I too prefer not to be preached at by people who believe their views are the only right ones and that adoptees who challenge what they say about adoptees, adoption and our lives and expectations are abusive, wrong and fair game for ridicule, bullying and abusive comments. The limitations of that sort of reaction to challenge make it almost impossible to progress understanding with this group of non-adoptees.They also appear to have the belief that they are qualified to support adoptees effectively. Any group of people who can abuse adoptees and say some of the things that have been said to adoptees during the last year should not be in their company safely, let alone offer support or counselling of any kind! That they continue to believe in their efficacy, borders on delusional. It is also a very sad and bothersome reflection of how very easily adoptees, in their vulnerability, can be duped. No-one who wants to heal goes to the person or persons who have been involved in that from which they are attempting to heal. For instance if you have been abused by a parish priest you would not go to the parish for counselling, therapy or healing.
When we refuse to stick to the stories which have been made by others for their convenience, which they believe reflects their truth, it is vital that they remember it may not reflect our truth. Just as they have a right to their opinions and to challenge any assumptions, so too do adoptees. That should never need to be said. Some of those common assumptions are so clearly not true for adoptees and have been proven to be so by many, many adoptees in trying to attempt reunion, in reunion and after reunion. We now have the evidence that all is not as we've always been led to believe.
Once it is realised that adoptees are no longer those babies and children many like to refer to, but adult adoptees with memories, recollections and the effects of adoption often weighing heavily on them, perhaps it will be seen that myths and lies, falsehoods and delusions will no longer stand up.
Maybe those who like to believe adoptees are capricious, act on whims and withdraw on impulse from reunion will begin to see that reunion is a two-way accomplishment, which requires the greatest of careful and sensitive effort on both sides. Reunion is not a place to bring unresolved damage, guilt, remorse and neediness. Nor is it a place to bring big expectations, unfulfilled dreams or individual hopes. The wise who wish to give it their best shot will have dealt with everything that could impede the development of an adult relationship. There are many gaps, spaces that will never be filled and relationship work that has not been done due to early parting. If that is not recognised, dealt with by seeking expert help and realistic goals developed, then reunion will almost certainly be doomed. Reunion which is ongoing will always be a work in progress.
So often non-adoptees puzzle about why reunion has not 'worked,' why it is hard and 'unsuccessful'. It seems many do not wish to know the answers or do the work to get them to the place they say they desire. There are no free lunches, if anything ever proved that, adoption does!
Some views of what mothering is
Catherine Solheim, an associate professor in the Department of Family and Child Development, says it's difficult to "describe a 'good' mother because there are so many styles of 'mothering' and a lot has to do with the unique needs of the mother and child in particular relationships. Even within a family, mothering may look very different for different children, depending on what their needs and personalities are.
"One management related feature of good parenting of younger children relates letting your child be a child."
Perhaps it needs to be remembered that the task of being a returning mother to an adoptee is not about treating that adoptee as a child, but of trying to create an adult relationship, in which the gaps are acknowledged, but not dwelt on, the pain accepted but not exposed in every interaction and guilt is dealt with elsewhere.While some adoptees do blame their mothers for their own pain, loss and trauma, many do not.
Although about the loss of mothers by death, there is much to be learned from Hope Edelman's book "Motherless Daughters - The Legacy of Loss" and there is much that is applicable to adoptees.Her chapter on daughters becoming mothers is particularly telling for adoptees, who may have been parented by infertile women who have never been pregnant or given birth.
Motherless Daughters Legacy by Hope Edelman
The other set of preachers who believe they are right and allow no challenges to their views are some adopters, often the supporters of religious adoption. If there is such certainty about what they are doing being right, why are they so threatened by other views which embrace what adoption is really like for adoptees? Those views are dismissed in so many ways and dealt with through anger, threats, self-righteousness, pity, shaming, invalidation, name-calling and personal attacks on adoptees they don't know. If they are so certain they are right, is there not room for graciousness, validation, compassion and a genuine attempt to understand? It seems that some are able to manage that without condescension, being patronising and pitying - all techniques of disempowerment which clearly indicate their stance and position. Adult adoptees sometimes reflect on how acting in those ways to adult adoptees will affect the young adoptees in the care of such adopters and how it will influence attitudes to those adoptees when they become adults. When an overview of adoption as part of a life-cycle is not understood ,it seems we need to fear for the future of the next generation of adoptees.
I love it... lots of truth here :)
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