Hello everyone, welcome back to Blogville. It is so nice to see you again and for those of you who are new to my blogs, welcome. Today I am sipping on an organic tea called Warm Sun that a dear friend sent to me recently. She was travelling in Western Canada and saw this tea that she thought I might like to try. I do not know if it is because I am an adult adopted person that I feel so surprised, and honoured, that someone is thinking of me when we are apart and they don’t have to. Thank you for thinking of me my friend.

I also believe that having been adopted, I see things differently. For example, when our youngest grandchild turned 9 months old, it made me reflect on the fact that I was 9 months old when my parents met me; when I became their daughter. He is not my first grandchild, in fact he is our sixth, but for some reason his 9 month milestone hit a chord in my heart.

Since we don’t live in the same community I would sometimes video chat a little story time with him. I love getting to see him grow and develop between our in-person visits even if it’s only on a ‘screen’. Partly as a result of these chats, my grandson knows who I am, he hears my voice and recognizes my image. He sees my image on screen and reacts; I clap, he claps, I smile, he smiles, he belly laughs and my heart just melts as I laugh along. At 9 months old he recognized me. Even though we live hundreds of kilometres apart he knew who I was, and that we are important to each other.

Seeing my grandson’s secure attachment made me reflect on my placement into my adoptive parents’ care at about the same age as he was. We all know there is a 9 month gestation period for the development of a human being, and then the first 9 months of life outside of the womb are dedicated to the development of a secure attachment. I did not have that in my first 9 months. Following my birth, I had an extended hospital stay (for housing needs not medical ones) as a newborn waiting for a child welfare worker to come pick me up and return me to my home community. These first weeks were then followed by three foster care placements before I was 9 months old. That’s a lot.  

I was lucky that my third, and final foster parents and their children, loved and cared for me while I was with them. I’m sure I must have been forming an attachment with them. I can almost see it in the few pictures I now have of my short time in their family. As was done in those days, in a sudden and bittersweet moment, I was matched with my adoptive family and removed from my foster home without thought to trying to transfer that attachment. Another sudden and likely unexpected move in my developing brain; now you see them, bam, now you don’t! Not a good experience in developing attachment as I’m sure you will agree. 

There is an old 8 mm film recording of the day that I arrived at my parents’ home to be placed on adoption with them. My mother had given the film to me on one of her ‘spring clean-up’ days years ago as she no longer had the projector it needed. I did not have any way to see it either so I simply tucked it away. Years later my brother transferred the old film onto a new format for me so I could finally watch it. The film starts with a flickering image of a smiling worker carrying a tiny white-blonde haired baby girl down the outside cement steps  and across the sidewalk to meet her new family . . .

One sign of the age of the film are the blinding lights that were part of the technology back then. So throughout, there is a whole lot of squinting going on, often making my expressions hard to see. Somehow though, while watching my own image, I can sense what I was feeling. 

Appearing in the film are the worker who was dropping me off, the other foster child she was transporting, my new parents and brother, as well as other women in the background, oh, and a random tiny little infant that I will talk about later. Clearly my arrival was cause for a celebration as there were so many people in the house, including the person filming the event. If I’m not mistaken, my parents’ friends would have come over as a supportive gesture. As I watched the film, I noted that were likely too many women present for me to figure out who my new mother was. My dad was the only man in sight so it may have been obvious to me who my new father was. I also think it must have been confusing when my worker and the other child travelling with me simply left. I am certain I would have been searching for their faces among the people remaining.

9 month old me, the star of the production, honestly just looks lost, confused, and uncomfortable. Today, I recognize that 9 month old me was likely traumatized. I watch myself staring into the faces of the people holding me or sitting near me. I feel that I was looking for some sign of familiarity, holding an uncomfortable smile on my face. You know that look, the one you get when you plop a smiling little one on Santa’s lap at the mall. First they are all giggles, until they look up, staring blankly with a frozen smile, trying to figure out who this is, then suddenly bursting into tears from a lack of recognition. 

In the film, while my new mother spoon feeds me lunch, I stare into her face as if trying to place her, or maybe even trying to understand why my foster mother is not there to feed me. I can be seen looking somewhat longingly over at the worker who is feeding my little carpool partner, after all they were the only two people in the room that were familiar to me. I also noticed that while I opened my mouth automatically to accept the spoon, and later the bottle, from my new mother, I never seemed to take my eyes off of her face. Perhaps I was ‘filial imprinting’ in case I lost this mother too. Seeing this on film hits me right in the ‘feels’, every time.

There are at least two spots in the film where my parents are holding someone else’s baby (maybe to show me, or perhaps the worker, that they knew how to do it?) and showing the baby to me, even placing that baby on my little lap at one point. I feel that if my son and daughter-in-law were to be holding an infant when he was 9 months old, my grandson would have been trying to pull that baby off of them, or at least try to move the baby so he could fit on their laps too. 9 month olds with secure attachment are territorial like that. Honestly my confused expression is only overshadowed by my complete, and obvious disinterest in that baby. Unlike my grandson, by 9 months old I was likely used to my caregivers sharing their attention with other children and so I appear unfazed.

My brother, who had been placed for adoption with our parents at 2 1/2 years old had only been with them less than a year, and was likely just getting settled when I showed up. His disdain for me is apparent in the film. Frankly, he seemed more interested and comfortable hugging the family dog than hugging me as repeatedly directed. It was a small consolation when I saw that he too had to hold that mystery infant; his indifference apparent. That poor little boy was like an actor auditioning on a film set with the directors telling him to hug me, to kiss my little cheek, and to accept this little intruder as his sister. He did not appear impressed. However, even though it was not a great audition, we were still given the role of siblings.

When I look at this film it upsets me to see how many people were there on the day I met my new family. I wonder how I even knew which of these people belonged to me? Especially once the worker left. If I had hurt myself, which person would I have shown my distress to and sought comfort from? I’ll even bet I felt abandoned when the worker and the other foster child left me behind in a house full of strangers. After all, they had been my only familiarity in that house. I often wonder how that other little girl, my carpool partner, felt when she was subsequently dropped off at her new placement, did she miss the worker and me too?

There is one spot in the film showing me jumping in a crib looking gleefully at my image in a mirror; reaching out and trying to touch the only image I recognized in my new environment! Another spot in the film finds me on the couch squinting and rocking myself; likely a self-soothing behaviour. Anyone outside of the adoption constellation who looks at this film might see a joyous occasion and celebration of a young child joining her new family. They would see a new family supported by workers, family members, and friends. What they would not see is the trauma, after all, how could there be trauma at such a happy event?

As I write and edit this blog I feel many things, grief for the way I was introduced to my family, and pride that as an adoption worker, I tried to do things better. There is always room for improvement but generally speaking adoption workers now try to mitigate the confusion of moving from one family to another. Pictures and videos are sometimes exchanged before the parties meet. There are pre-placement visits between the foster home and the adoptive home before the big move. Visit calendars are created and information is provided (likes and dislikes, favourite foods, things like that) so that the receiving family is somewhat prepared. Thankfully, foster parents now play a huge role before a baby, child or youth is even introduced to their new family, as well after they are moved. 

I mention these things to give prospective adoptive parents an idea of what types of pre-placement activities they should expect, or even request if necessary, to help that baby, child or youth transition to their family. I believe that, to mitigate some of the trauma of changing families, contact with previous caregivers should be eased off, not cut off like the umbilical cord, no matter how challenging it might be for the adults. A huge bonus is when contact continues through openness. 

Speaking of openness, I remember when I finally met my last foster mother (I was in my 60s and she in her 80s) and she talked about her grief at having me ‘just gone’, no further contact, never knowing if I was okay. It felt good to have mattered but sad that she was not allowed to meet and keep in touch with my new parents. She never got to tell my new parents my likes and dislikes, or my usual routine so that I could be comforted. All those years, she worried about me while I wondered who she was and if she missed me. I cannot express what it meant to me to know that I mattered to someone before I was 9 months old.

If this blog has struck a chord with you, pun intended, feel free to leave a comment here, or email me at [email protected] Thanks for visiting and having tea with me in Blogville.

Hello everyone, welcome back to Blogville. I am sipping a Blood Orange herbal tea. How appropriate, since I’m sitting here thinking that blood is apparently thicker than water, or so says the Court of Public Opinion! Ready or not, here are my thoughts . . .

Personally, I was not aware of any ‘open’ adoptions when I was growing up. I knew there was a difference between ‘public’ and ‘private’ adoptions but that was the extent of my knowledge of ‘different’ adoptions. Without getting all technical, open adoptions are exactly as the title sounds. There is some openness, or contact, between a child or youth’s new family and their family of origin, or sometimes there is even contact with a former kinship or foster family. Again, without getting all technical, openness can range from update letters to phone contact to face to face visits, with many other options in between. Today, openness planning has so many facets and possibilities, however, when I was placed on adoption back in 1959, the rules were quite different. Openness was not typically entertained as an option when adoption was the plan; particularly in Children’s Aid Society adoptions compared to private adoptions. My parents were essentially told, ‘here is your daughter, raise her as your own and forget about where she came from’. I had no information about, or exposure to my biological family while I was growing up. I was emotionally and legally my adoptive parents’ daughter. Yet, people often referred to my birth parents as my “real” parents in the Court of public opinion.

I think that when other people judge me, or when I perceive that I am being judged, it is due to being part of a family created through adoption as well as my family and I having always been judged in the Court of public opinion. As a result, when other people think poorly of who I am, or of something I did, my ‘poor little orphan’ persona takes over emotionally. I believe that this empowers them and gives people a ‘right’ to judge me that I accept.
People who know me see a strong, capable, and confident person. But if they point out a flaw I immediately and emotionally default to having been adopted, not quite good enough to have been kept by my birth parents. It is uncanny how that drives my feelings and my need to do better. The little adopted girl inside of me often determines my reaction, or response. I think you would see me as defensive when confronted with the Court of public, or colleagues’ or my friends’ opinion of something I said, cooked, wore, an so on.

Other times I get defensive of my parents are when the person in front of me is judging them as ‘abnormal’ for not creating biological children. Calling them abnormal calls me abnormal by default, don’t people see that? All of these feelings happen in the seconds it takes me to respond to what someone has said or done. Being adopted does not define me, but it can often define how I take and respond to another person’s comments or questions. Sometimes, admittedly, it is not pretty.

At this point, you may be asking yourself, why do I care? Well firstly, I think everyone cares what people think. We even raise our children to care what people think as a kind of social control. Historically, the expectations of elders helped create social norms, based on their life experiences to promote acceptance, safety and control. I believe social norms are intended for things like preventing children from farting in public. After all, parents do not want other parents to think their children are being raised by wolves do they? Perhaps to replace the teachings of our elders, I think the court of public opinion replaced and still replaces their teachings so that people follow social norms as a matter of maintaining civilization. Keeping in mind that kinship was historically socially accepted, expected even, but adoption is not always considered a social norm is it?

I feel that adoption has always been judged in the Court of public opinion. Often adoptive families are considered heroes for taking in and parenting children born to other people. On the flip side, adoptive parents are also subjected to overhearing comments like, “aren’t they afraid of bad blood?”, “such a pity they cannot have children of their own”, or even, “I wonder which one of them is at fault?”  Historically, if no biological family was available to take in a child or children, then a community family took in and raised those orphaned children. These parents accepted full responsibility for the children in their care even though they were not related to them. Eventually these scenarios were legalized as adoption. Most of society simply felt that adoption was an extension of the practice of kinship, not some weird “how do you love another person’s child” thing. What my mom never understood, is how other people did not get it, or why they questioned the practice of adoption. She grew up in a society where people took care of children in need. I, was in need of a family and my mom and dad wanted children. To my mom, it was as simple as that.

When my parents adopted there was a combination of shame and desire. My parents heard about adoption in their church when a missionary spoke of the need of orphaned children. They knew kinship, had many family members raised with kin, but had never really thought of raising a child that was not ‘kin’ to them. My mother dealt with the shame by owning it, telling people (much to my embarrassment of course) how they could get pregnant easily but that she could not carry to term. She wanted society to know it was her fault, and that my dad was no less of a man. I wish I was kidding but late in her life I asked her why she always told people that, and she explained, ‘to protect your father’s reputation’. Wow. This was the woman the Court of Public Opinion judged so harshly. 

Personally, I do not think having intercourse in order to become a ‘real’ parent is anywhere near as challenging as having a home study completed, taking courses on parenting and child rearing, or putting your name forward for a child and being the subject of a selection committee who will decide if you can have that child. But then, I also believe that shooting out of a birth canal and being placed on someone’s stomach is no guarantee of being wanted either. I am living proof of that. However, when someone jumps all the hoops in order to adopt a child or children, I think it is generally accepted that they want them, don’t you agree? I accept that there are always exceptions to every rule, not all adoptions are arranged with pure intent, and not all adults should be responsible for raising children, whether through birth, kinship, or adoption. For some strange reason though, it just seems easier for people to judge adoptive families. 
In the Court of public opinion, the defence rests.

Thank all of you for continuing to read my thoughts. As I have said before, I write them down and ‘speak’ them out loud in the hopes of making a difference in the world of children and their families. If you have a comment that you are not comfortable sharing here in this public forum, please feel free to email me at [email protected] ‘See’ you next time.