Deep thoughts on Adoption for April

Every so often, I feel like I need to do an “adoption” post–mostly because I feel like things in that realm need to be easy to find by a) me, so I can reference assorted things later on and b) others who may stop by and want to see what our adoption story looks like.

So I’ve been swirling thoughts in my head about adoption for a few weeks now, and finally have a few minutes to write about them, since Monkey and Daddy are both still sound asleep in Birthday Marathon comas. (that post isn’t nearly as deep–you may just want to skip to it)

A few posts back, I mentioned “negative adoption blogs”. That day I clicked through to some blogs that were extreme in their hating of adoption for assorted reasons. I do have to say that some of the thoughts and ideas expressed are extremely valid:

1. A woman should not be forced to place her child for adoption because of social etiquette, what the neighbors might think, etc.

2. Adoptive parents shouldn’t lie to their children. Adoption records shouldn’t be kept from anyone in the triad. Everyone deserves to know their story.

3. Birth certificates should state bio parents on there somewhere–I found it creepy on Monkey’s birth certificate that it’s just us and that adoption isn’t mentioned at all. Maybe that makes some adoptive parents feel “real”. Me, I wanted to stick a giant post it note on it that gives her the pertinent information she’ll need down the road. You know, in case something happens to me and I can’t tell her myself. Or something like that.

Past that though, I started feeling very attacked because L and I chose to adopt. We now belong in the category of “adoptive parents”…the people who tear apart families, who are threatened by biology, wanted a child as a trophy, adopted to fill a void that can’t be filled, etc, etc. I could go as far as calling myself a “baby stealer” but I won’t.

I guess here is the bottom line in my book: having been adopted is something you can’t change. It’s like being born in particular time in history, in a particular place, parented in a certain style or another, being raised a particular religion, or anything else the adults in your life choose for you, that you as a child had no control over yet it is critical in your development. It is something you can’t change about yourself. It is part of who you are, it happened and it is something you have no say over whatsoever. You can like it, you can hate it, you can grow to accept it. Now of course that’s easy for me to say–I’m the “winner”. I’m the one who “got” the baby.

Recently, J and I were chatting along, and she was telling me about a conversation she had with someone, someone who was explaining why he was a single dad. In the course of describing his ex, he mentioned that she was parenting two kids, had given one away and was happy to pass his son solely to him when they split. As he described this, J said her heart dropped because she wondered what he would think of her because of Monkey. It breaks my heart that she sees what she did as being on the same level as the women he was describing. But as she’s telling me this, what do I say? Remember, I’m the “winner” here. I’m a mom to the best baby ever because of her decisions.

So I opened my mouth, not really sure what was going to come out and said something to the effect of, “J, this is going to sound weird coming from me, but you didn’t give her away. It’s not like you put her on the street corner with a sign that said ‘free’. You made sure she was going to be taken care of.”

Her reply, ” I know. It wasn’t like I took her home and decided I didn’t like her.”

Me, “Exactly. So did you tell him?”

Her reply,” Yes, I told him, and he said what you just said–that it was different. You just never know how people are going to react.”

Isn’t that the truth?