So you think that adopted children ought to just sit down and shut up.
It's selfish to want to know something of your origins. It's selfish to want to know something of your history. It's selfish to want to look your blood kin in the face.
If you ended up in a "good" home, why, just look around, honey! You have a beautifully decorated house to live in, three hot meals a day, the best schools, a shining future, and a parent. Maybe you have TWO parents! You call them "Mommy" and "Daddy." You call their parents "Grandma" and "Grandpa." You're in the will, you're in the family bible, you have a birth certificate with names of responsible people with money and jobs written in under Father/Mother.
You want more? You ungrateful little twits. You're lucky. So, so lucky. What more could you possibly ask for?
I thought this attitude was pretty passe. I was interested and encouraged to see the swell of outrage over Madonna's adoption. Certainly her new son will have enough money to probably BUY his country one day. I'm delighted that he will have a safe and comfortable life, but even The Man On The Street seemed to realize that indeed, little David has lost something. Heritage, history, ancestors.
Say--let me ask you something. Imagine that you look out your front window to see a solid gold limousine pulling up. Out steps a couple that takes your breath away. They are gorgeous. They walk in and hand you a copy of their financial statement which shows that their wealth is in the billions. They sit down and chat with you about their life. You find out that not only are they incredibly good looking and wealthy, but they are also genuinely nice people. They have spent their lives doing nice things for others. They are lovely, wonderful people.
They ask you if you would like them to raise your newborn child. They promise to give him everything in the world.
Well? Certainly your child will be better off. He'll be richer. He'll have his choice of colleges. And he won't be spoiled. They point to their children as proof. Buffy is building orphanages in Guatemala during a break from her Ph.D. program at Harvard, and Trey is getting his MBA at Yale while still spending every other weekend night rocking premature children at a hospital.
So do you pack up your newborn infant and send him on his way with a fond kiss?
Hmm? And if he comes back one day to ask you why, do you slap him and accuse him of being selfish and ungrateful?
You cannot simply yank a child from their blood kin and paste them into another family without them feeling a sense of loss. Human lives cannot be Photoshopped.
Maybe you think that is ungrateful.
I disagree.
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I don't know if I agree or disagree. It's just not that clear to me, but it is a provocative thought. Since I am not adopted, I don't know if I would feel a sense of loss, but my parents were divorced by the time I was 2. I have no recollection of my Father whatsoever. He left, and he, along with his family, never looked back. I can honestly say that I have NEVER felt a sense of loss over not having them in my life. For me, they were strangers, and I have always found it ludicrous to mourn strangers. Maybe that seems uncaring, but I have felt that way since I was a little girl. Maybe it's more of a credit to my Mother, who made up for my losses in more ways than I can describe. Whatever it is, I have never even considered them to be family, so it's hard to be sad about them not being in my life. Even harder is the fact that some people don't beleive me when I admit that!
I suspect that the "swell of outrage" was not so much at the adoption itself but the brutal exposition that wealth and fame can get what they want, including flesh and blood.
I hope that we have gotten past the idea that adoption has to be an "either-or" situation. But, people being people, I'm sure there are LOTS of folks out there with the "sit down and shut up" approach to adoption.
An adoption means that something grievious has happened to someone. ISTM that doesn't mean that everything after that has to mean grieving, just that the grief will always be there.
"If we fall in the race, though we win
The hoof-slide is scarred on the course;
Though Allah and Earth pardon sin
Remaineth forever remorse."
R. Kipling
I'm curious as to whether or not your had someone specific in mind when you wrote this.
The reason I mention this is that when I read your birthmother's letter, I got the impression that the "sit down and shut up" approach was her view of adoption.
My mother-in-law, who surrendered a child for adoption 35 years ago, has this view as well. She is not entirely comfortable with the open relationship we have with my children's birthparents.
I do think that attitudes towards adoption are shifting, but it seems to me that the older generation in general has not moved with the tide.
P.S. I'm totally hooked on your blog. Excellent writing.
Nobody in particular, just some private emails I've gotten.
Thanks for the compliment, Sue!
Well, the good news is that many agencies have required classes for potential adoptive parents that specifically deal with the losses. The ones who say those things now probably didn't go through the adoption process and are a bit uneducated about such things. I know if it were me, I would be curious about my ancestry, medical history, general history, etc.
I have a Korean son adopted domestically. I can explain his history and have a picture of his birthparents and they have pictures of him (through the agency at their request). I also have a Chinese daughter adopted at one year old from China. She is fortunate enough to have been found with a birth note that explains she was the second daughter and her actual birth date and time.
If my son chooses to find his birthparents at 18, I would like to go with him so that I may personally thank them for allowing me to be his mother (I did meet his birthfather when my son was one year old. His birthmother did not come). However, if he doesn't want me to come, I will accept that.
I can also agree with the first poster. I lost my father to cancer at the age of 8. I remember being 9 years old and thinking that I cannot possibly be the only girl who ever lost her daddy. It kept me from feeling sorry for myself and lucky that friend's dads helped guide me along the way.
I absolutely agree. Thank you for saying it loudly and clearly.
And I also have to agree that it's pretty surprising to see how many people still do have this attitude.
Thank you for sharing your story.
I am an adoptive mom. I constantly have people tell me how lucky my kids are, as if ALL children don't deserve a good home. Lucky my ass, it should be everyone's birthright to be raised in a stable enviroment with people who love them.
You aren't ungrateful to feel a sense of loss. Adoption is founded on loss for everyone- adoptee, birth/first parent and adoptive parent. The losses need to be acknowledged and dealt with.
Both my children are in open adoptions- they know their first families, they know why they were placed in our family, they know they were loved. Yet, they still lost out on being raised with their biological kin. Anyone who thinks otherwise is Pollyannaish (is that a word?). Loss does not have to be crippling, and you can still have a good life in spite of it, but it's there.
How much of their Chinese heritage and history do YOUR two girls know..they are obviously being raised as Christians..something they wouldnt have been had their birth moms chosen to keep them.
Im really apalled at all these international adoptions, because unless you're agnostic, it looks like these adoptions are a covert way for these kids to go back to their home countries as missionaries..trying to "civilise" the unbelievers via conversion.
Yes Im fm India and I see this so often...its sickening. So all this history heritage talk comes across as sheer baloney.
Wow...after that last comment I won't even attempt to say anything about this post, even tho' I am a birth Mom.
Your daughters are absolutely lovely. I can say that.
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....I'm reading this comment two years after it was made and I'm telling you that my kids are in a stage where they'd rather go to Hawaii or Paris than China. They strenuously resist our every effort to connect them with their heritage.
We are raising them to think about religion as "all roads lead to heaven."
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