As in: I owe other adoptees nothing.
I have been under the mistaken impression since I arrived in adoptionland that I "owed" it to other adoptees to share my story, voice my experience, and spread my ideas. Because so many of us "don't have a voice". Because so many of us are so painfully aware of the iniquities and ineptitudes of adoption.
However, those who are aware already know, and those in the fog don't want to. And after months of being shut down and arguing semantics with petty, small adoptees who are just trying to avoid the larger message, I've come to a conclusion.
Forget you guys. You want to live in the fog? Go ahead. You want to perpetuate problematic ideas and stereotypes about adoption? Go ahead. I can't stop you. You won't even listen to me. You're too busy with #notall and tone policing deflection when you hear something you disagree with. You want to point out how I don't speak for all adoptees. Well, Fucking Duh. No one ever said I did, except you. It's like arguing with your boyfriend about dishes when the real problem is that he cheated. It's pointless, it's solves nothing, it just creates strife. Much like you do when you focus on pronouns and terms like "force" when the message is your blood is morally obligated to provide you information and answers.
I don't speak for any of you, how about that? That ship has sailed. I have a tiny tribe and a vast majority of you will thankfully never be in it. I will no longer even attempt to be kind. If you want to kiss your relinquisher's ego and polish her apple in the hopes she's human, go ahead. You want to bend over backwards and people please because you don't realize you ARE WORTH MORE THAN THAT, go right ahead. Be a doormat. Let the people who tossed you away run your reunion and dictate your feelings and behaviors. Let them tell you you're too angry, and then you swallow that anger to make them happy. And don't forget to apologize for losing your temper. You go right on ahead with that. That's healthy. And here's your prescription of Xanax to go with all that oppression.
Point being, I don't owe you my support and you will no longer get it. I don't owe you my voice. And I certainly don't owe respect to your gaslighting. We may all be adopted, but we are NOT part of the same tribe. I was hopeful, so hopeful, when I arrived. I was mistaken.
As in: I owe relinquishing parents nothing.
I certainly don't owe you space or privacy. Nor should I provide it. If I have questions, I deserve answers. I deserve my familial medical history. I deserve access to the family I was ostracized from, by YOU, mother. You may not want to be reminded, or you may not want your lies exposed. You may have thought that chapter of your life was over.
It's not. It's never will be, not as long as I live and you deny me. I will meet my siblings. My aunts and uncles. My cousins. Grandparents. Nephews. Nieces. You can deny me all you want, but as long as one member of my family is in contact with me, it will never be over.
Your best bet is to claim the only grace and dignity available to you, and behave as a human toward your offspring. All your offspring. Even the relinquished one.
As in: I owe adoptive parents nothing.
I don't owe you discussion or praise. Even if you're doing it right, nothing atones for your role in the adoption or your selfish "need" to be a parent.
I'm not helping you anymore. Don't ask me questions and push back on my answers. Don't tell me "your" child's story unless you want to be scolded. Don't demand my approval for your Gotcha Day party. It's not happening.
I don't want to hear one peep about how hard all this is for you, how much it hurts you, or how much support you think you need. Get it through your thick skull... Adoption isn't about you. Never has been, never will be. You'd do well to wallow and complain less and spend a little more time trying to mitigate the trauma you helped inflict.
If we learned anything from Kavanaugh it is that perpetrators don't get to play victim and pass the smell test. Nor do adopters and relinquishers.
Stop playing games. Stop saying insincere things like, you hope I find peace. I know for a fact that you don't care about me or anyone else that criticizes you, as long as we shut up and go away. Stop trying to sell yourselves as victims. You are no more victims than a kidnapper is a victim. You all made choices. All actions have equal and opposite reactions. These are yours.
It's your turn to suck it and smile. I'm done
I have been under the mistaken impression since I arrived in adoptionland that I "owed" it to other adoptees to share my story, voice my experience, and spread my ideas. Because so many of us "don't have a voice". Because so many of us are so painfully aware of the iniquities and ineptitudes of adoption.
However, those who are aware already know, and those in the fog don't want to. And after months of being shut down and arguing semantics with petty, small adoptees who are just trying to avoid the larger message, I've come to a conclusion.
Forget you guys. You want to live in the fog? Go ahead. You want to perpetuate problematic ideas and stereotypes about adoption? Go ahead. I can't stop you. You won't even listen to me. You're too busy with #notall and tone policing deflection when you hear something you disagree with. You want to point out how I don't speak for all adoptees. Well, Fucking Duh. No one ever said I did, except you. It's like arguing with your boyfriend about dishes when the real problem is that he cheated. It's pointless, it's solves nothing, it just creates strife. Much like you do when you focus on pronouns and terms like "force" when the message is your blood is morally obligated to provide you information and answers.
I don't speak for any of you, how about that? That ship has sailed. I have a tiny tribe and a vast majority of you will thankfully never be in it. I will no longer even attempt to be kind. If you want to kiss your relinquisher's ego and polish her apple in the hopes she's human, go ahead. You want to bend over backwards and people please because you don't realize you ARE WORTH MORE THAN THAT, go right ahead. Be a doormat. Let the people who tossed you away run your reunion and dictate your feelings and behaviors. Let them tell you you're too angry, and then you swallow that anger to make them happy. And don't forget to apologize for losing your temper. You go right on ahead with that. That's healthy. And here's your prescription of Xanax to go with all that oppression.
Point being, I don't owe you my support and you will no longer get it. I don't owe you my voice. And I certainly don't owe respect to your gaslighting. We may all be adopted, but we are NOT part of the same tribe. I was hopeful, so hopeful, when I arrived. I was mistaken.
As in: I owe relinquishing parents nothing.
I certainly don't owe you space or privacy. Nor should I provide it. If I have questions, I deserve answers. I deserve my familial medical history. I deserve access to the family I was ostracized from, by YOU, mother. You may not want to be reminded, or you may not want your lies exposed. You may have thought that chapter of your life was over.
It's not. It's never will be, not as long as I live and you deny me. I will meet my siblings. My aunts and uncles. My cousins. Grandparents. Nephews. Nieces. You can deny me all you want, but as long as one member of my family is in contact with me, it will never be over.
Your best bet is to claim the only grace and dignity available to you, and behave as a human toward your offspring. All your offspring. Even the relinquished one.
As in: I owe adoptive parents nothing.
I don't owe you discussion or praise. Even if you're doing it right, nothing atones for your role in the adoption or your selfish "need" to be a parent.
I'm not helping you anymore. Don't ask me questions and push back on my answers. Don't tell me "your" child's story unless you want to be scolded. Don't demand my approval for your Gotcha Day party. It's not happening.
I don't want to hear one peep about how hard all this is for you, how much it hurts you, or how much support you think you need. Get it through your thick skull... Adoption isn't about you. Never has been, never will be. You'd do well to wallow and complain less and spend a little more time trying to mitigate the trauma you helped inflict.
If we learned anything from Kavanaugh it is that perpetrators don't get to play victim and pass the smell test. Nor do adopters and relinquishers.
Stop playing games. Stop saying insincere things like, you hope I find peace. I know for a fact that you don't care about me or anyone else that criticizes you, as long as we shut up and go away. Stop trying to sell yourselves as victims. You are no more victims than a kidnapper is a victim. You all made choices. All actions have equal and opposite reactions. These are yours.
It's your turn to suck it and smile. I'm done
You’re like that Spaghetti Western bad guy who shoots up the town stalwarts to the horror of the dumb gentlefolk only for the nasty peasants to reveal those stalwarts been trafficking their kids to rich Eastern vultures for decades. And when they come to pin the dead Sherriff’s badge on you, you lecture them on structural inequality and shoot out the Church’s stainglass windows as you ride your palomino out of town. When the dust settles them townsfolk look around and say ‘What she say?’
ReplyDeleteOkey dokey. Thanks for the comment.
DeleteSeriously - i value your straight shooting even though I’m probably a case of vicarious symbiosis. Coming from happy adopters who’s kindness created a pleaser who buried his own truth for a lifetime, I’m with you intellectually but still working out how to live that in the outside world. I guess that’s what your post was about. I was lucky to befriend the great William Hammersley (the Moses of Australian adoptees) a few years ago and should find the door to get out of my closest any moment now... Please keep writing, but you owe me nothing!
ReplyDeleteBarn Wheway: Well said! they owe us financial compensation into the millions (of course you can't actually put a price on it, the offence is so astronomical) for putting us through such an inconceivable debacle and yet they all get away scott free with a pat on the back, disgusting! what's more they actually do believe we owe them, so psychotic (or is it just plain evil?) is their denial.
ReplyDelete