"Birth" grandmas are still grandmas

No matter what you call them, birth grandmas are still grandmas. My surrendered daughter Megan’s daughter Chelsea visited this past week. We took a quick trip to the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon to see Hamlet, traveled to the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, got our hair cut and our nails done (mine in sparkling silver; Chelsea’s in turquoise blue). I took full advantage of the opportunity to indulge Chelsea and myself.

After all, that’s what grandmas are for – to spoil their grandchildren. Five years ago, when Chelsea and her sister Rachael visited, the airline agent joked as he issued their boarding passes, “Now that your grandma has spoiled you, she’s sending you home to your Mama.

Madonna Maternal Madness: Will the adoptions never stop?

Just a short rant on Madonna today because Ya know, I've had it with these celebrity adoptions that make every teenager and young woman coming down the pike thinking that adopting some infant from a "poor family" or a "poor county" such as Nepal is deserving of some friggen medal. Given the way things are going today, Mary would have been urged to give up her child...as she and Joseph were so very poor--not even a proper bed to be born into. Some better-off family would have adopted Christ and he would not have had to turn water into wine, or feed a thousand with a few loaves and fishes. But I digress.
Filippo Lippi - Madonna and Child with two angels Picture @ Uffizi Gallery, Florence


Each one of these celebrity adoptions sets up a whole chain on other adoptions, and from what we have seen about the corruption in international adoption (which apparently most of the world is oblivious to---like folks, read Mother Jones and its revealing story about kidnapping for hire in India to provide healthy cute infants for Americans; Foreign Policy or, for that matter, FirstMotherForum this past month here and also here and here for a poppin' eyeful about the dark and seemly side of international adoption. And over at Daily Bastardette, Marley has a good blog about the Madonna Madness for Mercy (the girl's name) the Material Girl now wants to... ahem...buy.

Yes, I mean that word. Buy. That is what it comes down to. Madonna will go to Malawi, spend some money there for an orphanage or a school, and then whadda you know, come back with a child! It that isn't filthy lucre in exchange for a baby, then I'm the Queen of Sheba not a poor wretch eking out a living writing.

Friday we will find out if the Material Girl from Michigan (my home state, I am embarrassed to say) gets to take Mercy back to England, over the wishes of her grandmother and other family members..This from USA Today earlier in the week:

Mercy James' grandmother, 61-year-old Lucy Chekechiwa, is reportedly against Madonna's decision to adopt. (Mercy James' single teen mother died at age 18; the girl's father is believed to be alive.)

"Why doesn't this singer pick other children?" she told Britain's The Sun. "It is stealing. I want to go to to court. I won't let her go."

Well, like Wow, Madonna, I know you are promising to dump some money in Malawi, where you got your last child, and yes, probably do some good, but now we have a family member actively asking you not to adopt this little girl. You say you have had your eye on for quite a while--why not pick a kid who doesn't have a family--are they not so cute, do they have problems, are they sickly?

You say your son needs a companion who looks like him, but is this the way to solve that problem? You could bring over a whole village of kids--hell, the whole country is poor, bring them all over to your pad in merry ole England. That is the attitude I sense from the wanna-be adopters who filter through my life in more abundance than I would wish on my enemies: Hey, the family is poor, we are not, so....won't the kid have a better life with us?

Well, maybe not. Being adopted costs a great deal of psychic damage to both the child and her/his mother you have not considered. And note I said "family": the attitude now is that fully formed families with poor kids would be better off letting them go so that the child can have a life with more stuff in it.

I'm still feeling cranky from the Dear Prudence letter over at Slate we've been talking about, which yes, as Mairaine noted, did have some good advice in it. What got me going was the insensitive way it was handled and signed that was so demeaning to the birth mother. And then I heard that The View on ABC had a discussion about the Madonna fracas this morning from a friend whom I've educated about international adoption.(You can see the clip at The View's site--at least we no longer have Loud-Mouth Adopter Number One there, Rauncy Rosie, and that is a blessing, but of course...Elizabeth and others are mostly in favor of letting the kid be taken from her native land. Joy Behar, bless her, had some doubts.)

I was not intending to rant on about Madonna's Maternal Madness, but I couldn't help myself after hearing that it has become topic du jour with way too many people saying, Yeah, girl, you go there and get another kid...Happy April Fool's Day....--lorraine (not so happy)
_______________

Look for post from Linda on Friday about her daughter on Facebook. A page she is denied access to, while other family members are not.

Rachael's Visit

As readers of FMF know, my surrendered daughter Megan and I have had our differences, and we have not been in touch since August. However, several weeks ago, her oldest daughter, Rachael, emailed and asked if she could come for a visit over President's Day Weekend. You can imagine how thrilled I was! Yes!

I first met Rachael, now a college sophomore, when she was nine, a day after I reunited with her mother after a separation of 31 years. Rachael does not consider me her grandmother, however. In answering the question "Who Am I" on her blog, she described her mother's adoptive family as her maternal line, omitting her mother's biological family entirely.

Megan, a devout Mormon, believes that her adoption was God's plan; her adoptive family, the family to which she is sealed for eternity, is her only family. After a public disagreement over whether adoptees had the right to their original birth certificates, Megan (who had searched for me) emailed me and asked me not to send birthday gifts to her four children. (A Daughter's Change of Heart)

So you can imagine my surprise when I heard that Rachael who attends Brigham Young University wanted to visit. I waited anxiously for Rachael at the airport and when I saw her I tried to hug her but she turned away. (I'm actually not a huggy person. The first time I met Megan, I tried to hug her in an awkward sort of way and she turned from me. At our next meeting, I kept my hands at my sides and she reached out to give me a hug.)

Rachael and I came back to my place for pizza and lots of conversation. Rachael told me about her work on an Indian reservation last summer, her roommates, her classes, her ham radio club, what her brothers and sister were involved in. All the things that interest grandmothers.

Saturday, we toured an exhibit about 18th century French art and Mme. Pompadour at the Portland Art Museum. We lunched at a Portland institution, Dan & Louis' Oyster Bar. Trying to sound casual, I mentioned that I had not sent birthday and Christmas presents because her mother had asked me not to. Rachael said she hadn't noticed. Hmmm.

I asked Rachael if her if she had told her mother she was coming. She said she had mentioned it just before she left. She did not seem to be aware -- or at least concerned -- that there were issues between her mother and me.

Over the weekend we soaked in the hot tub at my condo, and had dinner with my husband, Jay. Sunday Rachael went skiing -- her first time -- with my husband, our raised daughter Amy, Amy's son Chris and Amy’s husband Geoff.

Dinner at Amy's (take out Indian food). Back at the condo, we watched part of Edith Wharton's "Age of Innocence" (the Martin Scorsese film) and agreed it was slow. Monday, swimming and a trip to Powell's Bookstore, the largest independent bookstore in the country and another Portland Institution.

Rachael is shy, yet self-contained; like me she wears no makeup and dresses casually. Like her mother and my raised daughters, she is willing to try new things – calamari (aka squid) for example. She seems unconcerned with where I fit into her family or how she fits into mine--maybe that's why it all felt so natural. There was no questioning as in, What am I doing here? There was no reason for naval-gazing about anything because the whole weekend felt so natural and normal, as if we were a typical family, who had not been separated by adoption. We talked about literature, travel, history, even religion and politics. She asked if she could have one of my Hillary buttons for her paternal grandfather who collects campaign buttons. She likes Hillary although none of her friends do.

There were some differences of course, particularly religious beliefs. Differences exist in all genetic families. My raised daughter Lucy loves the Clinque counter at Nordstrom's and raised daughters Julie and Amy prefer action thrillers to dramas which Lucy and I enjoy. Overall, however, our similarities, Rachael's and mine, in style, likes, and personalities outweighed the differences by a long shot. Rachael's visit seemed so normal because it was so natural.

When we were in the hot tub, another resident asked if I was Rachael's mother; "No," I said, "grandmother." I looked for Rachael's reaction but she showed none. Amy introduced her children to Rachael as "Your cousin, Rachael" (sounds like a Daphne Du Maurier book?). Again no response. A note about Amy. When she and Megan met back in 1998, they were wearing the same Birkenstocks and had the same hair style. They sat in the same position and had the same "what's this to me?" look.

When Rachael left, she said she would keep in touch. I haven’t heard from her but kids today are not schooled in manners. Both Rachael and Geoff, Amy’s husband have Facebook pages. Geoff received an email telling him that Rachael would like to be his friend.

I’ll email Rachael in a few days. Perhaps I may even venture into new territory and sign up for a Facebook page.

An impossibly simple thing

In August, my surrendered daughter Megan asked me not to send her four children birthday presents although I had been sending them for over 10 years.

I let pass Aaron’s 10th birthday in September and Rachael’s 20th birthday in October without even a card. I ignored Megan’s birthday in November.

Now Christmas is coming. I'm thinking Megan’s insistence that I not send her children birthday presents may not include Christmas presents. I realize I’m parsing her words, thinking like the attorney I am.

Lorraine passed on to me a column by Philip Galanes of the NY Times with advice to an aunt who is in a legal dispute with her family. She wanted to send Christmas presents to her nephews. Galanes told her “there’s no reason for the boys to suffer because their parents and favorite auntie are so pigheaded they can’t resolve a simple disagreement. … Mail the presents with a polite note to the parents telling them that you miss the boys and hope they’ll pass your gifts on to them in the spirit of the holidays. Be prepared for the packages to be returned, unopened.”

It’s not that simple. The woman who wrote Galanes was certainly the children’s aunt; Megan made clear from the outset that I was not her children’s grandmother, a status reserved for her adoptive mother and mother-in-law.

I could ask permission to send Christmas presents but I don’t want to appear weak or pleading. I could send presents without permission. Rachael, at least, is an adult and can receive presents without her mother’s permission. (There’s the lawyer in me again.) But that’s putting Rachael and the other children into the middle of whatever it is that has upset Megan.

I wish I had a more relaxed and open relationship with Megan like I have with my three raised daughters. Although we have had some good conversations about movies, religion, politics, communication can be stressful. I strategize on what to write or say, walking the line between being direct and subtle, emotional and cold, familiar and distant.

I’ve read a great many adoptee memoirs and I see myself in the descriptions of their birthmothers. We are supplicants, seeking forgiveness, walking on eggshells trying to appease our children.

The adoptees’ memoirs are filled with unresolved bitterness and anger towards their birthmothers. They seek out faults perhaps to assure themselves that their adoption was “for the best.” It seems that just about anything can be perceived as a slight worthy of cutting off communication.

I dislike this situation which keeps me from performing simple, kind gestures.

I think I’ll go watch television, perhaps a “Law and Order” re-run and try to take my mind off the whole thing. I’ll pretend Megan, Rachael, the whole pack of them don’t exist.


Hi, Lorraine here – Though my daughter and I had a mostly good relationship for a quarter of a century, a few Christmases passed when she had cut off communication, and we did not even exchange the simplest greetings, let along presents. I would have to shrug it off, just like Jane says, and move on. We birthmothers feel sometimes you are damned if you do (send a present to the grandchildren) and damned if you don’t (same thing).

Giving up a child for adoption is the hurt that goes on giving.

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.