Hello my Blogville friends! Thank you so much for coming back to visit. This blog looks at the impact society has on adopted people of all ages. I am sipping on an herbal tea as I try to express why I think some adopted children and youth spontaneously act out, and how society’s use of the word ‘adoption’ may contribute by triggering trauma responses! As an adoptee, I often find that society regularly reminds us of our adoptee status in innocent but painful ways. Some examples?
Just the other day I was completing a newspaper crossword puzzle (yes, they still exist) and the 5 letter clue was, “Take home from the pound.” You guessed it, “ADOPT” was the correct answer. Ironically the ‘A’ from the word ADOPT formed part of the word across, “FLASHINTHEPAN” (in case you are interested, the clue for that answer was “*brief success”). These are the sudden reminders of what happened to me being equated with the rescue of animals from the pound, and in this case, the other answer might well describe the relationship between my birth parents I suppose. Adoptive parents, talk with your children about how these crossword clues and ‘definitions’ make them feel? I know I wanted to tear up the paper to express my ongoing distaste for being equated with an animal. Instead, I decided to blog about it as others out there might be feeling these things too (not that many people do crosswords anymore lol). The humane society does wonderful work and demonstrates a true dedication to the safety of animals. However, their ‘pet adoption’ confuses me about my value as a person compared to that of a kitten or a puppy. They even use the same terminology as some people use regarding children, such as; “waiting for adoption”, “waiting for their forever home”. They have “foster homes” for animals and complete an adoption application process prior to releasing an animal to a prospective owner. Our local news has a segment with the local SPCA Animal Centre and the whole purpose is to recruit people willing to adopt the animals they showcase. Depending on where my self esteem is when this segment comes on, I often have to leave the room. I continually wonder if a child or youth in care is watching this segment too, and if so, what their thoughts are about whether a family will be found for them, or if a prospective adoptive family might choose a kitten or puppy instead. When you notice your adopted child watching a humane society public service announcement, talk to them about the word ‘adoption’, what it means to you, and what the word means to them. Whether you are a foster, kinship, or adoptive family, talk to the children and youth in your home about how society sees and uses the term adoption very lightly, but then be sure to follow up by taking the time to explain that ‘adoption’ is a really big word in your family, with a very big meaning. Speaking of adoption promotional campaigns, I do not believe that anyone can truly promise ‘forever’ (as in ‘forever families’ or ‘forever home’) to children and/or youth, simply because life happens and we all know life is unpredictable. Just think of the impact of separation and divorce on families, or the accidental or sudden death of otherwise healthy parents. Even birth children cannot be promised a ‘forever home’ or ‘forever family’, not even by the very people that brought them into this world. Frankly, instead of ‘waiting for their forever family’, I would prefer that adoption promotions regarding children and youth simply say, “waiting for a family”. It is noteworthy to mention that there are some posters out in society, many of them associated with the Dave Thomas Foundation For Adoption, that have more positive messaging such as: “May I have a few years of your time?”; “You may not have seen my first steps, but you will see me walk down the aisle.”; and “Never too old for family” (referring to youth adoptions). “Adopt a Highway” signs are another emotional challenge for me as an adoptee. “Adopt a Highway” is a program in Canada and the United States wherein some provinces and states encourage individuals or community groups to clean up the sides of a specific section of the highway by removing litter and garbage. Often, much to my dismay, they even refer to the volunteers belonging to these groups as ‘adopters’ in their promotional descriptions. Yikes! I mean they certainly CAN use it, but my brain takes it to so many different levels, such as ‘adopters’ taking care of something (sides of a highway) that does not technically belong to them. We won’t even get into the fact that “adopters” are picking up trash or litter left on the side of the road by other people. Though I have spoken about the “Adopt-A-Highway”program before in terms of the reactions I feel every time I drive past one of these signs, I think it warrants repeating. The sign’s message to me is that my own province sees fit to reduce my value as an adoptee to that of a neglected highway; a strip of tarmac that needs its garbage removed by volunteers. It also reduces ‘adopters’ to people who pick up and appropriately dispose of trash. So please, talk with your children about those signs. Explain how the program is meant to find people that want to help take care of important things, or about how people can work together to make a great thing happen just like birth parents, adoption workers, and adoptive families work together to plan for adoptions. Please do not just drive by those signs and let your child feel what I still feel when I see them, instead, ask them how that sign makes them feel. Remember in school when you did not raise your hand in class unless you were pretty sure you knew the correct answer? Remember how it felt when the teacher called on you even when your hand was not raised? Remember how unprepared you felt and how you did not want to stand out in the class? Often, adoptees feel like that just by living in our society, and they too simply do not want to stand out. Every day an adopted person somewhere is faced with the laissez-faire attitude of society toward the use of the word ‘adoption’. Politicians adopt policies, scientists adopt positions, companies adopt practices, and so on. Families adopt children. Adopted children and youth will hear and/or see the word ‘adoption’ both in context, and out of context everywhere. Your job, as adoptive family members and workers is to prepare them for this exposure so they do not feel reduced to the same status as neglected or unwanted animals, strips of highway, experiments, policies and procedures, etc. Adoptees face enough rejection at the mere fact they were freed for adoption, they do not need to feel more through society’s use of a word that to them means, “Family.” Encourage your child to talk to you about these events, preparing them for ‘raising their hands’ if you will. Help your children and youth be prepared for posters and signs that are out there, talk about people using the same adoption terminology when referring to rescuing animals, as well as preparing them for managing *inappropriate questions about them, their birth parents, and/or their adoptive parents (*more about this in an upcoming blog). An “ounce of prevention” will help your child or youth, and yourself, be ready to handle these emotional roller coasters! I’m glad you visited today, thank you for stopping by, and I look forward to ‘seeing’ you every second Tuesday of each month. Follow me on Goodreads for my blogs to come to you via email. As ever my Blogville friends, I welcome and look forward to your comments here or by email at [email protected]
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Hello my Blogville friends! Thank you for joining me for some Raspberry tea and a read of my thoughts. It is so lovely when you visit. I hope you find our tea time worthwhile.
This blog is a real hodgepodge of thoughts around adoption trauma and its impact on my parenting and even grand-parenting. Again, these are my thoughts and feelings alone, I would never attempt to speak for other adoptees. I share my thoughts and feelings because I strongly believe that recognizing adoption trauma for what it is will promote healing, mine for certain, but maybe for others too. Recently, my husband and I had the privilege of visiting our son and his family for a couple of weeks and we enjoyed the luxury of spending time with our toddler grandchild. Spending time with my adult children and my grandchildren is often mind-boggling to me. I belong to an Adoptee Group on Facebook and recently I read a new grandmother’s post that said something to the effect that she had just spent some time with her first grandchild (newborn) and was feeling validated that she must have done something right as a parent. I believe that she says this in deference to her own start in life as an unplanned pregnancy and then to her experience with adoption trauma. I could relate to her post. So many of us live in fear that our adoption trauma will impact on our ability to be good parents, or even grandparents. As I have mentioned before, I was often terrified during my first pregnancy. Remember, I had no real information about my birth parents except the little that my parents were told, and a lot of that was inaccurate as it turns out. I certainly did not know any medical history. I did not know if my baby might be born with features more associated with other cultures, nor did I know if there might be a family history of medical concerns relating to my child’s birth, or afterwards. My husband was so understanding and he seemed honestly unconcerned. His only hope was for a healthy baby. What should have been a time of excited anticipation was actually terrifying for me. It turned out that together, we had created a healthy baby girl. My mom came to spend time with us when our first child was born. I had so many questions! I could often hear a sadness in my mother’s voice when she would reply to my multiple questions with things like “I’m not sure, I never had a newborn.” or, “I don’t know Lynn, I only know about babies after they are nine months old.” I started feeling too guilty to ask her things anymore. Mom felt that her role in spending this post-natal time with us was to clean the apartment, cook our meals, and to keep me company. My mom even sewed cloth diapers when the doctor recommended them for the baby; who can make homemade diapers? In reality, mom’s ‘baby experience’ was not fully accurate. My mom was the oldest of a family that had five children. She often talked about helping her own mother with her baby siblings, rocking them, changing them, and feeding toddlers. She knew a great deal about taking care of babies. Sadly, her inability to have biological children seemed to have impacted on her confidence as a grandmother. I believe that these feelings eventually wore off because she was a wonderful and confident grandmother to my children and my niece, but it must have been such an emotional struggle for her. Speaking of emotional struggles, I don’t think I will ever feel confident that I was a good parent myself. To be fair I’m not sure any parent feels completely confident even without having been an adoptee. Any time my children had questions for biology-related or family tree type of school projects I would panic. I always felt that their projects would be inadequate because of my adoptee status and the resulting lack of information. I always felt my children would be impacted by some weird adoption domino effect. In these moments, I would remind myself that our children have a great dad, a dad was raised by his birth parents together with his little sister who is 3 years younger than him, and a baby brother who was born when my husband was in his mid-teens. He gave me the confidence to believe that together, we could raise great kids (despite me having been adopted)! I was always on the look out for ways that my being an adoptee might negatively impact on my parenting. I think (hope) that my children would say I did ok as a mom, that they felt loved and secure in their family and in themselves. But I know inside that when things were not going well I would think, well, my own birth mother didn’t think I was worth keeping, so why should my kids respect me? I would ‘depersonalize’ my parenting through behaviour reward systems and charts. That way, the children could be upset with the chart’s consequences and not me. Please don’t get me wrong, using appropriate and reasonable behaviour charts/reward systems is a very positive parenting practice that I have had great professional and personal success with, the problem specifically for me was my motivation. I did not think that I could parent well, so I resorted to using programming instead of building my own confidence. When my children were upset with me I would feel that it was another rejection, however, with a behaviour modification program, I could believe they were rejecting the program and not me. Again, I think I did ok as my children grew up well and they are all kind and responsible adults. The ones who are parents themselves are pretty in tune with, and respond well, to the needs of their children as far as I can see. (Phew!) I am in true awe of my grandchildren. Since each of them were born, I have found myself studying them, their little faces, their statures, their personalities, always in search of myself. I know that my children had two parents and that I am only biologically related to them by half, and that my grandchildren have two parents and that I am only biologically related to them by one quarter, but still, I look for myself in them. When her paternal grandmother says how much my granddaughter looks like me, I literally get butterflies in my stomach, I want so badly for this to be true. I think this need was created in me when, all my life, people who knew I was adopted would try to placate me by saying how much I looked like my mom, or like my dad, or even that I looked so much like my mother’s mother. None of this was fully true. My own biological children don’t really look like me so I think that family resemblance is a lot to ask of the adoption process, don’t you? I think better comments (if you feel the need to comment at all) to say to adoptees are things like, ‘you have the same sense of humour as your dad’, or ‘I can see how much you like drawing, like your mom did when she was younger’. Identify something they have in common with their parents and/or extended family members (like sports, or music, or whatever) and talk about that. Looking like our adoptive parents doesn’t make us any less adopted, however, enjoying activities and learning new things together helps us grow and identify as a family. Even at my age (a senior citizen), I can still feel insecure. I believe that when your birth family does not want you, it leaves a mark. So when my children became adults I became afraid of their abandonment of me too. What if I do or say something wrong and they stop visiting? What if they stop loving me? I see my friends whose children call every day, or spend game nights with their parents, or text each other all the time. I see people who continue to do everything with their now adult children and their partners and cannot help but compare myself with them. I think because my own birthday was always a day of mourning for me, I have never been good at celebrating my children’s birthdays. I mean we did the parties when they were little and of course I acknowledge their birthdays but I am really not good at it, certainly not like I see on my friends’ FB posts. I regret this a great deal and I hope they know every day how grateful and proud I am that they are my children. Once I found my maternal and paternal birth half-siblings, I learned about the close relationships they had as they were growing up with each of my birth parents. A closeness maintained even into adulthood for many of them. I felt they were lucky to have known them, and to have been raised by them. I often wonder if not knowing my birth parents impacted on my confidence as a parent. I never felt confident enough as a parent to believe that my adult children want to spend time with me, so when they do, I am simply, grateful. Just like people telling me I should be grateful that I was adopted. When some of my adult children moved away from our community, the adoptee in me secretly knew it was to escape from me. Therefore I felt responsible for my husband’s loss as well. Would things be different between him and his children if he had married someone who was not an adoptee? Irrationally, I sometimes fear that my adult children might like their partners’ parents better than they like me and that they prefer to live closer to them than me. When you were not meant to exist, relationships become very fragile. It is hard for the unwanted to feel wanted. This is adoption trauma. Adoptees and adoptive parents, please know that my feelings stemmed from unresolved trauma. Just like some physical injuries, the wound takes longer to heal for some people than for others. Again, I strongly believe that recognizing adoption trauma for what it is will promote healing. Some healing will even require the intervention of professionals. Get that help if it is needed. There is enough shame in the adoption process without feeling shame about getting help! My parents, my brother and I were a family built through adoption. My husband and I became a family through marriage. Having birth children expanded our family through biology and genetics. Our children have expanded our family even further through marriage and having children of their own. My children and their children, my grandchildren, are my biological family. Without the unconditional love and acceptance of my parents, none of this would have been possible. Accepting that domino effect, is a huge part of my healing journey from adoption trauma. Thank you for joining me today my Blogville friends. As ever, I am open to hearing from you and invite your comments here or more privately via my email at [email protected] Choose to smile, it looks good on you! |
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August 2024
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