I’ve been so busy the last few months that blog reading has fallen through the cracks.
Over at Ungrateful Little Bastard, there were some amazing postings going on. I know I have at least a few readers who are interested in the point of view of people affected by adotpion. For you, this blog is not to be missed.
This post particularly spoke to me, and there are interesting discussions in the comments.
My favorite quote from the post:
When you are unwanted by the first, and last resort of the second, the world itself is a spiritual wasteland.
If I had (or ever do) decide(d) to have kids, my first choice would be adoption, and I know full well I am the definite minority. I’m in a place most people aren’t - having known no genetic relatives, biology isn’t that important. Also maybe because I think so poorly of myself (fat, ugly, prone to depression), I’m not particularly interested in replicating myself. But most people in the world truly desire to have their own genetic offspring, and adoption is often the “last resort” for them. That baby that everyone pretends is so WANTED is really the consolation prize, and probably a constant reminder to the parents of their reproductive failure.
The unavoidable “last resort” reality is just one layer in the complicated, no-story-is-exactly-like-the-other minefield of emotion related to adoption.
The comments are interesting - although civil, it’s clear that the blog author is being judged on her feelings. I don’t know why people don’t get it - that every adoptee has a right to his/her feelings without being judged, because every experience is so different.
When I wrote my adoption entries, my blog was linked to by at least two adoption websites pointing me out as a horrible evil person because I called my birthmother my “biological mother”. Apparently, they feel they have a right to dictate exactly how I refer to my biological mother (and since titles often indicate emotions, they are basically telling me how to feel). They said I should be calling her my mother. Well, little do they know that in real life I do. I also call my adoptive mother “my mother”. But to be clear to the reader of my blog I made a decision to refer to both women by the descriptive titles as “biological” and “adoptive”. Because I am certainly not going to use names, and referring to them both as my mother is confusing to the reader and really, is a lie. My birth mother is not my mother the way my adoptive mother is. But all that aside, how DARE ANYONE tell me what I should call my relatives! That is for ME and ME ONLY to decide, thank you very much. It makes me wish someone would go up to them and tell them they’re horrible people and setting adoption back 50 years because they called their grandfather “grandpa” instead of “paw paw” or something stupid like that.
Using my personal story to further their own political agendas - what scumbags.
You can see a slight, almost hidden undercurrent of that in the comments of the post I quoted above. People quick to jump in and try to nudge the author to feel a different way, because the bottom line is the author’s feelings made some of them uncomfortable. It’s their agenda (which they may not even be aware of) that led some of the commenters to judge or “nudge”. Ignoring the author’s right to feel the way she feels about her own situation.
People are interesting, I’ll tell you that.
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