January 15, 2012

The "Found" Book Tour



I'm so honored to be part of the Open Adoption Examiner's "Found" Book Tour. I haven't yet finished the entirety of "Found", Jennifer Lauck's amazing memoir, but wanted to attempt answers to some of the questions as a reunited adult adoptee. So many of the author's thoughts and feelings have resonated with me deeply. What a beautiful person and writer...thank you, Jennifer, for sharing your journey and your writing talent!

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•I have noticed that adopted kids tend to mature and wise up ahead of their age... you think a lot before answering, you're not impulsive, you know how to keep your personal secrets and prefer to keep a lot from the rest of the world. I read that in this book, and 3 others by Jennifer Lauck. What can make adoptees this way?

I laughed when reading this question, because I remember so many teachers and adults telling my Mom, and even me, growing up, how "mature" I was. It's really pretty sad, because I believe this "maturity" is simply another layer of the adoptee's facade.

We so want to believe and appear to "have it all together" in order to survive in a world that seems to reject us unless we are given another's role/identity (even our birth certificates are changed to hide our truth).

Then, we are not given permission to acknowledge our loss or reality, because adoption is the "win-win" solution we are expected to embrace (to fulfill that role and appease those we must rely on), so we deny and squelch our true selves and feelings for this purpose.

What other choice do we have than to appear mature and rock solid? It's our only option. Inside, I felt the exact opposite, desperately trying to deny feelings of unworthiness and insecurity. We have to do something to make ourselves feel we have the right to exist, all the while, not believing we do.

•Jennifer Lauck wrote (page 34) “I felt dirty and bad” when told she was adopted. Why? was it because her brother mentioned the trash? or there was more?

See above, and this post, "Finding Me in the Bathroom Stall". Exact.Same.Concept.

•On pp 17-18, Jennifer talks about a baby searching for her mother after being born. How did this sensory-rich passage strike you? What thoughts did it trigger about the role you play in adoption?

Although adopted as an infant, even leaving the hospital with my adoptive parents, when Jennifer pointed out that a baby goes into shock when unable to find her mother, it made complete sense and sent shivers through my spine. As an "awakened" adoptee, I now realize I have been searching for my Mother from birth.

An infant has no sense of self for several months. She and her mother are essentially one. That's why adoptees feel numb, lost, and disconnected. We experience profound, life-long consequences from this early and disenfranchised separation from our mothers, and hence, ourselves.

As an adult adoptee and also the mother of a micro-preemie who had to exist separated from me the first 98 days of his life, I addressed the question more deeply in this post from "The Primal Wound" book tour a few years ago.

•My question is about Jennifer's early adoption narrative as "God's gift"...

If adoptee's are "God's gift", then God is a masochist.

No wonder many adoptees avoid church, with the erroneous message behind "Orphan Care" spouted from every street corner in America.

It is a slap in our face to assert we are somehow, "The Chosen Child". That is asking us to believe it was "God's will" to lose our mothers, families, identities, and birth heritage in order to "build a family"; that young, vulnerable mother's embrace the advice of an adoption industry to make the "unselfish, heroic" decision ~ sacrifice her own motherhood and "gift" her flesh & blood because another woman "longs for a child".

To continue to the next stop of this book tour, please visit the main list at The Open Adoption Examiner.

January 9, 2012

Sherrie Eldridge Blog: Blessed Limitations

Sherrie Eldridge Blog: Blessed Limitations: I’d like to introduce a young man who had a profound impact on my life and taught me the key to having hope in the midst of unwelcome, overw...

The Declassified Adoptee: But I'm the REAL Mom! Important Lessons from the M...

The Declassified Adoptee: But I'm the REAL Mom! Important Lessons from the M...: It puts it in perspective when you consider that the "rope" being "tugged" in these types of "wars" is a child's truth and identity. T...

January 6, 2012

"Privacy and Anonymity in the Law" by John J. Green

John J. Greene writes in his article, "Privacy & Anonymity in the Law"...

"Privacy; Anonymity...There’s not an advocate who breathes air that isn’t absolutely fed up hearing those two words. I heard those words from legislators, external organizations of interest, strangers on the street, family, and friends so much I wanted to be sick to my stomach! I really did."

....read the rest of his enlightening article here, about state adoption law which debunks the myth of birth parent anonymity.

The U.S. Court of Appeals, 6th Circuit Tennessee State Supreme Court, and the Oregon Court of Appeals (upheld by the Oregon Supreme Court) have affirmed that birth parents do not have a right of privacy or perpetual anonymity from their child. Seven US states have passed legislation restoring the unconditional right of adult adoptees to access their original birth certificate.

Here is a birth mother who writes in her article "Open Records vs. Birthmother Protection", asserting that she was never promised, nor asked, for anonymity; and other thoughts and articles in this post also addressing this long-standing issue.

January 5, 2012

"Biological Mom Kept From Child...."

This article is about a lesbian couple who "broke up" after the birth of their child. One woman donated her egg and the other one carried and birthed the child. Now the one who donated the egg wants to be listed on the birth certificate and have rights to the child, but the woman who birthed the child is keeping the child from her. Talk about a tangled web.

I only reference the article to show the ridiculousness of inaccurate birth certificates. It highlights the need for reform in law which requires every birth certificate to record accurate information, because it is the CHILD'S birth certificate and not the parent's.

For example, when a child is adopted, their original birth certificate is "sealed" and a new, "amended" (falsified) "Certificate of Live Birth" is created, showing the child's adoptive parents as the ones who actually gave birth. This is unethical.

Fact is, the law ("legal" parentage) can not (nor should it try to) erase biological and personal familial heritage, passed on through DNA.

Because reproductive and adoption "science" has not caught up with ETHICS, maybe every birth certificate issued should include the following:

Child's DNA originated from _____________ & _______________.

Some countries no longer allow legal "sperm" and "egg" donation to be "anonymous" for this very reason.

Personal DNA is important for every citizen to know. Not only for the adopted or surrogate born, or "donated" gamete-created child, but also for their children after them.

Some genealogists suggest that within four more generations, NO American's "family tree" will be accurate because of archaic "sealed records" laws in adoption and unethical reproductive science which doesn't require a factual record of birth/DNA/parentage for every American citizen.

This is only going to get worse, and will eventually affect every US citizen or family, in one way or another. Dr. Martin Luther King was right when he said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

Human beings are being bought and sold as commodities in these unregulated, billion-dollar "industries", and until adoption and reproductive laws are reformed to respect the dignity and identity rights of the children affected, they should be immediately halted and deemed illegal.

January 2, 2012

FAMILY PRESERVATION ADVOCACY: DEBUNKING ADOPTION MYTHS

FAMILY PRESERVATION ADVOCACY: DEBUNKING ADOPTION MYTHS: Kate Middleton is among the latest to express an interest in adoption as an act of altruistic humantitarianism. But is it?  Are there really ...