Sunday, January 16, 2011

Hard Cold Facts...in my opinion

As you've noticed, I've been MIA for a while on my blog. I have been super busy, but I also think there's a HUGE let-down after the holidays. It has taken me some time to get back into the mood to do much of anything. I think I'm finally getting back on track...maybe. ;)

I was led back to my blog because I had a few comments that needed to be moderated. One was in reference to this post regarding having second thoughts about obtaining my OBC. The comment is as follows...

Jen and other adoptees:

Has it occurred to you( adoptees _that your aparents were doing the best that they could to shield you from the hard cold FACTS of your birth story?

There are many adoptees of today that don't have the "young teen mom" birth story. Today's bmoms are older and have children already...what makes you think you weren't one of them? Instead of jumping to conclusions, know the facts before you're against adoption or any other thing.


I was going to reply to this within the comments of that post, but really wanted to share it with ALL my lucky readers! I mean...who doesn't want to hear the hard, cold facts??? In response to the comment...

Yes, it has occurred to me that my aparents believed they were doing what was best for me to "shield me from the hard cold facts". However, they were facts about ME and I have the right to know them. In my situation, the only reason my AP's withheld information regarding my adoption was simply because they did not want me to know. They did not want me to find my biological family and made that pretty clear by keeping all documents relating my relinquishment hidden from me. Still, to this day, they are not willing to give me documents they have relating to my adoption. That is not OK. Adoption is very complex and is filled with emotions. First moms and adoptees suffer greatly in adoption. I believe adoptive parents must be prepared for this and should take great pains in helping the child cope. Hiding information from a child, or better yet an ADULT child, is wrong. EVERYONE has a right to know where they come from. PERIOD.

Also, I am not at all sure what parts of my blog you have read. If you've read anything leading up to that particular post, you will know that I have been in reunion with my first mom for over 8 years now. She did have the "young teen mom birth story" coupled with racial issues that unfortunately led to my relinquishment. I am fully aware of who I am to her.

Finally, asking other adoptee's opinions in regard to obtaining my OBC is hardly "jumping to conclusions". I know the facts and have never claimed to be anti-adoption. I do believe there is a place for adoption. There are hundreds of children in the foster care system that need loving families. Adoption has a place. Taking newborns from young, capable, uninformed mother's, in my opinion, is not the place.

I type all of this to say that adoption is not only the simple and wonderful thing many people assume. It is extremely complex, and the experience varies a lot from person to person. Adoption is based first on loss. For a child to gain a new family, they first lose their first family....their birth family. Sometimes it works out for the best, and other times, it goes terribly wrong. There are many possibilities. I do not hate my AP's and the purpose of my blog is not to bash them. I'm sure there are times that I come across that way...guess it depends on my mood. I write to simply share my feelings about my life, gain support, and hopefully help others going through the same situation.

10 comments:

  1. Shielding a competent adult individual from "the cold hard facts" of THEIR OWN life and adoption is extremely disempowering. Sorry, but what I'm "better off not knowing" about myself as an adult and my own life, is up to me.

    As a parent, my goal is to raise my children to one day be independent adults who can make good decisions on their own without my help or "shielding." Keeping individuals from making important decisions and forming informed opinions about themselves, their lives, and the world around them "for their own good" by withholding information seems counter-productive to that goal.

    I'm an Adult Adoptee, who, if people knew my conception/surrender story, would make the same comment (until they find out I am happily reunited and in contact with my mother several times a week--their stereotype flies out the window and have a lot less to say to me about me. I'm tired of being told that mothers of certain circumstances can't love or want to know their descendants because it's making a blanket judgement of a woman, based on a perceived circumstance, instead of allowing her to be an individual with her own thoughts and opinions. I do not understand what is any worse, "colder," or "harder" about being surrendered by a teenaged mother or a married-mother-of-four. When someone's conception circumstances are made out to be horrible by the sociodemographic variables in someone else's life we do not relate to, we're attaching negative baggage where it doesn't belong. Who cares if her mother was married or not? How in the world does that impact her mother's ability to love her or want to know her?

    What I want to know is: how can one ask you to make an informed opinion while suggesting that it's OK for an adoptive parent not to give you information to do so with?

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  2. People really have an idea in their heads that adoptees never grow up. That they stay children for ever

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  3. I love how we are expected to make decisions as adults in order to properly function in society but that same society thinks we are incapable of making decisions when it comes to OBCs. At some point I have the right to decide what's best for me on my own as an adult and my aparents don't have that right anymore.

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  4. I totally agree with the above posters. I am an adult now. I deserve to know my history..all of it..not just what my adoptive parents deigned to let me know.

    I'm not sure I understand the commenter's point with what difference it would have made to be the child of a woman who already had children and yet still gave me up as opposed to being the child of a teenager who saw no other option but to give me up. Either way, it's traumatic...either way, it's painful. Either way, I deserve to know.

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  5. Agree with all comments by those above who know what they're talking about.Better to know the truth than to live by lies, deceit and the patronising attitudes of those who still don't know how to treat us as fully functioning adults.

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  6. P.s. made a further two comments on the original post Jen.

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  7. I agree, as well, with everything that has been said. Christina...I am totally with you on the need for clarification as to what the difference is between a young, teenage mom and a mom who already has kids. Unless the poster is stating the difference is that a young mom MAYBE would want to know their child vs. a mom that already had "enough" children and didn't have room to love another. Whatever. Losing a mom is losing a mom any way you look at it. In my opinion, it's all difficult and the comment was absolutely ridiculous. It really didn't deserve to be posted and discussed. With that said...I'm done, now!!!!! :)

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  8. Jen - sometimes people have no idea how to not "shield" a child and still protect them. The truth, no matter how hard, is still the most valuable tool in the parenting toolbox.... I think it gets lost in the translation of adoption. GREAT post!

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  9. And really, {in response to the tail end of this post} this is YOUR blog, so if you came off "angry" every once in awhile, whether intentional or not, that's your right. This is your journey.

    I loved this post. You write with SUCH clarity.

    Can't wait to read your days of truth!

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  10. It boggles my mind how so many ap's continue to withhold information that rightfully belongs to the adoptee...whether it is on paper, or info their brokers told them.

    I mean, can you imagine their outrage if we had some "secret information" about them and we refused to give it to them? They'd flip their lids. It's about ownership and their need for control.

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