Author: V.L. Brunskill

Admission: Another Hollywood Movie Misses Adoption Mark

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As author of the novel ‘Waving Backwards’,  a family saga laced with romance, southern history, intrigue and an adoption search, I get it. I understand Hollywood’s need to include heart-tugging, teary adoption and reunion scenarios in movies. I’m also happy for the attention the big screen brings to our plight as members of the adoption triad.

What I fail to understand is why Hollywood buries adoption stories under so many layers of frivolity and false representations of what it is to be an adoptee or birth mother.  For Hollywood, adoption is a sweet little subplot thrown in without much research or attention to detail.
 

Case in point, I watched the movie ‘Admission’ last night, expecting a nice comedy about the trials and tribulations of a college admission professional at Princeton University. Tina Fey plays Portia, an admissions professional, romantic failure, and oh by the way— birth mother to a kid she gave up as a teenager.

In the movie, Fey encounters a teenage prodigy who may be her long-lost son while recruiting students for Princeton. Fey never considers that the kid could be her relinquished child. In fact, as far as we know, she has never wondered about any of the 17-year-old boys she’s interviewed for admission to Princeton. WHAT? Every birth mother I’ve encountered has spent a significant amount of tortured time examining the faces of  children who are the same age as the kid they relinquished.

In ‘Admission’ Fey’s character only starts thinking of the relinquished boy after costar Paul Rudd (who runs the alternative school where the prodigy is enrolled)  waves the kid’s birth certificate in her face.  Once she thinks the boy might be her son, Fey jumps through hoops to get him into Princeton, forsaking her career in the process.

I won’t ruin the ending, but let’s just say Fey’s character is left in the birth mom lurch. She ends up requesting additional information from a social worker, presumably at the the adoption agency where she placed her son. Bing, bam, boom… identifying information magically arrives in the mail within weeks. Just like reality. Right birth moms?

Overall, I liked the movie. It is light, cute and fast-moving. However, I couldn’t shake the feeling that adoption will never be portrayed by Hollywood as the strings-attached, emotionally devastating, taxing and (in some cases of reunion) delightful life experience that it is.

Blessings for a true portrayal of adoption,
Vicki-lynn

Waterloo Two, Where are you? Canadian family searches for siblings

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Adoption find community, let’s help this Canadian family complete their sibling circle.

Five children were relinquished by birth mother Marlene Walsh. Three of five Walsh siblings have been reunited after being adopted by three different families.  Marlene Walsh is deceased.

Correction just in from Jennifer Rosati- “There are 7 of us siblings in total from Marlene. 4 adopted – and 3 raised by their birth fathers.
5 of us are together, and we are now looking for the last two.”

The trio now seek to complete their sibling quintet in time for an August 2013 family reunion. The sisters are on the hunt for the missing Waterloo Two, who according to birth sister Jennifer Rosati- “were born in the Waterloo area — a girl born around 1987 and a boy in 1989 — to Marlene Walsh and a man with the last name of Ellis.” Waterloo is a small city in Southern Ontario, Canada.

As reported  by  The Record  the two missing siblings, “were adopted by the same parents and their adopted father was a professor at a local university. The couple fostered the children before adopting them.” 

The sisters have registered with the  Canadian Reunion Registry. However, as anyone who has used an adoption reunion registry will attest, that route could take years.

To learn more about the Walsh sisters’ search or to get in touch with the siblings, visit their Facebook page, “Need Help Finding the Rest of Our Birth Siblings in Kitchener-Waterloo.”

Blessings for a speedy Waterloo reunion,
Vicki-lynn

P.S  This song keeps popping into my head as I write about the Walsh family.

Will the circle be unbroken?
I went back home, my home was lonesome
Missed my mother, she was gone
All of my brothers, sisters crying
What a home so sad and lone

Will the circle be unbroken
By and by, Lord, by and by

Can Adoption Create Addicts? | The Fix

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Take a minute to read this article from The Fix.  It is an eye-opening account of the link between adoption and addiction. Can Adoption Create Addicts? | The Fix.

http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/addiction/genetics/

Photo courtesy of University of Utah

I have pondered this topic quite a bit.  In the book The Primal Wound author Nancy Newton Verrier suggests a link between adult adoptee behavior and our relinquishment.

Research presented in The Primal Wound also suggests that the lifelong effects of adoption on behavior are worse when a child is removed from its biological mother at birth. This is due to the pre-speech nature of the wound.  When a child experiences pain and cannot express it verbally, it becomes a deep-seated fissure in human personality.

I know a lot of adoptees who have experienced drug and food addictions, but is it cause and effect? Or is it merely coincidental? What do you think? Does adoption cause addiction? Please share your thoughts and experiences using the comment link below.

Blessings for a healing honest exchange,
Vicki-lynn

Bryan County News Article on Book Drive for Tornado Victims

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As many of my loyal adoption find readers know, I started a book drive to restock the two elementary schools demolished by tornadoes in Moore, OK last month. The drive is now in full swing with 250 books in house and another 1700 promised! The book drive (and yours truly) was blessed with a full page  in today’s local newspaper.

Please share, ‘like’ the article on Facebook and donate one new or nearly new children’s (K-6) book. Mail to PO BOX 249, Richmond Hill, GA 31324

Bryan County News article on the drive
Writer collects books for tornado victims
By Magdalena Bresson

If Vicki-lynn Brunskill knew one thing in the pit of her stomach, it was that she couldn’t waste one more day merely thinking about all the ways she could be helping those in need.
When a wave of tornados swept through Oklahoma last month and devastated a community of people just like herself, Brunskill couldn’t wait any longer. Before she could talk herself out of it, the Brooklyn, N.Y., native had thrown together a massive book drive for the desecrated elementary schools in Moore, Okla.
“I love children and I love books,” Brunskill said. “And what is a school without books? When I was in elementary school the library was my salvation — and these kids in Oklahoma need an escape.” Read the full story.

Also check out the interview at the link below. You’ll learn more than you ever wanted to know about your favorite adoption rights advocate.

BRYan County News-
Proust questionnaire: Vicki-lynn Brunskill

Writer Vicki-lynn Brunskill, whose work includes the novel, “Waving Backwards,” faces the questions this week.

Thanks for reading and blessings that we may place a book in every child’s hand! Vicki-lynn

MPNnow News: Adult Adoptees seek Answers

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Sharing a wonderful article from MPNnow.com on one adoptee’s need to know and pending NY legislation that would allow adult adoptees equal access to their Original Birth Certificates (OBC’s).

Adult adoptees seek answers

Adults adopted as children hope for legislation to make it easier to learn about their birth parents

Only first page of article is shared below. Read the rest at MPNnow.com: http://www.mpnnow.com/topstories/x1910063270/Adult-adoptees-seek-answers#ixzz2VRwOwqC1

East Bloomfield, N.Y. —

A card in Dottie O’Neill Marble’s baby book read: “I wasn’t expected, I was selected.”

Marble’s adoption shortly after she was born was never a secret, said the 42-year-old East Bloomfield resident — but details of her past were a secret.

“My adoptive mom was very supportive,” said Marble. In her teen years, Marble said she began placing ads in newspapers in hopes of finding her birth mother. “It was an overwhelming feeling of not knowing who you really are,” she said.

A possible solution to her identity crisis came one day in 1995 when she got a call from someone with information about a baby born at Genesee Hospital on Sept. 19, 1970, a girl given up for adoption. It led to an eventual meeting with a woman Marble believes is her birth mother.

“It closed a big hole for me,” said Marble, one of a growing number of adoptees and others seeking more openness in the New York state adoption law.

While Marble’s efforts led to some sense of closure — as well as connecting with a grandmother and an extended family she didn’t know before — it also called attention to New York’s adoption law that prevents adoptees from obtaining an original birth certificate to learn about their past.

Proposed legislation in Albany addressing this issue is called the Bill of Adoptee Rights. It clarifies language and procedures for obtaining birth certificates and medical histories of adoptees; permits an adopted adult to access certain records when they reach the age of 18; and creates a contact preference to be filed by birth parents, giving those parents the right to state whether or not they want contact with the child.

“Right now, any adopted adult over the age of 18 cannot get access to their own birth certificate, and this creates obvious problems for the adopted adult,” said Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb, R-Canandaigua. Kolb is a sponsor of the bill.

“This is an important bill to remedy that, and I believe they have a right to know and a right to gain access so they can meet the many identification requirements they have to provide their birth certificate for in their adult life,” he said.

Marble said that while the current law protects parents who give up a baby for adoption, it leaves the adopted person “without any rights.” When she sought to find her birth mother, “I wasn’t out to disrupt anyone’s life,” she said. What she did want was the truth about where she came from and to be able to provide that information to her own children, she said.

Read the rest at: http://www.mpnnow.com/topstories/x1910063270/Adult-adoptees-seek-answers#ixzz2VRwHUveJ

Blessings for equal access,

Vicki-lynn

AdoptionFind: Book Drive to Stock Tornado Ravaged OK School Libraries

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For two nights, I tossed and turned trying to think of a way to help Moore, Oklahoma rebuild. For those of you who don’t know- two of the city’s elementary schools were destroyed by a powerful tornado on May 20th, 2013.

Donate a book for Moore OK Libraries

Mail one book for Moore, OK

As I do not have the means to help alone, I have started a children’s book drive called ‘Books to Build On- Moore, OK‘ and I need your help!

My plan is to gather books from around the country and get them to Moore once the elementary schools are rebuilt. Please do not send books directly to the city as they do not have a place to store them. Donated books will be stored at my home until the elementary schools are ready for them.  At that time, I will use a donated rental truck to transport the books to Oklahoma. Any overflow will either be distributed in the Moore, OK community or brought to other schools in need.

I contacted the Moore Schools Superintendent for ideas on how many books and the types of books the elementary schools will need. I will share these details as they become available.

AdoptionFind community, please help to rebuild Moore, Oklahoma’s elementary school libraries. I anticipate that ‘Books to Build On’ will be a 3-month drive. Help to rebuild the hope, lives and learning opportunities for the tornado ravaged community. Please send a new or gently used book that is appropriate for Kindergarten through sixth grade (K-6) level readers to:

Books to Build On
c/o V.L. Brunskill
PO Box 249
Richmond Hill, Georgia 31324
USA

Please share, tweet and re-blog.
Blessings for making a difference one book at a time,
Vicki-lynn

Help pass NY Adoption Legislation for Adoptee Access to Birth Records

/ V.L. Brunskill / 1 Comment

NEWS10 ABC reported yesterday on Legislation that would give adoptees access to birth records. What a wonderful way to head into Mother’s Day weekend!

However, we can’t sit back and celebrate just yet. The New York Statewide Adoption Reform Unsealed Initiative needs your help to make sure this life-altering Adoption legislation passes the Senate.  Call your friends, share and please do whatever you can to make equal access the law in New York.

Below are details from the New York Statewide Adoption Reform Unsealed Initiative  site explaining what you can do right now.New York unsealed initiative

“Contact your legislators in their District Offices. To learn who your state assembly member and senator are, call the Albany switchboard at: 518 455-4218. The phone number in New York City for the League of Women Voters is (212) 725-3541. There are 150 assembly members and the link to the assembly website is http://assembly.state.ny.us
There are 62 state senators. One way to find out who your senator is is by logging on to the senate site, www.senate.state.ny.us
We now have 75 assembly sponsors. Although we have 16 in the senate, we are very hopeful for the future. With more interest and more of us committed to lobby in Albany next session, we are determined to win.
 
A written letter (snail mail) is of more importance with many legislators. However, some value emails. If your email does not get through, go to SEARCH and type in the name of the legislator for access to their website, as many have their own sites. Then send an email from the site. Be sure to include your address and phone number in your mail.A new law recently signed by Governor Cuomo extends participation in the adoption registry to include adult adoptees born in other states but adopted in New York. At last they can obtain non-identifying information from the registry the same as adult adoptees born in the state.”

Let’s go New York adoption triad members!
Let’s get this long overdue legislation passed!

Blessings for making the dream of equal access a reality,

Vicki-lynn

Closed Adoption System: 50+ Years of Stolen Biological Rights and Broken Identities

/ V.L. Brunskill / 7 Comments

The closed adoption system in America is broken, and has been for more than fifty years.  Just look to Facebook for proof of the lifelong wounds inflicted by the closed adoption system. Everyday, hundreds of desperate adoptees post photos embellished with birth dates and non-identifying information in hopes of finding family.

The closed adoption system steals identities and often results in lifelong personality issues.  Even after reunion, many adoptees report a sense of not feeling bonded or belonging 100% to their biological or adoptive families.  We adoptees live in a limbo that tests the concepts of nature vs. nurture and like a science experiment gone horribly wrong, many of us can only guess at the biological tendencies that define us.

Having experienced the all-encompassing sense of loss that adoption brings, and knowing that my birth mother suffered the same emotional trauma, I have been thinking about the origins of closed adoption.  Who first decided that it was ok to take a child from one woman, charge a fee, and hand it over to another family to raise? Who decided that stealing and sealing away the medical and birth records of adoptees was a just legal procedure?

Adoption in America started informally in the mid 1800’s, as a way to place orphaned children. According to InfoPlease.com, “In 1851, Massachusetts passed the nation’s first adoption statute. It required that judges determine if adoptive parents had consent from the adoptee’s guardian or parent, “sufficient ability to bring up the child,” and that it was “fit and proper that such adoption should take effect.”

Two years later, Charles Loring Brace founded the Children’s Aid Society of New York in 1853. The Children’s Aid Society was meant to serve orphans, and created the Orphan train phenomenon. InfoPlease writes, “Between 1859 and 1929 some 200,000 orphaned children were transported from coastal cities to rural areas in the Midwest.”orphan train

After World War I, modern day adoption methods started to take shape. The choice to close off the records of adopted children was not a result of too many unwanted babies. It was a decision born of married couples wanting babies with no strings attached.  Adoption and social agencies supplied well-off couples with children and promised that biological families would not contact them.  Agencies claimed that closed adoptions would protect children against the social stigma of being illegitimate, and help them to bond.

Those of us who have searched or are currently searching know that the real stigma of closed adoption is being citizen with less inalienable rights than American’s who were raised by their biological families.  The idea that sealing away records would help a child to bond is the most laughable aspect of the closed adoption model.  Books like ‘Primal Wound‘ and ‘Being Adopted‘ chronicle the lifelong search for self, and the biological need to imprint that is inherent in all animals.

In the 1970’s, Roe vs. Wade and a change of social attitudes allowed for some open adoptions, but by then an entire generation of adoptees had been damaged. Many states are now considering laws that will allow adoptees to obtain their original birth certificates (OBCs), but for some the awakening of America will come to late.  How many biological mother’s went to their graves without ever once looking at their child? How many adoptees have searched in vain for information sealed away in their best interest?

It is sickening that in a country that prides itself on freedom of religion, protection of civil rights and freedom of speech, adoptees are still denied the right to know. Slavery was a broken system based on inequality, oppression and denial of basic human rights. It was abolished and slaves were freed.

When will adoptees be freed?
Blessings for equal access,
Vicki-lynn