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As mentioned before, over the years I’ve heard comments. You wouldn’t believe the crap some people say. Like my neighbor back when I lived in a different state. I had just located my biological family and was telling her about it and she said, “Oh, I could never love an adopted kid like my own. In fact, my grandson is adopting a child, and I don’t even want the kid over here. I don’t consider it my grandchild.”

This from a lady who I knew for five years and considered “nice”. Hey, at least she admits her heart is closed to, um… “it”.

Sometimes, even well-meaning comments were over the top.

In the 5th grade, I was getting ready for a talent show. Me and my friend Laura were dressing up like cats and singing “We are Siamese.” I was in the bathroom applying my whiskers with eyebrow pencil when our teacher Mrs. Rush came bursting through the ladies room door. All the girls crowding around the mirrors stopped what they were doing, sensing something was horribly wrong due to Mrs. Rush’s demeanor.

Spying me, she hurried over and grabbed my shoulders. Wide-eyed and upset, she said, “I just heard you were adopted. Is this true?!”

Bewildered, I said, “Uh… yeah?”

With tears in her eyes, she pulled me to her bosom and held me tight. “That just means you were SPECIAL. You were CHOSEN!”

Poor, well-meaning Mrs. Rush. You could tell she felt sorry for me, an emotion I’m wholly uncomfortable with. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I didn’t FEEL “chosen”. Hell, I didn’t even remember the goddamn audition!

Besides, I wasn’t chosen. It was the throw of the dice, the luck of the draw. If I had been born a few days earlier or a few days later, I would have gone to a different family. In fact, if my adoptive parents had the ability to choose a baby, I would have been the LAST one they chose. As mentioned before, I was far from a perfect, pretty baby. And I was not a boy. Back then, it was an unspoken rule that if you asked to adopt a certain sex, or refuse to adopt a baby with cosmetic problems (which I had), then you probably would be turned down as a prospective adoptive parent. (Nowdays, you’re allowed to be much more specific on your “baby order” when adopting. People have become more open-minded about adopting different races, but they still want that baby to be a pretty and perfect one.) Bottom line: my parents had to agree to take what they were handed, or they wouldn’t make the list of suitable parents. And they certainly couldn’t take one look at me and say, “Uh, thanks but no thanks!” because they would have looked like assholes. They had already bragged to family, friends, and church members about the adoption process, and let everyone know when they got the call from the adoption agency that they had a baby for them. My parents had to take me; there was no backing out.

At the time of the fifth grade incident, we lived in a small town in Oklahoma. I used to walk home from school, since the bus took just as long, and I was getting bad headaches by then.

One day, my mother’s car was parked outside of my elementary school. I thought it was a treat; maybe she wanted to take me somewhere and do something, just the two of us. As she started driving, she threw a letter in my lap. It was a letter I had written to the advice lady of Seventeen magazine. I don’t recall what it said, but it spoke of trying to find my “real” mother. My mom had dug deep in my dresser drawers to find the hiding place I had for that letter.

I don’t remember what my mother told me, but I do remember she pretty much went off. It was basically a speech to burst my bubble about any romantic notions of replacing the mother I currently had. That if my bio mom had wanted me, she would have kept me, and she didn’t want me now, and I couldn’t find her, etc. She made me feel like a criminal for being curious.

She grudgingly told me as much as she could remember about what the adoption agency said about my biological mother. Hair color, etc. Apparently, she didn’t think the information was important enough to write down for me, so she was going off of memory. She talked as if every bit of information was doing me a favor, yet she was irritated about it like she had sand in her panties or something.

We didn’t speak of my biological background again until I was 18 and pushed her on it. Until then, I was left to fill in the blanks myself.

Thanks for all the positive comments guys! I just want to make it clear that I’m not posting all of this to feel sorry for myself or have others feel sorry for me. Really, I know very few people who had a perfect childhood, so I’m no different than anyone else in that respect.

I just wanted to let you know what adoption can be like for some kids.

I posted this on a popular internet message board, and I couldn’t believe how I got reply after reply where people said, “I’m adopted and was treated that way too.” It’s horrifying.

I think it’s so important to talk about because people who are thinking of adopting need to really search their souls about why they want to adopt, what would happen if they got a girl and not the boy that seems to be such the deep-down preference for so many parents (whether they admit it to themselves or not), and what they would do if the kid didn’t grow up to be perfect.

You’re not leasing a car. You’re taking responsibility for a child. And unless you can embrace this child as 100% yours, even if you have your own children in the future, then PLEASE DON’T ADOPT!

I thank everyone for sharing their personal stories in the comments. My drunkbunny.org blog was wiped off the face of the earth, but I posted these on blogs before so I thought I’d share some comments/stories other people left at my older blogs as well. (After the jump.)

Read the rest of this entry »

(Scroll down or click the links to read Adoption 1, Adoption 2, and Adoption 3 first.)

My parents adopted me when I was 9 days old. They had tried for four years to have children of their own, but couldn’t conceive. They adopted me, then within four years had two sons of their own.

Did you know adoption was a cure for infertility? It is sometimes.

Problem was, I was an ugly baby. Holy god! I’m talking strangers-smile-politely-then-turn-away ugly. When the call came from the agency saying they had a baby available, my parents had to take whatever baby they had. Even if it wasn’t a pretty baby. Even if it had medical problems (I needed eye surgery by the age of four). Even if it wasn’t a boy.

In the pictures below, you can see the bloom is already quickly coming off of the rose of this “adopted brat” thing. And as photos go, these are the best of the best - my mother gave them to me to include in the slideshow to be shown at their 40th anniversary party. I can’t imagine what facial expressions of disgust are in the pics she decided to keep for herself. You can see in the pictures below that she is clearly contemplating roasting me, and my dad is thinking of tying me to the hood of his car.

My mother is Ms. Sorority. Sometimes, everything is about her, and her getting attention and looking good to others. She got plenty of attention for adopting a “poor, unwanted” baby. (An unwanted baby that there was a 2 year waiting list for! ) After the adoption and the attention she got for it, she was in her element for a while, I would imagine.

But then she found out she could have her own. She had two beautiful baby boys born 13 months apart from each other, cute and perfect in every way.

But yet she still had me, and she had no way to change that.

Growing up, my brothers didn’t like me. At all. I’m not talking normal sibling rivalry, I’m talking hate and resentment that little children just don’t normally have. It was like I was living in a clubhouse, but I was never invited to join. My two brothers were their own club. My parents were a second club. All four of them together were a third club. By God, I was going to join their goddamn clubs!

My childhood was spent trying to win approval, and withdrawing in despair when I couldn’t get it. I shared my toys. Some days I’d spend all afternoon cleaning my brothers’ rooms (to try and get in good with them AND my mom). I remember sitting and thinking, “How will I get them to like me?” I’d follow them around, even spy on them, to try and figure it out.

Spying became my favorite game. I was determined to unravel the mystery of what the problem was… why I was such an outsider in my family. Usually my brothers were the focus of my spying, but one day while spying I overheard a conversation between my parents that I will never forget.

When I was in fifth grade, my younger brother Mark got sick with stomach pains. He even went to the hospital for it. The doctors couldn’t understand what was causing it. He ended up being fine - they never found a reason for it - but for about a week we didn’t know if he’d be OK or not.

One afternoon, I was in the living room while my parents were in the kitchen, talking about my brother’s condition. They must have not known I was home, and me being a super-awesome ninja spy, I was not going to alert them to this fact.

The spying game took an unfortunate “bummer!” turn when I overheard my mother saying to my father that it was my fault my brother was sick in the hospital. That I “kept the house in turmoil” and “made” my brother sick. (Yes, now you know my secret. I was the most powerful and evil fifth grader ever to exist. Bow down before me!) She spoke of me with such anger and contempt, it made my blood run cold.

I don’t remember how she rationalized blaming me, nor do I remember the rest of the conversation. I do know it involved me, and regret that I was in their household. It was pretty ugly. It wasn’t just the words and the feelings that shocked me, or the fact that I had spent so many years trying for their approval just to find out they blamed me for these huge problems (after all, I might be killing my brother with my very presence in the household). I think the most shocking thing of all was to find out that how they acted when I was around was a strained act they could barely contain. It made me wonder who else in my world secretly couldn’t stand me and was just pretending.

I stayed in the living room and hid behind the piano until I could sneak away, feeling like the world had come to an end. I had made my brother sick, and I didn’t even understand how I did it. Also, it was the first time I had heard my mother confirm what I felt all along: that I was an unwelcome burden, an intruder.

I must emphasize that overall I was a good kid. Annoying yes, but I almost never got in trouble, I made good grades, I had plenty of friends. To this day I can’t see how my parents could blame me for making their house one of “turmoil” at that point in my life (teenage years still being a few years away).

When I was about 21 or 22, I had it out with my mother about a lot of things. One of those things we discussed was why my brothers had hated me all my life. I told mom it was because they picked up on my parents feelings towards me, and imitated them. She acknowledged that my guess was probably true. It was a victory for me.

But still to this day, it’s hard living with the knowledge that when my parents look back at their life, I was by far their worst decision. Their biggest mistake. I also realize that, being an unwanted pregnancy and the whole adoption thing, that I was very likely considered one of the worst life mistakes made by my biological parents too. And let’s sprinkle in the fact that I can point to at least a few men who would consider me their biggest mistake in life, and it’s an esteem-shattering self-realization that is no treat to live with.

(Scroll down or click here to read Adoption 1 and Adoption 2 first.)

One of the things that pisses me off most about being adopted is the comments I get. (Not blogging comments — people say these things TO MY FACE!)

One comment that is consistently in the top ten:

“You must be so GRATEFUL to your adopted parents for taking you in!”

Translation: You’re a charity case, and a burden, and I’m superior to you because my parents wanted me.

I’m as grateful to my parents as any child should be to their parents for the time and money it takes, and general pain-in-the-ass it is to raise a child.

But this expectation of society (and of some adoptive parents) that adopted children should be MORE APPRECIATIVE than other children is just one big, gigantic crock of steaming horseshit.

For God’s sake, I was a 9 day old baby! And there was a 2-4 year waiting list for babies at that time. So don’t canonize my parents for taking in this “unwanted” baby. They were blessed with a new member of their family; they did not volunteer for a lifelong case of charity work. They do not deserve the admiration and awe of others who say, “How wonderful of you! I know I couldn’t take in someone else’s bastard child and raise it as my own!”

Sorry, but I don’t care if society, or even my own parents, see me as some sort of “second quality” person who should be eternally grateful for everything that everyone else gets as a matter of course. Like I’m some horrid person that was a huge burden that mooched 18 years of handouts from my parents, yet my brothers were gifts from God to my parents and owe them nothing because they were biologically theirs.

I’m grateful I had parents and a home. I’m grateful I’ve never known abject poverty or physical abuse from my parents. I’m grateful for the exact same things that everyone who was raised in a decent home should be grateful for.

But do I owe a bigger debt than those who were raised by their biological parents? No, and fuck anyone who thinks so.

Second most popular quotes (a tie, boys and girls! How exciting!) :

“You went looking for your biological family? How UNGRATEFUL of you!”

“So, your parents loved you and raised you your whole life, and this is how you show your APPRECIATION?! Searching for your *gasp* ‘real’ family?”

AGAIN with the “grateful” and the “appreciation”! Jesus, but people love to point fingers and tell you that you’re not deserving of what you have, and should make amends immediately. Where they are entitled to what they have, and don’t need to be even 1/10th as grateful as they think you should be.

I found (what’s left of) my biological family (maternal side) in 2001. (My biomom was killed by the church of $cientology in 1995. I found two half-brothers, an aunt, a step-aunt, and a second cousin).

When I told my mother that I had found my biofamily, she began with the theatrics and hurt feelings. I stopped her cold.

You see, my mother is way into genealogy. Around that time, she had discovered in HER family heritage an uncle that had fought in the Civil War. She found his gravesite and some stories about his life and everything. It was interesting to me, and she was incredibly excited about it.

So when she started her pouting about my seeking out my relatives, I explained it to her this way:

“You know when you found that Civil War uncle, and all the genealogy stuff you’ve dug up over the years, the stories and the pictures and how interesting that is?”

Mom replied, “Yes?”

I explained, “Well, that man is someone you never met. In fact, most of the relatives you’ve found information on are people you’ve never met. But it’s INTERESTING and important to you, right?”

“Well, of course it is.”

“So, why are adopted people not allowed to have the same curiosity? Why are WE not allowed to have an interest in our blood heritage?”

It shut her up, because she realized she was being hypocritical. She dropped the hurt martyr thing immediately.

Some in this society truly believe that adopted people have less rights and more obligations than other people. I don’t know if it’s because they think only horrible children would be rejected by their own parents, or maybe they think only horrible parents would “reject” their child (and since we are related to these irresponsible people, we as adopted children are guilty by genetic association). Or maybe they’ve read Cinderella’s tale of rescue one too many times. I really can’t say for sure what it is. And the bad attitudes are certainly the exception, not the rule.

Know this:

I’m grateful and appreciative for all my life’s blessings. But, despite being adopted, my debt to the world is no more and no less than any other person on the face of this beautiful earth.

(Read Adoption 1 first, if you haven’t already.)

The concept of “home” has always been my Holy Grail. I have spent my whole existence focused on obtaining a home, even though I technically had one. Why did I feel this way?

My mother says that I was told I was adopted “all along.” But this is not true. I remember the first time I heard it. I remember the day because it was also the first day I realized that my mother could lie to me. So if you’re expecting a touching Hallmark moment, where the parent tells the child with a tear in their eye that adoption day was “the day the family became complete”, you are about to be disappointed.

I remember I was in kindergarten. My younger brothers weren’t in school yet. I looked like my brothers, except for the eyes. Mine were brown, theirs were blue-gray; a good blend for my mothers’ hazel eyes. My father had brown eyes, but we were all brunette. I was the only ugly one in the family, which is important because my mother very much cared about the opinions of others. But I didn’t realize that I was ugly yet. Looking at just skin and hair coloring, I blended.

One afternoon, my mother had our baby books and was showing us pictures and locks of hair from our infanthood. The cover of my baby book had writing on it, and I asked my mom to read it to me. She read: “Our Adopted Baby.” I remember the sensation of all the blood draining out of my head in shock, and blurted out in surprise and distress, “I was adopted?!”

She was incredulous and inexplicably snotty. “Yes, we’ve always told you that you were adopted!” she snapped at me angrily. I was unprepared for this sudden anger and it scared me. It was obvious that I had done something wrong in her eyes. Then she got even more pissed and said some stuff in a glaringly hateful tone. (I don’t remember the words, but I remember the tone, and can even see her and the chair she was sitting in, the incident so impressed me at the time.) Then she dismissed any questions I had and changed the subject.

I may have only been six years old, but I knew bullshit when I heard it, even if I didn’t have the vocabulary to articulate it. I knew that my parents had never told me I was adopted.

But yet, mom just said they had told me “all along”.

Either she was lying, or I was mistaken and had “forgotten” I was adopted. Parents don’t lie, so it had to be my fault, my mistake. That was my first lesson. Tis’ far better to accept responsibility for situations for which you are not culpable, than it is to admit that you can rely on no one around you. I decided I must have forgotten. But, how does a child “forget” they were adopted?

Even at that young age, as my mother sat in her tacky green ’70s chair surrounded by three children hanging on her every word and dying to have their sticky fingers touch the black and white photographs — even then, as I made the decision to accept her hint that I was somehow feeble-minded for forgetting such a fact, I knew somewhere deep down that I had never heard that I was adopted until that day.

That has always been my family’s way of handling things. Or one of the top five ways:

• Deny, deny, deny
• Find a way to shake any responsibility
• Quickly change the subject
• Refuse to admit anything is “wrong”
• When caught in a lie, stick with it and accuse the other person of needing “psychological help” (that one rang big from my mother in my teenage years)

I came out of the proverbial adoption closet on the playground the next day, telling all my friends about me being adopted as I swung on the swingset. I remember one kid saying, “that means your real parents didn’t want you!” but comments didn’t phase me. I just said, “Get off my case, toilet face!” and kept swinging.

I was happy and full of hope. I felt special. Not special to my parents, but special as in different than my classmates. At that young age I couldn’t understand why, but I felt like finally knowing I wasn’t born part of that family… well, it explained everything I had always felt but my young mind couldn’t pin down. I had always felt it wasn’t a family of five in that house, it was a family of four and I just kind of hung around, like the houseguest they had to be nice to, but that they wished would just go away.

Just an aside question from the adult me: What kind of attention-seeking fuck buys a baby album with the title “Our ADOPTED Baby”? Danger, danger, Will Robinson!

Say the word “adoption” to people and you get a very interesting array of reactions.

Adoption is portrayed in the media in one of two ways: Either the adopted child is embraced wholeheartedly and lives an idyllic life, for which they are expected to be eternally grateful to the parents who were kind enough to take their charity-case ass in, or the opposite extreme — the noble and saintly parents who adopt a kid and get a “bad apple” and suffer the rest of their lives.

No matter how you view adoption or adoptive children, for some reason, there is still a stigma about it.

Although I’ve written my adoption tales, experiences, and opinions elsewhere, and those that have followed my multiple blogs throughout cyberspace have heard this crap ad nauseum, I’ve decided to re-post them again. Cyrus was good enough to share with me his adoption story, and mine is nothing compared to his - holy crap! But I think it’s good for people unfamiliar with adoption to hear more stories than just the fairy tale sugar-sweet ones, and the ones where the adopted kid turns into a nightmare, destroying small cities and making the sainted adopted parents cry bitter tears.

:deep breath: Here we go.

This is not the first job I’ve ever had where I’ve had to deal with an unpleasant or crazy coworker or whatever. It IS the first job where I’ve had a bad reputation with my managers… but it’s also the first job where my managers didn’t know me and never saw me work. This is the first job where I felt my manager had no clue about (or confidence in) the quality of my work. This is the first job where I’ve had someone actively retaliate against me. So a lot of firsts for me here.

I’m glad I’ve been in the workplace long enough to know that this is an anomaly. To know that even if I’ve contributed to certain problems, overall it’s not me at the root of all dysfunction. If this was my first career experience, it would have shattered me and convinced me that I’m a horrible person. But certain things remind me that in the end, despite my mistakes, it’s really not me - it’s them!

Last night my manager from three jobs ago called me and pretty much offered me a job. I couldn’t take the pay cut, but how flattering is that? This woman is brilliant too, has her MBA, and is a tough cookie - fair, but not easily impressed.

Even one of the managers where I work now - the one that has bought in to the other coworker’s bad propaganda campaign against me - she isn’t my manager any more but she was and she has expressed confidence in the work that I’m capable of (even if it’s not part of my assigned tasks right now).

So these things keep me holding on, but when even one person around you is crying to everyone about what a horrible person you are, it’s hard not to let that affect how you see yourself.