Changes

I think that each and everyone one of us has the capacity for change.  Heck change is what I’m all about, and what this blog is all about.  I an an Adult Adoptee Advocating For Change, after all.

It’s not just me, I feel change in the air.  We are all growing, all changing, maybe we’ll all be better for it.   

Change takes inspiration and no one has inspired me more than Marley today.  Just to think a year ago her position on adoption agencies went like this…

Records and identity access is about our rights and has no connection with the marketing schemes of adoption agencies. BN has a long-standing, hard-line policy of accepting no support from the adoption industry. Bastard Nation specifically, and the adoptee rights movement in general, cannot and should not be co-opted or used by the adoption industry to promote its own agenda. We disavow all industry involvement in our work. Any entanglement with the adoption industry endangers the integrity and credibility of the adoptee rights movement.

 

And today when she says, in reference to her groups partnership with Holt International, commenting on my last post….

 

 We are partners with many groups with CalOpen. 

 

This includes 3, count them 3, adoption agencies, by the way.

 

I’ve always said that in order to get records opened up we must work with all kinds of people and organizations related to adoption, and here’s Marley living by that example.  

And I can only think that her presence will go on to inspire more good things.  More openness at Holt, an easing in the attitude that they display to natural mothers, a brand new day at Holt International.  I’m sure Marley, above all others, is working to make Holt the kind of adoption agency we’d all like to see.  Gone will be the days of half truths and difficulty reuniting.  

Change is good and I’m proud of you Marley.

Did Jesus Tell You To Lie?

Seems that somebody is having a bit trouble with the truth.  I had engaged in a very civil discourse on open adoption records with this liar and she twisted my words.  I don’t like that.  It seems that she wants to make people believe that I support “mutual consent” in matters of birth certificate access.

Crazy lying bitch.  I do not in any way support mutual consent laws.  I believe that adoptees should have free access to their birth certificates.

Here’s the post followed by comments..

he Legal History of Adoption in the U.S.

December 2, 2008 by hsaxton

“Kippa Herring” has posted several comments regarding the research of Professor Elizabeth Samuels, who published her overview of the legal history of adoption in the U.S. in the Rutgers Law Review ( Winter 2001), entitled  “The Idea of Adoption.” Rather than print selected quotes from Samuel’s work, I’ve decided to refer you to the article so you can read it in its entirety.

Although Professor Samuels (like Kippa) is in favor of mandated open records (as opposed to the “mutual consent” approach advocated by the National Council for Adoption and myself), Samuels’ paper is helpful in providing a historical context for understanding the complexities of the issue, and how balancing the respective (often conflicting) needs and responsibilities of all three sides of the adoption triad have challenged state legislatures and social agencies alike for more than sixty years.

For those of you who are new to this, mandated open records ”unseal” original birth certificates of adult adopted children (and other persons of interest), regardless of whether the biological parents agree to having identifying information released to the (adult) child.

At this time, only a handful of states allow adult adoptees unrestricted access to their original records, although this is something that a variety of nationally organized advocacy groups (such as “Bastard Nation” and “Unsealed Initiative” are fighting to change).

Nevertheless, adoptive parents will want to educate themselves about the issue so you can be prepared when your child broaches the subject of his birth parents. Not all adopted children decide to look for their birth parents, but most have feelings about their birth families that we — their parents – need to help them work through, even if search and reunion is not a possibility.

Information is power, the saying goes. By educating ourselves about the issues surrounding adoption, we empower ourselves to give our children the support they need to reconcile and integrate the two sides of their heritage.

No two families will approach this the same way. It may be that your child has no interest in finding his birth family. If he does, try to relax and not take it as a sign that he is rejecting you.From what I’ve read, there seems to be little connection between an adopted child’s desire to know his birth family and the strength of the bond he has with his adoptive parents. Just this afternoon I spoke with a radio producer whose older sister found her birth family, and yet he had no desire to do so.

In any event, this article is well worth reading, no matter where in the adoptive triad you stand.

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Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• Sealed Adoption Records from an Adoptee’s View
• Oblivious America
• This is what we’re up against my friends …
• Fla. Gay Adoption Ban Dealt Legal Blow

4 Responses to “The Legal History of Adoption in the U.S.”

Oh, and if you’ll notice she said that she would delete my comment from her blog.  She hasn’t done that either.  Just another lie.

OK, she finally took that down.  But she’s still a liar.

Here’s my latest communication with Heidi The High Strung Convert..

Hah! Thanks for such a constructive and thoughtful response.

I’ve not read your blog, and based on what I’ve read about your perspective
so far, I seriously doubt that will change anytime soon. But I’m sure there
are plenty of those who share your viewpoint who will be happy to let you
“preach to the choir.” I just happen not to be one of them.

H.

And my response..

No sweetie, it’s you that has the choir.  I have minions, they look
like the monkeys that fly out your ass every time you lie.  Well I
have the minions, and I have readers.  You see if I bring up a topic
I’m willing to defend my position, it’s called integrity. I doubt you
would know anything about it.

Adoption Rocks!

I don’t get this at all. .

Some dork wearing an Adoption Rocks! t-shirt.

 

Adoption Rocks?  What are adoption rocks?  Are people adopting rocks now?  Are they like Pet Rocks?

I remember Pet Rocks.  Now that was a great piece of marketing.  Imagine convincing everyone that they should pay $3.95 for a rock.  Everybody just had to have one, because everybody else had one.  You wouldn’t want to feel left out.  If they would have come up with Pet Rocks today even Madonna would have one, hell she’d be out on the Pet Rock World Tour right now.

Wait a minute, this couldn’t be about adoption could it?  No way.

There’s no way someone is financing their adoption adoption selling these t-shirts.  Can’t they get a HELOC or something?  What are their plans for the future?  Are they going to start selling “Community College Rocks!” t-shirts when tuition time rolls around in a few years?  That’s just wrong.

If they are serious about this they do realize that saying anything “Rocks” at this point is passe, or at the very least the height of irony, right?  Because adoption does not rock.  In fact, I suspect that international adoption is very fast becoming passe.  Let’s face it, it came out yesterday that we are in a recession.  Displays of excess like giant SUVs, Birkin Kelly bags, and toting an ethnically diverse adoptee, are out.  Green, useful and frugal are in.  You’ll get over in a much bigger way in your hybrid, toting a kid recycled from our very own foster care system.  You can easily still get them in a variety of colors and sizes.  

Besides isn’t having to sell t-shirts in order to pay for your international adoption a bit like wearing a Rolex Daytona with a Members Only jacket?

Hard Realities

It has been commented that I may not be able to distinguish fantasy from reality.  This may be true, I think we all live in our own worlds, everything we see is interrupted through our own perspective.   This has nothing to do with being able to recognize satire.  In light of recent comments it also has nothing to do with reading comprehension.  If you’ll look to the top of the page, this one’s tagged satire.  That means I know that I’m writing about something that isn’t serious or real.

For example, I ran across this site just this morning..

http://4hillary.wordpress.com/

There is some pure gold right there, Arlen Specter questioning anyone’s sanity is brilliant.

And I won’t even mention the Ricky Martin post, I want you to enjoy it for your self, She Bangs indeed.

Also be sure to check out the comments section, this is where the bloggers are in their element, I don’t know how they come up with this stuff.  The daily show has nothing on these folks.

The writers of this blog have brought together the nuttier side of this election for all to enjoy.  When taken as a whole, one can see just how silly the blogosphere can really be.  Though purely satirical, it can be used as an excellent resource to point out just how desperate some of the unofficial Clinton campaign workers have become.

Check it out, and don’t blame me if you end up spitting your latte all over your computer screen.

Little Orphan Adopters

It seems that us adoptees aren’t the only ones who are orphans out there. So are the adopters.

Yep.

In another desperate attempt to justify raiding the word for cute little babies, this idea has come to light. Possibly the “we were all adopted in the family of Jesus” crap wasn’t working with the less godly potential adoptive parents, so some super genius has come up with this brainwave.

The reasoning goes like this. That when a person leaves their parents home and sets off in life, they are essentially orphaned. That growing up and actually doing what is expected, makes one an orphan. It would seem that the only ones with families still in tact are the losers living in their parents basements. Everybody else is an orphan. This is supposed to show how much anyone can identify with the situation of their adoptee. Oh course a lot of fancy language and hypothetical situations were used to make it sound like something much deeper, but that’s what it distills to.

I would like to know what kind of life these morons have experienced, but it sure as hell must be an easy one to think that leaving home is at all like losing one or both parents, at any age. Getting your first apartment is absolutely nothing like having a parent die. Coming up with first and last months rent and security deposit, as hard as it may have been for these defectives, bears no resemblance to waiting to hear how the test for terminal cancer came out for dear old dad, trust me.

This justification is not only a slap in the face to anyone who has ever lot a parent, it’s just plain lame. Most adoptees are not orphans, we were simply left for others to raise, be it by coercion, need, or abandonment. No life taking event lead to our adoption. Any orphan justification does not hold up on those terms alone.

Still there are those who would wish to avoid the reality that they are raising someone else’s child with any excuse they can muster. By somehow convincing themselves that they are orphans, it makes it aright in their mind to think of their adopted children in these terms. That they would think of themselves as orphans because they are not receiving the daily care of living parents is delusional.

Are these adopters parents gone, completely out of their lives? Do they gaze at their pictures recalling times past and wishing that they could speak to them just one more time? When something very good or very bad happens in their lives to they wish that they could pick up the phone and tell their departed parents about it? Do they have to take comfort in the fact that their parents just might be looking down on them from another place? Do they recall the day they left home, presumably the anniversary of their own orphanhood, every year with great sadness? And most of all, do they wish that their children could know their grandparents?

Real orphans do.

This silly justification belittles everyone involved, not just these people’s parents and themselves, but most of all the adoptee. Though we may not truly be orphans, we have lost something. Something that these desperate people scampering for any justification for their actions could never understand.

I Have A Brand New Plan

Well with every adoptee rights bill introduced in the current Missouri legislative session either withdrawn, on hold, or revised into a total piece of shit, it’s time to move on.

But how do we do that?

I’m glad you asked. This is where the new plan comes in.

What we are doing just ain’t working. We are going to ditch the kicking and crying, the victim attitude, the constant whining, and the Queen For A Fucking Day adoption beat me up so bad I can’t go on bullshit. We will also be jettisoning the back biting, the self-congratulatory boasting, and the goddamn circle jerk that the adoptee rights movement has become.

If you want to talk about your feelings, if you feel the need to cry into your dish towel, take a walk right now. You ain’t going to do that here. There are places for that, heck I administrate a couple of them, that’s the place for it. Go heal yourself and please come around when you are feeling stronger. We do have a place at the table for you, when you’re ready.

Now if you can put the pain aside and act like a grown-up for at least a little while, and truly desire your rights, let’s talk.

First let’s be honest, we aren’t even close in the state of Missouri. It’s going to take a lot of work and more than likely a lot of time. A lot of people would tell you that open records are just around the corner, it just ain’t so, right here, right now. All you have to do is look at what happened to all the bills that were considered this session to see that.

That’s not to say that it can’t be done, it can. But getting everybody’s hopes up over something that was obviously going to amount to nothing does no one any good. Expect to get beat up. There are very powerful people who do not want us to have access and the truth be told, those that do support our cause have shown no inclination to go to war recently.

We need to give the people that can help us a reason to champion our cause. While our cause is a noble one, and almost anyone can be convinced of that fairly easily, someone else’s noble cause is rarely a reason to go to war. We need to give them a real reason to help us out.

One of the best reasons I can think of to help someone is that they have helped you out in the past.

The first step in The Brand New Plan is not-so-random acts of kindness. We are going to help out those that could help us out. First go here..

Missouri Leggie Look-up

Find your legislators. Many of them are up for re-election this fall. You can go here to see if they have filed..

Who’s in the running

If they have filed, call their office. You are going to be the best johnny-on-the-spot volunteer they have ever seen. You are going to make phone calls, knock on doors, fetch coffee, eat dirt, what ever, and talk to everyone you know about voting for your candidate. You will impress your candidate with your dedication and nobility. Study up, know all the issues, not just adoptee rights. Let them know that you aren’t one dimensional. That you are a citizen concerned with all aspects of life. They will hopefully see you as the real and noble person that you are.

When you come to them later you will be more than one of the many people who wants something, you will be someone that has helped them. This may help to incline them to help you. You are noble and dedicated after all.

This approach will be most effective in the House races. The House candidates always have less people working for them. State Rep races just don’t have the glamor of the national races, you will have less other people performing not-so-random acts of kindness to compete with.

We need to focus on the already friendly leggies first, of course.

Davis in District 42

Roorda in District 102

In the State senate races, the once and maybe future friendly Connie Johnson has filed for the seat in district 5.

I’ll be throwing myself at my incumbent state rep hoping to curry favor.

This is only the beginning. We need to present ourselves as adults, with some knowledge of how things work in order to be treated as adults.

We are starting all over here folks. This is the first step.

If You Really Hate Me…

here’s a chance to have a great time reading an in depth analysis of me.

Adopto-moron talks about Addie, Jesus, and lots of other things she has no idea about.

You’ll also be treated to some really great church music.

Here are some highlights…..

How do we know? And then what should we do about it? Does all of this matter in the “big picture” of life? I’m realizing that there is a lot of controversy surrounding this topic . . . . and there a many adult adoptees who did not have that “wonderful” experience that we all strive to accomplish when we, as parents, decide to build our family through adoption. I discovered this blog yesterday, and it broke my heart. And, having raised my own four biological children before adopting Gracie and Annie, I know that biology guarantees nothing. Some children, adopted and non-adopted, grow up feeling safe, secure, loved, and cherished . . . . . and others, oftentimes in the same family and experiencing exactly the same parenting style, grow up angry, disillusioned, and frustrated with the world.

Luckily my a-parents style was much different than yours, honey.

BTW, I’m not frustrated with the world, just your little ruffly corner of it. Did you even read my blog, or just the post about that Chapman dork?

I think that sometimes people who grow up as adoptees, assume that everything in their life that was or is negative, would be different if they just hadn’t been adopted by THESE parents, or that everything would be better in their life if they hadn’t been adopted at all.

Good that you’re thinking, but you’re wrong. I’m sure you’re used to that. Actually my life’s pretty positive. I never said my a-folks were bad parents. In fac, if you read as well as you “think” you’d know that.

Has anyone ever done the assume thing with you? You know when you assume you make an ass out of you and me? Ever heard that? Guess not.

Life is difficult, no matter the circumstance.

No shit, Sherlock.

I realize there are specific issues that revolve around adoption . . . . .

Yes, and the Earth revolves around the sun. Good thinking there genius.

I was adopted by my step-father at the age of five. And I met my biological father once, when I was 17, and when I could not do what he needed me to do for him, he sent me away and I’ve never heard from him since. I don’t even know if he is still living.

Are you projecting your bad adoption experience onto me? Sure looks like it.

And we need to have great compassion for those who have suffered heartache from their experiences of adoption.

I’m really try here with you. Next time you might let me know you’d linked to me, it makes me feel much more compassionate, since we’ve established you need that.

Perhaps they will talk with me, so that I can learn how recognize the kinds of issues that cause life-long frustration and resentment. I’m an optimist!

Good for you. The world loves an optimist. Now go optimize on somebody else.

Because many children who are adopted are there because the birth parents loved them so much, that they were willing to suffer the heart break of allowing their children to leave them for a better life.

There you go assuming again, ass out of you and me, remember?

You obviously have no idea what my story is, so shut the fuck up. You stupid know it all repressed little piece of brainlesness.

It’s a serious discussion, but one which me must enter into. Adoption is about a life, a very precious individual, and we must always remember that.

Yeah it is a serious discussion and you’re obviously not ready to have it. You might try preparing yourself before you attempt to engage in a discussion next time.

Great huh?

I hope my haters have enjoyed this little interlude. I sure know I have.