Statistics: The only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions.
Evan Esar (1899 - 1995), Esar’s Comic Dictionary

Have you seen the report from American Adotions? You know, that non-profit agency who thinks that lives can be bettered thru adoption? Well now they have the statistics to prove it. For example, if you are a mother thinking of giving your child up for adoption, remeber these two key points:

• You are more likely to have higher educational aspirations, are more likely to finish school, and less likely to live in poverty than mothers who keep their children.
• You are more likely to delay marriage longer, are more likely to marry eventually, and are less likely to divorce.
• You are more likely to be employed 12 months after the birth and less likely to repeat out-of-wedlock pregnancy.
• You are more more likely to suffer negative psychological consequences, such as depression, than mothers who rear children as single parents.

But wait, that’s not all… After all, adption is all about the children right and…

• Teens who were adopted at birth are more likely than children born into intact families to live with two parents in a middle-class family.
• Adopted children score higher than their middle-class counterparts on indicators of school performance, social competency, optimism and volunteerism.
• Adopted adolescents generally are less depressed than children of single parents and less involved in alcohol abuse, vandalism, group fighting, police trouble, weapon use and theft.
• Adopted adolescents score higher than children of single parents on self-esteem, confidence in their own judgment, self-directedness, positive view of others and feelings of security within their families.
• On health measure, adopted children and children of intact families share similarly high scores, and both these groups score significantly higher than children raised by single parents.

Reading this, I guess we should all trade our kids out once born.

Then again, they are proud supporters of the National Council of Adoption who have this on their website:

Research in NCFA’s Adoption Factbook IV reports another decline in the annual number of infant adoptions in America. In the interests of children and their biological parents who may not be ready to parent, the adoption community must do a better job of enabling women with unplanned pregnancies to consider adoption. NCFA is expanding its efforts to revive the institution of infant adoption through sound pregnancy counseling and a public communications campaign that will promote infant adoption awareness and understanding. Our goal is not to pressure people into choosing adoption; rather, it is to enable parents with unplanned pregnancies, who may not be able or ready to parent, to consider adoption without fear, misunderstanding, or bias.You can read the whole letter here.

Without bias. Hmmm, yet you start the whole thought about how there is a decline in infant adoptions and you must do a better job of enabling women to give up their kids. Not praising the fact that these women may be standing on their own two feet and decide to keep their child, or that their family is helping out, or that the father may have stepped up. Nope, we need to enable them. Seems to be they were enabled and you feel like they stole your lunch money. Personally, I applaud that in the very early 70’s, according to their statistics, roughly 19% of babies born to white, un-married women were given up and only about 1.7% in the 90’s. (Oh and here’s a tidbit for you, according to their own stats, before ‘73 the rate was about 19% but it dropped to 7.5 between ‘73 and ‘81. You can review the PDF here if you want.

Am I biased? Yep! Are they biased? YEP!! So go read the stuff and make your own decision.

Blood is thicker than water.
English Proverb

Once there was an adoptee who was adopted into a family who already had a couple of biological daughters. She grew up thinking this was her family, this was her home. When she was an adult, her parents passed away. She turned to her sisters for comfort but was turned away because she wasn’t family. She wasn’t allowed to keep any family heirlooms, she wasn’t in the will, she felt like an outsider at the funeral.

Sound farfetched? I thought so too, until I started hearing more and more stories like this. Stories of adoptees who were told there weren’t family when it came to read the will. Stories of grandparents telling adoptees they were “really” part of the family. Stories of family heirlooms not be passed down because they wanted to “keep them within the family.” Stories of family members snubbing adoptees over other family children on holidays or birthdays. On and on and on and on. Sometimes from brothers and sisters, sometimes by grandparents or aunts and uncles, sometimes even from parents.

It’s something to think about. When you adopt a child into your family, have you thought of the impact on the rest of the family? Or the reaction of the rest of the family? Have you given any indication that you don’t really think of the child as family? I did hear one story where an aunt made some comments about an adoptee not being family and the adoptive father defended the adoptee including nearly breaking ties with his own sister. Are you willing to do that for your child?

Think about this, an adoptee grows up in a family that is not of their blood. During their life there are little things that continue to remind them; not seeing a face like theirs, school projects about family history or genetics, visiting a doctor, etc. Then to have the very family that took them in reject them, it’s amazing to me that the adoptee doesn’t break. I guess blood is thicker than ink in these cases.

Then there is a flip side. Adoptees who find their blood only to discover their mother has passed away and then be rejected by the rest of the family. Not denial that they aren’t blood but outright rejection or even lies to each other to sabotage the possibility of a relationship. Or turning their anger and fear toward this person seeking their history. Why? How can a family do this to it’s own?

Too often we are caught between two worlds; both we want to be a part of, neither truly our own.

So I looked a little deeper into the Illinois thing. First off, here is the link to the actual ammendment information. Bill Status of HB0049

Here are some interesting quotes from the affected sections:

Adopted children shall have the same status as children of the participant or annuitant, but only if the proceedings for adoption are commenced at least one year prior to the date of the participant’s or annuitant’s death.

An adopted child is eligible for the pension provided under paragraph (a) if the child was adopted before the firefighter attained age 50.

A child to be eligible must have been born or legally adopted before the policeman has withdrawn from service. In the case of an adopted child, the policeman shall be married and living with his wife at the time of the adoption, and the proceedings for adoption must have been initiated at least 6 months prior to the policeman’s death. The requirement that the proceedings for adoption be initiated at least 6 months prior to the policeman’s death does not apply where death occurs as a result of an act of duty.

Child or children. “Child” or “children”: The natural child or children, or any child or children legally adopted by an employee at least one year prior to the date any benefit for the child or children accrues.

My personal favorite:

When any contributor to said fund, who has been in the service of the house of correction for a period of 20 years, has contributed to said fund for the same period and has retired and become a beneficiary under “The 1911 Act” or this Division, shall then marry, such wife of such marriage shall after his death receive no benefit nor annuity from said fund.
Any widow or child or children receiving benefits or annuities, under “The 1911 Act”, shall continue to receive such benefits or annuities, which shall be increased from $480 per year to not more than $720 per year and paid in accordance with the provisions of Section 19–110 of this Division.
The term “child” or “children” under this Division shall not include adopted child or children, nor shall it include a stepchild or stepchildren of any contributor to aforesaid pension fund.

Again though, at least they are fixing it but it makes you wonder what else is on the books in our United States.

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968), Strength to Love, 1963

So, did you hear the good news? Illinois passed a law to help adoptees. Nope it’s not open records, that would be too easy. Instead they passed a law that will make it possible to recieve the same benefits as biological children. :gasp:

Sponsored by Rep. Sara Feigenholtz (D-Chicago) and Sen. Rickey R. Hendon (D-Chicago), House Bill 49 ensures that legally adopted children get the same benefits as biological children when a parent dies and that surviving children receive benefits from public pension plans, a release from the governor’s office said.

Survivor’s benefits are provided to children if a parent dies in the line of duty or after having served in a “pension eligible” position, the release said. The bill amends 15 pension codes for many public positions including General Assembly members, firefighters and police. Some codes previously denied benefits to adopted children.

You can read a little more here: Adopted to get same benefits as biological kids

I couldn’t believe those laws were even on the books. I had check the calendar to make sure it’s the 21st century.
It is. :wacko:
But hey, at least they are changing the laws now.

Johnny Smith: Okay, one of my visions was a little off.
Bruce Lewis: ‘A little off’. Do you understand what it means in the context of the rest of humanity for your brain to be ‘a little off’? That puts you in another galaxy far, far away.
Dead Zone

I love the show Dead Zone with Anthony Michael Hall on USA. If you haven’t seen the show, it’s based off the book by Steven King which tells the story of Johnny Smith, a man who was in a coma and wakes up to discover he can sometimes see the past or future by touching people or objects. Sometimes, it’s obvious what he sees, other times its hard to tell what to do.

This past Sunday, he picked up a postcard and got a flash for a friend of his being killed. He calls her and tells her not to go to the town where the postcard is from and then proceeds there himself to see what’s up. She of course, ignores him and also goes because it’s her birthday and she doesn’t want to be alone, setting herself up for the very tragedy he saw in his vision. During the show, Johnny meets a lady who runs the local diner (which has a big pink spoon over it and was featured on the post card) who begins explaining that running away from his troubles (which is why he is in this little town) is not a good idea because she once got pregnant and gave the child up to provide a better life and has been running from it ever since and she regrets it.

So, our hero Johnny and his lady friend (who is also a bit psychic) go off and catch the bad guys, after having gotten caught by them, and save the day. As they are sitting dow for pie, our hero begins wondering why he saw his friend when he touched the postcard of the big pink spoon since that actually brought her into danger. He figures he must have seen her for some other reason. Come to find out that the cards are made by the lady who runs the diner and of course it follows that she is the friends mom. The girl had always had a vision of a pink spoon on her birthday and didn’t know why. (She thought it was just a sign she should eat ice cream.)
All in all, a nice little closing and the adoptee wasn’t the criminal or psycho in the end so that was cool, she was psychic though. I had a thought for an episode where an adoptee asks Johnny to track down his mom and he decides to do it because he sees a great catastrophe if he doesn’t. Winds up, by finding her, the adoptee is able to provide a much needed kidney to her. Not sure where I got the idea.

It’s funny how adoption keeps cropping up. Even though I haven’t been reading much online recently it stills sneaks up on you. For example, while working on a computer at work, I came across an email from another employee that was asking if anyone who knows of a mother or perspective mother who may be thinking of giving up her child to open adoption because they have a friend who is looking. My first reaction was anger but then I realised that it was an opportunity. I wrote a brief email to the employee and included the recommendations for adoptive parents. I also offered to talk to them or share some of my books with them. He thanked me but said little else. Hopefully they will review it and take something away from it. Hopefully they will have a truly open adoption and everything will be okay in the world. Maybe they will call.

I’ve grown certain that the root of all fear is that we’ve been forced to deny who we are.
Frances Moore Lappe, O Magazine, May 2004

I have been reading about a lot of reunions and I have to say it hurts. Especially with my birthday just a few days ago. I don’t want to deny them this nor do I wish they didn’t have this but I am so jealous. Tonight though, I read of another who was turned away and my heart aches for them. As I read their pain in the few short lines, it became a mirror of my own which I had pushed down. How can someone do this to another being, there own children? I know that there may be fear or pain on the other side but take a chance please.

Let go of the fear that is holding you back and take a chance on your blood. Set yourself free of the shame or regrets. Whatever is holding you back, let it go and embrace us.

How simple a thing it seems to me that to know ourselves as we are, we must know our mothers’ names.
Alice Walker

As I was laying my youngest son in bed just now, I was overcome with a pain deep in my chest. With tears in my eyes, I just held him for a few minutes. The feeling was so strange. I have been stressed recently; a new job, new baby, my older son has been a bit of a pill. I also have another event happening: my birthday which is a week away. As I get closer, I have been thinking more of her. Where is she, what is she doing? Why hasn’t she contacted me? So many groups that I belong to are filled with adoptees who have reunited and it’s like little pin pricks. I keep considering not going to these meetings but like a moth to a flame, of course I do. A part of me wishes my birthday was past but a part is looking forward to a few presents and dinner with my family.

It’s weird to think that some thirty plus years ago, was the last time I saw my birthmother. I wish I could remember something from back then but I can’t remember when I was thirteen much less a newborn.

I wish she would just write to me. I wish I knew for sure the name I have is hers. I wish I knew her.

…therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.
John Donne (1572 - 1631), Meditation XVII

We are rattling cages. Some, like Amy, are louder than others but each voice counts. Even the smallest adds to the power we have. Every voice that speaks their truth adds to the knowledge of those not involved in adoption. With them listening, the face of adoption will change. Yes, it has changed some but there is still coercion, there are still mothers who want their children back and the business owners and lawyers who fight against that, there are still many states who prevent their citizens from knowing their own truth.

I listen to the stories of adotpees searching. I hear their pain within their words, and their anger at being treated as second class citizens when it comes to their informaion. My soul resonates with it.

I listen to the words of the agency lackeys. The comments they post on other blogs, the videos they create, the stories they publish, there is an element of fear in it. Fear that the status quo isn’t going to stay. Fear that their control, their power is slowly slipping away. As each state provides Equal Acces, each government begins to acknowledge our rights, a bell tolls. My soul revels in it.

Let’s face it, Adoption is not about providing a home for unwanted children. It’s not about making a better life, even if the perspective birth mother thinks she is doing the “best thing.” I want to ask those people who put the idea that this was the “best thing” in your mind?

Adoption is about lining the coffers of board members by tearing apart families. It’s about selling babies for the “right to parent.” It’s about business disguided behind the mask of smiling faces and open hands.

Adoption is said to be a multi-billion dollar business, can you imagine what that money could do if put toward keeping families together? Can you imagine what it might be like if an adoption had to take place, the adoptee was treated with respect and had their full information and truth and it was their decision what to do with it?

Not yet though. We still have to struggle for access. We have to battle against the supposed “right to privacy.” Think about this. The government will defend the right for an accused person to face the person who accuses them. They will allow a murderer or a rapist to sit and look right at the person who is accusing them. Yet, they won’t allow me to know where my blood comes from. They will even try to enact laws to make it illegal for me to even attempt to find out.

It is changing though, slowly but surely with each small voice so don’t let it stop you. Add you voice, even if you think it doesn’t matter. Even if you think it’s just too small to really help. It does help; each story is an important piece, each voice an important instrument, each truth a light.

1. Your mom loved you so much, she gave you up.

Right, whenever people say this to me, I always want to ask them if they gave their kids away and when they say no, then I would reply, “Why, you don’t love them?” Think about that. You are basically reaffirming the belief that the only way to love is to walk away.

2. You were Chosen.

In some cases, this is true but the term is something I have heard a lot of adoptees complain about. It’s sounds more like picking up a dog at the pet store, or choosing a piece of fruit. We named our group Chosen Babies as a way to kind of take it back, in the same vein as Bastard Nation.

3.(When an adoptee mentions they are searching:) Do your parents know?

(This one is usually asked with the slight look of confusion or even disgust.) Maybe they do and maybe they don’t but why do you ask? Is it to shame me for looking? Is it to remind me that I may be causing them pain and possibly some fear in searching? Are you implying I can’t handle this on my own or that I need their permission? Or maybe you are implying that there feelings are more important than mine? Which usually leads to:

4. Telling us we “owe” or should feel “grateful” to our adoptive parents.

Why is it that I can’t be grateful to my parents for raising me and still search for my roots? Why is it that wanting to know our history or see a face like ours is “not” being grateful? Have you ever looked thru a photo album of ancestors long gone? Was looking thru this being ungrateful to your parents?

5. Calling us Adopted Child.

This is one for the agencies. We are often called the Adopted Child by them. It’s almost a dismissal as if our voices don’t matter. There does seem to be a shift by some away from this but not enough. We aren’t children now. We are adults and many of us want our records and the truth, our truth.

6. I wish I was adopted.

Really? You wish you grew up looking for a face in a crowd that looks a little something about you? How about the lack of medical and having to see “the look” from doctors and nurses? The feeling of being so small while you wait for the agency to tease you with another small tidbit of info, that you don’t even know is truth or not?

7. You were so lucky.

Lucky that I have never seen someone who looks like me? Lucky that I have no medical records to share with my children for their future. Lucky that I have to pay extra money to have tests done, or extra money to try to get records that others pay a few bucks for?

8. Are you or have you ever though about looking for your “real” parents?

This one can be borderline. Which group are our “real” parents, the ones who gave us life or the ones who raised us for the beginning of our lives? In my mind, both are my “real” parents. Look up the word Parent in Websters. Definition a says one who begets. Definition b says one who brings up or cares for. Both apply. One is the foundation and the past, the other helped form the person built on that foundation.

9. What does the past really matter?

Why do people spend money logging into ancestry.com? Why do family Bibles usually have family trees in them? Because the past does matter and we have every right to know ours. This can go extra for trans-racial adoptees who may now have little or no ties to their ancestry and customs which is a crime unto itself.

10. Oh, you must be one of those angry adoptees.

Well I am now after that statement. :smile: No really, this is such a dismissal. Unfortunately, I have seen it applied to some of the least angry adoptees I have known. For example, adoptees who want their records but still understand the need for adoption. Granted, a reformed method of adoption but still adoption. Adoptees who want to teach others to prevent the next generation of going thru what we did or feeling the way we did. Adoptees who just want to promote understanding but are still dismissed by those afraid of the possibilities.

Patience is the companion of wisdom.
Saint Augustine (354 AD - 430 AD)

We got into a discussion on Chosen-Babies.com about things we would like to say to our birthparents. Below is the list that we came up with. Not everything applies to everyone but they are pretty valid.

1. Be patient and don’t back away.
2. Try to indulgle our curosity as things that people who are not adopted take for granted is really opening a whole new world for us and we need to be able to assumulate it into our current lives
3. Own up to your truth as well as your child’s truth
4. Be compassionate to us. We may have had a great life or a bad one. You may have relinquished us out of necessity or coercion but this is a big thing for us.
5. Understand we aren’t all gold diggers or murderers or stalkers. We want to find a part of ourselves we have never known, to see a face that looks like ours.
6. Share the information you have. Many of us don’t have access to accurate records and holding that information because it’s painful is painful for us too. Don’t make us beg or plead for our information and don’t hold it over our heads either.
7. Understand that many of us consider the people who raised us our parents. Don’t disparage them to us.
8. If you have relinquished and not reunited, please give any medical information to the agency as soon as you can and keep it updated. This information doesn’t just affect us, but our children and theirs as well.
9. Temper any expectations on what is expected of us…ie..being YOUR child, telling us that we should be thankful we wern’t aborted.
10. Stand in your own pain as I am having to stand in my own pain as a result of the circumstances
11. Don’t harbor guilt about us, it will ony interfere with us getting to know each other. Don’t refer to us as the “one mistake” you made back in the day.
12. Please don’t keep us a secret. Your brothers, sisters, children, and parents are our blood too.
13. We are both going to feel emotionally overwhelm from time to time. When this happens, find someone to talk to about it: clergy, friend, psychologist, support group; however, do not “lash out” at me and say you would rather the reunion have not occurred. All this does is confuse and frustrate things further, and could lead to greater distance and deeper wounds being created.
14. Don’t hide the name of our fathers/mothers if you have it. Whatever the relationship you had with them doesn’t affect that they are our father/mother and we should be allowed to find them if we wish. After all, they have half our history too.
15. Giving us up isn’t the end of the story. While we understand there may have been extenuating circumstances the first time, the second time there shouldn’t be. Don’t reject us.
16. Protect and stand up for your children’s civil rights. Speak out for equal access to original birth certificates whenever possible. Especially make it clear to the agency involved with your adoption that you SUPPORT equal access.
17. ***ADDED PER COMMENT*** Don’t tell your biological child that you don’t like the name his adoptive parents chose for you

So there you go. Please feel free to comment or recommend additions to this list.

If you wish to link to this list, please give credit to the Adoptees of Chosen-Babies.com.