More positive news about children NOT being separated from their natural parents has been in the news. A Michigan couple, Christine Wolfe and Kenneth Barnett learned on Christmas Eve that the Court of Appeals sided with them after a five-year battle for their son.
A prospective adoptive couple, Phyllis and Phillip Unthank, of Dearborn (coincidentally, my home town) had custody of the boy from birth to 18 months--though the mother never relinquished him legally. As a divorcing mother, she did not think she could financially care for the new baby as well as a daughter the couple already had. Again the story--as these stories all are--is complicated: a couple divorcing, the husband/father questioning paternity, the paternity confirmed, the couple get back together, and the father asks for his son.
The Unthanks said, No thanks, and thus began the long court process.
The father filed for custody of the boy in both circuit and and probate courts and was denied. Now why is that, you ask. Clearly, he was the father and had never agreed to give up his son. Answer: He didn't have a lawyer. When the couple divorced, they were granted joint custody of their daughter.
And although Christine had given the Unthanks power of attorney for medical reasons for the boy, she never signed surrender papers. When the boy was 18 months old, Christine asked for him back and revoked the couple's power of attorney. The case dragged on because Wayne County does not have a family court to handle all the family's issues from divorce to custody, and so two different judges were involved in the early stages.
Now I know it is difficult for adoptive parents to have a child, believe that she or he will be a part of their family, and then lose that child, but what in their DNA makes them go against the ethical rightness of returning that child to her or his natural, biological, genetic parents? When Aston some months back asked me what part of my pie chart could be ascribed to selfishness when I was reunited with my daughter Jane, I was speechless. But what in adopters like the Unthanks can be ascribed to compassion for the natural parents? In their unremitting determination to have a child at all costs, they lose all moral authority and human dignity. They become craven child snatchers. And the courts have so often sided with them.
Guess who pops up in this story: Roberta Deboer, the she-devil of child snatching. "Once you have a baby that you care for day in and day out and you in every right believe that child is yours," she says in The Detroit News, sounding every so much like Sarah Palin with her fractured syntax. "Those parents became parents the moment they took that child in their arms." Sorry Roberta, that would made every nanny a parent with the right to hang unto the child...forever.
Time passed, the Barnetts had another child, and got a lawyer, and a good one: the same one who represented the Schmidts in the Schmidt/DeBoer case we've been discussing here of late: Marian Faupel. So far the couple has paid about $30,000 in legal fees. They are in debt for another $80,000. Their home in Dearborn Heights was foreclosed. "Most people would have lost their child -- that's the tactic," said mother Christine of the many motions and counter-motions brought by the Unthanks. "It's to force you to give up."
The Barnetts (who also have an older child, Samantha, now seven) were eventually granted visitation, and when that went well, the courts came up with a time-share plan: the boy, called Daune by the Unthanks, and Cody by the Barnetts, was to spend a half week with his natural parents, a half week with the Unthanks. Think of it, on Sunday, you're Cody, on Thursday, you're Duane. The story stays he was being schooled in different religions, but does not specify. I doubt it was between Presbyterian and Methodist. Is this sick or what? But all this child-sharing ended abruptly in February of 2008 when the Probate Judge June Blackwell-Hatcher granted the natural parents full custody. Hurrah! Now Cody could be Cody 24/7.
What did the Unthinks do? Ka-ching, Ka-Ching, they had the bucks to continue dragging it out in court, and that they did. Fortunately common sense and moral rectitude prevailed when the State Court of Appeals upheld the lower court's decision to give the Barnetts' fulltime custody on December 24. Talk about a Christmas present! Interestingly, the Court cited the Michigan Supreme Court's decision in the Schmidt/DeBoer case in their decision.
Whew!
The story in the Detroit News covers the ups and downs of the case and includes this particularly tasty tidbit I quote here: [Child] advocates laud the ruling, which underscores parents' constitutional rights to raise children regardless of their circumstances as long as they are fit. They say birth parents frequently give up or lose such battles because adoptive parents typically have more money to spend on qualified representation and extended court fights.
But adoptive parents and their supporters sympathize with the Unthanks, and say courts sometimes favor birth parents over the best interests of the child.
Courts sometimes favor birth parents over the best interests of the child?
Why do adoptive parents think that simply because they have more money they are always "in the best interests of the child?" We know that's how adoptive parents often feel--and act on that--but this attitude makes me nuts. Unless there are serious compelling reasons to remove a child from his parents, everyone is better off with their natural parents--people who look, think and act like them. Who can give them a kidney if necessary.
If we first mothers and fellow travelers keep winning these cases, maybe prospective adopters will stop fighting in court to get children that are not theirs when the natural parents are ready and willing--and want them back.
This case of course reminds us of the DeBoers, but more recently a Chinese couple had a protracted and expensive fight to get back their daughter, who had been born in the U.S., and return to China. That was the Anna Mae He case, which dragged on for five years, from 1999 to 2007 until the Tennessee Supreme Court decided for the Hes, the biological parents. One of the reasons the adopters used against the couple was that they were planning to take their daughter back to China.This was a particularly noxious case in Memphis, with all the prejudices of race and money on display. Learn about it here. --lorraine
Showing posts with label birth family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label birth family. Show all posts
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Adoption: The Movie
A new movie about being adopted appears to be right on, to judge from the trailer below and the other short clips you can watch at You Tube. It does seem to get at issues that adoptees rarely want to talk about becasue they are too painful, but sit there just below the surface.
And here's another heart breaker, about the adopted person not looking like their parents:
and last but not least...it's all we as first mothers know about adoption and yes, it won't be comforting to watch, but at least our feelings of yearning are validated by the other side: how the adopted person feels about being adopted. Although I probably won't be able to spring the $60 for the film, so I may never see it in its entirety, it looks to be a valuable tool in getting the message out: Adoption is always painful.
As I am in frequent contact with acquaintances who have adopted from China (five and counting), I wonder how many of them are able to want to understand what it is like to be adopted. I'm sure that the subtle message can not help but be: we saved you from a terrible life back in your world, aren't you a lucky girl? One of the girls is being raised back in Shanhai by her adoptive mother, Emily Prager; and at least one of the other mothers is somehow very bothered by that. The mere mention of Emily's name upsets her. --lorraine
And here's another heart breaker, about the adopted person not looking like their parents:
and last but not least...it's all we as first mothers know about adoption and yes, it won't be comforting to watch, but at least our feelings of yearning are validated by the other side: how the adopted person feels about being adopted. Although I probably won't be able to spring the $60 for the film, so I may never see it in its entirety, it looks to be a valuable tool in getting the message out: Adoption is always painful.
As I am in frequent contact with acquaintances who have adopted from China (five and counting), I wonder how many of them are able to want to understand what it is like to be adopted. I'm sure that the subtle message can not help but be: we saved you from a terrible life back in your world, aren't you a lucky girl? One of the girls is being raised back in Shanhai by her adoptive mother, Emily Prager; and at least one of the other mothers is somehow very bothered by that. The mere mention of Emily's name upsets her. --lorraine
Sunday, October 19, 2008
this Birth Mother Is Uncomfortably Numb
Since I joined the virtual world nine years ago I’ve referred to some of the citizens as walking wounded, i.e., most people are in chat rooms, blogging, etc. because they’re striving, seeking, finding. Honestly, all is well in my world and I’m considered a happy, upbeat person, except when it comes to my life as a firstmother. Last week while I marked my daughter’s birthday I was thinking about this passage from The Giver, a futuristic young adult book by Lois Lawry that I read in the aftermath of 9/11:
Lily sighed. I hope to get assigned to be a Birthmother.”
“Lily!” Her mother spoke very sharply. “Don’t say that. There’s very little honor in that Assignment. The birthmothers never even get to see the new children.”
Very little honor indeed. And a simple phone call to my sister this morning was a grim reminder that in the world of adoption, we birthmothers are merely, to borrow a phrase from Lorraine’s July blog entry, “reproductive agents.”
I phoned my sister, Judasina (the name Lorraine and I call her, you’ll see why in a moment), to ask her if she wanted to join me for a Sunday drive to a craft show, and we caught up on the past week’s events. She knew from her daughter, my beloved niece, that I had sent myself a bouquet on my daughter’s birthday. She knows that’s always a difficult day for me and she leaves me alone until she’s given the all clear sign. I told her I had discovered my daughter’s address but that I wouldn’t use it because I didn’t want to upset or anger my daughter any more than I have, but that it was a comfort to me to have the information.
And then my sister confessed what I knew all along, she’s been in touch with my daughter over the past several months. This soap opera began over three years ago, up to and during my daughter’s wedding. My sister basically usurped my role…she met my daughter’s adoptive mother before I had the chance, despite knowing what a huge moment that was for me. She’s visited my daughter, who lives several states away, and bounced my grandson on her knee, yet I’ve never seen a photo of either of my grandsons, let alone told about their births (like everything else over the past three and one-half years, I discovered that information on the Internet) While my daughter has cut off all contact with me, she sends my sister photos of her two young boys (whom I jokingly refer to as my sister’s grandchildren), they e-mail occasionally, and apparently they tried to have a clandestine get together this past summer while my daughter had a month-long stay at the family home at the Jersey shore. My sister’s back stabbing and secrecy over the past several years has earned her the moniker Judasina. Suffice to say her ongoing relationship with my daughter (she’s not the firstmother so it’s OK to connect) has caused me a lot of heartache and long estrangements from my sister, and my sister ceased being my confidante long ago.
So, while I calmly let my sister share all the details of my daughter’s life, she saved the best for last: my daughter was recently diagnosed with cervical cancer. There’s absolutely no history of cancer on either side of her birthfamily, so I suspect it may be stress-induced. When I heard the words “cervical cancer,” all I said was, “that’s a shame,” as though my sister was talking about a work colleague, or an acquaintance.
I went to my craft show, did some errands, and by mid-afternoon I was just dumbfounded. If my daughter is so angry, so hurt, so overwhelmed that she can’t share serious health news with me, then I’m screwed. She really, really doesn’t want to have anything to do with me. I know and understand adoptees' struggle, but this—not being able to tell me she has a serious, life threatening illness, is just more than I can bear. One of the comments in my previous post told me to keep fighting, but I have no fight left in me.
I was going to send my grandson a first birthday gift this week, but decided against it. Jane commented in the previous post, perhaps we’re being spiteful. NO! This is self-preservation; I need to protect what’s left of my heart.
When my daughter’s first son was born, I--crazed, stalker birthmother than I am--phoned hospitals in my daughter’s city, and I found her on the second attempt. My sister, unable to keep the news to herself, told me she was having a Caesarian and the scheduled date. I just wanted to know that mother and child were well, and was it a boy or girl. Before I had a chance to react, the receptionist connected me to her room. My daughter answered the phone, and all I could say after not hearing her voice for nine months was..."Congratulations. And what did we have?”
It took her several moments to recognize my voice, and all she said was “Thanks for calling,” and hung up. I immediately sent an-email to Lorraine that I felt as though my heart was cryogenically frozen and it shattered into thousands of shards. Thankfully, I don’t feel anywhere near that at the moment, actually, I don’t feel much at all, and that hurts even more. I’m not angry, I’m not sad, I’m not wistful. I’m just numb.
Lily sighed. I hope to get assigned to be a Birthmother.”
“Lily!” Her mother spoke very sharply. “Don’t say that. There’s very little honor in that Assignment. The birthmothers never even get to see the new children.”
Very little honor indeed. And a simple phone call to my sister this morning was a grim reminder that in the world of adoption, we birthmothers are merely, to borrow a phrase from Lorraine’s July blog entry, “reproductive agents.”
I phoned my sister, Judasina (the name Lorraine and I call her, you’ll see why in a moment), to ask her if she wanted to join me for a Sunday drive to a craft show, and we caught up on the past week’s events. She knew from her daughter, my beloved niece, that I had sent myself a bouquet on my daughter’s birthday. She knows that’s always a difficult day for me and she leaves me alone until she’s given the all clear sign. I told her I had discovered my daughter’s address but that I wouldn’t use it because I didn’t want to upset or anger my daughter any more than I have, but that it was a comfort to me to have the information.
And then my sister confessed what I knew all along, she’s been in touch with my daughter over the past several months. This soap opera began over three years ago, up to and during my daughter’s wedding. My sister basically usurped my role…she met my daughter’s adoptive mother before I had the chance, despite knowing what a huge moment that was for me. She’s visited my daughter, who lives several states away, and bounced my grandson on her knee, yet I’ve never seen a photo of either of my grandsons, let alone told about their births (like everything else over the past three and one-half years, I discovered that information on the Internet) While my daughter has cut off all contact with me, she sends my sister photos of her two young boys (whom I jokingly refer to as my sister’s grandchildren), they e-mail occasionally, and apparently they tried to have a clandestine get together this past summer while my daughter had a month-long stay at the family home at the Jersey shore. My sister’s back stabbing and secrecy over the past several years has earned her the moniker Judasina. Suffice to say her ongoing relationship with my daughter (she’s not the firstmother so it’s OK to connect) has caused me a lot of heartache and long estrangements from my sister, and my sister ceased being my confidante long ago.
So, while I calmly let my sister share all the details of my daughter’s life, she saved the best for last: my daughter was recently diagnosed with cervical cancer. There’s absolutely no history of cancer on either side of her birthfamily, so I suspect it may be stress-induced. When I heard the words “cervical cancer,” all I said was, “that’s a shame,” as though my sister was talking about a work colleague, or an acquaintance.
I went to my craft show, did some errands, and by mid-afternoon I was just dumbfounded. If my daughter is so angry, so hurt, so overwhelmed that she can’t share serious health news with me, then I’m screwed. She really, really doesn’t want to have anything to do with me. I know and understand adoptees' struggle, but this—not being able to tell me she has a serious, life threatening illness, is just more than I can bear. One of the comments in my previous post told me to keep fighting, but I have no fight left in me.
I was going to send my grandson a first birthday gift this week, but decided against it. Jane commented in the previous post, perhaps we’re being spiteful. NO! This is self-preservation; I need to protect what’s left of my heart.
When my daughter’s first son was born, I--crazed, stalker birthmother than I am--phoned hospitals in my daughter’s city, and I found her on the second attempt. My sister, unable to keep the news to herself, told me she was having a Caesarian and the scheduled date. I just wanted to know that mother and child were well, and was it a boy or girl. Before I had a chance to react, the receptionist connected me to her room. My daughter answered the phone, and all I could say after not hearing her voice for nine months was..."Congratulations. And what did we have?”
It took her several moments to recognize my voice, and all she said was “Thanks for calling,” and hung up. I immediately sent an-email to Lorraine that I felt as though my heart was cryogenically frozen and it shattered into thousands of shards. Thankfully, I don’t feel anywhere near that at the moment, actually, I don’t feel much at all, and that hurts even more. I’m not angry, I’m not sad, I’m not wistful. I’m just numb.
Monday, October 6, 2008
I Did Not Want Anonymity
I've been thinking about all the pain and anguish that is evident from our own postings, and those that come through in the comments, and how this can be translated into something for the good of mankind....and the only way I can see out of revisiting the grief, like an old phonograph record stuck on a groove, is to work for change. Open the records. Get them out of those moldy, dusty basements and into the light. Free everyone from feeling they have to decide whether to search but let them have the idea that it's not a slap in their adoptive parents' sense of well being but normal and natural....so I say to all, adoptees and first parents, get involved in your state, and the state in which you were adopted or relinquished parental rights.
When we go to lobby, legislators will say that they haven't heard from enough people to warrant a change in the law. That they have to "protect birth mothers in the closet." Which makes me particularly crazy and mad. Unless you let them know how you feel, they are going to go on protecting you until the end of your days.
Change is not going to happen until we make our voices heard. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and write a letter. Call your legislator and make your voice heard. Do it. Do it now. Do it again tomorrow.
A few weeks ago, I called Sheldon Silver, the head of New York's Assembly, and let them know I was a birth mother in favor of the Adoptee Rights Bill, and would they please move it out of committee and pass it. ! Last weekend I got a letter from him saying that my "situation will be useful during future discussions on this matter." Damn straight.
I unearthed a piece I wrote for womensenews, in 2004, just before New Hampshire opened its records for adoptees, and it explains my "situation" as well as any. The piece is going to be reprinted in a book of some sort--womensenews didn't tell me the name of the book.
And a note to Mairaine:Thanks for correcting the source of the quote in the previous post. I fixed post.
To get more involved, check out these sites:
American Adoption Congress
Origins-USA.org
Concerned United Birthparents
and in New York:
Unsealed Initiative
For information on Illinois, click on 73Adoptee website on fav blog list at right.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Conflict Is Built into Adoption
"In all of us is a hunger, marrow deep, to know our heritage, to know who we are, and where we have come from. Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning, no matter what our attainments in life, there is a most disquieting loneliness."
This quote from Alex Haley is what inspired a 62-year-old adoptee in North Carolina, Raye Hedden, to search and find her natural/biological parents. Though reunion stories are rife today, this quote caught my eye because it sums up everything about the need to know. Contrast that with the comments from singer/actress Kristen Chenoweth, also adopted, and a memoir in progress, A Little Bit Wicked, about why she has not searched. In the interview Chenoweth says she gets sick of people pointing out that Brangelina have adopted children; that's she tired of the pressure to search and:
This quote from Alex Haley is what inspired a 62-year-old adoptee in North Carolina, Raye Hedden, to search and find her natural/biological parents. Though reunion stories are rife today, this quote caught my eye because it sums up everything about the need to know. Contrast that with the comments from singer/actress Kristen Chenoweth, also adopted, and a memoir in progress, A Little Bit Wicked, about why she has not searched. In the interview Chenoweth says she gets sick of people pointing out that Brangelina have adopted children; that's she tired of the pressure to search and:
One thing it's [the book] not about is the search for her birth parents. "It's actually kind of the opposite, about what it's like not to do that, and what it's like not to have that family history, but to connect with the people who raised you," Chenoweth said.
"There's so much pressure," Chenoweth said. "Every time I meet somebody, and they say, 'You're adopted — have you found your birth parents yet?'
"If you met my parents, you'd know, (Chenoweth) is so their kid. I mean, we don't look alike. If I'm going to be honest, they're tall, brunette, they can't sing. They're engineers."
Asked about her brother, she said, "He should never, ever sing. Not ever."
When it was suggested that her family probably wonders sometimes where someone like her came from, she nodded. "I talk about that. I talk about like a little bit of depression that happened in my life and where that came from, and rosacea, and just things that people who aren't adopted know about."
Adoption-reform pioneer Florence Fisher, who remains a good friend, talks about "good adoptees," who tow the line, do everything possible to make their adoptive parents happy and...not do anything to offend them in any possible way. It sounds like they are afraid of losing their parents' love. Sounds like Chenoweth.
How sad. How pathetic. How unreal, but then, that is their reality.
In the years that I knew my daughter, Jane, before she committed suicide last December, I often would be so aware of her not being able to freely connect with me because of hurting her other mother. The first time Jane visited us, we spent the day shopping for clothes for school for her at Macy's (The world's biggest store! In New York City!), had dinner with my husband at Benihana, which we thought she would enjoy, and then went to see Evita on Broadway. She was fifteen.
She was non-nonplussed and didn't seem to like the show--even though we had first row balcony seats. Okay, I thought, maybe it's not her cup of tea.
But later, years later, she confessed that she only did that because she was having such a good time that day she felt disloyal to her other parents. One can truly understand the conflict, but it's sad. Sad that she could not be free to be loved and feel loved by both sets of parents. (My husband was not her father, but he took on the role of step-father rather easily, and that's how she saw him.)
And this again came into play when she stopped talking to me after her adoptive mother said at the funeral of her eldest biological son: "He was my favorite."
Jane barely spoke to me for a year. She needed to prove that she was worthy of her adoptive mother's love and the way to do that was to cut me out of her life. It was a hard time.
--hugs to every single adoptee out there reading. We first mothers are sometimes so screwed up ourselves that we can't connect with you...of course I'd like to give all those rejecting first mothers a smack on the head...but that's another post.
--lorraine
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Rachael's Origins Don't Include Me
“How did you hear about the ‘American Girl’ show” the grandmotherly voice on the phone asked me? I looked around, and seeing the room was empty, whispered “from my granddaughter.”
I didn’t want Rebecca, my surrendered daughter, to hear me refer to myself as her daughter Rachael’s grandmother. Rebecca made clear when she first contacted me three years earlier that her adoptive mother and her mother-in-law were her children’s only grandmothers. At the same time, she never tried to hide who I was from her four children. I spent time with them when I visited Rebecca at her home near Chicago and later at her home near Bloomington Illinois; they visited me at my home in Oregon. I took Rachael and her sister, Chelsea, on a tour of colleges in Oregon and Chicago. Rebecca, her husband, and children came to our family reunion. Rachael and Chelsea email me occasionally and Rachael sent me the link to her blog.
It was Rachael’s twelfth birthday. I was purchasing tickets to take Rachael and Rebecca to the American Girl show in Chicago when the seller asked me the apparently simple question. But nothing is simple in the world of adoption. I did not want Rebecca to think I was assuming a forbidden role, thus I whispered. Rebecca's adoptive mother sent Rachael an American Girl doll for her birthday so our gifts complimented each other.
Last summer Rebecca and her youngest child Aaron, then eight, came to visit. I took Aaron to a local theme park with a friend and her grandson. My friend asked Aaron if I was his grandmother. He said “Well, she is my grandmother in that she is my mother’s biological mother but….” He stopped there, unsure of what I was.
This August just before Aaron’s birthday Rebecca asked me to stop sending her children birthday presents which I had been sending for a decade. I don’t know the reason for her request but I think it may be related to the Mormon definition of family which is not wide enough to include natural relatives. (See “An Inconvenient Appendage.”)
Rachael is now a sophomore at Brigham Young University in Utah. Recently, she attempted to answer the question “who am I” on her blog as part of a school assignment:
“I am a college student, I work a college job, I love life! I love my family, I love Chicago. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and believe in the truth of the gospel that is taught in this religion….
I am the oldest of four …and have mom, dad, two cats, dog, and rabbit (actually it's my sister's). Here's a little about where we come from. I don't mean Illinois, that shapes me too, but where we really come from. Our origins.
[Her mother’s adoptive father’s]… family has been in the US for many, many generations. Perhaps even back to the origins of this country itself. It's funny that these ancestors ended up in Illinois too, by the Mississippi, when they were taught about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They moved down river to join other latter-day-saint members in Nauvoo and then ended up making the trek West to Salt Lake City with some of the first Mormon pioneers in their escape of persecution. Now I'm back in Illinois.
[Her mother’s adoptive mother]: These ancestors were converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints while in Denmark. They … took a boat all the way to America where they met the Saints out West….
. …I think that by learning about where I came from helps me realize the special worth I have on this earth. God made me for a reason!”
Rachael’s omission of her mother’s actual, biological, natural family may have been because this second second family didn't fit into the context of the assignment. No matter why she did it, attributing her origins to people who have no biological connection with her ignores an important part of her. She is her mother’s daughter, yes, but only through adoption is she connected in any way to the ancestors she writes about. Since adoptees that search talk about feeling unconnected to their adoptive families, I wonder if some might explain how they feel about their adoptive ancestors.
Rebecca’s adoptive parents imparted their faith in the LDS Church to Rebecca who in turn imparted it to Rachael. Her mother's adoptive parents, however, did not give her the interest and talent in writing, the difficulty in spelling, or her blue eyes. Rebecca and her family moved to Chicago when Rachael was seven and to the Bloomington area when she was 13. Her love of Chicago with her sense of connection to Illinois is one of those synchronistic things that occur in families separated by adoption. I grew up in Chicago and Rebecca’s biological father’s family was from Bloomington.
I am sad about being left off Rachael’s blog. I’d like to think that knowing me has had some value for her.
I didn’t want Rebecca, my surrendered daughter, to hear me refer to myself as her daughter Rachael’s grandmother. Rebecca made clear when she first contacted me three years earlier that her adoptive mother and her mother-in-law were her children’s only grandmothers. At the same time, she never tried to hide who I was from her four children. I spent time with them when I visited Rebecca at her home near Chicago and later at her home near Bloomington Illinois; they visited me at my home in Oregon. I took Rachael and her sister, Chelsea, on a tour of colleges in Oregon and Chicago. Rebecca, her husband, and children came to our family reunion. Rachael and Chelsea email me occasionally and Rachael sent me the link to her blog.
It was Rachael’s twelfth birthday. I was purchasing tickets to take Rachael and Rebecca to the American Girl show in Chicago when the seller asked me the apparently simple question. But nothing is simple in the world of adoption. I did not want Rebecca to think I was assuming a forbidden role, thus I whispered. Rebecca's adoptive mother sent Rachael an American Girl doll for her birthday so our gifts complimented each other.
Last summer Rebecca and her youngest child Aaron, then eight, came to visit. I took Aaron to a local theme park with a friend and her grandson. My friend asked Aaron if I was his grandmother. He said “Well, she is my grandmother in that she is my mother’s biological mother but….” He stopped there, unsure of what I was.
This August just before Aaron’s birthday Rebecca asked me to stop sending her children birthday presents which I had been sending for a decade. I don’t know the reason for her request but I think it may be related to the Mormon definition of family which is not wide enough to include natural relatives. (See “An Inconvenient Appendage.”)
Rachael is now a sophomore at Brigham Young University in Utah. Recently, she attempted to answer the question “who am I” on her blog as part of a school assignment:
“I am a college student, I work a college job, I love life! I love my family, I love Chicago. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and believe in the truth of the gospel that is taught in this religion….
I am the oldest of four …and have mom, dad, two cats, dog, and rabbit (actually it's my sister's). Here's a little about where we come from. I don't mean Illinois, that shapes me too, but where we really come from. Our origins.
[Her mother’s adoptive father’s]… family has been in the US for many, many generations. Perhaps even back to the origins of this country itself. It's funny that these ancestors ended up in Illinois too, by the Mississippi, when they were taught about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They moved down river to join other latter-day-saint members in Nauvoo and then ended up making the trek West to Salt Lake City with some of the first Mormon pioneers in their escape of persecution. Now I'm back in Illinois.
[Her mother’s adoptive mother]: These ancestors were converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints while in Denmark. They … took a boat all the way to America where they met the Saints out West….
. …I think that by learning about where I came from helps me realize the special worth I have on this earth. God made me for a reason!”
Rachael’s omission of her mother’s actual, biological, natural family may have been because this second second family didn't fit into the context of the assignment. No matter why she did it, attributing her origins to people who have no biological connection with her ignores an important part of her. She is her mother’s daughter, yes, but only through adoption is she connected in any way to the ancestors she writes about. Since adoptees that search talk about feeling unconnected to their adoptive families, I wonder if some might explain how they feel about their adoptive ancestors.
Rebecca’s adoptive parents imparted their faith in the LDS Church to Rebecca who in turn imparted it to Rachael. Her mother's adoptive parents, however, did not give her the interest and talent in writing, the difficulty in spelling, or her blue eyes. Rebecca and her family moved to Chicago when Rachael was seven and to the Bloomington area when she was 13. Her love of Chicago with her sense of connection to Illinois is one of those synchronistic things that occur in families separated by adoption. I grew up in Chicago and Rebecca’s biological father’s family was from Bloomington.
I am sad about being left off Rachael’s blog. I’d like to think that knowing me has had some value for her.
Monday, August 18, 2008
A Happy Reunion Story in the News
Mondays always bring a lot of adoption/conception related news from the weekend because there is always a lot of adoption news these days. The brightest story is that of Reese Hoffa, the world champion shot putter who didn't medal in Beijing at the Olympics on Friday, but whose story wins a medal from me.
Given up for adoption when he was four (and he and an older brother played with fire and burned their house down), he was adopted at five, but unfortunately separated from his brother, also placed for adoption. When Reese was 23, and at college, he decided to look for his other mother, and found her quickly on through an adoption website (which one, we don't know) that his mother had posted on two weeks earlier. His mother, on video, says of their separation, "It's always there, you never go on and be happy." Yep, that's exactly what she says. She also is able to tell Reese that he wasn't given up because his playing with fire wasn't the reason he was placed for adoption.
His adoptive mother turns out to be a peach, and though she admits she was somewhat apprehensive, and jealous, she wanted him to "have the answers he wanted." The reunion was seven years ago; his first mother had already found his older brother. Both mothers come off well in this story, and one is left with the impression that this reunion, seven years ago, has a happy ending.
Check out the story at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/26182939#26182939
Reunions are so fraught! Birth mothers who long for reunion want to pop those kids right back into our families, but the adoptees are thinking: not so fast--I've got this whole other family that I'm a part of now. This was certainly true with my daughter--Lordy, a couple of months after we got together, I did what a lot of clueless mothers do: have a "reunion" gathering of sorts where relatives came by the house. Of course, they were curious. I'm sure she felt like an elephant in the circus.
Fortunately the day was saved by my husband--not her father--who a lot of these relatives had never met either, as we had gotten married earlier that year in New York, and all this was happening back in Michigan, where I'm from. So most of the relatives hadn't met Tony either. He kept Jane company on the couch, and made her feel safe and less of an exhibit.
Would I do the same thing again today? Nope. I'd let her be introduced to people bit by bit. It would have been enough to meet me, and my immediate family that time.
When I read the last section of Birthmark (a letter to my daughter whom I have not yet found) at the Pitt conference last fall, about my family all waiting and praying for her, the room was very quiet. I thought, wow, I hit a nerve.
I'll say, as the room was probably three-quarters filled with adoptive mothers for whom the idea of another family "waiting" for "their" child was anathema. I remember watching one large woman...later I would listen to her describe the practice she called "kinning," by which an adoptee becomes kin to the adoptive family.
One adoptive mother did speak to me after I read. She said, you know, we feel that the child was "meant" for us...that probably...I don't remember how she finished the sentence because we both knew what she meant. Like, yeah, it's hard for us to be behind the idea that we had a child that was "meant" for another family. It makes us seem as if we are breeders, like livestock.
--lorraine
One last note today. If you live in New York, take two minutes and make a call to Sheldon Silver's office in Albany and ask that he bring the Adoptee Rights Bill to the floor for a vote. Say you are calling in support of Bill A2277. It's very simple. You'll be asked for your address, but you don't need to explain why you are calling. The number is 518-455-3791, courtesy of Joyce Bahr of Unsealed Initiative of the New York Statewide Adoption Reform.
http://www.unsealedinitiative.org/
How are they gonna know in Albany that adopted people want/need/deserve their original birth certificates, with no restrictions, unless we let them know?
Given up for adoption when he was four (and he and an older brother played with fire and burned their house down), he was adopted at five, but unfortunately separated from his brother, also placed for adoption. When Reese was 23, and at college, he decided to look for his other mother, and found her quickly on through an adoption website (which one, we don't know) that his mother had posted on two weeks earlier. His mother, on video, says of their separation, "It's always there, you never go on and be happy." Yep, that's exactly what she says. She also is able to tell Reese that he wasn't given up because his playing with fire wasn't the reason he was placed for adoption.
His adoptive mother turns out to be a peach, and though she admits she was somewhat apprehensive, and jealous, she wanted him to "have the answers he wanted." The reunion was seven years ago; his first mother had already found his older brother. Both mothers come off well in this story, and one is left with the impression that this reunion, seven years ago, has a happy ending.
Check out the story at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/26182939#26182939
Reunions are so fraught! Birth mothers who long for reunion want to pop those kids right back into our families, but the adoptees are thinking: not so fast--I've got this whole other family that I'm a part of now. This was certainly true with my daughter--Lordy, a couple of months after we got together, I did what a lot of clueless mothers do: have a "reunion" gathering of sorts where relatives came by the house. Of course, they were curious. I'm sure she felt like an elephant in the circus.
Fortunately the day was saved by my husband--not her father--who a lot of these relatives had never met either, as we had gotten married earlier that year in New York, and all this was happening back in Michigan, where I'm from. So most of the relatives hadn't met Tony either. He kept Jane company on the couch, and made her feel safe and less of an exhibit.
Would I do the same thing again today? Nope. I'd let her be introduced to people bit by bit. It would have been enough to meet me, and my immediate family that time.
When I read the last section of Birthmark (a letter to my daughter whom I have not yet found) at the Pitt conference last fall, about my family all waiting and praying for her, the room was very quiet. I thought, wow, I hit a nerve.
I'll say, as the room was probably three-quarters filled with adoptive mothers for whom the idea of another family "waiting" for "their" child was anathema. I remember watching one large woman...later I would listen to her describe the practice she called "kinning," by which an adoptee becomes kin to the adoptive family.
One adoptive mother did speak to me after I read. She said, you know, we feel that the child was "meant" for us...that probably...I don't remember how she finished the sentence because we both knew what she meant. Like, yeah, it's hard for us to be behind the idea that we had a child that was "meant" for another family. It makes us seem as if we are breeders, like livestock.
--lorraine
One last note today. If you live in New York, take two minutes and make a call to Sheldon Silver's office in Albany and ask that he bring the Adoptee Rights Bill to the floor for a vote. Say you are calling in support of Bill A2277. It's very simple. You'll be asked for your address, but you don't need to explain why you are calling. The number is 518-455-3791, courtesy of Joyce Bahr of Unsealed Initiative of the New York Statewide Adoption Reform.
http://www.unsealedinitiative.org/
How are they gonna know in Albany that adopted people want/need/deserve their original birth certificates, with no restrictions, unless we let them know?
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Reaching Those Women in the Closet
I wish I had the magic words that could unlock the hearts and minds of those women who reject the idea of their child coming back!
Though my pregnancy was certainly unplanned, and I admit that I tried to have an abortion in 1966, everything changed for me when my daughter was born. Everything. Giving her up was the worst/hardest thing I have ever done in my life, and I will spend the rest of my life accepting that. So I can't figure these women out.
Several years ago I read about a type of personality in the New York Times that is able to put aside, or internalize, bad things that happened to them--the total opposite of "let it all hang out," and there was some thought that this might be psychologically healthy--perhaps even healthier--than keeping the hurt alive. Well, all that is fine, but when you have a child, no matter what, you end up with a certain amount of responsibility to that child. Even if you are unable to have a relationship--because of the constant pain that resurfaces--you owe that individual at least as much information as you can give, and one face to face meeting at the very least.
The best understanding I can have of these women is that the birth and relinquishment was so painful that they can not deal with having it resurface, as it all does during a reunion. Oh, it does. During that time of initial reunion it feels as if the scabs are all ripped off the grief and you're back to where you were when it happened--but at least with the knowledge that you are able to know your child. Which is the relief. I used to look forward to my daughter's visits (which might be the entire summer) but she had a myriad of psychological problems, many relating to her epilepsy, that drew me and the rest of my immediate family into her vortex. Consequently, when she left there was always tremendous relief, and guilt over feeling the relief. I've hated to admit this, but it's true.
Yet despite any difficulties...
The need for the vast majority of adoptees and their first mothers to reunite was considered by the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) nearly three decades ago. After holding numerous hearings on the issue around the country, the agency included these words in a proposed Model Adoption Act in 1980:
When the bill passed, the open records provision was rewritten "to protect the privacy of the birth parents."
Every woman who surrenders a child deserves our understanding, but...how do we reach those who reject a reunion? Maybe just by getting more of good reunion stories out there. The biggest hurdle for many is likely to be that they never told their new families, and how are they going to spill the beans? The husband/family is certainly going to feel as if they were lied to for all these years. Just as adoptees who were not told and find out when they are older feel betrayed. Lied to.
And on the other side, there are adoptees who reunite and then walk away, leaving the mother bereft and feeling worse than before the reunion.
Adoption is always painful. We are always making the best of a sad situation.
Though my pregnancy was certainly unplanned, and I admit that I tried to have an abortion in 1966, everything changed for me when my daughter was born. Everything. Giving her up was the worst/hardest thing I have ever done in my life, and I will spend the rest of my life accepting that. So I can't figure these women out.
Several years ago I read about a type of personality in the New York Times that is able to put aside, or internalize, bad things that happened to them--the total opposite of "let it all hang out," and there was some thought that this might be psychologically healthy--perhaps even healthier--than keeping the hurt alive. Well, all that is fine, but when you have a child, no matter what, you end up with a certain amount of responsibility to that child. Even if you are unable to have a relationship--because of the constant pain that resurfaces--you owe that individual at least as much information as you can give, and one face to face meeting at the very least.
The best understanding I can have of these women is that the birth and relinquishment was so painful that they can not deal with having it resurface, as it all does during a reunion. Oh, it does. During that time of initial reunion it feels as if the scabs are all ripped off the grief and you're back to where you were when it happened--but at least with the knowledge that you are able to know your child. Which is the relief. I used to look forward to my daughter's visits (which might be the entire summer) but she had a myriad of psychological problems, many relating to her epilepsy, that drew me and the rest of my immediate family into her vortex. Consequently, when she left there was always tremendous relief, and guilt over feeling the relief. I've hated to admit this, but it's true.
Yet despite any difficulties...
The need for the vast majority of adoptees and their first mothers to reunite was considered by the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) nearly three decades ago. After holding numerous hearings on the issue around the country, the agency included these words in a proposed Model Adoption Act in 1980:
“There can be no legally protected interest in keeping one’s identity secret from one’s biological offspring; parents and child are considered co-owners of the information regarding the event of birth….The birth parents’ interest in reputation is not alone deserving of constitutional protection.”
When the bill passed, the open records provision was rewritten "to protect the privacy of the birth parents."
Every woman who surrenders a child deserves our understanding, but...how do we reach those who reject a reunion? Maybe just by getting more of good reunion stories out there. The biggest hurdle for many is likely to be that they never told their new families, and how are they going to spill the beans? The husband/family is certainly going to feel as if they were lied to for all these years. Just as adoptees who were not told and find out when they are older feel betrayed. Lied to.
And on the other side, there are adoptees who reunite and then walk away, leaving the mother bereft and feeling worse than before the reunion.
Adoption is always painful. We are always making the best of a sad situation.
Monday, August 11, 2008
In Adoptee's Search, Loss and Grief Collide
Double Header Day:
Folks, I've twice lost everything I have written and so I'm a little nuts...so as lightening strikes overhead I'm going to try one more time because it's important to get our voices heard when adoption reunion stories make news. Today's New York Times (8/11/08) has a story about an adoptee, Mark Cellura, who searched and found that his twin, seemingly an identical sibling, had died in 1987. Reporter Sarah Kershaw does a good job of highlighting the necessity of this man's search, and the long slog it is taking to change laws to give adoptees their birth rights. For us, the only really sorry note in the story is that Mark's mother has not responded to a letter from his intrepid searcher, Pam Slayton. (However, there is one adoptee mentioned in the story who has happily reunited, so all first mothers don't look like--jerks.
I know adopted people are afraid of rejection, but is it really any easier if it's done through a third party? Adopted people should make contact themselves, have the courage to make a phone call. Just by the mere fact of birth, they are entitled by the laws of nature one meeting, one day of answers, all truths revealed, nothing held back. This is the story of their lives. I know some of these women still say no, but I'll go out on a limb here and predict that the total reunion-rejection rate is probably lower than when the contact is made through a third person, via letter. The only exception I can feel good about is when a confidential searcher, as in some states, is also a birth mother, and is able to allay the fears of women deep in the closet.
See "In Adoptee's Search, Loss and Grief Collide" at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/nyregion/11twins.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin
So, let's use today's Times story to storm our version of the Bastille: Write to the Times (Letters@nytimes.com) and email a copy of the letter to your legislators, all of them: Your state senator and assemblyman, as well as your congressman and senator in Washington. Unless you let them know what you want, they're not going to know. Urge them to get behind a clean bill--one that gives adoptees the rights that should be theirs as a matter of course. Read about the good New York bill at: http://www.unsealedinitiative.org/
You don't have to be brilliant, you just have to voice your opinion. The more letters the Times gets, the more ink we will get in the paper. You do have to remember to include your name, address, and phone number. Be brief, but be quick. Allow yourself to get angry! Me, I'm angry at all those women in the closet. I'd like to pull them out by the short hairs and give them 40 whacks. But how do we reach them? Aye, that is the question. How do we reach them, how do we change their minds and open their hearts? Through my high school grapevine, I know of one woman from Sacred Heart High School in Dearborn, Michigan who apparently is not curious, and never looked back. How do I reach her?
Dunno.
But remember, Well-behaved women seldom make history.
Folks, I've twice lost everything I have written and so I'm a little nuts...so as lightening strikes overhead I'm going to try one more time because it's important to get our voices heard when adoption reunion stories make news. Today's New York Times (8/11/08) has a story about an adoptee, Mark Cellura, who searched and found that his twin, seemingly an identical sibling, had died in 1987. Reporter Sarah Kershaw does a good job of highlighting the necessity of this man's search, and the long slog it is taking to change laws to give adoptees their birth rights. For us, the only really sorry note in the story is that Mark's mother has not responded to a letter from his intrepid searcher, Pam Slayton. (However, there is one adoptee mentioned in the story who has happily reunited, so all first mothers don't look like--jerks.
I know adopted people are afraid of rejection, but is it really any easier if it's done through a third party? Adopted people should make contact themselves, have the courage to make a phone call. Just by the mere fact of birth, they are entitled by the laws of nature one meeting, one day of answers, all truths revealed, nothing held back. This is the story of their lives. I know some of these women still say no, but I'll go out on a limb here and predict that the total reunion-rejection rate is probably lower than when the contact is made through a third person, via letter. The only exception I can feel good about is when a confidential searcher, as in some states, is also a birth mother, and is able to allay the fears of women deep in the closet.
See "In Adoptee's Search, Loss and Grief Collide" at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/nyregion/11twins.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin
So, let's use today's Times story to storm our version of the Bastille: Write to the Times (Letters@nytimes.com) and email a copy of the letter to your legislators, all of them: Your state senator and assemblyman, as well as your congressman and senator in Washington. Unless you let them know what you want, they're not going to know. Urge them to get behind a clean bill--one that gives adoptees the rights that should be theirs as a matter of course. Read about the good New York bill at: http://www.unsealedinitiative.org/
You don't have to be brilliant, you just have to voice your opinion. The more letters the Times gets, the more ink we will get in the paper. You do have to remember to include your name, address, and phone number. Be brief, but be quick. Allow yourself to get angry! Me, I'm angry at all those women in the closet. I'd like to pull them out by the short hairs and give them 40 whacks. But how do we reach them? Aye, that is the question. How do we reach them, how do we change their minds and open their hearts? Through my high school grapevine, I know of one woman from Sacred Heart High School in Dearborn, Michigan who apparently is not curious, and never looked back. How do I reach her?
Dunno.
But remember, Well-behaved women seldom make history.
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