The truth is, adoption is not necessary to provide care.
In the U.S., permanent legal guardianship provides all the same legal rights and responsibilities entailed by adoption. In addition, it allows displaced persons to maintain their original legal identity. This eliminates repurcussive "inconveniences", such as not being able to get a passport from the country one was born in and is a legal citizen of, because your "legal birth certificate" was issued more than one year after your birth. One has the right to one's correct identity, whether one grows up with one's biological family or someone else. Adoption allows, nay, encourages, adopters to falsify adoptees' birth certificates, listing themselves as one's biological parents, changing location and sibling information, sometimes even changing one's birthday. The original, accurate document is thereafter sealed and cannot be viewed without a court order. If your child rearing desires are indeed altruistic, instead of being based in greed, ownership, and self-serving desire, why is all this legal subterfuge necessary?
Before you feed one the overused line about keeping adoptees "safe" from the "evil biological families", just don't. I might then be prompted to say somewhat about one's "evil adoptive family" that is also not "safe".
The truth is, in the U.S. the entire adoption industry is fraught with amoral, unethical, perfectly legal practices. We now have "adoption profiles" where adopters use sap and sympathy to manipulate troubled women to choose relinquishment. We have online rehoming agencies to take that troubled adoptee off your hands and sell them on to the next desperate adopter. We have GoFundMe accounts to raise money for "adoption fees", advertising for babies on Craigslist and garage sale sites, adopters openly begging and offering cash for kids, adoption reveals on social media, private adoption groups that wheel and deal, try to arrange "cheap" adoptions, and discuss the best ways to ensure you "get the kid" (most of them unethical, dishonest, or downright illegal, such as lying about openness to get the papers signed, or encouraging a mother to dishonestly deny knowledge of the father's location to speed the adoption process). Adoption agencies deal in lies and manipulation, their sole purpose being to convince troubled pregnant women to choose relinquishment. Once the choice is made, the agencies will go to any lengths, including possible illegal law bending and threats, to prevent or negate revocation.
The truth is, desperate, infertile Americans are standing in line to purchase womb-wet newborns. Somewhere along the way, they got the idea they're "entitled" to be parents.
The truth is, White Christian America is using adoption to colonize the world. By purchasing children from foreign countries, importing them to America, legally whitewashing their identities (no pun intended), and raising them as White Christian Americans, they are cutting international and transracial adoptees off completely from their heritage, language, religion, culture, and ethnicity. That four year old from China you blonde haired, blue eyed Americans purchased from an "orphanage"? I can pretty well guarantee you, her name wasn't originally Jennifer and her first language wasn't English. It is now, though, isn't it? In addition, statistics indicate that Dagwood and Blondie won't take her back to China or teach her Chinese. Dagwood and Blondie will leave that for her to do on her own when she's grown.
The truth is, adoption destroys families so the privileged can play pretend. For every "family built by adoption", a real child has to lose a very real family, a very real life and identity. That child had to lose his mother so you could "have a "son". That child had to lose her whole family so she could play pretend like she "belongs" in yours. And while children are highly skilled at playing imagination games, the older one gets, the harder it becomes to believe. It gets harder and harder to pretend. Eventually we all realize unicorns and Santa Claus don't really exist. For many, if not most, adoptees, the adoptive "family" is just as imaginary. A signed court order does not a familial bond create.
The truth is, adoption may indeed look beautiful from the outside, however, I contend you aren't looking close enough. It's only a "blessing" for adopters who desperately want children. Very few adoptees can truthfully claim the "beautiful" adoption. The "beauty" only lasts for the adopters until one grows up and the ambiguous grief begins to manifest or one begins to resemble too closely one's real mother or father. Then the honeymoon is over, and you will find these same "rainbow adopters" in abuse-advocating private "support" groups, whining about how hard it is, how miserable the child makes them. How they "didn't know", despite the fact that all this information is readily available. If you think adoption is beautiful, you've never gotten past the picture-perfect front lawn to look inside the hoarder's house.
The truth is, (ironically) adoption is based in lies. From the lies on my falsified birth certificate, to the lies I was told about my biological family, all the way down to, "don't talk to your mother that way." "She's not really my mother." "Yes, she is! Don't you DARE ever say that hurtful crap again!" Oh, I'm sorry my inability to swallow your lies is so hurtful to YOU. Lies. Lies. Lies. Lies I was forced to believe, embody, and live.
The truth is, I should not have been adopted by strangers. Adoptee abuse increases 70-100 times when the "parents" are unrelated. I personally should have been placed with my extended paternal family. They should at least have been given the option. That, however, would have delayed the state agency's ability to collect the $28,000 my adopters had agreed to pay in exchange for a redheaded girl.
The truth is, being adopted affects every aspect of my life. From the enormity of no: medical history, family traditions that are really mine, or extended family for my children, to something as small as the way I flinch when my hubby walks up behind me or wondering what it might have been like to grow up the way my kids are, connected to their parents and siblings. I can't escape it. If it's not the feel-good adoption story on morning bloody television, it's the bloody Adoptee Merch on that woman in the check-out line, or the inappropriate adoption joke that friend had to post, or the character on General Hospital announcing "we're adopting!", or that terrifically awkward clue on Jeopardy!... I'm constantly reminded. I constantly FEEL adopted. Are these my natural reactions, or adoption issues? Am I being rejected by that friend, or am I "reacting adopted" again?
The truth is, adoption hurts. It hurts families. It hurts children. It destroys lives. That should be enough, even if it DOES work out for some. The truth is, one adoptee's good luck should never be used to justify another's suffering.
The truth is, this will fall on deaf ears, because the people who REALLY need to hear it have their fingers firmly planted in theirs.
In the U.S., permanent legal guardianship provides all the same legal rights and responsibilities entailed by adoption. In addition, it allows displaced persons to maintain their original legal identity. This eliminates repurcussive "inconveniences", such as not being able to get a passport from the country one was born in and is a legal citizen of, because your "legal birth certificate" was issued more than one year after your birth. One has the right to one's correct identity, whether one grows up with one's biological family or someone else. Adoption allows, nay, encourages, adopters to falsify adoptees' birth certificates, listing themselves as one's biological parents, changing location and sibling information, sometimes even changing one's birthday. The original, accurate document is thereafter sealed and cannot be viewed without a court order. If your child rearing desires are indeed altruistic, instead of being based in greed, ownership, and self-serving desire, why is all this legal subterfuge necessary?
Before you feed one the overused line about keeping adoptees "safe" from the "evil biological families", just don't. I might then be prompted to say somewhat about one's "evil adoptive family" that is also not "safe".
The truth is, in the U.S. the entire adoption industry is fraught with amoral, unethical, perfectly legal practices. We now have "adoption profiles" where adopters use sap and sympathy to manipulate troubled women to choose relinquishment. We have online rehoming agencies to take that troubled adoptee off your hands and sell them on to the next desperate adopter. We have GoFundMe accounts to raise money for "adoption fees", advertising for babies on Craigslist and garage sale sites, adopters openly begging and offering cash for kids, adoption reveals on social media, private adoption groups that wheel and deal, try to arrange "cheap" adoptions, and discuss the best ways to ensure you "get the kid" (most of them unethical, dishonest, or downright illegal, such as lying about openness to get the papers signed, or encouraging a mother to dishonestly deny knowledge of the father's location to speed the adoption process). Adoption agencies deal in lies and manipulation, their sole purpose being to convince troubled pregnant women to choose relinquishment. Once the choice is made, the agencies will go to any lengths, including possible illegal law bending and threats, to prevent or negate revocation.
The truth is, desperate, infertile Americans are standing in line to purchase womb-wet newborns. Somewhere along the way, they got the idea they're "entitled" to be parents.
The truth is, White Christian America is using adoption to colonize the world. By purchasing children from foreign countries, importing them to America, legally whitewashing their identities (no pun intended), and raising them as White Christian Americans, they are cutting international and transracial adoptees off completely from their heritage, language, religion, culture, and ethnicity. That four year old from China you blonde haired, blue eyed Americans purchased from an "orphanage"? I can pretty well guarantee you, her name wasn't originally Jennifer and her first language wasn't English. It is now, though, isn't it? In addition, statistics indicate that Dagwood and Blondie won't take her back to China or teach her Chinese. Dagwood and Blondie will leave that for her to do on her own when she's grown.
The truth is, adoption destroys families so the privileged can play pretend. For every "family built by adoption", a real child has to lose a very real family, a very real life and identity. That child had to lose his mother so you could "have a "son". That child had to lose her whole family so she could play pretend like she "belongs" in yours. And while children are highly skilled at playing imagination games, the older one gets, the harder it becomes to believe. It gets harder and harder to pretend. Eventually we all realize unicorns and Santa Claus don't really exist. For many, if not most, adoptees, the adoptive "family" is just as imaginary. A signed court order does not a familial bond create.
The truth is, adoption may indeed look beautiful from the outside, however, I contend you aren't looking close enough. It's only a "blessing" for adopters who desperately want children. Very few adoptees can truthfully claim the "beautiful" adoption. The "beauty" only lasts for the adopters until one grows up and the ambiguous grief begins to manifest or one begins to resemble too closely one's real mother or father. Then the honeymoon is over, and you will find these same "rainbow adopters" in abuse-advocating private "support" groups, whining about how hard it is, how miserable the child makes them. How they "didn't know", despite the fact that all this information is readily available. If you think adoption is beautiful, you've never gotten past the picture-perfect front lawn to look inside the hoarder's house.
The truth is, (ironically) adoption is based in lies. From the lies on my falsified birth certificate, to the lies I was told about my biological family, all the way down to, "don't talk to your mother that way." "She's not really my mother." "Yes, she is! Don't you DARE ever say that hurtful crap again!" Oh, I'm sorry my inability to swallow your lies is so hurtful to YOU. Lies. Lies. Lies. Lies I was forced to believe, embody, and live.
The truth is, I should not have been adopted by strangers. Adoptee abuse increases 70-100 times when the "parents" are unrelated. I personally should have been placed with my extended paternal family. They should at least have been given the option. That, however, would have delayed the state agency's ability to collect the $28,000 my adopters had agreed to pay in exchange for a redheaded girl.
The truth is, being adopted affects every aspect of my life. From the enormity of no: medical history, family traditions that are really mine, or extended family for my children, to something as small as the way I flinch when my hubby walks up behind me or wondering what it might have been like to grow up the way my kids are, connected to their parents and siblings. I can't escape it. If it's not the feel-good adoption story on morning bloody television, it's the bloody Adoptee Merch on that woman in the check-out line, or the inappropriate adoption joke that friend had to post, or the character on General Hospital announcing "we're adopting!", or that terrifically awkward clue on Jeopardy!... I'm constantly reminded. I constantly FEEL adopted. Are these my natural reactions, or adoption issues? Am I being rejected by that friend, or am I "reacting adopted" again?
The truth is, adoption hurts. It hurts families. It hurts children. It destroys lives. That should be enough, even if it DOES work out for some. The truth is, one adoptee's good luck should never be used to justify another's suffering.
The truth is, this will fall on deaf ears, because the people who REALLY need to hear it have their fingers firmly planted in theirs.
Barn Wheway: Well said Julie! keep sticking your red hot poker in the bees nest!
ReplyDeletereality is just as there is absolutely no altruism in 'Adoption' equally 'Adoption' is in fact further abandonment of an abandonee. Their 'ID swap' is the sickest joke known to man.
So glad you write. You write what I cannot clearly articulate. I needed to explain this to my daughter in the past couple of weeks and found myself at a loss for words (more a loss for time really) to explain this. I'm going to share this with her....
ReplyDeleteYES!!!! WELL SAID
ReplyDelete