Nov 7 · 4 min read
#NationalADOPTEEAwareness 365 (not NAAM2019 which is pro adoption, never pro adoptee) We need our own banner and organization, not another's that is contrary and in opposition to our needs and many issues.
- Adoption is (only) a few sheets of paper (aka the Decree of Adoption) which transferred my custody from the State to the adopters on 15 Aug 1950. Paper is inanimate having no power to harm; it is the humans in an adoptees life who (may) do the harm-the mother who relinquishes her custodial rights, the adopters who (may) abuse the child in their care ; the parents who caused trauma to the abandonée left with her younger sibling in 1948 in a dog pound/spca facility while she watched her parents drive off in their automobile with our brother; the felonious parents who were never punished for their felonies to their daughters and to the son they kept with them; the loss of identity, close family, siblings, maternal grandparents, aunts and uncle, great grandparents, maternal language, religion , culture, safe spaces and people who loved me.
- Although infants do indeed have in utero memories of mom (from the instance of conception), knowing her every being from breath to bowel sounds, from voice to heart tones, they cannot recall them, as they cannot recall a mother who left them for reasons the now adult will probably never know. The separation of mother and child happens to all infants, but for most it is brief and not long lasting as 98% of the newborns are put in the mother's arms or on her chest creating skin-to skin contact and the infant's recognition of the heartbeat that he/she heard for the nine months in utero. We who are the 2% who are not reintroduced to our mothers in this way-and who may never be, live with the absence of her… (the same delayed reintroduction occurs in the children born prematurely and/or with congenital conditions or a terminal illness, isolated and hospitalized, perhaps dying before mother can cradle them or even see them again…)
- I was five and a half years of age when the finalized adoption decree was read out in the closed court session. I was not, as all adoptees are not, consulted about this procedure nor advised of its consequences, nor gave what we know as informed consent. I screamed in fury at Hiz Honor who dared strip me of my name and my sister and my DNA and very real family. My guardian ad litem was chief juvenile parole officer -already I was labeled as having criminal intent by the state who was supposed to protect me. Prior to the trial placement with the adopters -who abused me sexually, psychologically, emotionally and physically-whose natural child-the one they couldn't have arrived before the adoption was finalized, I was hospitalized for reasons never quite explained… except to suggest it was because it was determined that I had polio at some point in time.. was legally blind without correction with eyes that could not focus and coordination which was inexistant. the adopter's child was NOT my brother -I had a brother and a sister and wanted only to be with them.
Everywhere I went I looked for faces I knew and for anyone who looked like me… like the book Are You My Mother? One I read to my son never, at the time, realizing that it is the perfect adoptee introduction to the non-adoptees who can never understand our situations. - My sister, who would be 72 if she is still alive, does not know of her adoptee status, nor of her two siblings or her origins or family. In our era adoptees were not told of their true position in the family they were placed with. I know because I was sentient long before my own placement. I am now in at least 7 DNA databases hoping to find her and/or my nieces and nephews and/or their children. So far only one grand nephew has popped up-but he could be either of my sibling's child/grandchild. My sister has no reason to do DNA … the state of her adoption still deceives her… Imagine, if you can, her shock if she were to do a test to find a sibling match in a name she does not know? I am in part keeper of her memories-and of the OBC the state of adoption never had and would not give her if it did. Imagine her sister who must navigate the roads to give this sister an account of her history -one that is hardly pleasant and could be very traumatizing indeed.
- There is an old and well-known adage about physicians healing themselves. It applies to other professionals as well. Especially to adoptees who have the mistaken belief that they have the answers for the rest of us by virtue of their post secondary/graduate degrees. Hint-one size does not fit all! We each have our own voice and our own narrative.
- As the indigenes of the Americas say: Before criticizing others -or thinking you know their raison d être-you must walk ten thousand miles in their moccasins, or more. I have walked far more than those 10,000 miles and have three -quarters of a century experience that most of you have not, some of which I would not wish on my worst enemy. But still I rise and keep the hope that I can find my sister and that society will finally learn that neither an adoption decree or a sentencing of a young life in foster care is anything but beneficial.