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Things I wish I had known:
1. That I didn't need to feel rejected as a child and young adult wondering HOW a mother could give her child away (ie. "place for adoption") because of "Love". ??? So if you love someone, you relinquish them? Makes no sense.
I wish I had learned much earlier about the societal history of shame (read Ann Fessler's book, The Girls Who Went Away, or Barbara Raymond's, The Baby Thief, for an eye-opening history lesson about adoption in America), and a financially driven, supply & demand based industry that explains the true reason most babies become "available" for adoption.
My mother didn't "place" me because she loved me. She certainly didn't reject me. She surrendered her own motherhood/personhood/child because of a society that rejected her, and
only accepted me if I was removed from her and my original, true identity.
2. That I didn't have to be confused by the myth that it must be God's will for me to lose my mother, family, identity, and original life so I could be "chosen". To gain my new family, life, love, and blessings. I grew up trying to force this idea into my head & heart, but it was completely in congruent with life, truth, and the adoptee's reality. I lived with extreme guilt and feelings of disloyalty, wondering how I could say I really loved my adoptive family if I had these feelings of loss and longing.
I was so relieved to finally "wake up" and realize that, like Joseph, when he was reunited with his original family, concluded, "What the ENEMY meant for evil (separation, loss), God has turned for good."
I didn't have to be fearful and distrusting of God anymore because it was impossible to understand (what adults tell most adoptees for their own benefit) how God PLANNED and WILLED for me to be adopted. He didn't orchestrate it.
I once heard an eye-opening sermon by Pastor Dick Bernal ("Jubilee Christian Center"). He was talking about scriptures in the New Testament that spoke of us being "adopted" as God's own children. After doing an in-depth study on the word translated into "adopted", he found that the original meaning in the Greek language more closely resembled "reunited" or "reinstated."
I John even uses the Greek word "sperma" to describe us as God's beloved children. The Prodigal Son certainly wasn't his Father's "adopted" son, he was his biological offspring. It was comfort to this adoptee's soul to hear this revelation. That God didn't NEED to "adopt" me as His child in the same sense "adoption" is used today.
The scriptures also teach that anything hidden in darkness and secrecy cannot be truly made whole. Yet adoptees' records and birth certificates are sealed by laws which perpetuate this shame and injustice. Even "open adoption" is not legally enforceable by law, and certainly doesn't negate the profound loss every adoptee experiences.
3. I wish I had known that, just like Wilbur Wilberforce, Susan B. Anthony, and Martin Luther King, Jr., that it takes a lot of courage, fortitude, and perseverance to keep voicing an "unpopular" opinion, but a lived experience. That I don't have to feel like the lone duck and the odd-one-out. That I can stand up to criticism, with courage. That someday the cost will be worth it.
Until the monetary & marketing aspects (advertising for babies as if they are Camero's, ie. "Dear Burfmother" letters) in adoption are removed, and every adopted individual in America is restored their God-given right to own their original birth certificate and identity, adoption will continue to be simply an enterprise of human-selling. Children who truly need loving homes will be overlooked and discarded.
Loving and capable Mothers will continue to feel pressured to "do the right thing" and relinquish their precious offspring to those willing to pay.
And adopted individuals will continue to be seen as perpetual children in the eyes of the law and society, being treated with contempt and shame for wanting the same right as every other American citizen, for themselves and their children after them ~ simply to know their true genealogy, identity, medical history, and family line.
9 comments:
Yes, yes, yes.
I second Melanie's comment. The more I read, the more I learn, and the more I hope I'll be able to help my children through their own grief.
Great list. I especially identify with #1.
Of all the lessons I have learned these past two years reading adoption blogs, the one that was THE most important for me to learn was the one of which you spoke. Adoption is NOT God's will. It was not God's original plan for my daughter and her first family to experience such tremendous loss just so that I could become a mother. As you referenced, as the Scripture says, "What the ENEMY meant for evil (separation, loss), God has turned for good."
ah Peach.. may *I* add another thing I didn't know?
I didn't know that I would so need, depend, love, be thankful and grateful to an amazing group of virtual strangers who were adopted and would speek for my child...tahnk YOU for saying so much and teaching me
"I didn't have to be fearful and distrusting of God anymore because it was impossible to understand (what adults had told me for their own benefit) how God PLANNED and WILLED for me to be adopted. He didn't orchestrate it."
YES YES YES YES YES!!!
How insulting to God to think he wanted all this pain just so I could be a parent. I cringe when I hear adoptive parents make that argument.
Thanks so much for this post.
Thank god (no pun intended)for number two.
(This is coming from an adoptee whose a-parents were fully aware of why her Mama & Baba did not raise her, but still tell themselves it was Fate I was adopted...)
This was a hard blog for me to read. As a Korean adoptee, the chances that I will ever find my birth family are slim to none. My adopted parents, although far from perfect, raised me with the same morals and beliefs as their own parents did. Even though I was not really accepted into my community, I was fully accepted into my family. I know of other adoptees whose own families were not so kind and made it perfectly clear they were different than the "other" kids. In retrospection, my parents could have helped more by learning about the Korean culture rather than doubting their daughter was a continual victim of racism. I'm in my thirties now and I'm still going through my own grief at not knowing my birth family... great blog!
I appreciated No 2. I cannot doubt that adopting feels right for our family, and I believe that God is somewhere in that. However, I do agree that it is not God's will for children to be separated from their birth families.
You made a powerful distinction. I want to be more careful and sensitive in the way I talk about that.
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