Once Was Von

10 Different Monsters that Scare Children

2012-02-11T11:02:00.000+10:30

10 Different Monsters that Scare Children: Sometimes the monsters are more than monsters, beyond flesh and blood. Sometimes they’re not even living. Not in the way we think of living anyway. Spirits, ghouls, poltergeists. Call them what you will, but whatever you do, don’t call upon them, lest you be haunted evermore.
Clearly this list hasn't a special adoptee's section for those nightmare figures and situations many of us are so familiar with which plague some of us in our night-time hours. Here are some you may be familiar with

pursuit situations - we are being hunted down, chased or pursued by something sinister or threatening, possibly familiar or unknown; often accompanied by feelings of terror, screaming and/or sweating
entrapment - we are trapped in a situation/place from which we cannot escape; often accompanied by feelings of terror, screaming and/or sweating
displacement - we find ourselves in a place unknown to us where we don't know our name, have no identifying papers and no-one to help us.We are alone in a place we don't know the name of; often accompanied by feelings of terror, screaming and/or sweating,
threat to life - we are being strangled, throttled, suffocated or in other ways having our life threatened; often accompamied by feelings of terror, screaming and/or sweating.
situtuations which feel familar - scenes from another life in which we were part of the Holocaust, a disaster or tragedy; accompanied by feelings of dread, doom and fear.
nonsense scenario - nothing makes sense, holds together or appears to connect, but there is much activity; usually accompanied by feelings of disorienton, perplexity, puzzlement and aloneness.
sorting out scenario - nothing is making sense but serious attempts are being made by the dreamer to sort out the mundane, the every day, the clutter and mess of life; accompanied by feelings of disorientation, frustration, irritation or bewilderment.

That's on a good night too!! Many of you will be familiar with these old friends and have variations of your own to contend with. Some adoptees tell me they sleep soundly because all their terrors and monsters come out by day. It is possible to some limited degree to change the course of dreams or stop them. I'm told they can be programmed, but believe it is not nightmares of this magnitude that are being referred to. Any thoughts?

Thanks to the artist for the detail of this evocative scream!

Is Gay a Choice?

2012-02-01T09:11:00.001+10:30

For those who continue to believe homosexuality can be cured, is a life-style choice or is against the laws of nature or should never be talked about, particularly in the context of adoption -

Is Gay a Choice? The Science : As popular as the theory of female “erotic plasticity” has become in the field of sex research, it is hardly without its critics; and many researchers are more inclined to highlight the sexual similarities between men and women. But beyond the ongoing scientific debate, there’s a strong political argument to be made against taking an unwavering “born this way” stance. Marta Meana, a clinical psychologist at the University of Nevada Las Vegas who has researched sexual fluidity, believes “it is a devil’s bargain to argue for acceptance on the basis of biology,” she explains. “The ‘I can’t help it’ argument retains the idea that something is amiss. The truly progressive stance is that all people should be treated with respect, dignity and equality regardless of the mechanisms that led them to prefer having consensual sex with one group over another, at any point in time.” (my emphasis)
What does this have to do with adoption? Plenty.When you choose to make a child an adoptee, you may choose their name, change their birth date, change their language and culture, but you can never change their sexual identity, whatever it is or is going to be. You may influence by you opinions, your attitudes, your beliefs and your parenting, but you will never change this area of an adoptee's life.
How you deal with your own infertility or losses, will influence how you parent any child, but particularly an adoptee and particulary at the time of their emerging gender identity, sexual identity and sexual activity. How you deal with those areas of parenting will affect your relationship with the adoptee for decades to come, their trust in you and what they share and will confide. If you do not treat them with respect, dignity and equality in this very private and vital area of life, there will always be a pay-off.
Those teen and adult adoptees who have experienced those difficulties with adopters can tell a multitude of stories about how they were disrespected, treated abusively and punitively. A wise adopter prepares, does the homework and does the work for themselves, to prepare for the time when they will be needed to support, validate and show true caring for the adoptee ,whatever they present as their identity in this part of their lives.
Some links - Sociocultural Influences on the Sex Drive. and Erotic plasticity and late age lesbianism , gender orientation and other articles and papers

Need a Laugh?

2012-01-31T09:49:00.000+10:30

Who doesn't in this serious world of adoption? Jessica Sun Lee in Interview: Adoption can be pretty serious territory, but thanks to Interactive Designer and all-around-artist, Jessica Sun Lee, we can take some times to laugh at the world.
Jessica designs e-cards for her inspirational e-KADS.Here's a sample, they're all free and for use as long as no changes are made.Thank you Jessica...keep going with a great idea!

If you find these hit the spot pop over to e.KADS.com to take a look at the growing number of e-cards available.

From oppression to freedom

2012-01-31T01:57:00.000+10:30

During the 1960's 14,000 Cuban children were sent from Cuba without their families ,supposedly as refugees, to be kept safe until such time as they could be reunited with their parents. There is so much more to that story -
Former Cuban children rescued by Operation Pedro Pan: “Parents wanted to get kids out of Cuba before the opposition period,” said Victor A. Triay, Ph.D., professor of history at Middlesex Community College. “Most people thought that this wasn’t going to last.”
“Anything that parents feared happened. They were dead on. They were almost prophetic,” said Triay about the chaos that happened in Cuba.
Baker, along with Walsh — director of the Catholic Welfare Bureau — created a way for unaccompanied minors from Cuba to be able to have student visas and visa waivers that allowed children to come over to the U.S. as a way to escape and save their lives from communist control in Cuba. From there, Operation Pedro Pan was born.
Families received the visa waivers from churches, from underground sources and also from private schools (before they were shut down) in Cuba. More than 14,000 children came to America through the operation
Operation Peter Pan
The origins and purpose of Operation Peter Pan have been hotly contested by both the Cuban revolutionary government and the Cuban exile community in the United States. According to some reports, Cuban radio fostered—or even invented—fears that the revolutionary government would abduct children from their parents to indoctrinate them; one such broadcast in 1960 is remembered as proclaiming, "Cuban mothers, don't let them take your children away! The Revolutionary Government will take them away from you when they turn five and will keep them until they are 18." One "Peter Pan child", Maria de los Angeles Torres, now a professor of Latin American and Latino Studies, believes that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) initiated the visa waiver program and deliberately spread the rumors that Cuban children would be taken from their parents by the Cuban government. She has repeatedly requested that 69 relevant documents be declassified, but even some 50 years later the U.S. government refuses to do so. Her assertion is confirmed by Fidel Castro, who has recently explained that Cuban people's "Revolution had not placed any obstacles whatsoever to prevent those who wanted to leave the country from doing so. The work of the Revolution had to be voluntarily made by a free people. The imperialist response, among many other serious aggressions, was Operation Peter Pan." He further argues that the CIA, in its early counterrevolutionary efforts before progressing to the more aggressive Bay of Pigs invasion and later Cuban Missile Crisis, was attempting to use Operation Peter Pan to spread fear and doubt among the Cuban people, especially lower middle-class families (the source of most of the Peter Pan children). Without declassifying any documents as evidence, the CIA has nonetheless denied these assertions.
In 1962, the US government commissioned a documentary film created for the children who came to Miami, called The Lost Apple. The film named Cuban premier Fidel Castro as being responsible for the parents' non-appearance. According to Torres, then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy approved making the documentary as part of the US government’s campaign against Communism.
Nelson P. Valdes, a University of New Mexico sociology professor who left Cuba at 15, said he later became convinced that the airlift was a Washington-concocted plot to drive wealth and knowledge from Cuba.
Operation Pedro Pan
During the following months, over and over again, the station would rebroadcast that false "news item" about children being taken away from their parents. In December 1960, the CIA experts felt that the idea had taken root on the island and decided to go on to the next phase, which would split Cuban families and finally cause some of them to oppose the government. That would guarantee solid support for the invaders. Under apparently legal cover, using the services of the Catholic Church, the children's exodus began. Operation Peter Pan was carried out under a religious cloak as "humanitarian assistance" provided by the Catholic Services Bureau in Florida. Its main protagonist, who allowed himself to be used as a figurehead, was Monsignor Bryan O. Walsh.
High-ranking officials in the State Department and in the Attorney General's Office, plus the CIA officer in charge of the program, who said his name was Harold Bishop, took part in those initial meetings. In fact, "Bishop" was David A. Phillips. Naturally he had to be there. He had created Radio Swan and Operation Peter Pan…
By the time the State Department meetings ended, Monsignor Walsh had the first 500 visa waivers in his briefcase. The CIA had been clear: authorization would be granted only to children and adolescents between five and 18 years old. Not to their parents, who would remain in Cuba to swell the ranks of the opposition to Fidel Castro.

Some more links -
Cuban exile
Exporting the counter revolution
The Story of Elian
Peter Pan
My parents' firsthand accounts of the time between 1961 and 1966,before they finally left Cuba, tell of children put into ideological indoctrination at age 11. The first group of 800 children was sent to Minas de Frio en la Sierra Maestra in Cuba on March 27, 1960. They were removed from their parents and their family values to be indoctrinated in the values of the revolution for 45 to 60 days at a time. At 11 years of age, they were introduced into camps of adolescents with little supervision. These minors worked many hours a week in the fields in harsh conditions with poor nutrition and slept on hammocks. They experimented in new situations and mixed among those who would change the uneasy and unrooted moral, political and religious values their parents were still molding. They used the on-demand abortions at clinics far away from their families to reverse their errors in judgment as adolescents. Others returned pregnant and with head lice, parasites, hepatitis
and venereal disease.
Their stories and suffering is not forgotten.....................

A Life Made by Hand with Clarissa Pinkola Estés

2012-01-31T01:38:00.000+10:30

Sounds True Interview: One of the main themes you explore in Women Who Run with the Wolves is how women can uncover their injured instincts. If a woman's instincts are injured, can they be healed or repaired?
Clarissa Pinkola Estés: Yes. There are many ways to approach the necessary mending. For example, you can seek out an individual whom you feel has her instincts intact, and then emulate this dynamic figure. You may also form a relationship with her, based on self-study and kinship. Other times, the mending begins by the taking of solitude. Be alone for as long a time as you can. Be away from all the mouths and hands that reach out, plucking at a woman, wanting to consume her mentally, emotionally, intellectually, and physically. Time spent in solitude clarifies “the core needs,” that is, aspects of life that you feel you cannot live without.
Another pathway to repair injured instinct is, as Carl Jung put it, to live a natural life. Attempt, if you can, to live close to anything that is natural and cyclical. Live close to black dirt, a garden, a house plant, a dog, or a cat—something that has no artifice to it. Observe and make a relationship with that living criatura, creature. Notice that it moves in cycles. Try then to see what your own cycles are. This brings you out of the clackity-clack outer world into the world of the Self, providing new ideas and new ways to consider yourself.So, the internal predator is the nay-saying function of the psyche, an aggressive complex that criticizes, “You are not adequate or acceptable.”
The two triggers that seem to especially energize the internal predator during the course of a woman's life are abuse and neglect—abuse of her emotional nature, her creative functions and talents. Abuse occurs by restricting or smothering her talents and the development of her ideas and personal voice. Neglect can be understood as the willful or unconscious lack of perception and attention to things that will perpetuate her growth and thriving. A woman who has experienced this lives in a dulled psychic state, as though a bushel has been forced down over a shining light.
Women-Wolves and Clarissa Pinkola Estes - Thanks to fellow Aussie adoptees for the reminder and the links to this author who has been so helpful to so many and continues to be so.

User friendly Adoption

2012-01-30T09:54:00.000+10:30

Amanda writes Is This Really Ethical? : I honestly couldn't make this stuff up if I tried. As the saying goes, truth is stranger than fiction, isn't it? No truer is that than the tale of American adoption history.
Ethical issues with amending and sealing I've discussed so far:
hiding illegal adoptions by changing an adoptee's identity.
bastard-shaming.
infertility-shaming.
sexism and paternalism.
perpetuation of the biological nuclear family as the superior family form by hiding "deviant" origins and creating fictitious "amended" documents to promote this notion.
lying.
classism (illegal and unethical adoptions typically target impoverished mothers and fathers).

Not looking good so far is it? Add to all the above, child trafficking, illegal adoption, the greed of the adoption industry and it's lack of ethics, the lack of uderstanding of what adoption really means in a country in relative poverty, the commodification of adoptees, the religiousisation of adoption, and the unsafe place that is adoption for many adoptees who are abused, sexually victimized or murdered.
In order for adoption to be user friendly, there would need to be major changes to the climate and practices of adoption. By user friendly, I mean fair to adoptees, not punitive or unnecessarily damaging and not profiting from their damage, exploiting that damage or promoting it in ways that commodify, bastardise or allow discrimination and inequality.
Those who profess to care about children would in all conscience be promoting: -

humane solutions for children in institutions which do not involve them having to lose their country, language, culture as well as their name and identity
the making of changes in children's names and identities illegal
the banning of profit making from adoption in any form
ethical screening of prospective adopters for children who are genuinely unable to be parented by their biological families
the introduction of much more extensive home studies and supervision of placements
reputable, effective training for prospective adopters
closer examination of the motivation of adopters, their understanding of the effects of adoption on adoptees
more discussion on the reality of transnational; adoption and what it means to the country and families involved
the disbanding of systems which allow a small number of children in institutions to become adoptees while others are abandonned, overlooked and doomed and a serious study made of the motivation and ethics of those who participate in such selection
extensive studies into the effects of adoption on adoptees at all ages including those areas previously not examined seriously such as the effects of adoption on adoptees when they become parents
honesty in adoption practices, transparency of arrangements between governments, institutions, agencies and ministries
effective programs for keeping families together
changes in legislation which reflect the importance of keeping families intact where possible
genine commitment by all to keeping families together using effective planning, financial assistance, real support in all areas and any viable means available as a top priority
non-acceptance of adoptism, adultism, racism, sexism. disablism and extremism in adoption
the elimination of transnational adoption and the promotion of an understanding of the extensive damage it creates
proactive planning and committment to creating better lives for those children who are not able and should never be adopted, because it is an unsuitable option
reversal of the thinking in current adoption to ensure it is about what is best for children
ensuring the very best for all children - how is it possible to care so deeply for 1% of children in institutions and allow others to suffer?
ensure suitable arrangements for all children not living with their families in the home country
the opening of all records for all adoptees and equality of rights
zero tolerance of discrimination against adoptees and commitment by all to recognising and supporting change
provision of suitable and effective support for adoptees of all ages, to assist them in dealing with the effects of adoption - trauma, loss, abuse, discrimination, racism, adoptism, bullying and so on
full knowledge of the history and implications of adoption
changes in the culture of adoption to reflect what is real for adoptees

When do we start? How about now, before any more damage is done and the hypocrisy of those involved in adoption becomes even more rampant and entitlement, greed and lack of ethics spread their suffocating shroud over yet more families and children.......

Is This Really Ethical?

2012-01-29T17:10:00.000+10:30

For those of you who say you do not know or do not care about the history of adoption or do not understand why adoptees don't love adoption as you do, please read Amanda's reasoned post on the history and ethics of adoption as it is known today in America The Declassified Adoptee: Is This Really Ethical? An Open Letter to American University Professor, Prof. Kimberly Leighton: Let me first start off by saying how glad I am that I could address this blog entry to you. I am glad that the show that I am about to reference had an adult adoptee there to speak, even if I didn't agree with what you had to say, because the public should be asking us about these issues. I am also glad that I am able to see adoptees doing so well; you are a testimony to that. So many people have a skewed view of adoptees (I guess the fears about adoptees "disrupting" people's lives if records are opened is testimony to that), having smart, insightful, knowledgeable adoptees in the public eye is an important thing. After reading another blogger talk about your recent NPR interview with Diane Rehm, I went to Ms. Rehm's website and viewed the transcript of the show. That is why I am writing you this letter today because you talk about ethics and I care about ethics. And because we're both adopted. (My readers can join the discussion here, I wrote the title of this post to address ).
If you are an adopter or a prospective adopter this is absolutely essential reading - for the sake of adoptees in your care or those you hope to be in your care.

Serial Adoption

2012-01-29T11:49:00.000+10:30

At a Blog somewhere near you, Michelle said in reply to my comment, made out of courtesy, that I would be posting these T-shirts on the facebook group Appalled by Adoption...
Von, I'm sorry you feel that way. I just took a quick peek at your blog and Facebook group and I'm still not sure I understand why you are against adoption. Should children remain orphans if their biological families cannot care for them? Do you advocate abortion? I'm not trying to pick a fight, I'm just trying to understand what it is you are suggesting.
Where to start folks? To begin with, it hardly matters does it what my views are about abortion, adoption or whether children should remain 'orphans'? None of that is particularly relevant to the fact that there are adoptees who find these T-shirts offensive.That of course will make no difference to their promotion or sales or the attitude of those promoting or selling them to raise funds for another adoption.
Why do I and other adoptees find the message of these T-shirts and the ones below offensive?

There are many reasons -

they ignore the complexity of adoption for adoptees
they make assumptions about adoptions and adoptees
they ignore the fact that adoptees have a homeland already, in which they have family, language and culture
saving one orphan at a time ignores the other 99% who will never be saved - can caring be so selective?
the saving orphans movement works on false figures and a misleading concept of being an orphan
the orphan movement ignores the complexities of the reasons why there are children for adoption, the trade in children and the profitability of the adoption industry with it's lack of ethics
while it will be an advance in adoption thinking when a sense of humour is valued, there will always be areas of unacceptability.The idea of serial adoption is concerning, given the current adoption climate, practices, lack of ethics and adequate preparation and assessment of adopters. Describing adoption as a life sentence is certainly an adequate description for many adoptees who's life with the loss and trauma of adoption and the necessity of spending a life time adjusting and accepting what has been done to them when their identity was taken away, their name, culture, language and motherland if they are transnational adoptees.
adoption is not a solution to poverty, there are other solutions which require investment, initiative and time but keep families intact and children knowing their true identities - children are not blank slates
the idea of being 'blessed with multiple life sentences' as a serial adopter is deeply offensive to those adoptees who suffer the life sentence of adoption
adoption is not happy and beautiful salvation for adoptees, whatever adopters like to believe or whoever they know who appears to be happy and content. Adopted life goes through many stages, not all of them may appear to be so accepting
whatever your view of adoption as an adopter may be, adoptees see it differently from their own unique experience and perspective. Do not ever expect to know how an adoptee feels deep in their heart, to know their innermost thoughts and ideas about adoption, adopters are uniquely placed not to know.

There is much more to say; we adoptees who blog and comment have had this conversation so many times before, usually with similar outcomes. Adopters either get it or they don't. If you do, you could not possibly create such T-shirts and since most adult adoptees care about what happens to young adoptees there is concern for the outcomes of adoption for them.
Here are some links which may help understanding -
Being Adopted - The Lifelong Search for Self -a book which no-one involved in adoption should miss
An adopter's view on Being Adopted- The Lifelong Search for Self
An article on adoption trauma
David.M Smolin's article - essential reading for all involved in adoption
Michelle, there is no argument and you need not feel sorry that I feel as I do, supposing you actually knew how I feel. You're say you're not sure why I'm against adoption? Did I say I was or that it is not necessary for some children? I see adoption as an adoptee. Having lived adoption my whole life, my views are based on experience, mine and that of other adoptees. We cannot be put in neat boxes, adoption just isn't that simple.

The Role of Childhood Trauma in Adult Disease

2012-01-29T01:41:00.000+10:30

Scared Sick: The Role of Childhood Trauma in Adult Disease - Robint Karr-Morse, Meredith S. Wiley : The first years of human life are more important than we ever realized. In Scared Sick, Robin Karr-Morse connects psychology, neurobiology, endocrinology, immunology, and genetics to demonstrate how chronic fear in infancy and early childhood? when we are most helpless?lies at the root of common diseases in adulthood.
Compassionate and based on the latest research, Scared Sick will unveil a major public health crisis. Highlighting case studies and cutting-edge scientific findings, Karr- Morse shows how our innate fight-or-flight system can injure us if overworked in the early stages of life. Persistent stress can trigger diabetes, heart disease, obesity, depression, and addiction later on.
Not cheerful reading, but with a bearing on the adopted life. Isn't it interesting how some non-adoptees like to tell us about the effects of this, that or the other on the early lives of babies and children but often do not make the connection for adoptees. It's as if we are somehow excluded, different and that what has a bearing on other children doesn't apply to us because of course the blank slate effect wipes out all that went before and we are magically healed, made whole and 'as if'.
Not so for the study done by Dr Lyudmila.M.Shipitsyns in Russia on the psychology of orphans.It has many useful and telling things to say on the effects of abandonnment, institutional life,which children can be helped and which are damaged beyond the point where adoption could do anything other than make things worse for them. A must read for anyone raising a Russian adoptee, contemplating doing so or thinking of buying a one-way airline ticket. The Psychology of Orphans available on Amazon.
So to Creating a Family with more on the Torry Hansen story or is that the Artyom story?
One other part of this news story that drove me slightly crazy was a comment by Torry Hansen’s mother, Nancy. Nancy was the one who drove Justin/Artem to the airport and put him on the plane. She says that being removed from his home and sent on an airplane by himself back to a place he didn’t remember was not traumatizing for him. “All I can say he was very happy when he was on the plane,” she said. “Witnesses have said that he was running all around and he was happy.” I just want to reach out and smack that woman!
The comments are interesting, very adopter-centric as you'd expect and with a one-sided viewpoint which does not take into account whether it was possible Artyom was running around 'happily' and if he was, why that might be so.While his damage from early life and institutional life is almost a given, what has been ignored is the pressure he may have been under to be an adoptee raised by someone who appears to have been unprepared , unsupported and unsuited for the task. He may well have experienced relief at being sent home to what he knew and was familiar with and may have provided some sort of security which adoption took away. Love and good intentions do not conquer all, in some situations they present new difficulties which cannot be overcome. So rather than reaching out to 'smack that woman' how about concentrating on what may have been happening for Artyom!! Radical!

The Hansen house..neat as apple pie!

Keep Your Secrets

2012-01-28T11:25:00.000+10:30

Adopto-Snark: Given the state of adoption in the US, where babies are returnable dolls you can buy in any color from all over the world–given that we take orders from the media on how to look and act and be–and given that we believe having one black acquaintance can make you 100% not-racist forever–this shit makes perfect sense.
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.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Linked to Brain Damage

2012-01-27T09:40:00.000+10:30

PTSD: Children who are 6 to 11 years old may exhibit extreme social withdrawal, disruptive behavior, and an inability to focus. They often have nightmares, sleep difficulties, irrational fears, irritability, and angry outbursts. They may do poorly in school or refuse to attend school at all. They often complain of physical pains which have no medical explanation. Symptoms of depression and anxiety often surface in traumatized children at this age.
Adolescents aged 12 to 17 may respond to trauma much as adults do. They often have flashbacks, nightmares, confusion, and difficulties with peer relationships. They may also show signs of substance abuse and symptoms of depression, including social withdrawal, sleep problems, poor academic performance, and suicidal thoughts. Adolescents often feel excessive guilt over the traumatic event; they may also fantasize about taking revenge.
Some research findings indicated that these Romanian adoptees exhibited survivor behavior. A substantial number of these adopted children require aftercare by adoption specialists from the time they arrive in Dutch families. It seems plausible that the high incidence of PTSD characteristics was related to extreme physical and social neglect occurring in the orphanages.

The personal perspective on a previous post adoptees' ptsd , Joy writes on ptsd and adoptees

Treating Traumatic Stress a book on working with children and teens, not read so can't be recommended but it looks interesting.

Loosing Loser

2012-01-27T03:56:00.000+10:30

Thank you to P for the comment on loosing. No seriously! I made a small joke of my mistake and later thought about it and let it cook a bit. You are right, of course, no seriously conscientious pedant gets something like that wrong do they? Words are important, the right ones vital. I'm glad you pointed it out.
When I was in Primary School I was topping the Spelling Bees by the last two grades, even beating the two bright boys, both of whom incidentaly I still have sporadic contact with and one of whom provided and shared with me, a wonderful mother I have loved dearly for decades. She gave me the cuddly mothering an adoptee so badly needed, loved and cosseted me, when she wasn't being tough and scary! I lived with her and the family for quite a time and she taught me to cook, decent , real food, the love of which was in my genes, both sides. She taught me too, something of how to live after abuse, how to manage life and family loyalty. It wasn't all roses, but it sure didn't smell of boiled cabbage!
Anyway, thinking about this spelling thing, I realised there is a small handful of words I get twisted up if I am tired or pushed. Not the simple words, or the unique, easily recognised ones, but that little bunch which includes where, were, thought, through and of course lose, loose but not lost, a familiar and close word. Thank you P for providing the opportunity to think this through and to finally acknowledge that I blank out sometimes; adoptee PTSD and the feelings come back without the pictures; familiar territory with adoptee PTSD. I could place how it happened in time and where, just by elimination, but have no memory other than the feelings. Many of you will be familiar with this and as you probably do, I work round it - mostly!
It pointed up too, what a difficult but amazing year it was last year for progress in adoption matters for us Aussie adoptees, or some of us anyway.We were bullied and harassed by a few mothers, formed our own contact groups and out of that have made many friendships, set up a website and have some facebook groups up and running.
Here in my State, some of us have found each other for the first time, most never having know anyone before who was placed in the same orphange/home. Progress may be slow, but these developments take time and care, as we discovered in the initial attempts last year at country-wide group support. Adoptees trigger each other, sometimes quite profoundly, words are sometimes difficult with deep meaning and significance and experiences can set off chain reactions. Mothers have been very supportive, some have been very abusive but crystalised intent and purpose.There have been tragedies and tough times. Lies and deceipt. Presumption and misunderstandings. We now await the Report on forced adoption for which many of us wrote submissions and gave evidence. The words of the Senators, how they responded to our words and what they recommend will be of great significance. Those who view us as losers may find they're denied the last laugh.

PuffyHeartLove

2012-01-27T03:46:00.000+10:30

A Blogger writes: - Okay, friends. God truly is so, so good to care for the orphan. I sit here astounded at how He mobilizes His glorious army when there is a need. It really is true, you know...God calls one family to bring a child home, but He calls all of us to rally in support!
We can ALL do something to ensure that there is one less orphan in the world.

Sherrie says in answer to an adopter who feels unloved; - I called out to her, “In the deepest crevice of your child’s heart, she loves you. You may never see that love manifested, but it’s there. Your child is either too wounded or rebellious to tell you.” Now how's that for an assumption!!

Adopter posts - Please "like" The Archibald Project on Facebook and spread the word about this amazing ministry. If you are a family in the process of adopting, contact The Archibald Project for more information about having your adoption photographed. Are you skeptical about having someone follow you on your adoption journey with a camera? DON'T BE. Whitney is so completely normal. She's not waving a freak flag at all, I promise. Even if she was a little odd (which she is so NOT), did I mention it's FREE OF CHARGE? Hello??? No brainer. Whitney is a one-of-a-kind Jesus follower. She could be using her gift of photography to make profit for herself but she's giving it all to God and his kingdom. She is an example to us all of how we are expected to use the talents HE has given us. I PUFFY HEART LOVE HER!

Check out at round 2.52 you fans of the Mick. Gotta Puffy Heart Love adoption dontcha?

Whose Perspective?

2012-01-26T11:37:00.000+10:30

A pot-luck of perspectives for your perusal -
Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children: Whose perspective?: Recent years have seen increasing attention being paid to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. This article provides an overview of research in the field and its implications for an understanding of these children as a particularly vulnerable category. The existing research focuses primarily on investigating the children’s emotional well-being from psychiatric and medical perspectives. Moreover, in these studies such emotional problems tend to be linked to previous and current traumatic experiences, in particular separation from their parents. By contrast, this article suggests that a critical need exists for research on unaccompanied children’s life situations based upon exploration of their own perspectives.
The Musings of The Lame on Why adoption kool-aid tastes so good
Amanda writes on Santorum on rape and abortion from her perspective.
Some stats and facts on abortion -
Highly restrictive abortion laws are not associated with lower abortion rates. For example, the abortion rate is high, at 29 and 32 abortions per 1,000 women of childbearing age in Africa and Latin America, respectively—regions where abortion is illegal under most circumstances in the majority of countries. In Western Europe, where abortion is generally permitted on broad grounds, the abortion rate is 12 per 1,000.
and something on Christian evangelists, and not necessarily what might be expected.

From a parent’s point of view

2012-01-26T10:56:00.000+10:30

On child abuse in adoptive families: Apart from the legal perspective and on a more emotional level, it is very hard to face the fact that people who deliberately chose to parent children, after a long process of waiting and of showing great effort, will be capable of abusing this very child.It is just as unbelievable that often, denial of the family and friends is the only consequence when mistreatment and abuse take place.
As is often the way with abuse of children, particularly when the abuse is sexual abuse which also constitutes psychological abuse. So often in cases where there is denial by the adults involved, the child is further abused by that denial and lack of acknowledgement of their abuse and it's effects. Children need to be believed, taken seriously and their future protection and support taken seriously.So often adults are at a loss to know what to do, how to do it and think only of some of the implications for the adults involved. Children do not forget and are scarred,usually for life, not only by the abuse but by those who deny them belief and protection. The indicators of abuse are very clear and should always be taken seriously. No parent can parent effectively if they do not know what these are, what to look for and what to do about it if abuse is suspected. Parents need to teach children what is inapproprite and how to keep themselves safe. Any parent who does not is negligent. Much abuse is perpetrated by family relatives or friends, regularly by siblings and of course by parents themselves. All adults can help protect children by being vigilant, refusing to believe it is wrong to interfere when a child's safety is at stake and not turning away.
There seems to be no limit to the abuses adults heap on innocent children without remorse and often making justification.That denial and lack of remorse is often one of the clearest indicators of guilt. Innocent until proven guilty? In the law perhaps, but those with experience of working with perpetrators understand the sociopathology and act on it to protect children from further abuse.There was a time when it was possible to measure what a child said about the experience of abuse against what would be the usual knowledge of a child of that age. If there was not a fit, then the suspiscion of abuse was strengthened. These days the lines are a bit more blurry since pornography is freely available and children are sexualised deliberately and acquire explicit information earlier and earlier. Nevertheless children do not generally make accusations of sexual abuse if there has been none.There are exceptions, but they are known in specific situations and usually for certain age groups.
People who become adopters who abuse adoptees fall into several groups, maybe more. Those who adopt in order to abuse the adoptee/s and have made their way through the system not necessarily because they are able to hide their abusiveness but because the system allows for mistakes of this sort, in fact caters more than adequately for it by poor, inefficient home studies, lack of regulation, scarcity of ethics and inability to separate money from what is best for adoptees.There are others who are badly let down by their agency for the same reasons plus lack of correct information about the adoptee who is badly and often fatally placed.The stresses of trying to provide a suitable placement for a child who may need very specialised care or is unadoptable may uncover tendencies and lack of skills in the adopters they were unaware of or which take them by surprise. When there is a lack of support and effective monitoring things can go very wrong very quickly. These days we know so much about the abuse of children there is no excuse for allowing ti to happen where it can be prevented.

Child Abuse and Mistreatment

2012-01-24T17:36:00.001+10:30

Alice Miller on Child Abuse and Mistreatment: Humiliations, spankings and beatings, slaps in the face, betrayal, sexual exploitation, derision, neglect, etc. are all forms of mistreatment, because they injure the integrity and dignity of a child, even if their consequences are not visible right away. However, as adults, most abused children will suffer, and let others suffer, from these injuries. This dynamic of violence can deform some victims into hangmen who take revenge even on whole nations and become willing executors to dictators as unutterably appalling as Hitler and other cruel leaders. Beaten children very early on assimilate the violence they endured, which they may glorify and apply later as parents, in believing that they deserved the punishment and were beaten out of love. They don't know that the only reason for the punishments they have ( or in retrospect, had) to endure is the fact that their parents themselves endured and learned violence without being able to question it. Later, the adults, once abused children, beat their own children and often feel grateful to their parents who mistreated them when they were small and defenseless.
Many adoptees suffer at the hands of adopters and others, until we learn, usually as adults, ways to cease being victims.We do not achieve that by putting it in the hands of a higher order, because it does not solve the problems, simply buries them deeper, disguises them and leaves them unresolved.While it might feel a relief to hand over our worries, pain and fears ,it does nothing for our learning, our coping strategies and may be self-alienating. We have some fine examples of adoptees who do this as 'experts' and advocate it for others. No names, no pack drill.
Note where Alice says all forms of mistreatment injure the integrity and dignity of a child, even if their consequences are not visible right away. I guess even the most ardent of adoption enthusiasts would accept these days that the loss and trauma experienced by adoptees when they are parted from their mother and made into adoptees constitutes the mistreatment and injury of a young child.
The dignity and integrity of adoptees are compromised and deliberately assaulted constantly, without thought or remorse and have become commonplace treatments in adoption. While those things may occur in certain therapies and be imposed by practitioners, they are also practised daily by those who work or live with adoptees. Every time a child's story is told, their photo shared with strangers and the world, their dignity and integrity have been assaulted. These things, dear anonymous, are unique to adoptees - exposure of trauma and loss by blog. No biological parent is knowingly, deliberately abusive in that same way, simply because they are not raising adoptees and they often do not have the interest, since biological children usually come free.
You may also note that Alice says the consequences are not visible right away. That means not next week, not next year but maybe in decades from now.When non-adoptees talk about the happy adoptees they know they need to remember that and also that adoptees talk with those they trust and trust is often an issue. For some reason, it seems non-adoptees believe adoptees share their deepest, most painful and private feelings about adoption, their adoption. Sometimes, because the consequences are not visible right away adoptees may not yet have become aware of those feelings or may not be in possession of all the facts about themselves. They are highly likely to have been denied information which others take for granted. Some have vetoes in place, restricting them from ever knowing about their history, family and circumstances of adoption. I wonder anonymous, if you have any idea how that is for adoptees? Perhaps a little like having enforced amnesia, the secrets and lies which are supposed to be for our own protection are generally for the protection of others.
Imagine on top of that, PTSD, the adoptee variety, in which we get flashbacks to feelings, without the images. Many of these from a time when we were pre-verbal and we may struggle now to find the words to grasp those feelings and wrestle with the consequences. Those of you non-adoptees who wish you had been adopted because you had 'monsters' for parents and think adoption a better option have our every sympathy, but you at least did not have enforced amnesia.
You might like to check the links for more information on Alice Miller and for her books at W.W.Norton

Dumpster Babies

2012-01-24T14:52:00.000+10:30

A couple of previous posts on dumpster babies at Why?: there are situations in which no medical records are available and will never be available - dumpster babies, other foundlings, some 'orphans', transnational adoptees who have made their way through a corrupt system and babies who are the 'gestational products' of anonymous donors, where no history is available. Some adoptees and ART people will always have to live with the knowledge of no knowledge being their lot. They will of course do it, because they have no choice and no alternative. For some adopters - ideal!! No biologicals, no records, no information and no strings. No problems! Well, not many, it remains to be seen and depends on what you call problems. Blank slates? No definitely not, however attractive a proposition that might be to daydream over. It ain't going to happen.
More at Human puzzles and baby dumping devices.

Happy Hunting Dumpster fans!

Dusty Neighborhood & Dirt Roads

2012-01-24T11:15:00.000+10:30

You know I love it when someone who knows much, much more than I do about something, gives me the run down on what they do, their field of research, profession, enthusiasm or particular skill or interest. I remember way, way back having Quantum physics explained, remember when I discovered fractals and when I was given the full description by one of my daughter's old school friends on how classy chocolates are made. Her friend had particular expertise in coaxing machines which were well over 100 years old to give their best and I was fascinated by how the machines work and what they do. I could have listened all day because he was an expert, a real expert who knew what he was doing, knew his job inside out and had genuine enthusiasm for it - who wouldn't love making beautiful chocolates which bring so much enjoyment and pleasure.
We have our experts in adoptionland too, but those who are wise, know that there is so much to know you can't know everything. It's good to see we have an increasing number of adoptee comics, stand-ups, actors and musicians who do their thing so expertly, making such a valuable contribution to understanding, recognition and the exposure of our particular and unique qualities and preoccupations.
There are others, non-adoptees who like adoption humour too, such as KitKatKootie over at her blog I want a dumpster baby No alcohol, doing my best to quit smokes. This fucking baby better be worth it. God Dammit. I want a Dumpster baby because my husband and I are trying to have a baby and not having much luck. I won’t go into a lot of details, but it’s been a challenge. I love rescue animals and I would love a rescue baby the same way. Also, it’s way cheaper to find a dumpster baby than adoption and in-vitro. So it’s a joke, but really not at all. So, as she says just not really at all.
Then there's our old friend anonymous who embarrasses her/himself by not understanding how discussion works or that commenting on aspects of adoption and adoption practise is not best served by personal remarks about someone unknown and a situation unknown personally.It just makes him/her appear an hysterical ranter who has taken something very personally for themselves or for that adopter they so admire who is a saint but outed by others as racist, adoptist, disablist or adultist.
That other bothersome group of 'experts' know all there is to now about a tiny area of adoption, say adoption of 'orphans' with disabilities.They're prepared to break the rules because they feel so strongly about their cause and ministry.What they are doing in filming and publishing photos of children who are not adoptees, is illegal and if brought to book they will make things so much harder for those very children they claim to care about so deeply. When the doors close will they accept responsibility for their part in that? What will happen to those children left behind because of their actions? Caring for children means caring for all children, not just a select few.
It seems some Christian evangelists are quite happy to break the rules - In early 2010, NCFA held an online ethics seminar that drew roughly twenty-five representatives from religious and secular adoption agencies. As part of the webinar, NCFA took a blind poll of participants’ responses to various ethical situations. Either through ignorance or a willingness to bend the rules, 20–30 percent of agency representatives gave answers that were tantamount to committing visa fraud or other serious violations. “You’ll hear people saying, I’m following God’s law, not man’s laws,” Johnson says
So to Another face of unethical adoption: Life seemed to give Karla Zepeda a break when a woman came to her dusty neighborhood of cinderblock homes and dirt roads looking for babies to photograph in an anti-abortion ad campaign.
The woman asked to use the 15-year-old’s baby girl in a two-week photo shoot for $755, a small fortune for a teen mother who earns $180 a month at a sandwich stand and shares a small, one-story house with her disabled mother, stepfather, and three brothers.
But 9-month-old Camila wasn’t just posing for photographs. Click the link and read on. What have you done today to encourage ethical adoption anonymous?

Bigfoot and the Primal Wound

2012-01-24T01:32:00.000+10:30

There is a plethora of Research on child abuse and neglect -there can never be too much and we can never know too much, in an effort to improved life for children. Nor can we ignore the effects of parenting, the importance of good parenting and more than adequate parenting. Just an aside, I did have to smile when I noticed one of the authors names is Bigfoot!! I haven't checked, but I'm guessing this research focus is on biological children parented by biological parents for the most part.
Since the primal wound does not exist and all adoptees are blank slates, any research into child abuse does not apply to adoptees, because of course adoptees have been saved by their forever family, rescued from bastardhood, eternal illegitimacy and a fate worse than abortion. All these lucky adoptees are being parented by adopters who are an improved version of the adopters we adult adoptees were raised by, who made us bitter, angry and ungrateful or alternatively happy and uncomplaining. 99% of adopters today know everything they need to know about adoption and have nothing to learn. They're so lucky, wouldn't it be great if adult adoptees knew it all too - where they came from, who they were and all those unimportant little details that are really just icing on the cake.
Great too if adult adoptees knew and remembered their place and spoke when they were spoken too and made themselves useful as a resource whenever required. Perhaps a sort of 24 hour hotline for questions or a facility for discussion - Do you think we should adopt our grand-daughter's niece? Do you think there is such a thing as good adoption? What should we do with the children no-one wants? etc. It could go on ad infinitum, all free of course with time freely given by grateful adoptees as pay-back for the beauty of adoption and the glory of being saved. Bit like a burglar asking the victims of burglary how to do a better break-in. Or being at a party where someone asks the local vet, who is a guest, to diagnose his cat, over the canapes. There is never any cost to the adoptee in these quesions, so freely asked, because the primal wound doesn't exist and adoption is not damaging - ask all those non-adoptees who'd far rather be adopted than raised by their biologicals! Just sayin'!!

A Word To the Sponsors.....

2012-01-23T12:02:00.001+10:30

Skip to the bottom if you'd rather listen to David.M.Smolin. As promised; why this adult adoptee doesn't respect most adopters and prospective adopters. It's fixed in stone, not debatable and will only change if you do and adoption becomes ethical. So far adoption and ethics have never been words that happily appear in the same sentence.
Many of you are rightly dedicated to the task in hand, but worryingly, seem unaware that how you view adult adoptees relates to your attitudes to adoption and has implications within your family and community. Of course there are many exceptions, many adopters who do get it and possibly a number of prospective adopters who see the light. I am in regular contact with some of them who have my respect for the job they are doing and for their attitudes. I can't speak for other adoptees, although I know there are many who will agree.
When you buy into an industry such as the adoption industry, with all it's corruption, lies, deceipt and fraud and big money is involved, you are supporting that industry, promoting it, agreeing with it's goals, ways of operating and condonning what it does, how it treats people and the way it commodifies adoptees. Your money directly goes to supporting all of that and to ensuring the sending countries where there is poverty, keep having a market for children when they don't have a market for much else.
In addition, some you treat adoptees with disrespect, as continued commodities, available to answer your impertinent, intrusive questions as if it is your right and it is our duty to answer, to reveal our tough experiences, trauma and loss for your enlightenment.When we object, you try to guilt us by saying you need to know to help the new genereration of adoptees. Fair enough, but do it in the right forums, respectfully and with care, thought and a modicum of compassion. At very least be aware that an unknown adoptee may be opening a can of worms in order to answer what appears to you to be a simple question, or not, you are not in a position to know, did it occur to you to be cautious? Or is it all about you and want you want?
Adopters who run open blogs, in which they post about young adoptees, many of whom are obviously traumatised, acknowledged to be in trauma and post photos of those adoptees, are being abusive.There has clearly been no thought for the future, how blogging will affect those adoptees when they know about it and see themselves and their most private, painful moments on display, or as one anonymous puts it 'showcased' for all to view. You leave young, vulnerable adoptees open to other abuse, bullying, internet paedophilia, trauma trawlers and ambulance chasers. Many of you clearly want to show the world how wonderful you are, how you are living examples of the demonstration of the macro through the micro.You display your most offensive blunders for all to view, in complete confidence that you are right, entitled and have nothing to learn because you've been an adopter for a few years!! You are huffy-puffy when anyone calls you on it, become abusive and cry foul, acting the victim and injured party! Why not run closed blogs? All are protected that way and adult adoptees from your disablist, adoptist attitudes which give them so much concern for the future of young adoptees, particularly the most vulnerable; the ones those at Reece's Rainbow like to call 'the least of them'.
On top of all that, you patronise us, think you're being kind and generous in giving us little opportunities to tell our stories and do some good in the world. Your assumptions are breath-taking. How little you appear to know of what adult adoptees achieve, how they overcome their difficulties and the efforts they put in to ensuring they live the best lives they can. You box us together as if we have one story, the same one, as if it is all just too complex to grasp or to bother with. Perhaps you are fearful of what will be revealed, the challenges you may meet and the threats to your neat thinking about the beauty and wonder of adoption? It is so easy and cheap to label us bitter and angry, ungrateful and uncontributing. Know you've got your hands full, so you should have, if you're trying to do a good job, but don't forget one day you may have a family of adult adoptees. Your attitudes now will affect their attitudes in the future. Who will pick up the pieces when things fall apart, when your adoptees don't turn out how you wanted or to your expectations or won't live out the life story you imposed on them by adoption?
That's just the beginning; there is so much more and so much other adoptees could add from their own experiences. Rebecca Jenks commented in an email that she wishes all could just get along. When adopters address all the above and actively do something about it, you might find it starts to happen. You have choice as adopters; adoptees did not, but do now. Today they choose to speak out when they can, whether you listen or not, we'll still be speaking out.
So, to an essential interview with David.M.Smolin. I hope you'll go there, listen and take what he , a fellow adopter says -
LGAs talks with David M. Smolin : Kevin talks with David M. Smolin, Professor of Law and Director, Center for Biotechnology, Law, and Ethics at Samford University about the big picture view of adoption that includes fraud, coercion, bribery, and money. This isn’t just “bad” stuff that occurs in some adoptions, they are fundamental elements that our adoption system is built upon.

Would You Rather be Adopted, Aborted or be Abhorred?

2012-01-23T02:44:00.000+10:30

Earlier in the week I received a set of emails from a supporter of Reeces Rainbow, where it seems every 'family deserves the blessing of a child with Down Syndrome'!! If children described as 'the least of them' are a blessing, how come they're so expensive these days? The key word here is 'deserves' just in case you, like Rebecca and others, believe I think kids with Downs syndrome are ugly and not worth adopting.
After wrongly accusing and insulting me profoundly, she proceeded to ask some questions along the lines of ......
Who would you have rather been raised by, your mother or your adopters? Bit like that old favourite of non-adoptees as in the title of this post. Have you stopped beating your wife? Or got caught out having internet sex in the little bed? Or got called out by one of your ex-wives?
When non-adoptees ask these things, it appears they have no idea what they are asking, what effect it has on adoptees and they often display no compassion or sensitivity. Adoptees having been commodified by adoption seem to be regarded particularly by adopters, as permanently commodified, available for use and sometimes even guilt-tripped for not complying with requests, demands and instructions!!
Within certain settings, where the boundaries are strictly set, the adoptee has given full agreement and has choice, such questions are often acceptable, because those who ask them receive the answers respectfully, with consideration and may take on board the content. Not so with the above example where there was a hidden agenda and a more than obvious agenda. The sly kick in the guts is always the attempt to guilt or shame, popped in as a bonus if the adoptee is non-compliant i.e bitter and angry!
My reply was 'Neither, the perfect mother was out there somewhere and I didn't find her until much later' or words to that effect. The asking of such a question takes no account or the loss and trauma of the adoptee, is a very direct reminder that they had no choice and still have no choice about the adopted life. It is also directly about parenting and since a stranger does not know what parenting an adoptee had which may have involved abuse of all kinds, it seems particularly thoughtless, crass and ignorant. Since we are supposed to be available to educate adopters, isn't it time they started doing their homework properly?
Adopters over the rainbow, have this week been praying for a mother not to claim her child because it will break their hearts. Granted this child lives in the most deprived of conditions, is cared for very badly, but in creating a market for these adoptees, capitalist Russia, impoverished wherever, will go on providing children to meet the demand, the prices will rise again and again and the more adopters and prospective adopters post photos of emaciated, suffering 'orphans' the more the providers in the sending countries will like it. You suckers are doing all their advertising for them, for free and very effectively!
Before we go, have non-adoptees any idea what they are doing when they go into an orphange where deeply deprived children reside and cuddle and 'love on' one child until they get a response?? Once that is achieved they leave, with photos and a story to tell. Any idea how that can affect the child? Did you even think about it or do you care? Perhaps it really is all about your saintliness, your sacrifices and good intentions as many claim!
I am haunted still by that 'popular' evangelist who visited a silent orphange ( although there was no crying, he does later say there was the noise of cots as children comforted themselves, so not silent at all) and 'loved on' a boy until he screamed! He left and then had the sensitivity and beauty of spirit to use it in his evangelising, along with the story of 'his adoption', in one of the most exploitative, abhorrent and offensive things I've ever witnessed. See it at adopted for life, but definitely not recommended for adoptee viewing. Is there no end to it? As if adoption isn't bad enough for the young, adopters continue to be abusive to adult adoptees, with their thoughtlessness, exploititativiness, offensiveness and freewheeling self-obsessed obsession with their own salvation.
Happy Sunday! What's on your agenda today?

Trends in Deaths of Abused and Neglected Children

2012-01-22T11:20:00.000+10:30

Anonymous commented: - You continue to pick out a handful(out of what, HUNDREDS) that adopt and have a bad outcome. BIOLOGICAL parents are known to do horrendous acts of abuse on BIOLOGICAL children. Of course, you do not showcase that. It's a MENTAL issue NOT an ADOPTIVE issue. These children are starving, suffering, dying. What do you proclaim we do about them? You sure like to throw the "adoptive parents are awful" card around, but are YOU donating to make the changes? For every one or two disrupted adoptions you highlight, what about the MANY successful ones. Of course, your agenda is to showcase the negative, but it is not the whole picture.
So here you go anonymous, this one's just for you. What do you think happens to these children who survive abuse? Does their trauma become a mental issue or an adoptive issue? Do they become adoptees or suffer in institutions and placements for lack of decent care, love and commitment? And what do you proclaim to do about them? There is an orphan crisis in America, if defined in the same way it is in other countries by orphan ministry Americans; it is happening right there under your noses, children suffer every day for years and it is shameful. How then anonymous do people like you have a clear conscience about that situation or don't you?
Trends in Deaths of Abused and Neglected Children : The analysis presents a sobering, if narrow, view of the city’s performance in protecting abused, neglected and at-risk children. In 2011 alone, the Administration for Children’s Services, the city’s child welfare agency, investigated complaints involving 88,191 children, according to agency figures. Almost 4,000 were removed from their homes.
What do I proclaim about that? I proclaim nothing, but I will note that inadequate services to mothers and support of families, insufficient job opportunities, housing options and life where there is the greed and selfishness of big business, the gradual erosion of rights and opportunities will always have a pay-off. That is never felt by the 1%. Always by those who find themselves at the bottom of the heap and are inadequately supported to achieve anything other. I hope anonymous that you are making your contribution to alleviating that shameful situation and donating to make changes. I hope you are not supporting those legislators who work to erode rights for women and for adoptees and children. Now that would be negative!
You may note that over 200 adoptees have been murdered or killed by adopters in America alone so far. As I noted before, the torture, starving, abuse and murder of a young adoptees, does not in my book constituted a disrupted adoption, it denotes a less than adequate agency home study, a dubious agency and insufficient regulation of agencies and ministries where there are workers who are not skilled or competent enough to carry out the highly skilled work of assessing prospective adopters. It denotes a lack of independence and objectivity, the lure of money and profit. It indicates a very broken adoption culture, a commodifying of adoptees and a failure of orphan ministries to provide suitable, safe parents for children with special needs who are vulnerable and require expert parenting by adopters who are prepared to put in the hard yards doing their preparation to ensure they become more than adequate parents, as they will need to be to do the job right.
Before we go anonymous, would you like to define what you believe is a succesful adoption, from your point of view only of course, since you it appears you are not equipped to do so from the point of view of adoptees or mothers and who is, other than those who are in those groups and then from their own unique point of view only? The group Origins continues to come to grief over trying to make definitions for other groups, perhaps one day they'll understand the necessity to stick to what they know. Adopters appear to make the same mistake.

From B, an adopter, (not in America), some thoughts on parenting styles and wise advice for adopters and prospective adopters learned from experience and a caring, ever thoughtful approach. Thanks B, keep it coming!

Early childhood stress and vial words.

2012-01-21T10:03:00.000+10:30

Wonder what words are in these vials - or perhaps it's just urine?
I wrote the other day about that template emailing adopters seem to use when they want to confront adoptees. It appears that comments also have a template, which again makes anonymous comments seem uncannily similar. It goes: -

I disagree,my view of adoption is the right one.You're wrong and full of hate/anger/bitterness/piss
Write this blog the way I say - what do you know!
Stop challenging me. I make the assumptions and do the patronising, shaming and pity around here.
Justify your views. I don't have to justify mine I'm a non-adoptee
Piss off.

Here's a fine example: - Von you seem to have a story to tell about adult adoptees. It is such a shame that you seem to be so full of hatred. It is time to use your story to help others rather than just spew vial words about a situation you are only making assumptions about. Don’t make people pity you. Make them understand what it is like for you without all the hatred. Adopters and adoptees can always benefit from hearing your story and you could make a real difference in other lives. Hatred and misinformation are only harmful. Share your story, but please do not judge others. There are plenty of good decent people that have adopted children and they have grown up to have wonderful happy lives.

It comes with a few variations, but is always anonymous, is always aggressive, dismissive, sometimes attempts pity, shaming or humour of the Bigfoot variety. Keep them rolling guys and gals. What a lot it tells us about you and your attitudes, your goals and preoccupations, your attitudes to adoptees and your understanding of adoption. You just don't get it do you? Post coming us soon on why you don't get adoptee respect or credibility.
To something more familiar to adoptees which few of us will find surprising, since we have mostly had our share of chronic diseases, illness and conditions from childhood onwards. For the record, has anyone not? For those non-adoptees who want to be picky and say how can you prove it, we seem to be talking about likelihood here, which so often seems to prove a reality according to the medic.
Early childhood stress: As a general internist who takes care of adult patients with a litany of chronic diseases, here’s what knocks my socks off: the notion that early toxic stress isn’t just vaguely bad, but can create concrete, physical effects. Unmitigated toxic stress can leave a physical mark like a tattoo, imprinted forever. No matter how normal and unstressed a child’s subsequent years, no matter how loving their parents or guardians, the early-childhood toxic-stress tattoo can doom a person to a heightened risk for chronic health problems in adulthood
So there you go adoptees, a possible life sentence of health problems besides all the other adoption effects. Lucky us! It is not of course news to us, all the ones who have, as I have, struggled with a lifetimes' health problems, some minor, some very severe.We do what we can to overcome, to live our lives as best we can. Just another challenge. So non-adoptee anonymous before you start mumbling about the 'well of pain' and 'wallowing in misery' how's your health today, your state of mind and your conscience?

I know many of you have now read this book, for the first time and some for the second! I'm pleased to report I am now awaiting my copy - will there be tears? I expect so, if any of your reviews are anything to go by, and they are! Would you say this is essential reading for adopters and non-adoptees?

Showcasing The Negative?

2012-01-20T10:24:00.000+10:30

Hello again anonymous and would you believe you've now got a whole post to yourself??
Thank you for the pearl of opportunity you provided in your comment on Billets-Doux: -
You continue to pick out a handful(out of what, HUNDREDS) that adopt and have a bad outcome. BIOLOGICAL parents are known to do horrendous acts of abuse on BIOLOGICAL children. Of course, you do not showcase that. It's a MENTAL issue NOT an ADOPTIVE issue.
These children are starving, suffering, dying. What do you proclaim we do about them? You sure like to throw the "adoptive parents are awful" card around, but are YOU donating to make the changes?
For every one or two disrupted adoptions you highlight, what about the MANY successful ones. Of course, your agenda is to showcase the negative, but it is not the whole picture.
You clearly have not understood that this blog is the blog of an adult adoptee presenting adoption in all it's unpleasant and ugly reality.There are plenty of blogs and websites which chase unicorns and rainbows.This is not one of those blogs, has never been and never will be. If you want that sort of unreality and lack of balance go elsewhere, there's plenty to choose from, but so few of us adult adoptees blogging about what is real for us, within our experience and that of our fellow adoptees, be they young or old. We had found our voices, it takes a time when you have experienced abuse, trauma and loss.
Of course biological parents are sometimes not good parents, they abuse and murder too and often that involves professionals having to make decisons, usually unpopular, about removing children for their safety and protection, sometimes babies at birth, for whom the safer option is adoption. I don't have time to focus on those issues, although I care deeply about them, because the world of adoption provides more material than I can possibly ever blog about. Because I am an adult adoptee and have been so for 67 years that is my priority. I do that because adoptees have had a raw deal in every way and continue to do so. Many do not have equal rights and are not able to do things you probably take for granted. Adopters have often been responsible for that situation so perhaps you can say how that is fair or just?
I think you'll find those adoptions with 'a bad outcome' are rather more complex than just being a mental issue. If you had read here for a time or care to look back you find posts which tell you why and look at the reasons adoptees are more at risk than biological children. I don't actually think of a case where an adoptee has been murdered or abused as a 'disrupted adoption', these are the result of poor quality home studies, work by agencies and ministries where ethics are not a priority and an attitude to adoption that provides nothing to respect or have confidence in. I rarely post about disrupted adoptions unless they are particularly outstanding in their audacity, abusiveness or unique qualities. Perhaps you believe adopters, agencies and ministries should be allowed to get away with unethical and abusive treatments of adoptees in the way they used to do before the advent of the social media? Times have changed, if Governments won't hold money making enterprises accountable, others will.
There are many adoptees who believe no adoption is succesful. What would have been succesful would have been a determined effort to keep mother and child together, not subscribe to a profitable adoption industry which relies on child trafficking, baby selling and any number of dodgy practices which always, but always, involve large sums of money.
The 'adoptive parents are awful' card? I don't know anything about that. I know that there are adopters, some of whom I respect and am in regular contact with, who do their very best to provide good adoptive parenting in the most difficult of circumstances. I had adopters in my life too remember, they did their best too and no adoption is perfect, because it always begins with trauma and loss.
There are many adopters out there in adoptionland who never should have become adopters, because they don't display the necessary skills, imagination or understanding of adoption.That is the fault of agencies, ministries and government for not regulating the industry with diligence or proper respect for the lives of children who deserve so much better.
Adoption it seems is far more complex than you have grasped, not just about the supposed orphan crisis and about saving the starving, but about so many more things of serious concern if you cared to take the blinkers off and look with open eyes. It's a big old world out there.
Am I donating to make changes?? I have contributed all my professonal life to help others make changes for the better, all of that involving families and some of it directly to do with adoption, as have at least four members of my family.Since retirement I have made contributions I am happy with, can live with and have a clear conscience about. You? How are you justifying your contribution and involvement?

Victim of The Rainbow

2012-01-20T08:17:00.000+10:30

This heart-rending photo is of a woman who has lost everything - her family, her home, her liberty and will no doubt suffer more trauma and loss before she's lived out her life. This is slightly similar to the anguished photos of adoptees who have lost everything we see constantly, repeated a million times over on blogs and websites of those about to be made adoptees. We see photos posted of children in extreme anguish, vulnerability and distress photographed at a time when any responsible, caring adult would see the need to protect them. We see photos of them in hotel rooms, in institutions and at airports. It is considered acceptable, a right, and is used by agencies and ministries as a marketing tool for increasing adoption applications.
Anyone can recognise the anguish in the face of the woman pictured above. It seems only other adoptees recognise similar things in the faces of young adoptees or care that our young people, sometimes charming referred to when they have a disability as 'the least of them' are abused in this way daily, regularly and sometimes with amusement. It seems adopters still do not recognise the ways this will come home to bite them in future times or perhaps they don't care.
And before you pour scorn anonymous, on the idea of adult adoptees being able to read the expressions of young adoptees accurately, you might like to know that many adult adoptees can, with accuracy, look at photos of women and tell you which are adopters, which mothers and which adoptees. Scary? No, just the result of trauma and loss, PTSD and the other experiences that make adoptees vigilant, super-observant and notice things others may not. If you find it scary perhaps it's time to take account of it and act with more respect and care when dealing with young adoptees. We notice everything you do even if we don't speak about it.
For those of you not of the world of adoption, the woman above is Mrs Emelyantsev who adopted through Reece's Rainbow. This is a tiny part of the tragic story -
Emelyantsev was originally charged with first-degree murder, but pled guilty on June 20 to a lesser charge of second-degree felony child abuse homicide as part of a plea deal.
At that plea hearing, Emelyantsev told Judge Mark Kouris that she had dropped Nikolai twice — once on a bag of diapers and again on a hard-surface floor.
However, during a 60-day psychological evaluation completed prior to sentencing, another version of the story emerged. Emelyantsev told interviewers that she had kicked the child twice, sliding him across the floor, according to Tooele County Attorney Doug Hogan. Later that day, when frustration with the needs of her other children boiled over, Emelyantsev picked up Nikolai and “slammed” him onto the hard-surface floor twice.
“The version that came out during the diagnostic is far more chilling,” Hogan said, adding that it also fits better with the injuries sustained.
Hogan said Emelyantsev and her husband Fyodor are both relinquishing their parental rights to their four remaining children — a 10-year-old Down syndrome daughter from Kimberly’s previous marriage, their two biological children, ages 5 and 2, and a 4-year-old Down syndrome son they adopted from Russia last Christmas. The children are currently being cared for by family members.
The Judge commented that there would be life after this tragic event, meaning of course for the convicted, not for the murdered adoptee, a vulnerable child with Downs Syndrome. who deserved so much better, a family with the skills, patience and resources to provide all that was needed to raise a child to meet his full potential and more.
It is time all agencies and ministries who record a death by adopter are shut down. It is a serious reflection on their training, home studies and methods of operating. Most competent and experienced workers who are conducting studies independently would refuse applicants who put adoptees at risk in this way. It is detectable, as are the risk factors in a relationship, parenting abilities, attitudes and all the other areas that should be covered in a full home study which looks for what is best for an adoptee. There is no excuse for putting adoptees at risk, especially when they are, as Reeces Rainbow so charmingly calls them, so 'valuable'. Oh and anonymous, before you pour scorn on that, make sure you have walked the walk before you try to talk the talk. If you work for or support Reece's Rainbow no comment needed or invited.

Just for you Linda, I know you love this Unicorn chasing rainbows, maybe he'll find a good one one day!

Billets-Doux

2012-01-19T15:57:00.000+10:30

You know the next time someone sends me billets-doux or even a billet-doux, they might remember that like Shirley and Jenny the elephants, I have a very long memory. Most adoptees come complete with a BS Detectors that would shame Sherlock Holmes, which is why many of us go into jobs where those skills are useful. Or we write books and set it all down for the world to read. Some of us write blogs, where all those little idiosynchracies in your ethics, those little lapses in your better judgement, that tendency to hypocrisy and the ill fit between your professed beliefs and your actual behaviour come under scrutiny and are exposed.
If we are diligent adoptees and we really care about the next generations of young adoptees and I can't think of an adult adoptee who doesn't, we might even look into the history of the agency or the ministry you support and take a peek at the ethics, the history and the course of the adoptions undertaken by that ministry.
We might discover statements like this "Spreading of information about children who do not grow up in their own families on the web, in the press or other media has an irreversible and negative impact on their privacy and can harm them for the rest of their lives," Miloslav Macela, head of the Russian Ministry's Department for Family and Welfare systems, said to explain the position issued by the Ministry, after an adoption application was refused. Interestingly it is the application which is refused, the prospective adopters and the situation prounounced not suitable, rather than an incident of a child not being 'brought home'.
Or this: - D is a little stinker, can't you tell? He has sandy blonde hair and blue eyes. He is HEALTHY, with no heart condition. He eats and sleeps well, is social and active with the other typical children, and has been very well taken care of. He will make a wonderful addition to ANY family!
From an adoptive family who visited with him in September 2010: "D is such a sweet boy, gentle and quiet. He will do wonderfully in a family, and can adopted with any of the other children waiting in this town".
D can be adopted at the same time as S or any of the other children in orphanage 17 or 2, so please consider adopting more than one at a time! What? These kids are not puppies or kittens! Respectful language please at the very least!! If you don't know what respectful language is, for the sake of young adoptees ask someone who knows, like an adult adoptee.Would you like to be talked about in those terms?
We look at other blogs and reports and when we find someone encouraging support for an agency or ministry with a less than perfect history and see comments like this, we wonder who is being duped.
thank you for this post, for your incredible support; for helping to raise awareness not only of my family's adoption, but the huge need for more people to adopt children with special needs who will otherwise not have an opportunity to experience life the way God intended them to.
Speaking of being duped, those of you who know people with Downs Syndrome, know it is quite possibly to dupe them fairly easily at times, not of course at others. In matters of being written about on blogs and having their photos shown, it may be that they do not see the full implications and are therefore being exploited, their privay denied in a way the is very different from that of other adoptees, who later may take action against that activity or at any rate have strong views about it. It is the duty of all adults to protect the more vulnerable in our communities and it is tragic to see this is not being done by people who care so much about the abuses they say others perpetrate on the vulnerable and use it is a selling point for adoptees with Downs Syndrome. Make all those blogs closed, otherwise don't be surprised when others comment on what you are doing and don't act the victim when you do go private - it is the least you can do for adoptees in your care to protect their privacy and respect their trauma, loss and the life they are courageously trying to adapt to.
Then we have this illuminating post please keep scrolling until you find the post for October 16th about these adopters -

So next time you clean living, good-hearted, generous, non-judgemental supporters of a ministry which has a record including the death or abuse of adoptees, are tempted to send billets-doux in which you act the injured party, the victim of abuse and nasty words of hate, just be like Jenny and Shirley, remember this post and press cancel rather than send. It will save us all some trouble.

RIP and forever in safety all those many, many adoptees who did not survive been taken from their homeland to the land in which kids with disabilities experience everyday the benefits of living in a country where even the least among us are treated with dignity and respect (if they make it past the abortion option).

There are people in our culture of death who consider pro-lifers to be far RIGHT. When it comes to the issue of protecting the most vulnerable members of our society and recognizing the priceless gift each human being from our Creator is, then I have to agree that the position is far RIGHT meaning CORRECT!

One Less Bigot?

2012-01-19T10:14:00.000+10:30

For those of you who have no interest in the Reece's Rainbow fiasco, please switch off now, it will all be over shortly.
As you might remember from yesterday's post, your Blogger asked a simple question on the blog of Rebecca Jenks,something about why adoptees had to have their names changed. As you might not know your Blogger has known many, many people with Down's Syndrome, babies, children , teens and adults. Some of these people she worked with to give them improved opportunities, in a time just after all people with Downs Syndrome were routinely confined to institutions where they lived limited and restricted lives away from their families and out of the sight of the public. They were seen as an embarrassment and often written off by medics who said they would achieve nothing and that nothing could be expected of them in life. Some people she knows with Downs Syndrome were born into the families of friends, colleagues and family and she was very much present when decisions were made about their lives and has been well aware of the different options families have and have to take due to their capabilities, skills, commitment, support, community and wider family attitudes. Your Blogger has pretty much seen it all played out over a lifetime.
As a elderly primagravida she had to face for herself the prospect of giving birth to a child with Downs Syndrome and to decide what she would do about that. Her answer was of course Raise him or her...what else would I do?
To be accused or even thought of as someone who believes some of the things commenters have posted on the blogs of families who have used Reece's Rainbow as their agency is deeply offensive.To be subjected to a comment such as the one that appeared here by an adopter or supporter of Reece's Rainbow has been beyond offensive because it was a personal attack by someone who does not know me or know my life or my continued commitment and attitudes to people with Downs Syndrome.....thank goodness for that!
There are many points of concern here. One is that people who can say such things to adult adoptees can become adopters themselves of adoptees! Another is that people who support the adoption of children with Down's Syndrome are using an agency that publicly states some of the attitudes it does. Finally it is of great concern that such unpleasant and disablist comments are being left on the blogs and being emailed to those who are raising children with Downs Syndrome. Whatever you think about adoption or Reece's Rainbow and it's attitides and ethics, what you have done is abusive. Of course, this or this or this* may have something to do with that! Unfortunately these comments have been attributed to adoptees, to followers of this blog and some to me in particular. Not happy, Jan!
Adoptees are, because of their trauma and loss, some of the most vulnerable in our communities. Those with disabilities more so, and those with Downs Syndrome particularly, because they have such potential for development, independence and achievement if they are parented expertly, taught well and given effective support at the right times. If they are not, the results are tragic, as we see from the institutions they are initially admitted to. Institutions can be vastly improved, as can attitudes, in time. If Reece's Rainbow achieve the last three of their stated goals they will have made a good achievement. My serious enquiry as to how that is going has been met with silence so far. Hardly surprising in the circumstances.
However, Reece's Rainbow do themselves and adopters no favours by making statements such as this
People are spending thousands of dollars and traveling thousands of miles to adopt these children.”

and doing things such as this, which are offensive, adoptist and insensitive. For adoptees with Downs Syndrome is is particularly important not to change their names. If you don't know why, time to go back to Adoption 101! If you are still reading here anonymous supporter of Reece's Rainbow and have the courage, a retraction or apology would be a useful step forward.

And for those who care: -

Nurturing parents needed a useful post on children and institutions by B, with some very interesting links.Thanks B.
*to finish, a quote: - Parents have kids with disabilities in America experience everyday the benefits of living in a country where even the least among us are treated with dignity and respect (if they make it past the abortion option). I suggest when the author of that quote learns to communicate with the dead she speaks to all those adoptees murdered and abused by adopters,comes into the real world and talks to those who do not have equal rights are subjected to racism, adoptism, adultism and homophobia and learns that some are not more than others! Perhaps she is part of the 1%!!! Perhaps I'm being negative and speaking hate-filled words again!!! Perhaps this is the real world!!!

Opinion versus Defamation

2012-01-18T09:38:00.000+10:30

Suz writes here on defamation, opinion and blogging at Writing My Wrongs: and quotes E.B.White - “Prejudice is a great time saver. You can form opinions without having to get the facts.” Check it out, there are some very useful links. Thanks Suz for the info.

‘saving one child at a time’

2012-01-18T09:19:00.000+10:30

Adoption group’s mission is ‘saving one child at a time’ : Reece’s Rainbow asks prospective parents not to disclose the origin of their selected child because media coverage of the conditions under which some orphans live has the potential of derailing adoptions. For example, Romania stopped all international adoptions in 2001 after allegations of widespread corruption in the adoption process.
It seems some prospective adopters are not following orders. Are we to conclude from this, that media coverage of orphanges is unwelcome, because it derails adoptions and adopters don't get to have what they have decided? Isn't that a rather short-sighted attitude and shouldn't it be possibly to work for change on all fronts? In fact isn't that a moral obligation, once we understand that children are living in conditions that are abusive, way below any recognisable standards that might be considered satsifactory?
I was particularly interested in the final comment in this article -
“It’s not our effort to expose human rights issues in an exposé kind of way,” Roberts said. “That doesn’t help. We are saving one child at a time. We are changing hearts and minds, from the staff in the orphanages, the court system, the doctors. They begin to see these children are valuable. People are spending thousands of dollars and traveling thousands of miles to adopt these children.”
Now , noble as the effort might be to give children with disabilities, families, particularly children with Downs Syndrom who can spectacularly exceed all expected potential if parented in the right way, is is really necessary to commodify them in such a blatant and disablist way?
All children are valuable aren't they, not just for the money that can be charged for them, but because they are, as the song says, 'our future'? They carry potential for change, development and new avenues of human endeavor, and for those of us who are optimists, the chance that they will do it better than the previous generations in caring for our planet and caring for each other. If we truly believe in the rights of all to achieve to the best of their potential, possibly further, we could never see these children in such a disablist and adoptist way.

Adoption 2012

2012-01-18T09:07:00.000+10:30

Thoughts and Reflections on International Adoption in 2012 : The adoptees themselves have done a tremendous job of organizing and raising their voices for progressive change. We are only going to see more of this as the international adoptees age. More organizations are working to improve children's lives in their birth countries, some even led by APs who came to see the light. This is all incredible and encouraging. So it can be done?

Adoption 101

2012-01-18T08:59:00.000+10:30

I get a few emails from adopters and prospective adopters, don't all blogging adoptees? There are a few from adopters and mothers, which turn into continued exchange and a useful and progressive discussion where mutual ground is discovered and respect flourishes.They come from people who don't make assumptions, don't use condescenscion, try to blame and shame and a respectful in the questions they ask and how they ask them.
I value those online friendships immensely for many reasons, one being the feedback that can be trusted to be honest and truthful without being punishing, hurtful or disrespectful. These people speak from their hearts with integrity and no hidden agendas.
Then there are the others, always adopters or prospective adopters, who appear to have been given a template in Adoption 101 on how to deal with adult adoptees. Their comments and emails follow such a similar pattern it is almost uncanny! It usually goes something like this

I respect your opinion
You're a loser
Live the way I suggest and you won't be a looser
I know adoptees who are happy, you must be a freak
I don't want to debate or argue
Don't challenge my views or ideas about adoption
Your ideas about adoption are negative
Answer these questions about your life and adoption or I will feel hurt/offended/upset
I will pray for you in your 'well of pain'
Piss off.

My internal, often unspoken response?

Really?
Thank you for reminding me of my losses and the challenges I have faced, the battles I've won and the epic journey I've taken, the like of which you will never know or be empowered by. Don't expect me to justify my life choices to a stranger like you!
No thank you. I developed my own way a long time ago and I keep adding to it, adjusting it so that's it's a perfect fit. If I lived as you suggest it would be a half -life, or much less.
Right, so all the adoptees you know speak their deepest thoughts and feelings? Time to stop deceiving yourself
No right, that's very obvious since you've emailed me.What is your purpose?
Don't read my blog or display on your blog what is racist, disablist, adoptist and does not respect the rights of children and young adoptees. Keep it closed if you want no feedback from adult adoptees.Stick to those who agree with you, reinforce your predjudices and delusions and life will be far more comfortable.
Really? And yours? You'd say they're realistic?
Hmmm! Let me ask you some very personal, intrusive questions about your life and experiences.
No thank you.
Definitely. I'm on my way.

And here's a real life, very recent example, from a person who decided I had made a comment on a blog which called orphans, most particularly children with Downs Syndrome ugly. I'm not sure if I was supposed to have said that they were not worth adopting or whether that was attributed to another adoptee or follower of this blog.This blog was definitely implicated although oddly enough I did not recognise any of the names I was given of posters of the ugly comments, except of course anonymous, who also popped up here with this gem: -
First, let me say, I respect your opinion. You have obviouly lived something many of us have not and you have not overcome these challenges. But,your outlet is to put your energy and passion into calling orphans ugly? How does this help your stance? Because, quite frankly, it just speaks ignorance. Threatened people often resort to hate and anger. I feel for you. I'd like to say I understand you..let me tell you what though, you all have a choice to let your adoption past beat you down or to find strength through it.
And here's some more Shit people say to adoptees. It seems some blogging adoptees are listing all the things non-adoptees say to and about adoptees. It doesn't make pretty reading, but please do read if you are not an adoptee and wish to be better informed.

Finally, adding to all the above, I must mention that little element that most of you adoptees are not yet old enough to experience...that tiny hint of ageism, that small edging towards the idea that perhaps I should be doing something more appropriate for my age group!! Now there is a red rag to a cow! In my country, at my age, most women are thinking about taking up sky-diving, learning a new language, trekking the Himalayas or finding a new partner. One of older my half-sisters has just become a bride for the third time and an even older one is looking. We don't give in to age quickly in my country, nor do we respond to agesim with much enthusiasm! What are you doing today? Have fun, whatever is on your agenda, unless it's adoptee bashing, in which case expect karma to get you sooner rather than later!

Children with disabilities are God's punishment.

2012-01-17T15:59:00.000+10:30

Children with disabilities are God's punishment to women who previously had abortions. : On Thursday, Virginia State Delegate Bob Marshall (R) spoke at a press conference against state funding for Planned Parenthood. He blasted the organization for supporting a women’s right to choose, saying that God punishes women who have had abortions by giving them disabled children:
“The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children,” said Marshall, a Republican.
“In the Old Testament, the first born of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There’s a special punishment Christians would suggest.”
You know I've long held the view that only those who have the equipment to give birth whether it is fully functioning or not, should be involved in legislating for services for women around pregnancy and parenthood. Right-wing male legislators of a certain age in any country I have lived in or know about, consistently get in the way of decent, extensive services for women, which enhance their lives and that of their children. No, that's not an assumption.Yes, I have examined it carefully. Yes, men are fathers, can be fathers and good ones and have a valuable role to play in supporting women in these issues and in being involved, engaged with their children and in change. So many do not and fail to support women or children in the things they need most. Safe health-care, access to services, support, financial if necessary to assist them to train, work or raise children for the very few years that is applicable. So much to do maybe first people like Bob Marshall need sacking. Viewing from afar I'm aghast. We have our gents of similar bents too and they tend to sink with a fizzle at election time.

Unpicking the above statement it has just about everything - disablism, sexism, possibly racism, shame-mongering and of course the backing of the Old Testament - perfect! So hard not to be ageist in these situations!

Rescuing Starving Children

2012-01-17T08:54:00.000+10:30

Report: An alleged child starvation case near Longview is one of more than a dozen cases — including one death — that have state officials reviewing how adopted children are placed and treated.
The number of abuse cases is small compared to all adoptions. But a string of high-profile child starvation cases last year — including one from May accusing Jeffrey and Rebecca Trebilcock of starving their five adopted children at their Bunker Hill-area home — has state officials alarmed.
One might say about bloody time! They need to be more than alarmed. Those of you who talk about starving orphans who need rescuing, think on this one, happening in your very own country, possibly in your town and perpetrated by adopters Perhaps you know them, know of them or supported their fund raising, contributed to 'seed' their adoption! No? Of course not, no-one ever knows those adopters who abuse, kill and commit atrocities on adoptees. They are always invisible and those who did suspect, bleat afterwards that they wish they'd done something. Too late after a child has been starved to death.
All adults have a duty of care towards all children, no matter who the parents or carers are. Isn't it time adults started taking that more seriously? It seems from this report that adults need to be particularly vigilant with regard to adoptees. So if you know an adoptee who seems happy and content, make sure you know what you're talking about, don't make assumptions and do something if you suspect all is not well. How do you sleep at night?

Do You Mr Jones?

2012-01-16T14:29:00.000+10:30

The cast of characters in adoptionland is so numerous and diverse, it would have taken Walt Whitman working for his whole lifetime, followed by Bob Dylan, to do it justice.
Here are some of them: -

adoptees of all ages who's lives are a work in progress and will continue to be, if they're lucky, towards acceptance, healing and integration
would-be adopters who already think of a prospective adoptees as their own, post photos and life stories, without having met or paid the money
mothers who live with hope in their hearts but sabotage reunion by their actions
the writers of books who expose the lives of others, their struggles and pain in order to justify themselves
the diefied activists who turn out to be human after all and in one example , a sociopath
the profiteers who masquerade as reputable and believe they are ethically agnostic
the child traffickers who steal babies from their own people for sale to the international market in much the same way slave traders did and do.
the transnational adoptees who have lost their homeland, their language and their culture and feel they are forever doomed to be 'hybrids'
the primal wound deniers who will never have the evidence, never live the life and never know the feelings
the turbo-charged helicopter adopters who's anxieties overwhelm young adoptees with questions, stories, references, constant concentration on how it feels to be an adoptee
the writers of children's books who believe it is their duty to normalise the adoption experience
reality therapists
those who profit from adoption
the self-styled experts
the believers in vertical and horizontal adoption
the orphan resuers with their artificially inflated orphan numbers
Fergie, who may be jailed for having good intentions, possibly motivated by the money, or not
the thousands upon thousands of adopters who try to do the right thing, their best, and are let down, deceived by the adoption industry with it's absence of ethics
those who do not understand that adoption is sometimes essential
the true believers who know that all adoptees were ripped from their mothers' wombs and sold to vultures to raise
those who believe that biological connection is the only important connection
Chuckie, Dan and the thousands who believe adoption is beautiful and forever
those who choose not to believe the best parents need to be found for the children who need them and that adoption is about adopters requesting children
those who believe every word on a blog or forum is written about them or refers to them alone
mothers who stalk adoptees to the point of having to be restrained
adoptees who have to find the courage to cut off contact with biological relatives when they prove to be too toxic
those who display their damage constantly but never do anything proactive to change it
the dearth of experienced practitioners working competently with adoptees and mothers
the collectors of adoptees, some now tallying a score of twenty
those who work tirelessly to prevent adoption and keep families together with creative solutions
those who believe all children are adoptable
Laura Silsbury and her band of happy wanderers
the creators of rainbow babies and the medics who perform caesarians on surrogate mothers so that the baby will be ready on time for the adopters to collect womb fresh
legislators who keep adoptees as second-class citizens
the makers of adoption myths and those who maintain them
those who believe adoption is one story - theirs
those who believe change will only happen once all the stories are told
the inventive, creative and imaginative who find new ways to prevent adoption, empower women and keep children with their biological relatives in their own country
the dirty diamond industry and it's connections to adoption
those who like to appear squeaky clean in helping 'the unfortunates' and are eventually found out
adoptees who have no choice but to accept the synchronicity, the contradictions and the injustices in adoption
those who had a postman once who's brother knew someone who once saw an adoptee passing by and knows all about adoption and how adoptees experience adoption, think about their adoption and progress through the adopted life
those with a crystal ball who can predict exactly how a young adoptee will be at 50, 60, for life
those who take on adoptees but not for life and certainly not for the lives of the next generation
employees of airline companies who sell one way tickets for unaccompanied adoptees and do not understand duty of care
the organisers of adoptionfests where prospective adoptees sell themselves, or not
adopters who become murderers, abusers, torturers, neglecters and chilli-mommas
holding therapists who abuse and torture adoptees
bloggers who write like this or this and everything in between
those who believe the damage of adoption can be compensated for by financial transactions
non-adoptees who try the guilt and shame ruse when all else fails to shut adult adoptees up
adopters who change the names of adoptees, taking away the only connection to their biological mother or early life
those who regard adoptees as public property once they have told their story and feel entitled to ask what they like in any way they like, to judge and criticise what they would not have the courage to do

Just a tiny few of the many, please feel free to add your favourites or not so favourites.When adoptees speak out about inauthenticity in others or lack of ethics, how often are they told they are angry, bitter and those few words that are all that can be summoned, because no-one dares to use the other words or even knows what they are?

Found

2012-01-15T10:55:00.000+10:30

Some first thoughts on Found, Jennifer Lauck's new book about her adoptee experiences and life.
Judy M. Miller: Adult adoptees’ insights and experiences should not be ignored or disregarded; however they often are.
Jennifer Lauck's new book has been selected for the book tour and more and more reviews and questions are appearing. Suddenly it's starting to feel like a feeding frenzy, with so many descending on it with the questions and the feeling of 'What's in it for me?' It's very hard to get that balance right between interest and new learning about the experiences of adoptees and a flood of questions, comments and impressions which begin to feel intrusive, insensitive and using. I don't know Jennifer although I have read what she has said so far. What is in her heart none of us know but her and the depth of her experiences are known only to her, whatever she has written.
One comment I read was asking for more trauma, more detail - how much exposure is enough? I have had comments on this blog chastising me for speaking out about adoption and telling me I would do more good telling my story! It seems that when we do tell out stories they are picked over, pulled to pieces and the relevent bits consumed with such speed it's very revealing of the need to know and the genuine interest some non-adoptees have in the adoption experience. I, like many adoptees, have told my story in relevant places or parts of it anyway, where it matters and may do some good. I remain to be convinced many lessons will be drawn from this, there are so many pitfalls and ways in which stereotypes will be reinforced or one experience seen as an exception or alternatively but more unlikely, the norm. If nothing else, it has begun to clarify the concerns and practices of adopters in adoption.
Find Jennifer's book on Amazon or fishpond.com.au.
Here's what fishpond said about the book: - Found is Jennifer Lauck's sequel to her New York Times bestseller Blackbird: A Childhood Lost and Found. More than one woman's search for her biological parents, Found is a story of loss, adjustment, and survival. Lauck's investigation into her own troubled past leads her to research that shows the profound trauma undergone by infants when they're separated from their birth mothers - a finding that provides a framework for her writing as well as her life. Though Lauck's story is centered around her search for her birth mother, it's also about her quest to overcome her displacement, her desire to please and fit in, and her lack of a sense of self - all issues she attributes to having been adopted, and also to having lost her adoptive parents at the early age of nine. Throughout her thirties and early forties, she tries to overcome her struggles by becoming a mother and by pursuing a spiritual path she hopes will lead to wholeness, but she discovers that the elusive peace she has been seeking can only come through investigating - and coming to terms with - her past. Found is a powerful story of belonging, connectedness, and personal truths, in which Lauck lays bare the experience of a woman searching for her identity. Her assertions about mother and child will be a comfort to some in the adoptive community, and distressing to others; but her primary motive is to offer another perspective, and to give voice to the adoptive children who may be having trouble making sense of their own experience
So is the suggestion in the last sentence that this is a children's book or should that read adult adoptees instead of adoptive children? Words are important!

Shame

2012-01-15T09:21:00.000+10:30

Brene Brown at Ordinary Courage and author of I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn't) - Telling the truth About Perfectionism, Inadequacy and Power

If you haven't read this book by a reseacher who's special focus is on shame, it has something for everyone. Some adoptees may find it particularly useful from a number of viewpoints. Apart from any personal issues we may have with shame, and who doesn't? it is very common for non-adoptees to attempt to shame us through ridicule, sarcasm, comments on our lack of gratitude or our need to write or speak about our own experiences of adoption, amongst many others.

"As we start to develop shame resilience, we will find that many of the expectations and messages producing shame are driven by fear, blame and disconnection - the culture of shame."

Adaptees

2012-01-14T14:06:00.000+10:30

You might like to check out Lifeworks community and addiction today

So how many times do you think we adoptees should be asked to adapt? How much trauma is it acceptable for adults to put children through? Is it abusive for children to move from placement to placement at the whim of adults because one set are biologically related and others are not? When we raise these questions it seems we are 'demonizing natural parents'; letting adopters who abuse, murder, torture, neglect and starve adoptees off the hook and other monstrous misdemeanors, which usually indicate we adoptees have made a fair point and raised a sensitive topic, even one that is taboo. The next step is usually to tell us we are 'abusive adoptees'!
What it actually seems to me, and no doubt to other adult adoptees, is that it is not a win-win and never has been. The 'situations' we were in at the beginning of our lives were not win-win and when we express our ideas about those situations or those of other adoptees, we are again wrong, simply because we have challenged the popular beliefs of one group of people. It really is time to move on.
Those of you who are unable to do that or who wish not to because there is gain and potential gain in it for you, may find it is time to retire from discussion in which you are playing no useful role. Repetition of one-eyed views advances none of us and attempts to keep us all marking time.
These days adoptees are generally not interested, from what I hear and read. Many mothers and adopters, are not either, because they have begun to consider the rights of children, their best interests and how they can give reunion or already achieved adoption their best shot. Those who repeat the same story in the same words over and over, may once have had respect, but have shown that they do not understand adoption from any angle but their own and have nothing invested in change. Most adoptees who are interested in progress and rights, activism and change for the better, prefer to keep moving forwards, to keep learning and developing. It is sometimes hinted at or said explicitly, that those mothers involved in reform wonder why they do it when adoptees challenge their views of adoption and are not grateful for what has been achieved. Perhaps that is because what has been achieved has mostly been done by mothers for themselves and in their own interests. Adoptees have begun at last to speak for themselves, perhaps soon their efforts will begin to show results.
It appears that many, many mothers got no help or support for their trauma and loss or that the received help was inappropriate or ineffective. There are so few therapists, counsellors or professionals around who have the expertise to work with adoption trauma and loss either in mothers or adoptees. Many show no interest in it, despite the huge numbers of possible participants and some have not understood the full extent of what the tasks are. It is surprising that given the knowledge of this being the situation, more mothers have not committed to doing the therapeutic work for themselves, after searching for someone appropriate and then undergoing the training, in order to support others with their acquired expertise and knowledge. That way forward might minimise the damage which adoptees are often on the end of after reunion, some of it for a second time. It would improve the lives of mothers, enable them to move on in new ways which would benefit all they are involved with including their families. It is a choice and one that many seem not to be interested in or to pursue with serious intent. Just an observation from a mere adaptee! I know some of you have given credit for the support you have had and acknowledge that it changed your lives........

Thanks Joy for the link.

Parenting

2012-01-13T10:06:00.000+10:30

When a mother gives up or looses a baby or child to adoption she looses all rights including the right to parent that child. Those who later enter reunion often seem unsure of what their rights are and what their role is to be, what they have a right to expect it to be or ask for it to be. If adoptees and mothers were able to be clearer on what the relationship is to be about there might be a great deal of heartbreak saved.

You may have noted the flurry of information again on adopted children being claimed by their biological parents. I won't quote or post links, as I'm supposing you are all familiar with the cases which have had so much publicity and comment. There seems to be a popular view that all children are better parented by their biological parents and that biological parents have a right to parent those children, even after they gave up those rights or lost them.

Clearly that cannot be so, when you look at the numbers of children who are abused by biological parents or who are born to people who are not able to provide even adequate parenting. I'm not talking about the type of parenting as above by turbo-charged helicopter parents, or the other parenting styles mentioned in books such as Jim Fay's. I'm talking about the type of parenting that most people never see or don't know about, except when things go badly wrong and even then some never reach public exposure.

Real life for many people is not so simple. For many adoptees it has a complexity most people can't even imagine. The children in the cases of disputed custody will have suffered greatly already on many counts. We are told that some of them, after final rulings, appear happy and content! A child who has suffered so much disruption cannot possibly be happy and content and what appears to be in this moment may change in later times.

I know of many adoptees for whom it would have been out of the question that they should be raised by any of their biological relatives.There are those who were given for adoption willingly and with relief at the lifting of a burden of shame and guilt, albeit it temporary. There are others, like myself, who would, despite the disruption, the loss and trauma, not consider they had a 'good 'adoption or a 'bad' adoption, who would be horrified at the thought of having been raised by their biological relatives or at the thought of being reclaimed by them as a child! That is an informed opinion about my own life, coming from having met many of my biological relatives and from being told by the cousin for who I was named, that I had 'a lucky escape'. That is not something to be bitter or angry about or to be pitied for, in case you were going in that direction. It is how it is, a fact of adopted life and what has to be lived with, acknowledged, accepted and learned from. Nor am I complaining, wallowing in misery or expecting sympathy. There are always more sides to the adoption story than two and it is time those other sides were aired.

Parenting with Love and Logic:Teaching Children Responsibility by Jim Fay M.D.

Evangelical Adoption Crusade

2012-01-12T09:27:00.000+10:30

The Evangelical Adoption Crusade : Despite the altruistic motives of many evangelical adopters, the size and wealth of their movement is likely to tip the balance of a system that already responds too blithely to the moral and humanitarian concerns raised by poor countries and all too readily to Western demand.
One result has been the creation of “rainbow congregations” across the country, like the congregation Moore helps pastor in Louisville, Highview Baptist. An active adoption ministry has brought 140 adopted children into the congregation in the past five years. These children don’t recognize the flags of their home countries, Moore proudly noted at a 2010 conference, but they can all sing “Jesus Loves Me.”

An article on the article at Adoption crusade and some slightly more believable and maybe reliable Orphan estimates and just for fun, Joyful Noise with Dolly and friends! Enjoy!
Before we go a little gem from Flickr: -
David Cameron likewise is no friend of Christianity. He publicly applauded the decision by two judges against a Christian couple as being unfit to adopt children because they refused to teach them that homosexuality is normative.
The court’s decision effectively declares that the demanded rights of homosexuals outweighs the conviction of Christians or pure common sense.
As opposition leader, Cameron did not oppose Tony Blair’s sexual orientation regulation giving homosexuals and lesbians co-equal rights of adoption. God only knows whether the tragic death of his own baby was an act of divine retribution for his actions against the little babies being placed in same-sex parent homes.
So there you go adopters and parents watch out for those random and not so random acts of divine retribution, they'll get you every time!

Impact of past adoption practices

2012-01-11T10:30:00.000+10:30

A small post, mainly for my own information and convenience on the changes and reforms we have seen here in adoption legislation over the years. If any of you are interested also, good news!
Impact of past adoption practices: The Supporting Mother’s Benefit was introduced in Australia in 1973.2 Prior to this event (and the other social and legal changes that affected the lives of single mothers and their babies in the 1970s), it was common for babies of unwed mothers to be adopted.
Some Selected Documents and Adoption in Australia
For those interested in something more specific on South Australia the History and statistics of adoption in South Australia. Domestic adoption in SA is now nil.
Also the History of intercountry adoption in Australia which is interesting put in the context of the current moves to make it quicker, easier and with encouragement from Deborah-Lee Furness and the Murdoch millions.
So to originsnsw and the website homepage giving the date of formation which appears to have occurred after the legislation changes which affected adoptees dramatically. Origins stated goals for change are for reform for mothers and why not? Adoptees have made recommendations to the current Inquiry into forced adoption and the Report is due out next month.We will then see where to next.......

Adoption Blogging

2012-01-11T10:18:00.000+10:30

Joy writes: - Privacy,Reform, and Adoption Blogging : You should never out an adoptee without their adult consent. I would imagine the same thing for natural parents. I may not say anything in real life, but I do listen hard, it does seem that adoptees bear the brunt of the stigma of being unwanted even more than the natural parents
I won't link to the other blog in which there has been discussion, as it has proven a dead end with deletions and unchanging attitudes.You''ll find the link in Joy's post above if you wish to go there for an incomplete picture of what was said. I have never seen the point of posting, if comments are deleted, however unacceptable they may be, as they give a clear indication of how people are thinking and feeling. If they refer to things you don't want referred to, don't go there in the first place!
Suz over at Writing my wrongs and her commenters have some revealing things to say about adoption and it's effects.

Picking up on one small point it appears that the history of Australian adoption reform has been viewed through a single lens and why wouldn't it, there have been few to put another side to it? It seems however to be emerging that mothers all over, think it is necessary for adoption reform to take place for them to tell their stories, which may include very personal information and facts about those they made adoptees. In doing so they relive their trauma over and over and don't allow themselves to move on. It seems some believe they have done this for adoptees who are now ungrateful! Others closer to home have clearly done it for themselves and the reforms needed for mothers and the compensation. Why wouldn't they?
At last it seems we are getting to the true centre of the difficulties. When mothers can speak frankly and adoptees can listen and their replies be heard with respect, we might start to get somewhere.

Bedlam

2012-01-10T11:30:00.000+10:30

Bedlam at the.........: Then it was time to say Good-Bye... a courageous post about an Ethiopian orphanage which hopefully will be widely read.
* * *

For those of you interested in orphan literature and it's development, you may have noticed the works of Gene Stratton Porter are available as an e-book, free on Amazon and well worth a read. Her work is beautifully written, full of philanthropic ideas and good works, written in such a way that the heart is touched. You might like to try "The Harvester" as a good lead in, if you don't know her work. Keep the tissues handy!! Authors just don't write like this anymore and more's the pity!

and to finish this mixed bag of goodies, a table of orphan estimates which may be more reliable than the millions repeatedly quoted by the orphan crisis supporters. Thanks David for the link.

Search and Reunion Etiquette

2012-01-09T11:41:00.000+10:30

Search and Reunion Etiquette: -: Do be very discreet. Do not, if at all possible, discuss the adoption story with anyone except the person you are seeking. Many, many times searchers are so excited about finding a family member, that they will blurt out the whole reason why they are looking for "Millie," thereby blowing Millie's cover. The person contacted will now be in possession of information that Millie may prefer to discuss herself. Sometimes, discretion means being economical with the facts. Some sources of information, like funeral parlors, cemeteries, or churches, can be very helpful, but the discretion rule applies 100%. It is not necessary to tell the whole story to everyone!

Wouldn't it be wonderful if everyone could follow these guidelines and give themselves the best chance? Have you noticed it seems to come as a complete surprise to some, that adoptees don't enjoy their stories being told to the world without their choosing, they don't like being discussed on facebook, forums and their unknown motives speculated about? So often they are blamed, either directly or indirectly for the choices they make, sometimes are forced to make by the choices others make to expose them, their lives and the painful details of adoption. It seems somehow as if, in giving babies and children away for adoption the concept of treating them with respect and dignity has been lost for some. Perhaps it never existed or was so deeply buried it never resurfaced.

You'll find the original document at www.ccnm-mothers.ca/English/articles/Etiquette.doc

Rights of the Child

2012-01-09T08:42:00.000+10:30

United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child - (Plain Language Version)
1 All children have the right to what follows, no matter what their race, colour sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, or where they were born or who they were born to.
2 You have the special right to grow up and to develop physically and spiritually in a healthy and normal way, free and with dignity.
3 You have a right to a name and to be a member of a country.
4 You have a right to special care and protection and to good food, housing and medical services.
5 You have the right to special care if handicapped in any way.
6 You have the right to love and understanding, preferably from parents and family, but from the government where these cannot help.
7 You have the right to go to school for free, to play, and to have an equal chance to develop yourself and to learn to be responsible and useful.
Your parents have special responsibilities for your education and guidance.
8 You have the right always to be among the first to get help.
9 You have the right to be protected against cruel acts or exploitation, e.g. you shall not be obliged to do work which hinders your development both physically and mentally.
You should not work before a minimum age and never when that would hinder your health, and your moral and physical development.
10 You should be taught peace, understanding, tolerance and friendship among all people.

The Convention sets out these rights in 54 articles and two Optional Protocols. It spells out the basic human rights that children everywhere have: the right to survival; to develop to the fullest; to protection from harmful influences, abuse and exploitation; and to participate fully in family, cultural and social life. The four core principles of the Convention are non-discrimination; devotion to the best interests of the child; the right to life, survival and development; and respect for the views of the child. Every right spelled out in the Convention is inherent to the human dignity and harmonious development of every child. The Convention protects children's rights by setting standards in health care; education; and legal, civil and social services.
By agreeing to undertake the obligations of the Convention (by ratifying or acceding to it), national governments have committed themselves to protecting and ensuring children's rights and they have agreed to hold themselves accountable for this commitment before the international community. States parties to the Convention are obliged to develop and undertake all actions and policies in the light of the best interests of the child
You'll find here the Signatories of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. All countries except Somalia and the United States of America have ratified their agreement. Hard to believe the reasons America have used to not ratify!!
Children's Rights and the role of the Special Rappoteur
Making Needs a Matter of Rights

Advocacy for many things that had previously been considered as needs and dealt with by Government programmes, the success of which often depended upon political considerations -- such as food, shelter, and access to education and health care -- can now be fortified by their inclusion as one of a larger number of human rights.
"Needs you can't claim," says Ms Albenez of UNICEF. "Rights you can claim. Now you have claims for each of those needs."
Social reformers and human rights lawyers have defended individual children's rights or pursued political or policy objectives deemed advantageous to children for many years. But with the Convention the concern can now be regarded as universal.
The ratification of the Convention by so many countries means that its articles and principles are now being adapted to, and becoming part of, national laws. The World Conference on Human Rights called for universal ratification of the Child Convention by 1995. While the recent intensification of interest and concentration of resources devoted to child rights following adoption of the Convention has not yet yielded particularly dramatic or even measurable results directly affecting the daily lives of most of the world's children, it has spawned efforts at legislative reform in countries around the world -- particularly in Latin America and Southeast Asia.

We see constantly how the rights of children are violated, how little the UN actually does, other than talk the talk and how very little that affects the lives of children and their families.We see the lives of people who are probably good people, turned upside down by trying to 'rescue orphans' which becomes obsession and a fight against all odds, because governments do nothing, institutions are allowed to exist in which children are neglected, abused by neglect and lack of care and the course of their lives set forever by that abuse. Those who care, struggle against all odds, try to perform super-human feats, resort to begging and pleading in order to save a few children from the inevitable fate for others; the lying/dying rooms and eventually adult institutions, so familiar to those who know institutions, orphanges and holding places for unwanted children, abandonned through poverty, disease, stigma, lack of medical care, education and racism.
Why aren't these children free on the adoption market? Because the adoption industry and governments realise there is money to be made from the misery of some and the good-will of others. Exploitation of that misery and good-will is a well honed game, which catches new fish every day and catches those who have been caught before, in a self-perpetuating cycle bought into by adoption ministries, the desperate and the well meaning. Is asking Government and the UN to give the rights of children some teeth and working to bring about those changes such a big ask? It's certainly a vital one for our future, for keeping families together, preventing poverty and famine, stopping exploitation of resources and misuse of aid. Adoption is not the answer, but it certainly contributes to the problem, by providing children, exportable commodities when there are no others.
Sadly we see children on blogs such as the following, who are not yet adoptees, have already had their names changed, photos shown, despite there being no rights to do so and their stories being told with no foresight or understanding of the consequences for the children. Surely these institutionalised children have rights too? As someone asked very pertinently recently, what happens to Unexpected expenses and funds raised when the adoption does not come about?

And another example of the rights of children to true identity being waived, possibly out of necessity but can do better!: -
Rights of the Child New: New U.S. Guidelines for Paediatricians to assess International Adoptions: Despite the fact that many children are arriving with incomplete birth and medical records, the new guidelines released by the American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP) states that paediatricians should delay changing issues like an adopted child’s age for at least 12 months.

*And before we go, is it ethical to use adoptees in electioneering, exploiting them and their adoptions for political gain having coached them to give the 'correct' answers? It certainly sits uneasily with many adoptees, is very distasteful and is a perfect example of commodification of adoptees for the gain of an adopter. Have you no shame?

Interview

2012-01-09T08:25:00.000+10:30

Here's The Land of A Gazillion Adoptees interview with Amanda if you didn't catch it already: -

See she had some help from her assistant!!! Good one, may there be more.

On Reunion

2012-01-08T11:11:00.003+10:30

While all involved in adoption need to be aware and respectful of the damage suffered by others, it is often possible to see unhelpful ideas perpetuated by those who think they are being caring and helpful, but in fact set up unrealistic expectations, false hopes and pave the way for disappointment, hurt and extra difficulty in reunion.
We often find it in forums, blog comments and on facebook as an assurance that all adoptees are loved and wanted by their mothers, even though they became adoptees. Sometimes it extends into long comments on personal blogs of adoptees expressing their feelings and views and the motivation seems to be to comfort, reassure and give something to the adoptee that they don't have. Occasionally it extends further into very unhealthy, over-involved and damaging actions, indicating a serious unawareness of the consequences for the adoptee.
Our stories are not homogenous, or even similar in many ways, nor were our mothers and their stories. When it is assumed that one mother can represent all mothers and most particularly our mother and that the feelings and experiences stand for all mothers and will stand for us, then we know we have been commodified!
While a few kind words, a bit of caring, go a long way, making assumptions about what is unknown will never help anyone. It is not the place of others to tell us what our mothers felt, thought, experienced or were motivated by, however knowledgeable the informant. It has been proven so many times after reunion to be that any expectations adoptees were led to believe in, were not in any way true or near the truth. Not all mothers loved their babies, wanted them or do now that they are adult adoptees. The difficulties that has caused for adoptees and the pressure put on mothers to accept or change something they clearly cannot or do not wish to, has been immense, painful and sometimes a form of enslavement. Adoptees, in wanting the relationship, remain in a state of hope for change, often for decades, until eventually they come to understand that nothing will change, their hopes are false and their dreams unreal. It is tragic, understandable and not helped by mothers who try to speak for all mothers. If anything could usefully change in adoption, it is this. There are other ways to express care, which are realistic, helpful and respectful.
Thank you to those who took the time to make the following comments, two of them specifically for this post.
Melynda Fitt, mother and blogger, said: - I think it is absolutely unfair to place that expectation on adoptees. I view it as a myth perpetrated by the adoption industry to help adoptees feel better about what has happened to them. Then first mothers who DO love and miss their child deeply start saying that EVERY mother feels that way (because the vast majority of us simply can't imagine NOT loving our children). Adoptive parents also parrot this same myth to help their adoptee feel "better" about losing their original families. And then these (sometimes) unrealistic expectations are then laid on the shoulders of adoptees who have to deal with the fallout when reality turns out to be far from this "ideal."
So what can be done about it? We - all of us - can tell our truths, even the ones that are hard and not easy. Adoptive parents need to stop spinning the myth, first parents need to stop spinning the myth, and the adoption industry needs to stop as well. We need to be willing to acknowledge there *are* some women out there that truly don't care about their children, as horrific as that sounds to me. Adoptees need to be better prepared for either outcome or any shade in between

Celeste Billhartz (The Mothers Project ) : - I would bet that MOST mothers are hoping for reunion with their babies-now-adults lost to adoption, and do love them and have thought about them often, etc. Regrettably, I am sure there are a few women who do not want reunion and do not love their now-adult babies handed to adoption. Probably, the best protection an adoptee has in seeking reunion with his/her mother, is to have few expectations and tons of acceptance. I support reunion, in all circumstances. The key is to take care in doing so. I feel we … adoptees and mothers … owe reunion to each other, but … we must be kind and patient and be willing to put aside our fantasies and hopes … our deepest longing. We must respect the other's need for privacy … not every mother has told her family about her first child. And, I implore adoptees and mothers to be patient and be wary of extending and expecting and accepting "too much, too soon" attention from the other. Set boundaries, yes .. but, in a kind and gentle way. Mothers and adoptees are more likely to have good reunions when they are patient listeners … just listen and really hear what the other is saying, without interruption, without judging; just listen. Reply with honesty, yes … and with care.
And, to those mothers and adoptees who refuse initial reunion efforts … please, reconsider. Step outside your fear or anger and just give this a chance. Truly, we owe reunion to each other … but, we must do so safely and patiently. To those mothers and adoptees whose initial efforts at reunion are met with rudeness, hostility and downright meanness … I am very sorry your sincere efforts are disrespected. Your mother/daughter/son, obviously, "has issues" and maybe the Universe is keeping you safe … a blessing in disguise …:-)

Evelyn Robinson, reunited mother, author of four books on reunion: - If I’ve learned anything from my association with post-adoption services over the last 25 years, I’ve learned that it’s impossible to generalise. I have interacted with countless family members who have been separated by adoption and heard of a huge range of experiences. For many (perhaps not all – as I said, it’s unwise to generalise) young, expectant mothers of my generation (my son was born and adopted in 1970) there was no consideration given to whether or not we ‘loved’ or ‘wanted’ the babies we were carrying. It was made very clear to us that we had no entitlement to be mothers, because we had placed ourselves in a situation of being pregnant, unmarried and unsupported. We were told that we had behaved irresponsibly and that now we had to become responsible and consider how we were going to ensure that our children could be protected from the negative outcomes of our behaviour. We really were told that if we ‘loved’ our babies, we would want them to have the best opportunities in life, which could only come from allowing them to be adopted by responsible, married people. We were told that if we ‘wanted’ the best for our babies, then we had to let them go so that they could achieve their full potential. I have never known a mother who lost a child to adoption who did not care about her child and his or her future. We were told that the way to demonstrate that we cared was to allow the adoption to take place. Because we were made to feel guilty and ashamed of our position, we were very prone to the brainwashing that resulted in so many children of that era being adopted. No event in my life has had more impact than the separation from my son. Some mothers have been able to use that experience as an opportunity for growth and an increase in self-awareness. Others have been so damaged by the loss of their child that they have been unable to acknowledge that experience and still live with the fear of exposure. The extent to which they have been able to address their grief and loss issues associated with the separation from their child will largely determine whether or not they feel able to include that child in their life again when the child is an adult. In my opinion, the response of the mother to an attempt at contact from their adult child who was adopted has little, if anything, to do with whether or not that child was ever ‘loved’ or ‘wanted’ by the mother, but much more to do with whether or not the mother has been able to explore and understand her experience in the intervening years.
Evelyn's books at http://www.clovapublications.com/ and available on Amazon.
**Thank you all for your insights and for sharing those and your experiences with us. This is what will lead to better understanding and new ways to view and carry through reunion in ways that are more likely to work for us all.

The Red Market

2012-01-06T11:51:00.000+10:30

Maybe this one will be a little too confronting for some - The Red Market: On the Trail of the World's Organ Brokers, Bone Thieves, Blood Farmers, and Child Traffickers : however we learn nothing by not challenging our ideas and beliefs. People traffickers, exploiters and abusers, contribute to the adoption industry, blood farming and other exploitative industries and the more exposure they have the better. Perhaps one day people who have so far not understood transnational adoption and even domestic grey and black market adoption will finally make the connection. Possibly even try to do something to stop it!
And a little something labelled as new 'rights' for adoptees in Guidelines for Paediatricians assess International Adoptions. How very well this piece illustrates the enormous disconnect between the child's country of origin and the destination, what is considered important and some of the dilemmas of adoption.
We see again this week the disconect between what mothers who blog and write understand of the adoptee viewpoint, what is appropriate, acceptable, loyal to family and sensible, if connection is established, looked for or to be maintained. Some of you maintain you 'get it'. Sadly, no you don't get it!
You are not alone and it is something you have in common with adopters who write and blog about adoptees and wonderful adoption. How hard can it be to understand that most adoptees do not want to have their lives, trauma, loss and difficultites exposed to the world, even in edited form? Would you? It appears you do and there is something about mothers feeling the freedom to talk about their trauma and experience of adoption, which they seem to believe sets them free. It doesn't of course or they wouldn't still be talking, writing, blogging and commenting about it so extensively after all these years.
Adoptees in some generations have only just begun and for most adoptees it just doesn't work that way and you have, as you did when you made them adoptees, taken away choice. It's basic, it's crucial and it's at the heart of why there are difficulties.
We've also seen this week, that some mothers expect their lost children to search for them and are hurt, upset, disappointed etc when they do not. Another huge gap in the understanding of adoped life and adoptees, their experience, motivation and dilemmas. You gave us away, wounding us deeply and then expect us to heal enough to come looking for you in what you consider a suitable and acceptable time-frame, your time-frame? Perhaps you really believe you gave us better lives, the ponies and pools were real and now we owe you for the opportunities? Thank you adoption industry. There seems to be no end to the damage caused, the implications, the ramifications and the outcomes of the work you did throughout the decades.

Adoption and Orphan Care Movement

2012-01-03T11:09:00.000+10:30

Happy New Year to you all. It has started well with much activity, discussion and exchange of views already, which looks very promising for the next 363 days ahead! To get started -
from David M. Smolin, a soon to be published essay, written to promote discussion. Permission has been given for posting and for downloading for wide distribution:-
He writes - http://works.bepress.com/ I recently posted to my SelectedWorks:
OF ORPHANS AND ADOPTION, PARENTS AND THE POOR, EXPLOITATION AND RESCUE: A SCRIPTURAL AND THEOLOGICAL CRITIQUE OF THE EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN ADOPTION AND ORPHAN CARE MOVEMENT
Abstract:
The primary purpose of this essay is to demonstrate that the scriptural and theological analysis undergirding the evangelical adoption and orphan care movement is patently and seriously erroneous. Thus, this essay will demonstrate that, based on the standards, methods, and presuppositions broadly shared by evangelical Christians in analyzing scripture and theology, the evangelical adoption movement’s specific analysis of concepts such as “adoption” and “orphans” has been seriously deficient and has produced conclusions that are demonstrably false. The second purpose of this essay will be to indicate that these errors of scriptural and theological analysis have produced, and are producing, practices that in scriptural and Biblical terms would be called “sinful” and in more secular language can be called exploitative.
You may be interested in his writing on Child Laundering and the Hague Convention at http://works.bepress.com/david_smolin/8/ and http://works.bepress.com/david_smolin/10

Warped Views

2012-01-02T14:22:00.000+10:30

Carrie Fitch emailed me today to say: - As an adult adoptee myself I can't fathom how terrible your life must have been to make you feel like you need to discourage other families from adopting. Perhaps you need to stop hiding your dissatisfaction in your life behind the fact that you were adopted. Do I wish I would have known my birth parents? Yes. Is it sad? Yes. Am I going to dwell on it every single day in my life? Absolutely not.
There were times as an adolescent, I felt anguish like I didn't belong. And I didn't have a super easy, perfect life either. But this is my life God gave to me for a reason.
Please don't come on my blog or any other and leave negative comments without knowing anything about the families. How do you know how many children my family can handle? And I guess you would believe these children are far better off languishing in orphanages without love, food, attention, therapy etc... than to be brought into a large, active family. I think your view is warped.
Try to remember, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.
You'll find a warning at her blog along similar lines in a word of caution . Realistically, I don't believe anyone who comments there or at any other similar blog would be short-sighted enough to think for a moment they would change anyone's mind.
There are however other sides to adoption which most adoptees appreciate need airing and that it is healthy to put forward. Adoption, particularly in America is unethical, expensive, full of financial incentives and inducements, begging and fund-raising. Many 'orphans' are not orphans; many adoptees do not have the same rights as others; many American children languish in the care system without families who want them. Many are badly let down by the system and by adopters and adoptions . How will this change if adoptees and their supporters do not care, stand up and speak out about the injustice and the inequalities?
Interesting to be preached at by a fellow adoptee, who had requested views on whether another adoption should be sought, to add to the handful already achieved. In attempting to explain that perhaps it was best to commit to the children already adopted and give them the best possible, since there were special needs. Parenting really can be spread too thinly, which does not achieve the best outcomes, particulary for children with Down's Syndrome ,differing abilities or the deprivations of orphanage life, loss and trauma.
In the wake of the tragic news this week that a pair of twins had been separated by adoption, because the parents had high-powered jobs and one of the twins has Down's Syndrome, it seems that many parents are not being given a full explanation of the Syndrome or of what can be achieved by good parenting. Many are fearful and daunted by the challenge.Some know their wider family will not be accepting or supportive.
During my professional life, I worked with many families in which one member had Down's Syndrome, none of them were adoptees, but all had been provided with appropriate support in order to reach their full potential.
I have friends who gave birth to children with Down's Syndrome, one given for adoption, another a near miss and a third and fourth raised by dedicated parents, who along with the schools attended, gave every opportunity for the development of fully independent people. One in particular, achieved way beyond expectations, his two older brothers taking a very active part in his life and development. It takes dedication, total committment and work beyond that of parenting other children.Those of you who have done it will know it is easy to let a child with Down's Syndrome sit in the corner and do nothing; far more challenging to provide a stimulating environnment, appropriate activities, education, therapies and ensure they respond to it, in order to live as full a life as possible and eventually to be independent, or as independent as possible.
I have known people with Down's Syndrome in high quality residential establishments, who achieve much; others who never speak, but are able to participate in musical productions, dance, creative activities and appear to have a happy, satisfied life but will never again be able to live with their elderly parents.
It is a tragedy when all children are not given opportunities to reach their full potential and adoption is often a cleft stick. Orphanage life may provide little but can provide much; some adoptions do not provide what would be possible if selection and placement were not about finances and were about good parenting and good adoptive parenting. Adoption and adopters are sometimes dangerous, abusive and lethal for adoptees. If we cannot speak about these sides of adoption, will it get safer for adoptees and will adoption be the much desired act it is now? When altruism dies or is no longer considered important we really are in trouble!

Rock WILK

2012-01-01T10:26:00.000+10:30

You might like to check out and support Rock WILK : BROKE WIDE OPEN is actually a very complex story, it includes, as a thru line, my very ambivalent search for my biological mother while also introducing you to my adoptive parents and what incredibly loving and generous people they were. In many ways, BROKE WIDE OPEN is about how fortunate I was in my life, despite the fact that the first significant moment of my life was that I was given away, this is a story of realization, a "coming of age", of finally being comfortable in my own skin, of loving myself, and releasing all of the obstructions that existed, including the ones that I created, in my life to keep me "separated" from my own happiness for most of my existence. And so BROKE WIDE OPEN, much like The Wizard of OZ, is the story of me trying to get HOME
A very happy new year to you all and thank you for all your views, links and communications which are very much appreciated, yes even those 'nasty' ones, which indicate so much that is useful to know about how non-adoptees are thinking and viewing adoption and adoptees.
May 2012 be a year of good progress in adoption awareness, the claiming of adoptee rights and the dispelling of misinformation and myths. Happy New Year!

Down Under and Up Over

2012-01-01T10:19:00.001+10:30

A very happy New Year to you all and thank you for being here for a whole new, exciting year ahead, which if anything like previous years, will contain unexpected adventures, new learning and plenty of hard thinking plus progress for adult adoptees in our journey towards recognition, equality and acceptance that adoptism is real, painful and destructive.
Here in Australia we are awaiting the handing down of the report and recommendations from the Inquiry into forced adoption. Adoptees have made great progress during the last year in becoming more visible, opposing what have been the givens about adoptees and adoption but are incorrect and beginning to form groups where views can be freely expressed, without criticism, judgement and ridicule. Some of us are the subject of vetoes on our birth information and much information has come to light on how we were treated and how adoption was conducted.
We have seen an interest develop in the saving of orphans American style and of attempts to make transnational adoption quicker and easier; we have been patronised by American adoption gurus and seen the rich moguls of industry and the media support these moves. There is much to do!
It promises to be a busy year in which we hope to have the continued and developing support of our fellow adoptees elsewhere and we hope to be able to offer our support where we can.
There have been many interesting initiatives and ideas put forward for us to carry into the future beyond this year and the next - one of those being the idea that young adoptees who are blogged about, their photos posted for all to see their trauma and loss are being treated abusively and that at some time in the future they make wish to take court action about that betrayal and exposure.
It will be a big year!
To finish, for those of you who have an interest in narrative work, here's your chance to read the work of a co-creator of Narrative Therapy.
Narrative Therapy Library: Down under and up over: Travels with narrative therapy: a book to download!- by David Epston
This item is free and can be downloaded immediately.
Description:
David Epston is one of the two creators of narrative therapy, the other being the late Michael White. Part one, 'Down under', contains previously published work from different periods of David Epston's writing career. As always, each chapter reflects David's creativity, and at times those of his co-writers. Part two, 'Up over', contains six examples of David Epston's current work, all of which are printed here for the first time, including inventive approaches to chronic bed-wetting, relationships between children and their estranged fathers, court reports, stealing, and sibling conflicts, as well as a long chapter on Anti-Anorexia, a subject close to David Epston's heart.
Down under and up over: Travels with narrative therapy was originally published by the Association of Family Therapy (UK) in 2008 and has now gone out of print. They have generously have given permission for the manuscript to be provided to interested parties for free. For further information about AFT and their publications, go to http://www.aft.org.uk/publications/other.asp

Mamma Mia!

2011-12-31T17:43:00.000+10:30

Most adoptees who read blogs, websites and use forums, will have come across the mother, who in a gesture of connection, tells an individual adoptee or all adoptees, that our mothers loved us and wanted us. Some tell us they do now. Regardless of our individual situations or what is true for us, lumping us all together in the one story. One which does not in any way reflect the extreme complexity of the adopted life for the majority of us.
A while back, a mother went to great lengths to reassure an adoptee who was searching, that all would be well and she would be loved and wanted. When challenged, she purported to be very upset and could not grasp that she was not, although well-meaning, doing anyone any favours. It seems to be a myth of comfort put forward by mothers, that all adoptees are loved and wanted, even though we were given up for adoption. While we know that is clearly true in some instances, because we have heard it from our own mothers, the facts are that they did not keep us. While those of us from the forced era appreciate the difficulties and many adoptees lay no blame, it seems incomprehensible that this assertion is still doing the rounds.
Adoptees from all over the world are now in contact with each other, they share information, stories and discuss their lives and experiences. Many tell of reunion in which they have been rejected in a cruel and harsh way, not loved or wanted as babies, not loved or wanted now. Adoptees who challenge the popularly held beliefs have been informed by mothers, that they are abusive, pro-adoption and discredited, maligned and foolishly provided with enough evidence for court action. One mother 'cared' so much she impersonated the adoptee's unknown mother in a charade that was deeply painful. That is an extreme, but much hurt is caused by the insistence of those who do not know the specifics of a particular situation. I personally have been told the most outrageous rubbish about my parents, all of it by mothers who do not know me and will never know me and certainly didn't know my parents; as have many others I know. It is damaging to give an adoptee hope that all will be well, when it may not be; it is not in any degree caring, thoughtful or kind. Blanket statements muffle the truth. While we need to go forward with hope, it doesn't need to be false hope.
The time has passed when agendas can be pushed on to adoptees who are told it for their own good or for care of them. It is not so, has never been so, but these days no longer able to be got away with.
If you are someone who likes to inform adoptees you don't know, about a situation you don't know about, please think carefully and understand you are doing nothing for your own credibility or that of other mothers.

The Case of the Disappearing War Bride a shocking story of adoption and thanks for the link to the adoptee who posted it.
For those of you reading German, this new book by an adoptee is based on material from interviews with adult adoptees of different generations. The title translates as something like Familiar Strangeness - Vertraute Fremdheit: Adoptierte erzählen: Eric Breitinger: 9783861536420: Bücher: Vertraute Fremdheit: Adoptierte erzählen [Broschiert] Eric Breitinger (Autor)
Thanks to B for this link and we look forward to the translation soon.
Thanks Relznik for the great cupcakes on Flickr, bring some round any time!

We Are Family

2011-12-31T15:18:00.001+10:30

Just as well one of my half-sisters is not in Samoa, as she has a birthday at 12.00. It has always been a problem for her knowing which year she was born and on what day and she's not even an adoptee!
Sadly or perhaps it is a relief, we are no longer in contact after spending Christmas together last year for the first and it seems only time. I had a very effusive card from the oldest half-sister, who dropped me like a hot cake once her cancer scare was over and she informed me she didn't need to talk anymore! Another no longer speaks, having been on a visit and criticised me, my life and family the whole visit - perhaps that's what sisters do? My other sister, five months younger than me and my only brother, made the choice initially when I popped out of the closet, not to have anything to do with skeletons.That sister had given up a baby in adoption and later adopted two babies, maybe she thinks she's had enough of adoptees! One of the others also gave up a baby for adoption, after fighting to raise her first born before she was married the first time. The later one was too inconvenient and created awkward questions between marriages.
None of them knew of my existence, nor did anyone in the family, as far as can be ascertained...a true skeleton and deemed to be an hilarious situation by the last sister mentioned! I did try to see the funny side and maybe would have succeeded better, if it hadn't been my life, painfully lived at times and in which our father had no involvement or ever acknowledged my existence, other than when my mother informed him I'd been born, when he surely made some response. Or maybe not.
Like many of you, I'm very glad to be through this reunion thing and not to have to go anywhere further with it at last after all these years. I'm glad to know what I know and I have a wealth of information on my ancestors, where they all came from and who they were. Hard as it may sound, I'm relieved not to have to deal with adopters or more distant biological relatives any more, they are either deceased or departed from my life and at last it feels like my own, for me to make of it what I will. And I do.
Christmas pointed that up so very well. There were four separate family events with different family and all went beautifully, were enjoyable, relaxed and ones anyone would like to repeat. I held babies, talked to kids, young people and grannies and spent time with two families newly joined together through my precious daughter; with my afamily; and with a family who chose me to be godparent to my delightful godson, a family bond of choice.It was all about choice, no obligation or duty involved. We were together because we chose to be and wanted to be.
We have an engaged couple in my afamily, he gorgeous and she I have know since before she was born. It seems I am now the keeper of some of the family stories, some known only to me, in a strange situation, as these are not my biological relatives, but no-one else is left who remembers or knows some of the information. I was able to tell this lovely couple that way back, she has an ancestor who was born in the same country he was, sharing a culture and racial group. It was a precious piece of information and one of great significance, as they prepare for their married life and the two weddings they will soon share.

As I sat with the women of the family talking weddings, we looked at the men who have come into our family life, all born in different countries of different cultures, some with strange stories of their parentage, some connected to adoption and we marvelled at how that number of families provided these people who fit so well into our family, who get on well together and so easily. It was a time to sit back and truly feel gratitude for the hand of fate and where it has lead us all. Adoption certainly throws us adoptees some curly ones, but all that seems to finally be over in my life, no more surprises or shocks, contradictory information and red herrings.
Yeah! Right! It's far too early to say, with a niece and nephew as yet unfound and the way in which we adoptees have to keep on dealing with the things life throws at us unexpectedly and regularly, the day to day reminders of our situation, the stigma and the blank spaces.Still, it is a place of caring very little what others think about it, an acceptance of what is, was and will be and determination to continue to expose the lies, inequalities and double think of adoption. The more I acknowledge the quieter place I have reached, the more able I become to speak out about the wrongs of adoption, the lack of ethics and the hypocrisy. My wish for the coming year is that many more of you join me and our fellow adoptees in exposing adoption and the adoption industry for what it is - a vast and lucrative con.

Adoption Variety

2011-12-30T10:10:00.001+10:30

Jennifer Lauck Memoir Writing: about adoption with a variety of people who had a variety of things to say. Please scroll down and see that each call–recorded for you–is there to listen to by clicking on the play.

And a book on Adoptees Come of Age which I have not read but would be interested to hear about if anyone else has.

I hope that you all survived Christmas and the holiday season in some sort of good shape, were able to enjoy at least parts of it, ate well and had a chance to relax too! I learned some good lessons which I'll post about later and managed to do what I and other adoptees often find it hard to do!

I treated myself and bought my my first Kindle and am eagerly awaiting it's arrival on 5th January.

Roll on 2012! Is life about to evolve in exciting new ways? I hope so!! Hope you enjoy New Year's Eve. I will be spending it quietly after the whirl of Christmas, which has only just ended.

Power Up Your Words

2011-12-30T10:07:00.000+10:30

Jorge Cruise on powering up your words: The same is true of negative words and phrases. It can be hard to stop beating yourself up after so long, but believing in yourself and using positive words and phrases to rewrite the story of your life is absolutely more important than knowing what to eat.
Certainly not a new idea, but one that can be effective if followed with determination. Learning to stop our negative talk and what some call our 'internal censor' or our 'internalised parent' and replacing it, needs a great deal of effort, consistency and watchfulness. Hard to do with young children tugging at your skirt or a demanding job and home life. It can be done and it is effective, something we can do for ourselves to improve our functioning, our self-image and it's free!
Once you start to be aware of how much negative talk and criticism you give yourself, you're on the way. If you're an addicted apologiser you may find yourself apologising less and then only when there is a genuine reason. Maybe eventually there'll be very little to ever apologise for, because not only will you have become more self-aware, but you'll be more aware of those around you, their motivatons and agendas.
While many people suffer from negative self-talk, adoptees are particularly prone to it, given the effect adoption has on us and our lives.For some adopters, we were never good enough, quiet enough, loud enough, pretty enough, smart enough, obedient enough or grateful enough; just as a few things on a huge list most of us could very easily compile. Some mothers continue to inflict damge on us after reunion by their hurtful, crass and insensitive remarks. Some of these are enough to make your hair stand on end, I've heard some absolute crackers, but don't have permission to repeat them, nor would I, since they say more about the mother and her attitudes than the adoptee. When we hold on to those things we were told and the ways we were regarded or are still, we continue the damage and do constant damage to ourselves. Once we decide it's time to stop and claim back our lives, we know it's survival time!

Channel Your Passion

2011-12-29T12:34:00.000+10:30

Of course most of you will now have caught up with smilesandtrials; bear with it if you click the link, it takes a time to load all those photos of adoptees. Following the now deleted post about the nearly 15 year old teen who is to go on trial, a month's trial, with what I'm told is his fifth placement, four of those 'forever families'- (How long is forever these days? I guess most of us thought it meant forever, or at any rate until we grew up!) - came this remark in the latest post about the situation of the comments -
If you feel so passionate about what they are doing, why don't you step up to adopt this child? Your passion could be channeled into something so much more productive besides saying such mean things about this family.
Firstly, if a blogger doesn't want comments from all in adoptionland, go private, make it password only or make your blog secure from pesky adult adoptees who will keep making comments and being unproductive in what they say! Like many serial adopters, it seems the purpose of the blog is because the world needs to know all about the adoptees pictured, written about and featured heavily. Might it not be in the best interests of developing relationships, trust and privacy to keep those details of someone else's life private while you are the responsible adult who's job it is to protect and nurture? Particularly when they have had trauma and difficulties and will continue to wrestle with the issues of adoption, even if they don't speak about it and appear to be O.K. It is often the quietest who later wrestle the most. Or is it all about the micro demonstrating the macro and that publicity is necessary to demonstrate the wonders of adoption at it's different levels? Do check that link by the way if you haven't yet heard about the macro-drama of adoption.
Secondly, isn't there something worryingly commodifying about the above and about a child or a teen being on trial to yet another family for a month, like a washing machine, a car or any other purchased item? Except of course this one appears to be coming free, which was possibly not the case the first time round. If all parents had to pay an upfront fee of say $100,000 just to be parents, I wonder how many would decide to be childless or would have to remain childless through lack of funds or the opportunities to borrow, beg or raise the funds? Perhaps many adults with good skills and parenting abilities are missed because of lack of funds. It is not wealth or fund-raising abilities or the support of a church state or community which makes a good adopter.When adoption is about money, who has it and who makes it and how much can be charged for a child, it will continue to be broken, not provide the very best adopters for those children who need adoption because they cannot, should not or will not be raised by their biological family.
Thirdly, when adopters comment on situations such as this, it is viewed as positive, helpful, supportive etc, whereas when adoptees and others with a realistic view from experience comment, it is seen as negative, unhelpful and mean. There are many positive things to be said about ways to deal with such a situation as the one in which this unfortunate nearly fifteen year old finds himself. For instance it is indicated that a christian family is being looked for to 'rehome' him - why? Did he origianlly come from a christian tradition, a christian family or is there another reason? At nearly fifteen shouldn't he have choice about his beliefs and spitirual practise? Why would that choice be seen as unsuitable if it is his own, but different from that of those he lives with? What happens if it is that he has a gender-orientation which the family consider unsuitable? And his political beliefs and principles? Are these things not a matter of individual choice, preference or even innate and ones which at fifteen, many teens are beginning to question, discover and explore?
Why is it considered that passionate views mean the suitable option is for those who hold them to become adopters? Adult adoptees surely have a right to opinions about adoption which they have formed through experiences of their own and from knowing other adoptees and often extensive and intense understanding of 'adoption situations', what adoption does to adoptees and also what it does to adopters. Is it mean to tell the truth? Is it mean to express feelings and concerns? Or does it bring some realism into a very unreal situation in which much appears to be overlooked, misunderstood or ignored? There's also a rather uncomfortable hint of adoption being punishing or used as punishment i.e if you speak out and say something perceived as passionate,you've done wrong and you ought to step up and become an adopter!! Is that weird or what?
Many adoptees who hold passionate views about adoption and what happens in adoption, are very actively involved in channeling those feelings, their views, experiences and expertise into promoting change at the most basic level of human rights which non-adoptees take for granted, can take for granted because they are never threatened are never in question and will never be taken away.When people do not have the right to their own identity, their own name, birth in formation and a truthful birth certificate or nationality, correct birth date, place and parentage, there is much to do to correct those wrongs. If you don't believe those things are important or you don't see the significance, it really is time to get educated on adoption! In the face of those monumental tasks which face adoptees, in addition to attempting to heal from the loss and traumas of adoption itself, saying mean things, whatever mean things are, to an adoptive family, who clearly have not had the continued commitment to adoption promised or to an adoptee entrusted to their care, look very small fry indeed.
There are of course many, many dozens of other ways in which adoptees live their lives productively, working to cure the ills of adoption, repair the damage and attempt to bring some reality to the world of unicorns and rainbows.Those things are far too many to list, but they go on wherever adoption lives, wherever it affects adoptees and wherever adoption damages adoptees. They occur on multiple levels, from the basic support group to working towards legislative change; from supporting unadoptable children in suitable placements to working with young adoptees on identity issues; from therapeutic settings to the teaching of practical and coping skills.
Naturally adult adoptees are concerned for young adoptees; we are part of the same tribe, the bastard nation and adopters are under scrutiny, especially when they blurt the details of adoptees' traumatic lives for the world to read and view.There are privacy issues here, rights issues and many consider what is being done abusive. Time will tell. The first adoptee is yet to bring court action against an adopter for blogging the details of their life, no-one is quite old enough yet. It will happen, it's just a matter of time.....

Thanks unicornstale, great one of Flickr!

Orphans On The Rise

2011-12-29T09:35:00.001+10:30

Eva Bartlett writes on Orphans In Gaza : Yousef, his brother, and his younger sister are among what Al Jazeera news cites as the Gaza Strip’s 53,000 orphans. Over 2,000 children more were orphaned during the 2008-2009 Israeli war on Gaza. An orphan here is defined as a child who has lost his father or both parents, as men are traditionally the income-generators in Gaza.
The SOS Villages attitude to adoption is this -

Adoption constitutes another successful way to find someone to care for a child in a family based environment. It is one of the best alternatives for orphans or abandoned children being cared for on a reliable long-term basis. You have to consider what is actually the best way of caring for a particular child (either admission to an SOS Children's Village or adoption). You'll note that means genuine orphans with decisions being taken on an individual basis.With funding, the right attitudes and intervention, more appropriate care for children is possible. May 2012 be the year of trying harder for the future of all children, when their needs are seen as a priority and not as supplementary to what adults want.

Cadel Evans and wife adopt

2011-12-29T08:25:00.000+10:30

A few links for those of you who like cycling and adoption, especially together - Cadel Evans and wife adopt Ethiopian boy: Australian Tour de France winner Cadel Evans and his wife Chiara Passerini are adopting a 12-month-old Ethiopian boy and have a family thrilled by the prospect, the Evans family that is.
And a link which is closely related, Increased International Adoption calls for the Use of trackers of Child-Histories Another way to make money from adoption and how do you prove the trackers are honest and ethical in their methods? What will 2012 bring?

New Home?

2011-12-29T08:10:00.000+10:30

Many of you will have seen this blog with this post about a nearly fifteen year old boy Needing A New Home: We believe that we have done all for D that we can and that it is best for both he and us to separate. We would be willing to allow for a family to have a one-month trial period with him to get a feel for his personality before committing to adopting him. While we are convinced this will not happen there is a possibility that he may say that he said all these things in anger and wants to try to make thing work again with our family. We have come to the conclusion that he needs and wants a fresh start with a new family. As Christians, we would be looking for a Christian family. While we feel hurt and betrayed by him (and he may feel betrayed by us) we still have love for him and want the best for him. It has become more difficult for us to give him the love that he needs. He needs parents and a family who can to the best of their ability love him unconditionally.
There have been many comments both supportive and critical, but in the end it comes down to an abandoned boy who has already had one placement fail him, being discarded again and as one commenter suggested perhaps it is as well for him to be removed from this family who cannot support him in the way he needs.
There are many factors which could give cause to say perhaps -

perhaps it would have been better for him not to have been made part of such a large family
perhaps he needed much more individual care and attention
perhaps what has been asked of him was far to demanding
perhaps he needed outside intervention
perhaps prayer is not enough
perhaps it is the system the adopters are hurt and betrayed by, since it has let them down so badly but also let this boy down in ways which will affect him for life
perhaps this family have learned that their love is not unconditional and forever
perhaps questions need to be asked about why better assessment was not carried out
perhaps blogging about children, telling their stories and posting their photos does nothing for trust and developing a good relationship
perhaps there is something wrong with the commodification of children!

I know that many of you have seen this situation as deeply disturbing, it says so many things about what is wrong with adoption. As adult adoptees many of us will be hoping a humane and satisfactory solution can be found for theis teen, but in our hearts we know there is little hope of him coming out of any of this unscathed. We see it too frequently and with a saddening regularity, which gives no hope that things are getting better for some young adoptees. It really is difficult to believe that this sort of thing is still happening after all we have learned over so many decades. Children are being let down so badly and it does not need to happen in such a brutal and inhumane way. There will always be damaged children, there are better ways than adoption and imposing high expectatons on them to help them through the difficulties of childhood and the teen years. While money and ministries are involved where is the hope for change?

Long‐term Outcome

2011-12-27T11:19:00.001+10:30

The Long‐term Outcome of Reunions Between Adult Adopted People and their Birth Mothers
Increasing numbers of adult adopted people are searching for and having reunions with their birth relatives. Although a growing number of studies now exist that have looked at the search and reunion process, few have examined reunion outcomes over the long term. The present study investigated the experiences of 48 adult adopted people who first had contact with their birth mothers at least eight years prior to the survey. Outcomes were examined in terms of the adopted person's evaluation of their own adoption experience, and the frequency of contact, if any, currently occurring between the adopted person and their adoptive and birth mothers. Although over half of adopted people were still in contact with their birth mother eight years or more post reunion, the number still in touch with their adoptive mothers was higher still. Furthermore, of those still in contact with both their adoptive and birth mothers, the frequency of contact was more likely to be higher with the adoptive mother than with the birth mother. The results are discussed in terms of the search for identity, filial relationships, genetic relatedness and affectional bonds formed during childhood.
If you have a interest in reunion you may have already bought Evelyn Robinson's books* on reunion, the fourth, a collection of accounts of adoption from around the world. Evelyn is a reunited mother.
Preparation is essential if you want to give reunion your best shot. So many seem to think parenthood and reunited parenthood just come naturally. They ignore the many issues which can be dealt with prior to the big event which give greater understanding and a better basis for future contact and succesful relationship.Sadly so many mothers do not understand adoption, the issues for adoptees and why their reunion has/had no chance of success. Adoptees too can be ill-prepared and not ready to deal with the impact of reunion and it's implications.
To a slightly different, but related topic, I have been handed a child rearing book to read and comment on. Printed way back in 1983, it is dated, rather strangely written in an oddly stilted style, by psychologist and 'communications consultant' Spencer Johnson and has probably been read by millions. While the basic principles of goal setting, praising and reprimands, may be sound, if administered with love, empathy and responsibility, it could, like other now notorious self-help advice of this sort, be harsh, controlling and potentially damaging. For those of you who used "The One Minute Mother" in your child raising I'd love to hear from you, to hear your views and your assessment of it's usefulness.+

*Available from clovapublications.com by post.
+The One Minute Mother by Spencer Johnson, M.D. Columbus Books

Blue

2011-12-26T10:08:00.001+10:30

Those of you who haven't seen this before may be interested in the remark that although Joni Mitchell addressed the loss of a child in her work, she never went public about it. Perhaps there are lessons to be learned there by the mothers of today hoping for reunion.
May a new year bring better understanding of the issues, an appreciation that an adoptee who cuts off contact does so for reason, not as some capricious gesture and that it is generally because a boundary has been overlooked, a line stepped over or an inappropriate action taken. Reunion does not bring automatic healing, would it were so! Reunion is hard work and is often described as like walking on egg-shells.
Finding your mother doesn't mean you've found the mother you lost, finding your baby doesn't mean you found the baby you gave up.

Grimace or Grin?

2011-12-23T10:37:00.002+10:30

Just a few things that made me grin or grimace in the last year.

Deborah-Lee grimaces because she tried to set up a Conference on adoption but no-one was interested!

Never mind she still has the financial support of her friend Rupie.

Definitely a grimace on this one!

A very sad little poster from India, reflecting an attitude to adoptees we might all be familiar with. Sorry about the quality I'm sure you get the idea -

And these cheerful girls, not a paper pregnant one amongst them!

To you all a wonderful Christmas and a happy Holiday Season.

Eat safely, drive comfortably and arrive in good humour.

Thank you all for being here.

Thank you to all those who have contributed and to those who write the blogs which have given so much information, food for thought and a sense of a growing adoption community.

May next year be even more productive.

My Christmas wish? OBC's for all, changed legislation where it's needed and better understanding of what adoption actually means to adoptees and mothers.

***

Leaving you with some holiday reading - most of you will know well and read often, the excellent and well recommended blog Harlow's Monkey: This page lists the books and films I have read or viewed that have informed or influenced me in some way. These books range from academic to popular press and are heavily biased towards the adoptee perspective. What you will not find here (for the most part) are adoptive parent memoirs or "how to adopt" books. If adoptive parents have authored some of these books listed here, then I have found something more substantive in their pages that go beyond their personal "adoption journey." If you are new to it, there's a wealth of information and material on adoption for people like our visitor Dean ,who wish to know more and increase their knowledge and widen their perspective.

And to finish ,a book definitely not recommended, unless for educational purposes on how not to parent.

Be happy!

Alternatives for Children

2011-12-23T09:47:00.000+10:30

There are a multitude of options for keeping families together, for care of children and for supporting people in ways that don't involve adoption, do involve saving lives and keeping children within their own country and culture.With imagination and funding, many more projects, tailor-made to situations, could be devised making it possible for children to keep their identity and others their integrity.
Those of you at the forefront of raising rescued orphans saved from death in the gutter, still have a long way to go to ensure that child trafficking has played no part in the lives of those who were made adoptees. As we see, new cases are coming to light all the time. Perhaps it is easier to ignore them, to not think about it and to trust your agency and the process. As we see time and time again, there is corruption at some or many points in the process. Orphans may not be orphans, nor may they have been found in the gutter, dumped or abandonned. Children who have lost both parents to AIDS are not without family and community. Those who have been sold into adoption may have been victims of a very different understanding of adoption which no-one took the time to set right. How do you explain the commodification of children, the lust for babies at any cost, the desire to benefit from tax breaks and benefits to the max and the need to save children for your own salvation to people who have no concept of these things? How do you explain greed , acquisitiveness and driven need? How do you explain that some people have no compunction about taking a child from their own precious culture, depriving them of learning their mother tongue and being part of their culture and that they do it because they care?
There are many better alternatives to orphanges. If America say, was to spend as much on buying into child supportive alternatives as it does on adoption, what a very different world it would be for children and their lives! The complexities of helping adoptees with racial identity and the legacy of adoption for adoptees, would disappear.
While there may be many criticisms of the programme here, at least it is a different way of looking at how to assist Children : None of the Jewels of Hope children live in orphanages or institutions. These precious children typically live with a grandmother and/or other relatives. Some of the children live all on their own without any adults in their home (child-headed households), causing them to be vulnerable to extreme poverty & exploitation.
Why not make 2012 the year of focussing on what is best for all children, on what will enable them to grow up in their own communities in as healthy a way as possible, to be self-supporting, contributing members of their own communities?

Sperm Donor Warning

2011-12-22T09:01:00.000+10:30

Sperm donor :He says he believes his case comes down to constitutional issues of a right to privacy and reproductive choice.
Hmmm!! What about the rights of those who are the result of his prolific gifting in the name of public service and generosity. Are the parents all members of his church or has he scattered his 'seed' far and wide across the land in order to create a large group of half-siblings who will one day, if other groups are anything to go by have a problem with his cup runneth over attitude?
Where is the responsibility and ethics in the reproductive industry and it's cowboys like this one, who for entiely unthought out reasons like go it alone? This industry so closely allied to the adoption industry, intertwined and linked, supported and encouraged by the drug industry seems to be even less attracted to ethics ands outcomes for the created.
If you could have one wish granted this Christmas would it be for ethics to be rigorously applied when it comes to anything relating to children?

Duping Families

2011-12-22T08:22:00.000+10:30

How Ethiopia's Adoption Industry Dupes Families : in the past several years, it's become increasingly difficult to find a searcher in Ethiopia. Tasked with determining whether an adopted child is a "manufactured orphan," searchers have faced intense intimidation in Ethiopia as its adoption system boomed and then came under international scrutiny. It took months to find adoptive families willing to share the name or contact information for searchers they had used. The first several times I emailed or called Samuel, he responded with trepidation, confirming with me repeatedly that I was not associated with any adoption agencies working in Ethiopia and that I wouldn't pass on his name or information to any agencies.
Thank you to B for blogging this article which could do with much repetition. It is detailed and specific and gives cause for great concern. All credit to those who speak out and who won't let this area of adoption rest.
Adoption generally is seems is all about duping families.Duping mothers and families to give up babies and children, often with the knowledge that the cultures understand adoption differently. Duping adopters into believing what they are doing is ethical and paying large sums of money for the privilege. Duping adoptees into believing they were orphans, unwanted, unloved, or that they are now wanted, loved and have a forever family. How many, many, many times have we seen none of those things to be true. For others to have been duped, exploited, manipulated, lied to, deceived, groomed for exploitation indicates the lucrativeness of the adoption industry, the lengths to which it's beneficiaries will go, the depths to which they will stoop.That these activities are encouraged, aided and abetted by churches, ministries, priests, nuns, believers, who profess to be upholding moral standards is beyond belief!! Read the article, it's an eye opener.

Greatest Love

2011-12-22T06:54:00.003+10:30

You may have seen the NCFA Christmas begging bowl message:- Have you ever really, truly considered the miracle of adoption? Once lonely and without much hope, she now has the safety and security of her very own family. A warm bed to sleep in at night. She feels special. Loved. Adored. She was adopted. Our work makes the dream of a family a reality for children all around the world.
Of course there are some children who genuinely need families and acquire new ones through adoption. That is not a miracle, nor do small children dream of new families, most often they dream of their own family and wish they could be with them or that life could be different. It is tragic to see the reality for children twisted, turned round to make them marketable, to make adoption attractive to the buyers and for the real needs of many children right there in America to be ignored. Why? Because children from 'all around the world' can be viewed as 'clean slates' more easily, there is less chance of contact and somehow the dilemmas of another country can be overlooked more easily when they're not under your nose daily.
This is the lazy person's way to help children and those who genuinely care about the welfare of children wherever they live have the opportunity to act in many other ways, to be involved in projects which keep families together, provide education and ways to make a living. There is no quick, easy solution to the difficulties of poverty faced by some of the children of the world, but it is the duty of adults to find solutions and make them work. Children deserve nothing less.

A Proposal For Wellbeing

2011-12-21T09:06:00.002+10:30

A Proposal For Wellbeing Of The Entire Earth System: No identical solutions exist for all peoples. Human beings are diverse. Our peoples have their own unique cultures and identities. To destroy a culture is to threaten the identity of an entire people. Capitalism attempts to homogenize us all to convert us into consumers. There has not been, nor will there ever be, a single model for life that can save the world. We live and act in a pluralistic world, and a pluralistic world should respect diversity, which is itself synonymous with life. Respect for peaceful and harmonious complementarity among the diverse cultures and economies, without exploitation or discrimination against any single one, is essential for saving the planet, humanity, and life.
Some of you will, I expect, as you've indicated by the content of your anonymous views, see the above article as a bit of green, leftie rubbish. It's Christmas!!! Bite the bullet and give it a read, you might find some new ideas and apply them to the adoption industry and see how it connects to threats to culture, family and survival of identity.
For those of you who need no convincing, it's an interesting Proposal, respecting cultural identity, the survival of family and the education of woman. The education of women is know to be one of the most effective ways to combat poverty and therefore the adoption and loss of children. If that was achieved what a major change it would be for children and for family survival.

How Flawed?

2011-12-21T08:15:00.000+10:30

How Flawed Is the International Adoption Process? : Today, it's not clear exactly what the Makeni families are hoping for. When I asked Samuel's birth mother, Isatu, what she wants now, she began to weep, and said that she just wants to see her son again, if only for two days. Suma, his uncle, said that pictures are not enough; he wants his entire family to see the children in person, with their own eyes. After having them for a few days, he said, he would be happy to send the children back to their new families—knowing that he had made that "arrangement" himself.
A blog here on the 29 Makeni children taken in adoption or trafficking? and the Makeni children and more from metafilter where you might find the comments interesting.

And to finish something from an adoptee -

Awaiting Final Report

2011-12-20T08:48:00.000+10:30

An article on how Support group awaits final report into forced adoption policies : .Lily Arthur said a number of individual church and welfare groups had formally apologised to the women involved during the course of the inquiry.
Just to set the record straight, UnitingCareWesley in South Australia has apologised to adoptees and mothers in the first apology of it's kind, as a result of adoptee pressure and mention in Submissions to the Inquiry into forced adoption to which the church had the right of reply.
As a result of the Inquiry being set up, the group mentioned in the article set up a facebook group to support those who needed it, through the Submission phase, to encourage mothers to make Submissions and to help them to do so with prepared Submissions.This facebook group tried to set restrictions on some adoptees making Submissions, telling them they didn't fall within the group of people who could submit. The brief had purposely been left broad by the Inquiry, to encourage as many as possible to participate.The Senators later stated that they had been surprised by how many adoptees had come forward and at the information they brought to the Hearings and to the Inquiry. For the first time adoptees were publicly validated and many were speaking out for the first time and certainly for the first time publicly.
Many adoptees were bullied, ridiculed, criticised and their lives judged by members of the group mentioned in the article. It was inexplicable to many, hurtful and damaging and may have prevented adoptees from speaking out. It had the opposite effect and encouraged more adoptees to speak out, to make Submissions and to present evidence at Hearings.They set up various facebook groups for support and eventually the website Australian Adoptees Network, still in it's infancy, but gaining new members all the time. It also clarified very precisely the intentions of the previously mentioned group and it's unsuitability to be attempting to support adoptees in any capacity.
As a result of the UnitingCare apology, which for some was a public apology, plus a personal apology and acknowledgement, a facebook group Adoptees of South Australia was set up and has gained members who previously had not had contact with other adoptees and some of whom had not requested their birth information. It has come to light that some adoptees have had vetoes placed on their information, a fact unknown to many previously.
The future holds many possibilities for adoptees. We wait to see what recommendations the Report from the Inquiry will take up and which recommendations, if any, will be implemented. The majority of adoptees will be satisfied with an Apology and have no interest in compensation, as they believe nothing could ever compensate for their loss. Should other recommendations be taken up, it will be a major break-through in adoptee recognition and acknowledgement of the loss and trauma of adoption for adoptees and an acceptance that there are things that can be done to make some gesture to putting it right. There may be changes too, to future Birth Certificate information which will be helpful to future generations, even if not to current adult adoptees. Many adult adoptees are greatly concerned for young adoptees in their losses, many of them in transnational adoption loosing family, motherland, language, culture as well as identity.
Adult adoptees have begun to find each other, to speak out and to tell their stories in all their complexity, none are the same and there is no good or bad adoption, as some non-adoptees like to claim, in attempts to label and categorise. All adoption begins with loss and trauma and leaves wounds and scars. While we need to tell our stories in safe and conducive settings, we have seen from example what happens when the same story is told over and over again. Most adult adoptees have no wish to retraumatise themselves and others by constant repetition and seem more interested in moving forward, living with what we have and making the best of a raw deal. Being stuck in the past never creates a healthy future.

Babies Remember Pain

2011-12-19T09:56:00.000+10:30

Please be warned this article may be upsetting and triggering for those of you who spent time in an orphange without the constant care of a mother or in any other situation in which in addition to your birth experiences,you were left to cry, pre-adoption or post-adoption. It certainly touches a deeply painful place for your Blogger, in much the same was as Mary Gauthier's song does.

David B. Chamberlain, Ph.D.:writes - A different dimension of pain, the pain of separation and isolation, also provokes crying and is a common theme in birth memories. Studies tell us that newborns recognize their own recorded cry, showing self-awareness. Other studies show how perceptive they are of other cries. Babies cry with and apparently for one another (Sagi & Hoffman, 1976). They also discriminate between cries of babies their own age and cries of older babies, animal babies, and computer-simulated cries. They are more likely to join the chorus of those their own age (Simner, 1971). Babies have different cries when bored or hungry. They cry after heel lancing (Grunau & Craig, 1987). Boston pediatrician Peter Wolff, noted for his continuous observations of newborns in their home environment, identified a "pain" cry and a "mad" cry (Wolff, 1969). In each home he conducted an experiment playing recordings of these cries and noting the mother's response time and attitude. He found a dramatic difference. To the pain cry mothers came in a rush, looking quite worried. To the mad cry, they came to check up but were not alarmed; they expressed tolerant amusement at this precocious expression of rage.

The loss and grief of adoption are added to the experiences of birth and beyond for adoptees. Many of us find recovery very hard, particularly in light of the unsympathetic attitudes and the lack of compassion many of us encounter, not just way back then but now, today. We don't want pity, we don't want to be patronised, stigmatised, seen as lesser people who are still babies. We are human beings who struggle at times, just as many others do with aspects of life as a result of our experiences . Unlike many others, we are expected to be grateful for what was done to us, not to complain and to go along with the story of adoption being beautiful. Times have changed!

My Dear Mother,

2011-12-18T16:17:00.000+10:30

it's been a while now. Seventeen years since we were reunited and ten since you died so suddenly, your heart still broken and your spirit wounded by the shame and guilt of what happened all those years ago.

You would have been stunned to hear the Apology of the Government in the State you lived in all your married, adult life. Perhaps incredulous, because it was not something you ever expected to happen or had even thought about.

You, gentle soul that you were, would have been very upset to hear about the words of other mothers, much younger than you, much younger than me even. To hear the things they have said to adoptees, the bullying and the ridicule and the insistence on their point of view being the right and only one. How saddened you would have been to hear adoptees denied and harsh, cruel words fly. It was not your way. Nor was bitterness and you took what was dished out, because it was the way of the times and you knew and accepted that. You knew no other way, there were no other possibilities then.

It seems my father betrayed you, but we'll never know for sure or his true intentions. You always knew where he was and when he died, so many years before you. You knew things about his life his family didn't know and you loved him always. That makes me truly a love-child, a bastard certainly, but a love-child first. That is precious and along with other treasures of love you gave me, have lasted for life and will continue to hearten, comfort and inspire.

You would, I think, have been heartened to hear that some mothers much, much younger than you, are able to speak out about their experiences.They do so beautifully, movingly and with such honesty and good intentions, it would be impossible not to admire what they do and to support them with an open heart. They know who they are, they read here and how wonderful it would have been if you could have met them, talked to them, read their writings and learned from them.

You were relieved to know I had not been abused, had been provided with opportunities and had made my way in the world, giving you the grandchild you would have loved to hold in your arms when she was a baby in what might have been healing for you, to a small degree. You were denied so much. There was never any way to make that up, to compensate, despite best intentions.

You thought my adopters looked kind when you peeked through an upstairs window at them as they walked away from picking me out from all the others in those first weeks. Your baby, the only one you ever had and would not see for another fifty years. How amazed you would have been to hear that this last week I visited the Maternity Hospital where you gave birth to me. Then it was for poor mothers, the unwed, like you. Today it has been converted into smart apartments, with a Bistro at street level where I drank coffee and silently toasted you in quiet rememberance and recognition of how far we have come, mostly apart, but always in consciousness.

We are just past what would have been your 91st birthday. How different it might have been for us if we'd had longer, life had been sweeter and adoption hadn't done it's cruel damage.

Today's link - Narrative Therapy Library: Collective Narrative Practice: Responding to individuals, groups and communities who have experienced trauma- byDavid Denborough

Babies For Sale

2011-12-18T09:45:00.000+10:30

Adoption: A Path of the Heart: Updated Situations:
Current Available Situations
African American baby due January 9th in LA. $17k + $4.5k legals
African American baby boy due January 16th in LA. Agency fees of 11,500 plus 2,500 in living to mom plus 8K legal
African American baby girl due February 14th in TN. Agency fees of 17K plus 4,500 in legals
African American baby of unknown gender due February 14th in SC. Agency fees of 17K plus 6K in legals
Caucasian baby girl due in February in FL. Agency fees of 20K total (Mom used cocaine early in her pregnancy)
African American baby girl due March 10th in TN. Agency fees of 17K plus 4,500 in legals
Caucasian baby of unknown gender due March 12th in MA. Agency fees of 23K plus 6K in living expenses to mom plus legal fees.
Caucasian baby of unknown gender due March 28th in LA. Agency fees of 30,500K plus 6K in legal fees.
These are cases of potential birth moms who have made adoption plans with the agencies we work with. For more information about these situations or about the services we offer, email me at karalee@christianadoptionconsultants.com
Posted by Karalee at 5:40 AM

Babies for sale and just in time for Christmas! Some real bargains to be had here with these 'situations' and no doubt the punters will be queuing up to purchase these fresh babies as they arrive on the market. Is this legal? If so, why is it legal? Shame on you Karalee caught pimping babies again!

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

2011-12-18T08:02:00.000+10:30

As you probably know, Jeanette Winterson's new book Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? : will be released shortly and can be pre-ordered from Amazon.
This is a memoir, in which she explores her adoption by Pentecostal Christians and her attempts to reconnect with her biological mother.The title is the last words to her by her adopter, as she was kicked out at 16 years old, as an emerging lesbian. Jeanette has had a 'highly decorated and prolific career', writes beautifully and this will be a book well worth waiting for. There are few books it feels right to order sight unseen, but this is one of them.
Jeanette's partner is Susie Orbach, well known for her ground breaking book Fat is a Feminist Issue and her long-term work as a therapist. Some of Jeanette's fiction writing tips - enjoy!
Susie's work on eating, diet and weigh gain and loss leads me on to gut feelings! How many of us ignore those gut feelings we get, which act as warnings, often urgent warnings, that things are not right? When we get a bad feeling about something, we can be very adept at talking ourselves out of it, burying it or pretending we're wrong. It can happen in relationships we have invested in, in the workplace and in other areas of life. For instance, think of the reaction by adult adoptees to the artificial breastfeeding of young adoptees.Many of you will already be saying Don't! Whenever raised, this topic produces a strong reaction amongst adult adoptees and lactation consultants and advisors. Consensus is usually that it is repulsive, we are glad it didn't happen to us, that is is nutritionally deficient and the chemicals can't be good for babies. Those are the facts but part of that reaction is at gut level. It just doesn't feel right.
How many of us adoptees have been stuck in relationships we knew at gut level were doing us no good, may even have been damaging and prevented us from moving forward? Non-adoptees do these things too, but adoption often leaves us vulnerable to accepting more damage, accepting abuse and less than the best for ourselves. Learning to listen to our gut reactions and to act on them can often be a step forward in our long journey. We can be happy and we can learn to accept what has happened to us and do our best with what we've been dealt. Not easy, not quick, not without scars, but possible.

Parenting and Reunion

2011-12-17T11:55:00.000+10:30

Adoptive Parenting : Parenting adopted children can bring families to their very limits, at times.
Whenever poorly prepared, untrained parents are expected to take over the responsibility for raising children with a history of neglect or trauma, family life will most likely turn out to be exactly the opposite of what everyone had hoped for, in their pre-adoption dreams.
You'll find some interesting links in the above post from those at the front-line. For those of you who read here and like to see contradictions, please note that linking this post which contains other links does not necessarily imply agreement with the views contained therein, although it might! Confusing isn't it? It certainly does not imply agreement that transnational adoption is the solution to the situations many children are put in. Once achieved it is to be hoped those adopters carry out their tasks to the best of their ability, with full knowledge of what they are doing and with full support. It is seems that open-eyed clarity is often not available prior to the event. Parenting is hard; adoptive parenting of traumatised children is the hardest task of all.
While we're on the subject of parenting, it surely comes as no surprise, to adoptees anyway, how frequently reunion is problematic. Imagine this scenario....... you meet someone, you begin to imagine and hope there could be a future relationship. In your excitment and expectation, you blog or facebook about all your hopes, dreams, goals and tell all about past relationships that didn't work out as you had hoped. You reveal your pain, your fears and anxieties and 'the cross' you have been bearing for years regarding relationships and your feelings about your place in the world, in your community and in your family. Most people in the tenative, brand new stages of what might become a relationship, a lasting relationship, would probably feel exposed, untrusting, that there was too much too soon, disbelieving, put off and possibly even betrayed. Would they want to go on in a relationship where the other person tells all or at any rate tells too much even in the name of honesty and being open?
In most relationships, too much exposure of the intimate, the private and the tender, sensitive areas would be a big warning sign, the danger light and set all the alarms ringing. If asked in a strawpoll, most peole would say they wouldn't have anything to do with it, unless they wanted trouble big-time, plenty of heartache and no confidence in keeping their private lives private.
Why would it be any different in reunion? Why would an adoptee or a mother accept something less than acceptable? Biological connection is so important to us as human beings, particularly important it seems to mothers and adoptees and to bio-family members. Sometimes our intense need for that connection drives us to do things that in other circumstances might be unacceptable. Sometimes coming out of the adoption fog, we find it hard to see the light, to see what is good for us, right for us and to keep our balanced perspective, if ever we had it. There are many reasons for disconnection in reunion, but that is certainly one of them and causes a great deal of grief, disbelief, disappointment and hurt. Biological connection does not give us the right to treat people badly, with disrespect or any less well than we may treat our best friend or ally.
How much grief would be saved if only people hoping for reunion would first do the work on their own damage, prepare themselves as well as possible in the waiting time and have dealt with it, so that it didn't spill into a precious, new relationship with one once 'lost'?

To finish, something on the Long-term Outcomes of Reunion
Increasing numbers of adult adopted people are searching for and having reunions with their birth relatives. Although a growing number of studies now exist that have looked at the search and reunion process, few have examined reunion outcomes over the long term. The present study investigated the experiences of 48 adult adopted people who first had contact with their birth mothers at least eight years prior to the survey. Outcomes were examined in terms of the adopted person's evaluation of their own adoption experience, and the frequency of contact, if any, currently occurring between the adopted person and their adoptive and birth mothers. Although over half of adopted people were still in contact with their birth mother eight years or more post reunion, the number still in touch with their adoptive mothers was higher still. Furthermore, of those still in contact with both their adoptive and birth mothers, the frequency of contact was more likely to be higher with the adoptive mother than with the birth mother. The results are discussed in terms of the search for identity, filial relationships, genetic relatedness and affectional bonds formed during childhood.

The Tree of Life

2011-12-17T10:17:00.001+10:30

The Tree of Life - Dulwich Centre Foundation: This approach enables children to speak about their lives in ways that make them stronger. It involves children drawing their own ‘tree of life’ in which they get to speak of their ‘roots’ (where they come from), their skills and knowledges, their hopes and dreams, as well as the special people in their lives. The children then join their trees into a ‘forest of life’ and, in groups, discuss some of the ‘storms’ that affect children’s live and ways that children respond to these storms, protect themselves, and each other.
Those of you interested in change and in leaving victimhood behind in order to become survivors and thrivers, will immediately see the potential for the use of this technique with adoptees. Child adoptees and adult adoptees. Also for groups of mothers and for adopters, perhaps those suffering infertility or weathering the other storms of adoption and connection with the adopted life.
Badly handled by the inexperienced worker, it could produce more trauma , retraumatise and cause more harm than good. Techniques such as this are powerful and in the right hands effective. Please be advised that it is not for amateurs; but many current amateurs could be potential practitioners with the right attitude, training and experience.

Stigma & Fear

2011-12-15T10:23:00.000+10:30

Amanda writing here on The Sneaky Old Stigma of "Less Than" Makes its way to Modern Times for Adoptees: Poor children, stigmatized children, fostered, adopted, whoever, all have the same basic human rights and needs as all other children do. "Well, at least they're not in an orphanage any more" or "at least your weren't aborted" are not good enough. This is not where Social Justice and human rights stop. When will people who have already been permitted to climb his pyramid for themselves get their down-ward shoving foot off of the top of adoptee's heads, realizing that rights, reunion, or reform may be any part of levels numbered 2-5 for that adoptee, and acknowledge that adoptees are just as human (and just as wholly deserving) as any other human being is?
Stigma as Amanda writes has never gone away for bastards and adoptees, orphans and foundlings...as if it is somehow our fault that we became those people labelled with those labels! All of us were babies, innocent children and in no way responsible for our own creation or the decisions that were taken about us. Stigma was part of our legacy but times have changed, for some of us anyway.

In America you have had many, many decades, centuries even of activism and are well-versed in how it works, what has to be done to be effective and achieve results.You understand that progress can be slow, take a great deal of time and still not reach everyone. In Britain the situation is similar, hundreds of years of activism have produced a degree of confidence and a preparedness to stand up for change when required, sometimes if urgently needed, with no regard for the usual divisions.
Here in Australia, we too have a history of activism, it forms an important part of our history and identity..The Eureka Stockade, Women's Suffrage and so on. We are very new to adoption activism; there have been difficulties, unfortunate mistakes and misjudgements, all part of the learning process, hopefully.There are those still who prefer to keep their heads in the sand, to blame others or to remain victims and to resist change because it represents an insecure position, the unknown and can be threatening and scary. Nothing was ever achieved by giving in to fear. It is hard, frightening and we are all in different places, some just beginning in their advanced years to look at what it all means, where they are going with it and how new knowledge will affect lives, families and identity. There is much to do, it would be good to welcome those who sit on the sidelines criticising into more positive action, proactivity and moves towards a better future for us all. No-one can speak for us as well as we adoptees will speak for ourselves. Just give us a bit more practise!

Dulwich Videos

2011-12-15T08:13:00.016+10:30

For those of you interested in new learning, you might like to tap in to The Dulwich Centre's Narrative Therapy work and the Course: Friday afternoons at Dulwich: Every second Friday afternoon we’ll put up on this website a video, maybe an audio recording, or a link to something very interesting. Of course, you can view this wherever you are in the world at a time that will suit you, and then contribute to the discussion and debate. We hope to start a momentum of online discussion and continue this ‘Friday Afternoons at Dulwich’ tradition. We are also in the process of working out possibilities for translating the transcripts of Friday Afternoons into a range of other languages.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dulwich Centre Email News
December 2011
Issue #59
http://www.dulwichcentre.com.au/
newsandconnections@dulwichcentre.com.au

And for those of you who have enjoyed the books mentioned here and have been generous enough to mention that, I'll be bringing you some titles daily for a time. For today, a mention of Evelyn Robinson's books on reunion; four of them now and all available from clovapublications.com. If you are in reunion, hoping for reunion or preparing for reunion, these are essential reading whether you are a mother, adoptee or adopter.It still amazes me that so many approach reunion completely unprepared, unsupported and with so little understanding of the other parties.Yep, I went there too! Assisting others and thinking I knew some of the answers didn't help me much when it came to the multiple reunions or whatever you call them when you have never met the person and they didn't know you existed! Learning to be daughter to a woman you haven't known for fifty years is one thing, learning to be a sister when you never have been one, is something else entirely.

Finding Peace

2011-12-13T17:05:00.000+10:30

The Letter: Adoptees are the only subset of society who are wholly expected to be grateful for our very lives, and with this expectation comes the need to try to suppress any negative emotion or feeling. Most adoptees won't even admit to themselves, let alone other people, that they are hurting. After all, we got this "better life," didn't we? We don't have the RIGHT to feel sad/angry/depressed. So many adoptees choose to stay silent and instead live a lie.

An excellent post by Lillie, now linked by many. If you still haven't read it and are a prospective adopter, an adopter, just an interested observer or an adoptee, please take this opportunity.
The comments, now closed, appear to show the many colours of the adoption rainbow, with a few unicorns pracing for good measure. We even see that rarity the Anonymous Adoptee commenting:-

I am an adult adoptee. I am thrilled that I have the parents that I have. It would not have mattered if they were my bio parents or that they are my adoptive parents. Adoption is "not" the problem. Adoption is the solution to a host of reasons why a biofamily can not parent a child. I think you just never got along with your parents and are raging on them. You are the same people, that had you not been adopted, would be on another blog complaining about your bio parents. Face it all people try there best. Don't blame bio parents for giving you up, don't blame adoptive parents for giving you a family. Try to make sense and peace of your situation. If you are bitter after all these years...go to therapy. Life is supposed to be happy, not everything turns out how "YOU" planned it, but it does turn out how God planned it. Maybe that's the problem, you don't believe God was ever in control of your life. Maybe if you accepted that fact, you would have peace. December 10, 2011 8:05 PM

I've always had a strict rule on this blog of not criticising fellow adoptees, because I know the stages we all go through on our adoption journey, the places we reach in time, as we find new understanding. It is very hard to stand by, when such assumptions are made about the lives of other adoptees. Life is not supposed to be anything; life just is and we make the best of it we can, the tragic, the sad, the joyful, the difficult and deal with whatever it throws at us.

What I accept in my life, is that I am in control of it, take responsibility for what I do and I have a great deal of peace, fulfillment and satisfaction. We each find our own way in time, but true peace will never be found through self-righteous insistence.

Talking With Kids About Sexual Abuse Scandals

2011-12-13T09:42:00.000+10:30

Talking With Kids About Sexual Abuse Scandals: Because the world of child abuse is veiled in secrecy, it is difficult to estimate (its prevalence or) how often it occurs. Estimates indicate that each year in the U.S. over 300,000 children are sexually abused. Most experts believe that this is a very conservative estimate due to under reporting. Looking at this information in another way, 1 out of every 4 girls and 1 out of every six boys will be sexually abused before their 18th birthday.
Since more abusers are detected these days and less are protected by their communities, except in certain circumstances of course - think Sandusky and priests - it has become imperative for parents to prepare their children to protect themselves, to know when to 'tell' and who to go to safely.
It is the duty of care of all adults to protect children and that must be taken on by others, if parents and adopters are the abusers. There is a 17% increased likelihood of abuse by a non-biological relative and adoptees and foster children need particular preparation in being assured of the right response if they confide their worries or report incidents. Whatever the result for adults, children must be supported , believed and assisted through what is a frightening, distrubing and traumatic time, whatever the incident. While it may be difficult and distasteful for some, it is an adult responsibility and as such should be taken very seriously and with first commitment to the damaged child. The outcomes may be serious, but so is contiued abuse and abuse of other victims, as we have seen in the Sandusky case.
Abuse of children will never be wiped out, will always be a danger of childhood, but let us at least be more aware, prepare children better and be vigilant.

Schadenfreude Anyone?

2011-12-12T09:55:00.000+10:30

Darren said on a facebook thread (not your blogger's) - Your so full of shit . I wish to god I'd of been adopted , I'd probably of lived a better life than the shit I had to go through FFs get of your high horse
The ever present Anonymous, on this blog - Ok, I think I get how this works now - find the tragic examples and insist they are the consistent rule. The tragedies absolutely need to be addressed so that they aren't repeated but I just see a general refusal on this site to celebrate those circumstances that are positive or even acknowledge that they really can be positive at all. It's almost like celebration of another's good circumstance undervalues your own. It's a shame
Interesting isn't it how adoptees writing about adoption bring the uninvited comments which so clearly indicate the confusion around the thinking about adoption.There is no competition about trauma and abuse, it cannot be rated on a scale of one to ten, yours is not worse than mine. If you were unfortunate enough to be abused at the hands of your biological parents, that is very sad and hopefully you have had help and support to overcome the effects.
Many people wish they had been adopted or believe they were, when there is a disconnect between child and parents, abuse and emotional distance or ill treatment. If your mother was Rosemary West, as suggested on the same thread by an adopter or your father Charles Manson, you will have a great many other issues to overcome if you are an adoptee, as well as your adoption loss and trauma. As far as we know Rosemary's babies were all raised by her, at least until they died and the trauma and legacy for the West children is something most of us could never comprehend, let alone use as a cheap point in an argument about adoption. Adoptees who had biological parents who are or were murderers, rapists or abusers are often concerned (to say the least) about whether they will take after their parents or somehow inherit their traits. Another thing for adoptees to worry about and to try to overcome. Often used as an excuse for not giving adoptees the truth as it is often decided they need 'protection' from the hard truth. How do you come to terms with something if you don't know what it is?
Those who wish they had been adopted because they had such a bad time, have our sympathy, always. A number of us live with abuse or die at the hands of adopters, in addition to suffering the loss and trauma of early life. You at least know who you are, have a name, a birth date and know where you came from. You may not like it, but you at least have some security about your identity. Will you continue to complain about your bad time and compare it with what you believe about adoption? Probably. Until you do some real research and actively do something to dispel your disbeliefs. But why would you do that? Perhaps it is more comforting to continue to think of adoption as some sort of sanctuary for all adoptees, as it indeed it can be for some adoptees in certain situations.
As for anonymous, it looks as if nothing's right - addressing tragedies so they're not repeated doesn't work because they are repeated, over and over. What are the circumstances that are positive for adoptees? Being a rescued orphan loosing country, language, family, identity and possibly birthdate and name? A child taken from foster care or an insitution suffering substantial damage from institutional life? A child unwanted by a mother, never loved by her and destined to remain a shameful secret? Adoption is often a double-edged sword; never simple and usually far more complex than non-adoptees realise or are able to acknowledge.
It's almost like celebration of another's good circumstance undervalues your own. It's a shame. Your Blogger and most adoptees of her acquaintance, happily celebrate their own good circumstances and that of others on a regular basis, just like 'normal', real people. Possibly those celebrations are more frequent and more enthusiastic than those of 'normal', real people because we have had to come so far, achieved so much and had to struggle so hard. Personally, nothing undervalues my own good circumstances, which is why I am able to blog about those who have not seen justice served, who have been disempowered, been unrepresented and have suffered for adoption. There will never be enough who care to speak about them, to remember and to make sure they are not forgotten.
There is nothing shameful in my life, nothing I am ashamed of, nor to be pitied for. It is what it is. You'll be accusing me of schadenfreude next!! What is shameful and a shame, is that adoption has other sides which are so little recognised by those who engage in adoption, champion it and extols it's virtues and benefits. As always, time to get real and not just play with the unicorns and rainbows. If adoptees don't who will? Who will stand with the next generation of adoptees as they grow up and realise what we have realised?

Harder than ever to adopt

2011-12-12T09:24:00.000+10:30

Adelaide Now: reports - Families SA's latest annual report shows the number of adoptions in the state has fallen by about 65 per cent since 2004-05. Check the link for some other interesting figures.
All excellent news and hopefully the trend will continue with nil domestic adoptions. Let us have adoption only for children who need a family because their biological family can't, won't or shouldn't raise them. Let there be no transnational adoption and far greater attempts to keep families together with imaginative support, projects and programs for change.
If you haven't read Half The Sky - How To Change The World, perhaps it's time to really commit to helping children and families stay together by buying this book, reading it, passing it on and acting on the information for real change.

Half The Sky - How To Change The World
Nicholas.D.Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn

Virago Press 2010

How's Your Agency?

2011-12-11T11:16:00.000+10:30

Over at Adoption Truth: Lip Service
Amanda has left this comment on the properties of ethical agencies, which is one with which many will agree-
To be ethical, caring and do work which is honourable, an agency -

1.)fights for records access
2.)does not promise confidentiality and instead makes every party aware that the adoptee will have access to his or her own records.
3.) encourages openness
4.) Does not charge any adoption fees whatsoever (this actually should be my #1)
5.) has separate representation for the adoptee, the mother, and the adoptive parents.
6.) does not market adoption
7.) does not take stances on other political issues or donate money to political causes.
8.) does not lobby for unethical policies.
9.) provides support services other than just adoption.
10.) has family preservation as a part of their mission.
11.) serves the children most in need or all children equally, such as children of color or foster children, instead of mostly handling adoption in White/light-skinned babies.
12.) has adoption competent professionals, REAL social workers who have a social work education, and follows strict social work ethical guidelines.
13.) offers free, life-long counseling to all involved

For those of you who believe your salvation lies in rescuing orphans, may I suggest that you immediately buy a copy of Half The Sky - How To Change The World.
Turn immediately to Chapter 14 entitled What You Can Do and read to the end. there are more ideas there than you could get through in the rest of your lifetime which will help families stay together, break the cycle of poverty, lack of education and begin to make inroads into the trafficking of children and the shameful adoption rates which permit children to loose their families, countries, language and culture.
When you've done that check out the other multiple options open to anyone who cares deeply about children and their future. Adoption is not the answer; despite the length of time it takes and the cost, it is a quick and easy fix with another agenda. Except of course in those cases of necessity when a child really cannot be left to be raised by family because it is unsafe. Time to do what is best for children, humane and caring and to know altruism. Did you know those who are happiest in life are the ones who are able to be altruistic?

Thanks Ayala, great photo on Flickr

The darker side of adoption

2011-12-11T09:25:00.000+10:30

Billion-dollar baby trade: This week, Foreign Secretary David Miliband and his 46-year-old wife, Louise, announced they have adopted a second newborn baby boy from the U.S.And while there is no suggestion of anything in any way untoward in the Milibands' case, their decision has thrown a spotlight on adoption procedures in the U.S. which differ vastly from the UK. In fact, here, where contraception is free, terminations are easily accessible and single motherhood is widespread, it is virtually impossible to adopt a healthy newborn baby.In America, however, which has a strong anti-abortion lobby and where the struggling welfare system makes raising a child almost impossible without a regular income, there is no shortage.
And in an interview -
Mr Miliband said both he and his wife were present for the birth of their sons. ‘Their birth parents loved them so much they said, “You’re not going to get the lives you deserve with us.’
He poured out his heart about his love for sons, Isaac, five, and Jacob, two, saying: ‘Going to America to meet our babies was in a way like giving birth. It was incredibly exciting, but nerve-racking. To see your child for the first time is extraordinary.
Read more at: Adoption row and 20-000 adoption

Yet another not so young couple, who have taken advantage of the results of 'the struggling welfare system' in America in order to aquire a baby. Isn't there something rather distasteful and unethical in that?

Greater Joy?

2011-12-10T13:37:00.000+10:30

No Greater Joy Ministries : The Pearls' first book on child training, To Train Up A Child, was published in August 1994. To date, over 650,000 have been printed in English. Since 1994 it has also been translated into many foreign languages. In response to the many letters and questions, the Pearls publish a bimonthly magazine

mamapsalmist: Michael Pearl’s insistence that parents have complete domination over their children and settle for nothing less than instant compliance is what drove the parents using his books to kill their children. Michael Pearl declares that spanking in anger is abuse, but that spanking sessions that last for hours and eventually break down the muscle tissue to such a degree that the discharged bits of skeletal muscle collect in the organs and kill the child is not abuse

The mortality rate of babies in America may be an eye opener...do check the link!

An estimated 2 million babies die within their first 24 hours each year worldwide and the United States has the second worst newborn mortality rate in the developed world, according to a new report.
American babies are three times more likely to die in their first month as children born in Japan, and newborn mortality is 2.5 times higher in the United States than in Finland, Iceland or Norway, Save the Children researchers found.
Only Latvia, with six deaths per 1,000 live births, has a higher death rate for newborns than the United States, which is tied near the bottom of industrialized nations with Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia with five deaths per 1,000 births.
So all that coupled with the deaths of many hundreds of adoptees at the hands of adopters in America, begins to make it look an unsafe place to be born and/or raised! Particularly if the adopters follow certain ideas on parenting and beliefs.
Check adopted-abused for more details.
Comments welcome on the book mentioned and the methods, particularly by non-adoptees.

Happy Meal

2011-12-10T09:09:00.000+10:30

You know us adult adoptees just won't go for the Happy Meal of life! We want the Greek Salad with fresh fish, the antipasto brimming with taste, nutrition and individuality. We know what nourishes us, makes us happy and feeds our souls. We know that real food is honest, doesn't lie about it's origins, it's intentions or it's claims to reality. It doesn't have to, because it's all laid out there on the plate, obvious, no hidden qualities or deceiving agendas.
Why would we go on settling for second best, running with the crowd and trying to live on something that is false, artificial to the core, but made to look real? Do check the link - think what that is doing to your insides, your heart, soul and your belief in reality when you choose the Maccas rainbows and unicorns!
Imagine imposing that diet on children and expecting them to thrive for life, to grow healthily, to be content and happy with the lack of diversity, the same ol', same ol'. Doesn't work does it?
Have a happy weekend barstids!