birthparent rights

Uncensored Adoptees Tell Birth Mothers The Truth

/ V.L. Brunskill / 15 Comments

As moderator of the Facebook page –Adoptees who have found their biological relatives, I ask members to comment on reunion-related questions. This engaged community shares with gusto and their answers give insight into the many feelings associated with abandonment, adoption and reunion.

adoptionLast week, I asked the following question.

If you could say one thing about adoption to your birth mother (without guilt or censorship) what would it be?

These heartfelt replies are a testament to the pain, healing and resilience of adoptees.

  • “You have made me feel like an abortion come to life. You nearly destroyed me when I first found you and every interaction thereafter has been unbearably painful. I believe you are a frozen person, disassociated from your pain and I feel sorry for you that your life is full of lies and secrets and you will not come into the light.”
  • “One thing…..who’s my birth father? ….won’t tell any of us”
  • “I forgive you.”
  • “Just curious as to why you kept the 4 children you had after me. I’m not angry or bitter, just curious.. I’m not asking because I wonder what life would have been like with you either.. I’m curious by nature.”
  • “Without guilt, thank you, and I mean it. Uncensored… you suck, and I mean that too. But I feel guilty about feeling it!”
  • “I have had a wonderful live, but I missed you.”
  • “You used the care system to dispose of me, but I made so much more of my life thanks to my short time in adoption and foster care. Thank you for negating me to your whole entire family, and lying for over 20 years who my father is. I’ve let go of that never and continue to strive to be a better mother woman and human being than you ever could be.”
  • “It would be a question, not a statement. I would ask her if she ever thought about me.”
  • “Thank you for giving me a stable healthy life.”
  • “Thank you for healthfully bringing me into this world. Thank God you didn’t raise me. Why after 42 years do you still hold onto secrets?”
  • “I would tell her that I wish she could have kept me, she wanted to, but was forced to give me up. Sad.”
  • “My first mother and I have talked at length about my adoption and the events that lead up to it. A lot of illegal things were done and she was treated badly. I think the one thing I would say that I am not sure I have is, ‘I’m sorry those things were done to you.'”
  • “You made the best decision ever to put me up for adoption…it was done out of love.”
  • “I’m so glad we found each other, thank you for never giving up.”
  • “I would tell her to seek professional help for the pain she has from losing me at birth, for no other reason than I need my mom. I need that safe place to curl up in her arms, and let all the hurt and pain of the past 45 years out. And then finish healing together. Wishful thinking. I know.”
  • “Why? Why? Why? Why could you have given me to my birth fathers family instead of telling them I died?”
  • “You lied! You also kept a sister after you relinquished me. You hurt me.”
  • “Why would you still hide me from my family after all these years? I have not hid you from anyone in my family but if I did, how would that make YOU feel? I don’t think you realize how hiding my reality (and yours) just reinforces the feelings of being unworthy of acceptance. Still haunts me to this day.”

What would you say?  Share your thoughts in the comments below.
I asked the same question with regard to adoptive parents, and will share those answers this weekend.
Blessings for open, healing adoption dialogue,
V.L.

Former Angry Adoptee- Stop the Blame Game

/ V.L. Brunskill / 4 Comments

Once upon at time, I was an angry adoptee. I wrote columns and commentaries railing against the big bad system that had placed me in a unsafe home and stolen my documentation, along with my identity.  Of late, I have read quite a few blogs and posts by adoptees who still reel in a emotional whirlwind of hate and blame.

Yuliya Nemova/Flickr

Blame by Yuliya Nemova/Flickr

These ‘blame the birth mom’, and ‘adoptive parents are greedy’ commentaries, make me realize that I’ve entered a new realm of adoptee reality. I am no longer a proponent of  blame. Nor, do I hate the people who placed, abandoned or adopted me.  In its wake, hate has been replaced by the realization that adoption is a necessary but flawed system.  Just ask a foster kid who awaits a forever home. Without the system, too many children would face a lifetime of broken promises and emptiness where connection belongs.

People who enter the adoption triad rarely do so knowing how it will change their souls and life paths. It is easy to blame, but far better to look at our adoptions as one more example of human frailty.  All segments of the triad suffer some sort of  catastrophic break.  As adoptees, our shattered identities often take a lifetime to find and stitch back to the shadows of our lives. We deserve to know where we come from, who we looks like, our genetic identities.

I see my old self in the faces and words of  blaming adoptees, and  I ‘m not sure whether it is age, or finding my family at age 27, and knowing them for twenty years that transformed anger to action.  I just know that I feel better these days, and have much more empathy for all sides of the triad.

Birth parents, adoptive parents, and adoptees can not be defined with a single sweeping categorization. I have seen attacks on each group of the adoption triad, and whether in it by choice or happenstance, attacking a group as if they are all one kind, is immature and hurtful.

The adoption system requires a transformation to open access for all. It should encourage the retention of identity and all first life connections.  It should not make anyone wealthy. There should  be no lies or altering of documents involved in the placement of children.

Like all things worthy in  this world, adoption should be honest, caring and healing.  The fact that the adoption system is in dire need of an overhaul does not  give us permission to play  the blame game,  attacking members of the adoption triangle. It is time to embrace change with action, not anger.

Blessings for a less angry adoption transformation,
V.L

———————————————–
Waving Backwards, a Savannah novel (SYP Publishing)
Imagine not knowing who you are,
until you find yourself in a statue 800-miles from home.
COMING TO A BOOKSTORE NEAR YOU AUGUST 2015

Australian Mothers Recall Nightmare of Forced Adoptions

/ V.L. Brunskill / Leave a comment

As I searched for my birthmother, I always assumed that the choice to give me up was hers. I also believed that her motives, while off-kilter due to a lack of life experience, were basically good.  I was correct, and while my birthmother suffered every year on my birthday, she accepted the repercussions and responsibility that came with her decision.

Lars Plougmann/Flickr.com

Imagine though, the birthmother who is given no choice. Imagine a world where young, unmarried women are forced to give away their babies, denied pain medicine, and made to recover from giving birth in a cold veranda, while married mothers rest in a warm, safe maternity ward.

An article this month at ABC NorthCoast Australia, offers heartbreaking, first-person accounts of forced adoptions in Australia during the 1960’s.

It is unclear from the article, whether or not there is an ongoing investigation into Australian adoption practices, or if the piece is simply meant to reveal the evil practices of the past. Either way, the women’s recollection are heart-wrenching.

Note- I am looking for more upbeat adoption news. I promise. However, some stories deserve to be told again and again.

Washington House Passes Open Records Bill with One Big ‘IF”

/ V.L. Brunskill / Leave a comment
underclassrising.net/Flickr

underclassrising.net/Flickr

The good news in this Oregon Live article, is that a bill that would allow adult adoptees to obtain their original birth certificates, was passed by the Washington State House, and is off to the Senate for approval.

The bad news, is that the bill contains a clause that would deny adoptees their birth certificates, ‘IF’ the birth parent has filed an affidavit stating that they do not want to be contacted.

Why should a birthparent be allowed to ‘opt out’, thus denying an adoptee pertinent birth records?  This is the age old questions for adult adoptees, why are the birthparent’s rights more important than the innate right to know your identity, and lineage?

I don’t recall signing away that right, what about you?