A fair warning to my cribmates
As you step out if the fog and begin to navigate adoptionland, there are people and places you will have to watch out for. Let's just dive right in.
1) Adoptive Parents: Also known as APs, Adopters, Purchasers, Vultures. These people will tell you how beautiful it all is. How heart wrenching infertility is. How grateful they are for the "gift" of their child. These are exactly the same people who, in discussions about open adoptions and birth parent contact, will say things like, "You can tell the judges and counsellors whatever you need to, once the papers are final you can do whatever you want."
That "whatever you want" includes rehoming Adoptees, 75% of open adoptions being closed by the five year mark, claims of biological unsuitability to stop contact with "their child's" real family.
These are the people who, if you say, "being adopted sucks", will quickly jump on you. "You just had a bad experience," they'll say. "MY CHILD doesn't feel that way." Because they all act like they know how we feel, and they like to adoptosplain to us how we feel. If we tell them that's not how we feel, they'll simple reply that we are angry, bitter, and need therapy.
They can be vicious in their defense of their flawed position and unbending in defense of their perpetration. They claim they have no fault or culpability in the adoption industry. In reality, the $30,000 a head they're willing to pay is a major driving force of the system. But no, they're magnanimous saviors, the lot of them.
Many claim our trauma "wounds" them. They claim we are manipulative and abusive, "using" our trauma to destroy their lives and relationships.
2) Prospective Adoptive Parents: This group is problematic as hell. They advertise themselves online, on garage sale sites, in local newspapers, trolling for anyone in crisis so they can swoop in and "be matched" with an emom. (Almost all PAPs are trolling for newborns.) They mourn "failed adoptions" (when the real mother decides to parent) as though they've actually lost something. They insert themselves into every aspect of another woman's pregnancy, trying to ensure she will relinquish when the time comes. They use guilt and a sense of obligation to try to ensure their prospective parenthood. By far the grossest thing they do is intentionally participate in legalized child trafficking.
3) Relinquishers: Birth mothers. They like to call themselves by all different titles, trying to garner sympathy, but they all boil down to one simple word: relinquishers. I daresay most of them will claim they were trucked, coerced, deceived, or had their children stolen. Fact is, very few of them had no choice. They almost all had a choice about laying down and spreading their legs. They all had forty weeks to figure their shit out. For some reason they chose to allow themselves to be convinced to go along with this.
Don't say this to them, though, if you value your head, because they will attempt to remove it. They are absolutely ruthless in defense of their powerless victimhood. They claim to stand for adoptee rights, but very few of them actually care about us. They stand on our backs like they always have to further their own legislation and agendas. They torpedo adoptee-centric legislation and organizations that aren't "sympathetic enough" to relinquisher desires.
They expect us to be sympathetic and understanding of the reasons why they didn't raise us. They expect us to bear the emotional burden, to forgive their bullshit and fix their pain. Cribmates, that's not our job.
4) "Happy" Adoptees: Ugh. The sunshine and rainbows, adoption is so wonderful, I'd be dead if I hadn't been adopted, and don't you dare say anything against adoption crowd. They suffer from the worst case of cognitive dissonance I've ever seen. They will defend their illusion to the death. Expect to get blocked for speaking the truth to these cruel, deluded little bitches.
5) Mixed Groups: Groups that contain more than one leg of the so-called "triad". APs, relinquishers, and adoptees, or any combination thereof. These rooms are NEVER safe for an honest, enlightened adoptee. Keep in mind what I've mentioned about these assholes and imagine a room with a thousand of them, all barking at you at once because you said something someone didn't like. Tread carefully.
6) Online "Adoptee-Safe" Pages: so far, all the places I thought were safe for adoptees are not. They are administratively infiltrated by adopters and relinquishers. You can't trust anyone on these pages. Be prepared for cruelty, deleting, silencing, and blocking.
7) Agency and Pro Adoption Organizations: Stay away. Just stay away. They won't listen and they will try to publicly assassinate your character.
8) Any Non Adopted Person Speaking For Adoptees: They don't know shit, and you will quickly discover this for yourself. When they say, "I have an adopted friend, and they're fine." you can immediately ignore every other word out of their faces.
This is just a simplification. A heads up, if you will. Beware, or at least be aware.
As you step out if the fog and begin to navigate adoptionland, there are people and places you will have to watch out for. Let's just dive right in.
1) Adoptive Parents: Also known as APs, Adopters, Purchasers, Vultures. These people will tell you how beautiful it all is. How heart wrenching infertility is. How grateful they are for the "gift" of their child. These are exactly the same people who, in discussions about open adoptions and birth parent contact, will say things like, "You can tell the judges and counsellors whatever you need to, once the papers are final you can do whatever you want."
That "whatever you want" includes rehoming Adoptees, 75% of open adoptions being closed by the five year mark, claims of biological unsuitability to stop contact with "their child's" real family.
These are the people who, if you say, "being adopted sucks", will quickly jump on you. "You just had a bad experience," they'll say. "MY CHILD doesn't feel that way." Because they all act like they know how we feel, and they like to adoptosplain to us how we feel. If we tell them that's not how we feel, they'll simple reply that we are angry, bitter, and need therapy.
They can be vicious in their defense of their flawed position and unbending in defense of their perpetration. They claim they have no fault or culpability in the adoption industry. In reality, the $30,000 a head they're willing to pay is a major driving force of the system. But no, they're magnanimous saviors, the lot of them.
Many claim our trauma "wounds" them. They claim we are manipulative and abusive, "using" our trauma to destroy their lives and relationships.
2) Prospective Adoptive Parents: This group is problematic as hell. They advertise themselves online, on garage sale sites, in local newspapers, trolling for anyone in crisis so they can swoop in and "be matched" with an emom. (Almost all PAPs are trolling for newborns.) They mourn "failed adoptions" (when the real mother decides to parent) as though they've actually lost something. They insert themselves into every aspect of another woman's pregnancy, trying to ensure she will relinquish when the time comes. They use guilt and a sense of obligation to try to ensure their prospective parenthood. By far the grossest thing they do is intentionally participate in legalized child trafficking.
3) Relinquishers: Birth mothers. They like to call themselves by all different titles, trying to garner sympathy, but they all boil down to one simple word: relinquishers. I daresay most of them will claim they were trucked, coerced, deceived, or had their children stolen. Fact is, very few of them had no choice. They almost all had a choice about laying down and spreading their legs. They all had forty weeks to figure their shit out. For some reason they chose to allow themselves to be convinced to go along with this.
Don't say this to them, though, if you value your head, because they will attempt to remove it. They are absolutely ruthless in defense of their powerless victimhood. They claim to stand for adoptee rights, but very few of them actually care about us. They stand on our backs like they always have to further their own legislation and agendas. They torpedo adoptee-centric legislation and organizations that aren't "sympathetic enough" to relinquisher desires.
They expect us to be sympathetic and understanding of the reasons why they didn't raise us. They expect us to bear the emotional burden, to forgive their bullshit and fix their pain. Cribmates, that's not our job.
4) "Happy" Adoptees: Ugh. The sunshine and rainbows, adoption is so wonderful, I'd be dead if I hadn't been adopted, and don't you dare say anything against adoption crowd. They suffer from the worst case of cognitive dissonance I've ever seen. They will defend their illusion to the death. Expect to get blocked for speaking the truth to these cruel, deluded little bitches.
5) Mixed Groups: Groups that contain more than one leg of the so-called "triad". APs, relinquishers, and adoptees, or any combination thereof. These rooms are NEVER safe for an honest, enlightened adoptee. Keep in mind what I've mentioned about these assholes and imagine a room with a thousand of them, all barking at you at once because you said something someone didn't like. Tread carefully.
6) Online "Adoptee-Safe" Pages: so far, all the places I thought were safe for adoptees are not. They are administratively infiltrated by adopters and relinquishers. You can't trust anyone on these pages. Be prepared for cruelty, deleting, silencing, and blocking.
7) Agency and Pro Adoption Organizations: Stay away. Just stay away. They won't listen and they will try to publicly assassinate your character.
8) Any Non Adopted Person Speaking For Adoptees: They don't know shit, and you will quickly discover this for yourself. When they say, "I have an adopted friend, and they're fine." you can immediately ignore every other word out of their faces.
This is just a simplification. A heads up, if you will. Beware, or at least be aware.
Love your blog. Keep it up!
ReplyDeleteEnjoying your blog and tweets.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing that's troubling is that it was a miserable world for older relinquishers (that's a good term) because back in the 1950s and 60s how did you to try to keep a child AND find employment. You would have been treated like a prostitute, and not hired or fired. As for the "leg-spreading", this wasn't an era where birth control was readily available as it is now, and that sounds exactly like the slut shaming she was subjected to by the doctors, nurses, social workers and judges involved in the adoption back in 1960.
Today, they are pressured by vulturous PAPs and agencies, and threatened with lawsuits and financial ruin if they decide to turn their back on relinquishing. This group gets beat up by everyone, but mostly by themselves - I would be willing to bet that they are the most damaged and most traumatized of everyone in the triad. Mine is a 1960s era relinquisher, and is still a mess. I'm pretty psychologically healthy compared to her. It has ruined her life far more than it has mine, and this seems to be the pattern among most relinquishers/adoptees I've met - the adoptee is in a better place than the damaged reliquisher.