Archive for Adoption Blogs
August 2, 2010 at 9:40 pm · Posted by Tara · Filed under Adoption Blogs, Birth/First parents
A new post by Jane Edwards on Birth Mother, First Mothers Forum talks about the legalities surrounding relinquishing a child to adoption, and the difficulties birth mothers face when trying to obtain legal representation to contest an adoption.
From the post
“When Leticia learned her daughter, Ashley, was pregnant, she went to her pastor for advice. He referred her to his wife who conveniently happened to run an adoption agency. Over the next several months, Leticia and Ashley met with the adoption social worker as well as a couple interested in adopting Ashley’s baby. But Ashley did not commit to placing her daughter. Leticia says they were looking for help, not adoption. Ashley gave birth June 16, via cesarean section. Five days later, Ashley signed an irrevocable surrender to the agency while still under the influence of drugs and the effects of the delivery. The next day, with her mother’s help, Ashley tried to revoke her consent. Too late under Oregon law!”
“Ashley’s case is only one of many cases throughout the country where a parent seeks to contest an adoption and confronts a legal system which demands money in order to achieve justice”
Jane describes a situation that, no doubt, has been repeated time and time again over the course of the many years formal adoptions have taken place. The law, and financial resources weigh heavy on the side of adoptive parents. There is a conversation happening on the blog that, at it’s core, is about the window of time, legally, mothers should have after giving birth before making the decision to place their child for adoption. Oregon law allows mothers to sign the papers immediately after giving birth. This is not nearly enough time. Alternately, laws in the UK ensure that mothers do not sign adoption papers until six weeks post-partum.
Too long? Too short? What are your thoughts?
July 8, 2010 at 10:20 am · Posted by Tara · Filed under Adoption Blogs, Adult Adoptee, Guest Blog, Talking about Adoption
From Guest Blogger Shelise Gieseke, click here>> for more information on Adoption Mosaic Bloggers. Shelise’s thoughts on this post were inspired by the post What to Tell — And When on the blog Research-China.org
Talking about adoption with your children is a delicate balance – one that parents have to learn because it is not necessarily an intuitive skill. If parents have to learn how to talk about adoption, whether it is about birth families, orphanages, or abandonment, then adopted youth definitely need to learn how to talk about adoption, and how to navigate the complexities that come with it. If parents are not modeling how the conversation about adoption goes, then how will their kids learn the tools to talk with their parents, or others, about adoption?
I think one issue is the absence of challenging education adoptive parents receive prior to adopting, and the lack of quality resources in general. Talking about adoption can be tricky and conversations may trigger intense feelings not only for the child, but for the parent too. It’s important for the parent to be prepared for this eventuality.
Conversations with your adopted child about adoption don’t always have to be about you and your kid(s). Sometimes, especially for emotionally loaded topics, it is easier to talk about the topic one step removed. As many parents know, movies and books can be powerful tools. Watching an adoption-related movie and talking about the characters, or reading a book and then talking through it are different ways to approach the subject. It is often surprising what comes up when you are in the safety of perceived objectivity.
It should never be the responsibility of the young adoptee to initiate a conversation about such a significant topic with their parents. Should adoptees be EMPOWERED to speak about adoption with their parents? Absolutely. Should kids be the sole guide for their parents? Never. Note: There is a difference between knowing your child and how to talk with them, knowing when they don’t want to talk, or knowing what is appropriate for them as opposed to making them be the initiator. Silence or saying “I don’t want to talk” may mean “I don’t know how”.
Adoptive parenting can be a fine line to walk with many important feelings to balance. Parents will wobble and have to redistribute to maintain the balance, but it is the parents who need to: do the work, set the example and lead their kids to a place of power in their own adoption experience.
June 2, 2010 at 10:05 am · Posted by Tara · Filed under Adoption Blogs, Adult Adoptee, Birth/First parents, Guest Blog, Kinship, Talking about Adoption, Transracial Adoption
From Guest Blogger Melissa Konomos visit her at Yoon’s Blur, and click here>> for more information on Adoption Mosaic Bloggers.
After reuniting with my biological parents last year, my husband asked me whether my need to conceive biological children had diminished at all.
(Just for clarity’s sake, we both want to have children, so he was not asking because he was hoping to escape the simultaneous joys and horrors of raising children. But rather he was asking a very valid question based on previous conversations, in which I had expressed a desire, almost a longing need, to conceive a biological child.)
Clearly, as an adoptee, I have never known what it is to share a biological connection with someone else. Earlier in our relationship, as my husband and I would discuss whether we wanted to conceive a child, time and time again, my answer was an emphatic, almost desperate, “Yes.”
There was never a doubt as to why I answered, Yes. Having a biological child seemed the only way that I could somehow know and connect with my biological mother and father. It seemed the only way that I might be able to gain insight into what my biological mother experienced as she carried me for nine months and subsequently relinquished me. It also seemed the only way that I would be able to understand what it means to share a biological connection with another human being.
But now, that I have met my biological mother and father, along with uncles, aunts, and cousins, and hence now have opportunity to build relationships with those who share my biology, it would seem plausible that my “need” to have biological children would diminish or at least change as a result.
As of now, surprisingly so, meeting my biological family has actually seemed to have the opposite effect of what would be predicted—it seems to have increased my desire to want biological children.
I can identify several contributing factors.
The first factor I’ll mention is simply that reunion does not “fix it.” There can be a well intentioned but false assumption that once an adoptee reunites with his or her biological family, it fixes everything—all the questions find answers, all the loss and pain find healing, and so forth.
This is not true for more reasons than I have space to elucidate here. But in short, reunion cannot magically redeem all the years, often decades, that have been lost. Although reunion has given me some answers, in many ways it has served to also give me more questions. Although reunion has brought some healing, it has also awakened old pain while stirring new pain. Although reunion has allowed me to meet my biological family, it cannot compensate for the 35 years that have been lost between us.
Even though I now have the hope of building a relationship with my biological mother, she and I will never share the moments when I took my first steps or spoke my first words. She and I will never know the thrill of when I first learned to ride a bike or when I won a soccer game. She and I will never know the tender moments when my first love broke my heart or conversely when my husband and I fell in love and eventually married.
She was not there and will never be able to be there for those crucial moments of my development growing from child to woman. She has missed the first 35 years of my life, and nothing we do can ever retrieve or restore all those moments of growing up that have been lost between us—except in some symbolic, metaphorical way—that is, through conceiving a biological child.
Hence, secondly, having a biological child, at least for me, lures me in as an opportunity for redemption for all of us. My Omma and I could share in the moments of raising my child, her grandchild. She could be there for her grandchild in the way that she could not be there for me, while I could give to my child what I never had—a relationship with a family that is both biological and relational. My Appa would also have, in a way, a second chance to do things differently.
A third reason that I can identify for wanting biological children even more so now that I have met my biological mother and father is that I fear losing them all over again. Some day, I know that they will die. So, I tell myself that if I have a biological child, the trauma of losing them a second time will perhaps be minimized if I can look at my biological child and see them in him or her. Without a child through whom I can maintain a biological connection to the parents that I lost 35 years ago and will lose again some day, I fear that the connection I now have will be lost and severed again, forever, when they die.
So, you see, at least for me, meeting my biological mother and father has not abated my desire to have biological children. Rather it has intensified and amplified it.
Now, of course, I share all this knowing that having a child for these reasons is a dangerous thing. I don’t want to bring a child into this world assigning him or her with the job of redeeming the lost hopes and dreams of his or her mother and grandparents. (Alanis Morissette wrote a very affecting song years ago about parents who do just this entitled, “Perfect.”) If I do ever have a biological child, I am going to have to be hyper aware of my own issues to ensure that I don’t project them onto my child—the aforementioned being only a few of the many issues.
I am simply sharing all of this in an attempt to explain, with sincerity and a somewhat uncomfortable honesty, what goes on in my mind and heart as an adoptee regarding the question that titles this post, “Did meeting my biological family diminish my desire to conceive biological children?”
I am not purporting that my answers to this question are right or wrong—they just are. As adoptees, we face complex psychological issues surrounding identity and relationships and just about everything else in life. The issue of biological children is no different.
I realize the emotional baggage I carry, and the potential that exists that I may strap that baggage onto my children. This is all the more reason for me to be aware of it and to make it apparent to others—not simply for my children’s sake, but for the sake of others who also occupy this vast and complex world of the adoption experience.
March 5, 2010 at 9:36 pm · Posted by Tara · Filed under Adoption Blogs, Adoption Language, Birth/First parents, Guest Blog
We recently wrapped up our newest, and soon to be released, Adoption Dialogue on adoption language and it has (once again) brought the issue of adoption language to the forefront of my mind. I am reminded of this blog post by adoptive parent and Adoption Mosaic Guest Blogger Dawn Friedman who blogs at This Woman’s Work. She wrote this post last fall and it has stuck with me. (Read the full original post here>>) For those of you who aren’t familiar with Dawn’s family, Dawn is Madison’s adoptive mother, Pennie is Madison’s birth mother.
“It sounds like a very gloomy conversation but it wasn’t. She is very matter of fact about it all. I was just thinking about how she (Madison) says “real real mama” and how that’s supposedly “negative adoption language.” I guess in the mouth of the wrong person it could be but hearing it from my daughter, well, I know what she means.
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February 22, 2010 at 7:09 pm · Posted by Tara · Filed under Adoption Blogs, Finding a Voice, Guest Blog, International Adoption, Our Voices, Search & Reunion
We are honored to have Guest Blogger Huang Mei-Ling help us launch “Our Voices” a new series featuring stories from adoption community members. Visit Mei-Ling at her blog Shadow Between Two Worlds. For more information about Adoption Mosaic Bloggers click here>> The following is an excerpt from her full story. To read Mei-Ling’s full story click here>>.
Phrasebooks are pretty useful for travel dialogue. Unfortunately, they aren’t exactly loaded with dialogues meant for an adult adoptee who has returned to her birth country.
After watching my siblings tease each other in the front seat for a few minutes, I take another deep breath and try to ask another question, speaking slowly and as clearly as possible. “Women hen kuai hui jia ma?” Will we be returning home soon?
My father glances at me. I wonder what he is thinking of me so far, what he thinks of my pitiful Mandarin and my overall receptiveness while in their midst. I wonder what he thinks of me – his daughter from over twenty years ago. “Hen kuai, dui.” Soon, yes.
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February 18, 2010 at 5:39 pm · Posted by Tara · Filed under Adoption Blogs
Recently we learned the identity of the Adoption Mosaic blog commenter “M” (his comments appear on posts: They Already Have a Daddy, Lets Get Real, and Brick by Brick). Among other things, “M” created a learning experience for us at the Adoption Mosaic Blog. We learned that we needed to add a guideline for posting, that preserving a safe space for bloggers and commenters to contribute had to be our number one priority, and we learned (yes we’re a bit slow) that there is a small population of people who, hiding behind a veil of anonymity, make it their priority to attack and purposefully create discord within an on-line community.
The commenter “M” was impersonating an African-American woman. He is, in fact, a white male. He is also a transracial adoptive parent who is involved to a certain degree in the adoption world. Once identified, “M” decided he would no longer comment on the Adoption Mosaic blog. We want readers to know that his comments (or any one’s for that matter) were never censored in any way.
February 14, 2010 at 9:27 pm · Posted by Tara · Filed under Adoption Blogs, Adoption Mosaic, Diversity, Making Connections
One of the core values at Adoption Mosaic is the goal to support and be inclusive of all members of the adoption community, not just in words, but in action. It’s a pretty rare, and undoubtedly admirable ideal, and we could talk for a while about how cool it is, but what I want to mention is how very hard it is.
It is not true of every one, however, many people in the adoption triad don’t regularly rub shoulders with other triad members. Though I count other adoptees to be some of my closest friends, with the exception of family, I hadn’t come into much contact with other triad or community members until I became involved with Adoption Mosaic almost 5 years ago.
When I say it’s hard, what I’m talking about is the subtle (and not very subtle) walls that exist between triad members. I’m talking about the dynamics between white folks and people of color. I’m talking about generational differences and how they shade respect. And I am talking about how deeply, and intensely personal, adoption is to every individual involved and how much everyone has at stake.
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February 4, 2010 at 11:33 pm · Posted by Tara · Filed under Adoption Blogs, Diversity, Race
I have been learning so much from this blog. I learn through the process of writing posts, from the web links and resource suggestions people send me, and from the other bloggers and people who join the conversation. But two days ago, I learned something I didn’t expect.
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January 26, 2010 at 8:14 pm · Posted by Tara · Filed under Adoption Blogs, Guest Blog, Talking about Adoption, Transracial Adoption
From Guest Blogger Catherine M. Anderson. Visit her at mamacandtheboys.com, and click here>> for more information on Adoption Mosaic Bloggers.
One Tier at a Time: One Adoptive Mother’s Climb to Racial Awareness and Parenting (thoughts originated from postings at Adoptive Families Circle)
I am the mother of a transracial family. I have a five year old black son and a two year old biracial son via donor. I feel like I have reached a new tier in my racial awareness in the last year. I have gone from thinking (about five years ago) something like this; “Oh yeah I get it-because look at my family, I have to get it.” to “WHOA I don’t get it at all. I have so much work to do, where do I begin?” (Actually, I am always going to be in this phase, my reading, connecting, asking questions, reading, connecting phase) to “We have to talk about this, about RACE, about what our children are experiencing all the time.” And I do talk about it all the time.
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