On Mourning.

I've recently been struggling with something that I never really acknowledged before: Grief. Grief in the fact that I have this one, in-tact, healthy, happy family who will, either for me fault or theirs, not fully accept me into the life they banished me from so many years ago. Grief in the fact that I have another family with whom I have banished, for their mistreatment, abuse, and unyielding selfishness throughout my life.

Earlier this year, I wrote about how my birthfather told me that he would have named me Amanda. I find myself thinking about her a lot. What would she have been like? What would her favorite movie have been? Would she love kids movies? What would her life have been like?

I won't ever know, and that plays a huge part in why I'm grieving. I try not to have a romanticized view of what my life would have been like, but I spent most of my childhood in abusive situations... it's hard to imagine that any other life would have been like that. But there would have been other heartbreaks that would have shaped me in completely different ways. My parents weren't together and, from the looks of it, would have never gotten along. That would have been its own stress.

I don't know. I don't have any answers and I know I never will. I just wish I'd stop finding more questions. I feel like I'm drowning in questions that no one will ever answer.

If People Stopped to Think About What They Were Saying, We'd Have A Lot More Silence.

Adoption has been on my mind recently, but I haven't been able to put words to my thoughts. I've been stuck in this thought pattern about how derogatory and invalidating people are in their everyday lives about adoptees and members of the adoption triad. Think about how many times you've heard siblings arguing until one of them snipes,"Yeah, well you were adopted!" as if it's the most disgraceful thing in the world. I heard that ad nauseum between siblings when I'd go over to friends' houses. Ouch.

Then you find out your friend wants to adopt. Immediately, they are showered with "Wishing you the best of luck!", "You'll be parents in no time," etc etc. Nevermind that the subject to that is, "I'm hoping that a child is given up because of poverty, lack of resources, or age of parents soon so that you can feel fulfilled as people. Nevermind that the birthmother/father may be making the most heart-wrenching decision of their lives. I pray that happens quickly because I care about you and don't consider the social implications of the adoption system at all!"

Not to mention the child, who has most likely just been taken from the only family they've known for 10 months in utero. But that's okay! You can just take home your bundle of joy, and it'll be like nothing ever happened.

Adoption is pretty much always about the adoptive parents. If they really wanted to "give a child a better life" then why not sponsor a child from a poor family?

Recently, an acquaintance decide sie wants to adopt. Since then, friends and family have been reposting her website all over the place."If you know of any families looking to adopt out their children, let us know!"

How can people not see how fucked up the whole thing is?!

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The Facade of Family.

Family is supposed to be one of those inalienable rights. Everyone should have a loving, doting family or at least one that is concerned for your actual well-being.

Whoever came up with that societal rule, should have made it a point to add the exception: adoption. As an adoptee, not only did adoptees natural family think that their lives would be better off without the adoptee, but you're always a guest in your adoptive family. People will make comments, or treat you differently, or maybe just flat out ban you from family functions. Then, when you eventually find your natural family, they either: want nothing to do with you (which, if you gave it any thought, makes a lot of sense since they didn't give a shit about you when you were a helpless baby), or pretend to care about and want to know you and then just completely drop you after they realize that you're not the daughter they've always wanted. You're difficult to know, guarded, and somewhat detached. They have the privilege of just assuming that you're difficult to be difficult, since they got you out of their hair as fast as possible and can make up any story they want to explain away your behavior. After all, it's easier to just blame you for everything than to ever consider that they fed you to the wolves when you were an infant because it was easier on them. Thank God they didn't have you to worry about and could go on to have a happy, well-adjusted family. How dare you come into the picture with your dysfunction and abuse history and try to ruin their picture-perfect family.


Do I sound bitter? Good, then I've made myself painfully clear.

Who is "Amanda"?

I finally decided upon what name to associate with this adoption journal: Amanda M.

Since I have some time, I thought I would take a moment to explain why I choose that name.

During a conversation with my birthfather a few months back, he randomly told me that, were he to have named me, he would have named me "Amanda". It was one of those comments that he probably thought nothing about, but meant a lot to me. While I don't plan on changing my legal name to "Amanda", I wanted to have some representation of the identity I could have had and thought what better way to do that than to use the name on my adoption blog. The "M", of course, stands for his last name. I've thought, on more than one occasion, about changing my surname to reflect his and to also better reflect my heritage, but I'm still not sure if I want to do that or not. I've known of some adoptees who do end up changing their first or last name (or both) in honor of their birth families, but I just haven't decided what is right for me yet.

In the meantime, I thought using the name in association to this blog would be a good starting point, while also helping to keep up the air of anonymity to anyone who I may know in real life who stumbles upon this blog. It's a way for me to reclaim part of my identity that was lost when I was adopted and I'm so glad that he shared it with me.

The Unwanted Child.

I just heard, yet again, how not all people who take in an "unwanted child" are bad people. Now, I have a question for everyone: If an "oops" child is brought into the world, what are the chances of anyone saying to them, "Well, your parents didn't really want you, but they got you and you should be grateful for them for keeping you." Unless that child was around really fucked up people, probably no one's ever said that to them.

So then why is it okay to tell adopted children that, well yeah, some adoptive parents are shitty, but most of them just want to give a home to a child that was otherwise unwanted? How did you suddenly become the all-knowing medium about why any child is given up for adoption? What about children conceived in poverty? Or children conceived by parents who were minors at the time (thus giving the child's grandparents legal authority over whether they are to be placed in foster care or not.

When did telling a child they were "unwanted" become acceptable in our society? Has anyone stopped to think about how incredibly fucked up that could make a child? Why can't we tell them that adoptive parents are, theoretically, more "well-equipped" or "capable" of raising a child? Can't we respect the child, the birthparents, AND the adoptive parents all at the same time? Why must people feel the need to shit all over the birthparents in order to convince the adopted child that adoptive parents should be commended?

I read somewhere once about how adoptive parents should want the best for their adoptive child. That they need to be able to accept, in the perfect world they wished their child could have been born into, that they would have never been their parent if something hadn't gone wrong. And "gone wrong" shouldn't just automatically mean "no one else wanted you."


ETA: Here is something that I just found from a fellow adoptee friend of mine:

It's food for thought, yes?

On Attachment.

Growing up, my adoptive parents would tell me I had "attachment issues". I didn't attach the way most kid were supposed to attach. Over the years, I've become more and more confident to say that they were full of shit. It's not attachment that I have a problem with; it's abuse. I don't tolerate systematic abuse from anyone. Ever. Those that are abusive try to turn that around on me as being "unattached".

Don't get me wrong, I don't attach to people easily. I have a labyrinth of walls up that people unknowingly must weave through before I fully trust them. I analyze their boundaries, interactions, and management of the world around them. However, once I become attached, it's forever.

That sounds a little ominous, so let me explain. I rarely tell people "I love you" because, to me, that's not something you should throw around lightly. To me, "I love you" means "this is unconditional. Nothing I could imagine you doing will ever make me not love you. You will never be a burden. Even if we were to never talk again, I would always hope you were okay. I'd always be here if you needed me."

That's a lot of power behind three words, which is why I don't say them lightly. But my ability to have such strong feelings towards not only those three words, but towards the people I say them to, shows that I'm not only capable of attachment but the attachments that I make are life-long. I've learned to be wary of anyone who tries to tell me differently.

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On "Sharing"

Hmm, it's been awhile dear blog of mine. Lots of things have been happening recently, most of them revolving around issues that are fairly unique to Adoptees.

I do not have contact (willingly) with my adoptive parents any longer, which I have mentioned in the past. That does not, however, keep them from randomly contacting me; an incident that happened recently on my "Adoption Day". Had they not let me the flowers and note, I would not have even remembered that there had ever been anything special about that day in the past. My adoption, and whole identity that is connected to adoption, is a part of me that I deal with yet try to give as little time to as possible. I am currently already having to wade through reconnecting with birth relatives and all of the emotional toll that brings, so when I received these inappropriately-left flowers and note, I couldn't help but be a bit disgusted. While most adult children would love to get hand-delivered flowers from their parents, my situation is not common to those people. I have made it abundantly clear that I want nothing to do with either adoptive parent until I am ready to have a relationship with them. Unfortunately, that is "unacceptable" in their minds, and therefore they must continue to barrage me with texts, letters, etc to show how poorly I make decisions about my life.

I digress.

In this poorly worded "Why are you doing this to us (you self-centered brat)" letter, my adoptive mother also made sure to mention that she will soon be profiting off of sharing my adoption story with others. I must have read that paragraph eight times before it finally sunk in; just when I thought I could take my life back, she finds a way to warp it and make it hers again. She couldn't write about anything specific to HER, she has to write about MY adoption experiences and my birth relatives; Lord only knows what lies she told, seeing as we aren't exactly the poster children of a Nuclear Family.

Being adopted, my life already never has felt like my own. I've always known in the back of my mind that "things could be different." If my birth family hadn't given me up for adoption, I would be in a different place right now. Starting 10 minutes after I was born, my life took a sharp turn away from all of my expectations and has just continued doing so. I was inferred to being an "outsider" from my adoptive family because I was not biologically related to them, and I am definitely an outside in my birthfamily because I did not grow up knowing all of them.

So, when I saw that she was writing MY story, I started to get angry. I want to take it back, write it the way it happened, without the rose-petal scenery, and rainbow farts. That's when I remembered this blog and the whole reason that I started it in the first place.

I guess if I want to make my voice be heard, I better start talking.

Privilege?! I think you mean martyr.

Recently, I was talking with a friend of mine about adoptive parent privilege. Take a look at the books and information out there and you'll find most of them are aimed at helping the adoptive parent cope with relatives, friends, etc. Very little emphasis is put on how the adopted CHILD will feel as they're growing up.

Isn't it kind of backwards to put more energy into emotional support for your other relatives than you'd put towards the child you're adopting? But it happens, a lot. Adoptive parents, normally, have the privilege of never knowing what it's like to have a missing birth mother. True, every adopted child is different and I've known several that feel no emptiness or mourning in their lives for their birthfamilies. I don't think that's unhealthy any more than I think mourning and grieving for them is unhealthy.

However, take a look at the comments from "Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents knew". There are a few comments from grown-up adoptees expressing disdain for the book, but there are many more comments from adoptive PARENTS clutching their pearls and shrieking about how damaged the author must be and how you should never talk to your children about the grief they may feel; after all, if you and your family just love them then what the hell do they have to grieve for?

Just another day in the world of Adoptive Parent Privilege Land.

Why? Because those adoptive parents don't want to know that there's nothing they can do, no amount of love they can give, that will cover-up the pain and mourning that their child might feel for his/her birth parents. I'll let you in on a little secret: If your adopted children expresses grief or mourning, "loving them more" doesn't then negate their right to still feel that way. Why? Because it isn't about you!! It is about the child. Period. I've known many adopted children who had wonderful adoptive parents who loved them and treated them with respect, and yet STILL those children had unresolved grief and abandonment issues that affected many of their relationships. That's sometimes just what happened with adopted children. I've heard of the analogy of comparing adoptees to amputees; some people (namely adoptive parents) get really pissy about that comparison. Well, for some kids it might feel that way. Maybe they were adopted through international means, in which they will never have the chance to find their birthfamilies. That can leave a kid with a pretty big hole in their identity. Aside from wanting to meet his/her birthparents, he/she will also never have a medical history and therefore not know what to look out for in the future, or with any children he/she may have. That alone can feel very scary, especially with all of the genetic conditions out there that aren't tested for unless you have family history of that specific condition. Family medical history is a luxury that some adopted children will never have.

I have so many more thoughts on adoptive parent privilege but am running out of time before I have to leave. Stay tuned, though, I have many more examples of privilege out there that ANYONE who is thinking about adopting should be cognizant of and avoid doing.