Flip The Script~ Adoptees want to be heard among the clatter of national adoption month

[me b zola]

[belzabubba333]

1. tell their side of what. is there a national dialog of adoption

whose telling what that they need their side heard. what did i miss

[me b zola]

2. The narrative of adoption is told from everyone EXCEPT the adoptee (and their mothers)

November is national adoption month, which was originally enacted to bring focus on children who needed homes, those in foster care. It has long since been taken over by the multi-billion dollar adoption industry to advance their business. Here is a good article on this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mirah-riben/national-adoption-awarene_b_6129926.html

[Smarmie Doofus]

3. Kick. n/t

[me b zola]

4. Thank you for you K&R

Reading your posts I have found you to be neither smarmy nor a doofus. Keep on keeping on

[me b zola]

5. Although I respect and identify with all of these women, Rosita's coment really summs it up for me

The validation that I found in the adoptee rights community was life saving. I was suicidal in my youth, from about 10 yrs old till about 16 when I became pregnant. My life as a young woman was a different type of suicidal, some of you may identify with this. I was made to feel as though I was the only adoptee to feel the way that I did, which was simply to know that I had family out there and that I was genetically connected to people that I was not allowed to know. I have since come to consider this as psychic mutilation, the act of cutting out a part of you that can not be seen, but is so jealously hated by others.

Adoptees who are reading this, you are not alone. Your thoughts and feelings do not make you weird, the circumstance that you were put in is weird. Your thoughts and feelings are valid, and you are more normal than you know.

[StevieM]

9. I imagine that the internet has been a Godsend to many adoptees.

There is finally a place where they can talk freely and have their feelings acknowledged. Before the internet, there wasn't too much of a community where people could find each other and exchange thoughts. There may have been an organization or two, but most people were unfamiliar with them. Today there are countless blogs that offer validation to the adoptee's experience from their own point of view, rather than what they are told to feel.

That goes double for birth mothers.

[MissKat]

6. Unless you are adopted

Unless you've been adopted it's very hard to understand the reality of what it means to be adopted.
Imagine if tomorrow you woke up and your legs were gone. And you said, "Where did they go?" And people told you, "It's better for you not to know."
Because that's what it's like to find out you were adopted. There is a past that is yours, but people want to keep it from you. I have no history because it's not allowed. Medical issues? Hey, you were lucky to be adopted. Don't worry about it.

But I do. There is a father. There is a mother.
And there is government standing in the way.

Adoption. We have a right to know who we are. We have a right to medical information. But we're told time and time again, "Would you just be grateful? And please, be quiet. After all, you're a bastard."

[StevieM]

8. Welcome to DU!! I hope that some day you are allowed access to your original birth certificate.

It is shameful that we treat adoptees like second class citizens.

[citizen blues]

7. As an Adoptee and a Birthmother.....

I think this is great!!!!!

Relying on the typical narrative surrounding adoption to guide any discussion regarding adoption is like relying on "Father Knows Best" as a guide to the typical American family. It's connection to reality is tenuous at best!

People who want to "celebrate" adoption as the be all, end all, and cure all for unwanted pregnancy are in deep, profound denial of reality of human toll it takes on mothers and children. Adoptees spend lifetimes stitching together the patchwork quilts of their identities as they try to discover and define who they are. It's always complex, even more so when the adoptions are cross-cultural, cross-racial, cross-language barriers, and/or cross-faith.

Furthermore, whether the mothers legally surrender their children or abandon them or something in between, each one is facing a lifetime of grieving - usually alone and in silence. Some bury it so deep that even they are unable to acknowledge it. However, it is still there, impacting their lives. The few of us who are lucky enough to know our lost children as adults, still grieve all that could have been and all those lost years.

Today, more than ever, with women's reproductive rights under attack, we need to strip the "pro-lifers" of their absolutely false narrative of how rosy adoption is. As with so many human endeavors, it's messy. Each one of us has our own unique stories. It's time they're heard.

[StevieM]

10. People don't realize what they are celebrating. Our society teaches people that the mothers simply

move on with their lives and the children are grateful to have been given a new family.

Citizen Blues, have you observed that a disproportionate number of adoptees go on to become first mothers?

[StevieM]

11. Great video!! Thank you for sharing it. (eom)