsanguination...mainly being raised by their own mothers.

I've visited this analogy before on this blog. But I have been doing a bit of reading about those who are trying to rescue their children from CPS and the Industry and wannabe adopters who run and hide and I find myself whispering the words.."Monster, give me my child!" "Rebecca's Law" by Rohan McEnor is one book that has brought up the image in my mind.

There are those, I know, who were and are not reluctant to offer their babies to the Industry, but I still hold fast to the belief that these women are very few and not at all representative of Natural Mothers as a group. For those of us from the EMS, we believed that we were turning our infants over to the most benevolent of institutions. We had to believe it or go crazy.

It bothers me, now, to know that there was a monster behind the soft voice and false, sympathetic smile of the social workers. And that monster took my children and then threw me to the wolves.

I think I'll go sharpen a few stakes.

Privatizing Our National Conscience

Landlord Shocked To Find Children Living In Garage

CANYON LAKE, Texas -- A Canyon Lake homeowner told News 4 WOAI he was shocked to find out  six foster children were sleeping in the garage of a home he was renting out to a couple.

Charlie White showed News 4 WOAI's Jozannah Quintanilla the 2-car garage where he says the couple had the grade school-age foster children sleeping. White said they had no air conditioning or heat in the garage, and the children were sleeping on homemade bunk beds in the crowded room. White believes three other foster children were living inside the two bedroom home.


"They had a wall built across the garage under this beam, and a wall across here," said White.


A neighbor who lives next door sent White a letter, letting him know how concerned the neighborhood was for the children.
"I showed up the next day to ask them what was going on and where they were keeping all these kids," White told us. "They told me my house was a therapeutic foster home."


White walked into the garage and told the foster parents it was no place for the young girls to be sleeping. That's when he also found out there was a 30-year-old mentally challenged man living in the garage with the girls.


"I told them they needed to get the kids in the house and tear these walls down," White said.


When asked why he told them that, he explained. "Because a fire could break out in here, and these kids would have no way of getting out.


Soon after White and his neighbors reached out for answers.


"All of the neighbors were concerned. Several have called CPS," explained White. "They couldn't understand how nine children could be living in the home."


"Thirteen people using the toilet," White added. "The ceiling is caving in. It's got mold in it."


With more than a dozen people living in the home, White said every room in the house was damaged. He immediately went to court.


"They refused to take the walls down and to move the kids in," White told us. "That's when I told them they have to go."


A judge evicted the family last month. Since then, White has contacted the agency responsible for the children.


"Because they allowed this many people in the home, they've done this much damage," added White. "They're not concerned and seem to be covering it up."


White says he and the other neighbors are concerned about where the children are living now, but he is also thousands of dollars in debt from the damage done to his home.
News 4 WOAI found the family living in a home a few miles just down the road. We knocked on the door but got no answer. We then contacted Child Protective Services.

*******

Thanks to Sandy Young, who lives in Texas, for putting this story out for the rest of us to read. I felt it was an appropriate follow-up to my previous post. It seems that, for many adults, the welfare of children is forfeit when it comes to the bottom line. I would love to hear from the CPS in Canyon Lake and hear what they have to say about this execrable situation.

Why do we decry orphanages and yet allow this kind of cruelty in the name of a "family home?" A clean, warm, well-run children's home would, in my mind, be head and shoulders above foster care as it is, now, in our nation. While there are many who provide decent and caring foster care, the system is too top-heavy and overloaded and corrupt to avoid situations like this and many others.

Unfortunately, our profit-based culture puts the funds into the pockets of the already wealthy, big business, "defense" contracts and perks for elected officials while the most vulnerable among us go begging.

Not only did we Natural Mothers get sucked into the system because we were not legally the chattel of a husband, but also because too many of us were financially dependent on our parents or unable to make enough money, due to the inequity in pay scales between men and women, to provide for a child. The bottom line, here, is tragedy.

Note that a wealthy woman, such as a famous actress, etc., can raise a child as a single woman without an eyebrow anywhere being raised. Many women who have reached an age when the biological clock is ticking loudly, will quietly opt for single motherhood because they can afford it. They can usually fly under the radar of the agencies and the coercers because they are financially comfortable.

This concept is attributed to many different sources, but the fact remains that the might of a nation is judged by how it treats the weakest of its citizens. The US scores low on this one.

Now, I don't hate the rich. I look at Warren Buffett and Bill Gates who are giving away huge portions of their personal fortunes. Then I look at Pat Robertson who is very wealthy in his own right and he is not putting his money where his loud mouth is. He professes to be both a Christian and a patriot. Neither Gates nor Buffett make any comments about their religion or lack of it. I wonder if Robertson would be willing to provide a safe and comfortable home for needy children without requiring indoctrination into his brand of religion? Naw, I didn't think so.

But the drive to have money = power = control has reached a new low when a CPS agency allows little girls to live in an unheated, non-air-conditioned garage with mold, dirt and a 30-year-old man.

It's frustrating, but my question is, it is fixable?

PART DEUX!

It is very convenient and coincidental that WOAI pulled this story from their website at the same time that it was announced that the Texas state legislature would be addressing the expansion of privatized foster care in the state. This particular case was a privatized foster arrangement through the Baptist Children's Home. Curious, isn't it? Calls to the station have resulted in less than full disclosure other than impugning the veracity of a source. BTW...the landlord and the neighbors DID call CPS and CPS investigated and said they couldn't see any problem. Now isn't that strange? Of course, would it really be in the best interests of the CPS to have verified the complaints? And why is the Baptist Children's Home also investigating if there is no reason to doubt the findings of the CPS? Just asking...........



Do We Need To Change More Than Just Adoption?

I am looking at my country and its foibles with a loving but critical eye and I have detected a huge web with a big, fat spider sitting there, just waiting to feed on anyone and everyone it can. Arachnus Americanus is a creature born of greed and arrogance. She carries the venom of financial elitism and a vicious nature born of the assumption of her own superiority. She was crafted by the hands of patriarchal control freaks. She is very good at being a predator.

At the command of her male creators, she has enshrouded both Lady Liberty and Miss Justice in copious cobwebs. A once-proud eagle is ensnared in her web. Her victims are the poor, the weak, and the disenfranchised which includes the single mother and her infant. She injects the mother with hopelessness and shame and keeps the child a child forever. Her many legs manipulate and spin and obfuscate. She is one busy arachnid.

Our nation is ill. And the American Way of adoption is just one symptom. There had to be something very wrong at the start for this system of human bondage and opportunistic baby-theft to exist. Our supposedly "Free" country has those in power, the wealthy, who exercise an amount of control that is obscene. Using spin doctors, smoke, mirrors and erosion of the educational system, these spider-makers assure their places at the top of the heap, their weight pressing down on those at the bottom. The venom of the nasty creepy-crawlie even makes some walk, willingly, into the web. These are the victims that have fallen prey to the dumbing down of our culture and citizenry. The best way to control is to keep intelligence and free thought in check.

In other countries, this has led to revolutions. Here, it leads to filibusters, sound bites, arguments and ignorance while Ms. Spider spins away, catching more and more of our rights, opportunities and our social conscience in her massive web. Motherhood is dishonored and the weakest among us are disregarded or prey or both.

To say I have become disenchanted with our power structure would be understating it. I fear the sneaky and falsely pious intrusion of the Christian Right. I abhor the pundits who fill the airwaves with fear-mongering lies and rabble rousing of the gullible. I look at the "Tea Party" and see eight, gleaming, black eyes staring back at me with venom dripping from sharp mandibles. I see the in-fighting between the parties and the mud being slung with abandon and I want to cry. I see the gross, racist, juvenile disrespect being shown our President and I hang my head and try not to watch.

It's no accident that the spider is female. In the arachnid world, the female is the web-spinner and the one with venom. She is the hunter and the killer. The patriarchy has managed to use human women in this way, turning us against each other, allowing some to prey on their sisters for coveted children and still managing to use us as chattel and sex objects despite all the best efforts of feminists and those with just plain common sense. Have you ever noticed, when stupid girls get into physical altercations over a boy, what the boys do? They watch and laugh. The patriarchy has no compunction against using us against each other in order to maintain the status quo.

Just like everything else, this nation has its good points. There are those who escape the web and the effects of the poison and let their voices be heard. There are those who can keep an open mind and question the dichotomous, scare-tactic rantings of the pundits. There are still those who believe in civil and human rights and the quality of real justice. There is beauty in our nation, from mountains to seas. There is a plethora of possibilities if only they could be pursued.

But I fear that, before any possibilities are pursued, before our social conscience is restored and before the real glory of our nation is returned to us, its people, we have a big spider to exterminate. If you don't vote, if you don't talk to our elected leaders and let them know that we know what has happened to the US and if you don't speak out, nothing, including restructuring of adoption, open records and redress, is going to happen. It's going to still be the same old, same old.

I'm ashamed of what America has become. As for our spider, I am ready to put the Raid to the bitch.

Man Rescues Dog..Dog Rescues Baby Girl

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks, Smoke.

That "N" Word (Natural)

A very nice mother in Canada got a very rude email which took her to task over her use of the term "Natural Mother," to describe those of us who had our children appropriated for adoption. The writer of this malicious missive was, of course, an adopter. Now many disagree with me, but for reasons of my own, I don't apply parental titles to those who adopt. I have certain principles that make it impossible for me to bring myself to call an adopter a mother or a father.

In my mind and my philosophy, each person born gets one mother and one father. That is how biology works. But to identify ourselves as mothers who were not given the right to raise our children lost to adoption, many of us prefer the term "Natural Mother." It used to be the correct and legal term until some adopters and others decided that by calling us that, it was implying that women who adopted were not natural mothers.

Well...uh...that's nothing more than the simple truth. There is nothing natural about adoption. It's a man-made, legal construct that, as with all things man-made, tries to overrule nature and the power of nature that is conferred on the females of all mammals to give live birth to our young. The term "birth mother" was first used by author and adopter Pearl S. Buck, and passed through the network until it became the title it is today, one that is used to distance us from our motherhood and make the adopter more comfortable.

For as long as there have been human beings, there seems to have been a fear, on the part of patriarchal societies of a woman's sexuality. Our genitalia is internal, a little dark cave that performs a miracle. We bleed every month but don't die from it (although there have been times many of us wished we could) until that miracle is conceived and then we do something no man can do. We produce life. Yes, it does take the cooperation of a man to conceive, but, with donated sperm, we can, if we wish, do the entire thing ourselves. A man still needs our wombs, presence and cooperation in order to have offspring.

The patriarchs have done all in their power to subdue and conquer our female nature. It seems to be the way of all men. If there is a river, bridge it or dam it. If there is a hill where he wants a road, then he levels the hill. He builds levees to hold back rivers and swamps and builds his artificial nests on the infirm soil. If there are minerals in the earth, he must go after them. Man seeks to control and mimic what he cannot be...that natural creator. Often, Nature gets back a bit of her own. Hurricanes, floods and the simple impermanence of human construction will  often roll over these man-made barriers like a Juggernaut, destroying in minutes what took months and even years to build. Even the pyramids are crumbling in spite of constant upkeep.

It is also the patriarchal need to control women that has led generations of women to believe that their only worth is in their fecundity. From that precept comes the old, "give me a child lest I die" school of thought that drives the potential adopter. Many segments of society still look askance at a woman who can bear children yet chooses not to do so. Yet, let a woman decide to bear a child without the active oversight and last name
of a man and she is scorned and seen as unworthy. And on this curious dichotomy, Man has created a lucrative industry that uses female fertility and restricted autonomy. Then he uses the onus of infertility to create the market. Due to the oppressive idea that a woman is less than worthy if she cannot produce a child for a man, they have their customers and "proper" women for their social experiments and engineering.

So adoption is not just unnatural. In its concept, it is sexist, anti-woman and done for reasons that have less to do with the ultimate welfare of a child than the idea that a child should be provided for a woman who is unable to bear her own....a child for a home; NOT a home for a child. Women are commercial objects and/or consumers and because of this, women predate on other women, can't cooperate or get each other's backs and that leaves men still pretty much in charge. They run the world while we wrangle over who should raise children.

To the woman who wrote that irate email to my friend, learn your biology. Adoption is NOT natural and giving birth is. I am a natural mother. You are an adopter of a child in order to fulfill your own desires. And while we are giving biology lessons, I'd love to give Rosie O'Donnell a heads up. Babies do not grow in our "tummies." That would be very uncomfortable. They grow in our uterus which is made just for that purpose.

So the adopters of our world can throw that "birth" word and that "tummy mommy" idiocy around all they like. That child you coveted and took as your own is created by the genes and the body of a NATURAL mother. This Natural Mother and many others I know would have given anything to have been able to rush a sick child to the hospital and sit with them while they healed. We would have sold our souls to be able to kiss the boo-boos and change the dirty diapers because, if you care for a child, that's what you do. Doing it confers no special honors on you that change the fact that you are not the natural mother of the child you possess.

It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature.

A Confusing Duality

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When You Don't Know What To Say

I am finding that blogging about my surrender and reunion experience can be a minefield. There is so much that I want to say but if I say it, it seems to be the wrong thing to have said. I wonder, if sometimes, our children would care enough to refrain from saying certain things to us?

I don't think that they often intend to hurt us, but talk about your knife wounds...we are to be censored but they have a wide-open field.

For instance, I know that being raised by other people is a reality for my children and all adoptees. I know that many adoptees see this as a positive thing. But, every time I hear words of praise for the adopters, "it was meant to be" or any variation thereof, the knife that was driven into my heart at surrender is twisted.

I respect how adopted people feel about their adopters. I would just ask the same in return. For many of us, the reception we received from our children's adopters wasn't the open-hearted thing for which we had hoped. Many of us were treated like dirty monsters invading a perfect world with no right to be breathing the same air. So, as we respect that adopted people care for their adopters, Please accept and respect the fact that many of us don't. I think, in all fairness, that shouldn't be required of us. Damn it, we are only human.

We natural mothers have also had to contend with the fact that the adoptee's "feelings of abandonment" are, for some reason, seen as more important than the tragic traumas of our surrenders. Neither the adoptee nor the natural mother is the center of the Universe. We are all part of the herd and the sooner we can reach a point of mutual respect, the better. I still have to turn to the term of "Terminal Uniqueness" whenever I think of how we can make every little, even obliquely, adoption-related issue all about us, mothers and adoptees. Gee, ain't we special?

I look at Stephen Hawking. He did not ask to be born with a genetic defect that ravaged his body while his mind remained whole and active. None of us have control, as infants, over what happens to us and we often have, if we are honest, no one to blame for a damn thing. Shit happens. My father wasn't the pick of Pops but my mother loved him and so there I was. I sucked my thumb over that one for a long time until I realized that my life was totally in MY hands. I'd rather cope than mope.

I tried to blog about how difficult this communication gap is for me and it backfired. One thing I don't want to do is hurt my children. But it is so frustrating, feeling gagged like this. Here I have decried the "walking on eggshells" scenario and that is just what I am being compelled to do. It is not the way I want things to be. Perhaps if it is known that this is a common response for so many of us in reunion, it might be helpful.

When we blog about our personal experience as it's related to the cluster-frack of adoption, we can often trip over our own keyboards. When we talk about how something is affecting us, we don't mean that as an indictment. But we can be clumsy. I was.

November is a nasty month with a day set aside for us to give thanks, and I wonder if that was not premeditated on the part of the industry and those in government and the adopters who support it. To our children, let me please point out that for us moms, just like you, this month, these idiots are asking us to be "aware" of the WORST THING, BAR NONE, that ever happened to us.

Don't be surprised if you don't find me in the gallery, applauding adoption or any one's adopters, especially the ones who had the privilege of raising my children. I am human. I am pained by the fact that someone else was given the joy I was denied at my expense. I am furious that so many adopters put their needs for that "only REAL parents" status ahead of the needs of the children they raised.

And I don't appreciate being treated like a cockroach in the kitchen. That's honest.

The Burden of Gratitude

"Adoption Loss is the only trauma in the world where the victims are expected by the whole of society to be grateful" - The Reverend Keith C. Griffith

The truth is, often, unpalatable and upsetting. But this is one truth that has to be re-stated on a regular basis. The adoption industry and those who drive the market for the industry cannot dispute nor disprove the fact that they have created a mythology where gratitude is expected from both the adoptee and the exiled mother.

One of the truisms about this invasion of our most sensitive, human relationship is that, in order to procure an infant for adoption, in most cases the mother must be systematically destroyed. Her ability to see herself as an effective parent must be obscured and her self-esteem diminished to a mere whisper of its former size. She is then told to go and make a life for herself and be grateful that she "did the right thing" for her child.

I hear some of the birthditzes of today talking about how overjoyed and grateful they are that their child is being raised by such "wonderful, fantastic, Christian, stable, add-your-own-adjective" people. When they say these things, I want to check their pupils for dilation. But that gratitude is expected of them and they comply. Can I just say the entire concept sucks, big time?

Worse, still, is the attitude of gratitude that is forced on our appropriated children from infancy. There is the specious comment, "aren't you grateful you weren't aborted?" To which I have to reply, "How would you know to be ungrateful if you were? How would you even know? You wouldn't be here to debate it."

But there is more to it than just the abortion controversy. There is that overt expectation of the adoptee that they show extreme gratitude for what other children take as a given. They, like all humans, didn't ask to be born. Since they were, they deserve care and nurture. People usually have children and adopt children because they want them. So why should there be the onus of gratitude on the adoptee? It seems to me that it should be the other way around.

Instead, I often hear paeans of praise and gratitude from adoptees that go beyond the normal expressions of love and respect for parents. The very nature of adoption, a child for the childless or for a home, places the responsibility on the shoulders of an infant, from day one of placement, for the emotional well being of the adopters. As the adoptee grows, so does that sense of obligation promulgated by the mythology.

Now, my raised children will defend me to the death as I would them. But if I act like a bitch, they will call me on it and will not uphold my bitchiness. On both ends, with my raised children, there have been times when we deserved the respect of each other and times when we didn't. That's life. I sure don't expect adulation for doing what I wanted to do...have and raise children.

In the case of the adoptee, you would think that they were the blessed recipients of a visit from the Gods. I have heard so many dramatic hymns of praise, both vehement and belligerently challenging to anyone who might say otherwise, for their adopters from some that are so overdone I want to bite into something bitter to get the taste of saccharine out of my mouth. I have to wonder who they are trying to convince...us, their adopters or themselves?

I'm not saying that a little gratitude is a bad thing. It is nice to hear a child you raised thank you for something that you did that helped them. But to EXPECT this gratitude for no other reason than the fact that a child was adopted by some lucky people whose number came up is unnaturally self-serving and not the way a normal family interacts.

It would be one thing if it were only the adopters who expected this, but the average Joe and Jane on the street, unaffected, personally, by adoption, seem to expect it as well. Popular culture expects gratitude from the mother and the adoptee along with a lot of other things and manages to exaggerate the horrors of abortion, inflate the numbers of so-called "dumpster babies" and, sadly, thinks that Safe Havens are the best thing since the paper napkin.

Am I glad that my children got adopters who seemed to really care for them? Yes. But am I grateful? NO. They had the joy of raising my children. They also seem to have royally screwed up along the way. They should be grateful that I was young, vulnerable and helpless. They got what Nature intended for me. How could they expect my gratitude?

And for Pete's sake, I am tired of hearing adopted adults being reviled for the simple idea that they should be allowed to know about their beginnings and heritage. I am sick of hearing them called disloyal, ungrateful and spoiled. I am tired of mothers being depicted as eternal teens in trouble, needing someone else to tell them what they need. WE NEED OUR CHILDREN. It's what we've always needed. Our children need the right to know us, to meet us and to ask us important questions to which any raised child would already know the answers.

I am most sick at heart about the fact that it all comes down to who has the money and who has the power. Because of these attributes, the burden of gratitude and near servitude is laid on our children and the burden of being called angry, bitter, damaged and other things is laid on both adoptee and mother.

But think about this. Every time a mother refuses to cringe in a closet, and every time an adoptee stands up and says "I am not obligated to anyone when it comes to my human rights," it is a victory. We are doing and saying what the Industry and their customers don't want us to do and say. They say the truth will set you free and I think that is true. It's very effective against false burdens of unearned gratitude.

Gonna lay my burden down, Lord. I'm gonna lay my burden down. Sing-along, anyone?

Getting Out The Vote

....In more ways than just one. We are at the deadline for voting for the Demons of our choice. The following is borrowed...well, blatantly stolen from Musing Mother.

4th Annual Demons in Adoption Awards Nominations

Each year Pound Pup Legacy presents the Demons of Adoption Award to raise a voice against adoption propaganda and the self congratulatory (specious and vomitous) practices of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute's annual Angels in Adoption Awards(TM)

Until October 30 you will have the opportunity to vote for the recipient of this year's award. To vote, go to:

http://poundpuplegacy.org/node/45564

The nominees are:

LDS Family Services: for being the most secretive of all adoption agencies, using coercive tactics in obtaining infants for adoption and having no respect for father's rights; (my personal favorite and I protest by finding those "missionaries'" bikes, chained to a light post and let the air out of their tires)

Gladney center for adoption: for being one of the most profit-centered agencies around and blocking open record efforts in Texas; (Wonder if Mexico would like this part of Texas back?)

Christian World Adoption: for their involvement in "harvesting" practices in Ethiopia and their blind ambition to "save" each and every "orphan" in this world;

Larry S. Jenkins: for his involvement in nearly every case where father's rights were violated;

Joint Council on International Children's Services: for promoting the interest of adoption agencies at the expense of children, and pushing agency friendly legislation in Congress;

Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute for giving their seal of approval to persons and organizations that promote the interests of the adoption industry and pushing agency friendly legislation in Congress;

Council on Accreditation: for their lack of research done on inter-country adoption agency histories prior to giving out Hague accreditation;

American Adoption Congress: For failing to remove state reps who were openly working against open access for adult adoptees;

American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey: for opposing open records for adoptees and "protecting" closet moms, based on a "stack of anonymous letters" claimed to be from "birthmothers".

Christian Alliance for Orphans: for promoting the business interests of adoption agencies through churches.

Southern Baptist Convention: for passing resolution no. 2 , pushing the business interests of adoption agencies to the members of their church;

Adoption.com for systematically banning voices that oppose current adoption practices and their continuous pro-adoption propaganda;

Scott Simon: for his vomit-inducing book “Baby, We Were Meant For Each Other” and his grotesque crying and blubbering about his purchasing of another human being;

WE TV: for their hideously exploitative series ‘Adoption Diaries,’ turning what is a highly emotive and complex topic into ‘reality’ show fodder.
 
And the adoption-affected ask, because the adoption-affected dare, "WHO will it be?"  I can't wait for the results.