Effecting Langauge

In a post over on adoptedintheuk.co.uk I (again) raised the point of how important the language is that we use around adoption. In the post, it was to happily demonstrate how some organisations are listening to what’s being said by adult adoptees.

In this post, it’s trying to work out why we’re saying things seemingly so at odds with the other, while simultaneously all expressing similar reactions to the side-thread momwifelawyer @ threw in the meleé.

Sickening’s more like it… MT @angieadoptee At the courthouse finalizing infant #adoptions today! #specialday

— 7rin (@7rin) March 19, 2013

@angieadoptee @7rin Bcause you are an adoptee supporting removal of infants from mothers to be adopted by strangers. Stolen identity. Loss.

— Joan Wheeler (@forbiddenfamily) March 19, 2013

@angieadoptee @forbiddenfamily So you’re supporting legalised child abandonment then, & calling it “special” when it happens

— 7rin (@7rin) March 19, 2013

@angieadoptee @forbiddenfamily Usually the case, but voluntary adoption = legalised child abandonment. How can it be anything other?

— 7rin (@7rin) March 19, 2013

@childwelfarelaw @angieadoptee @forbiddenfamily Nothing unusual. It happened to my acousins mid 80s 😦

— 7rin (@7rin) March 19, 2013

@childwelfarelaw @angieadoptee @forbiddenfamily Don’t you know we get booted out if we dare do such things?! Can’t find a post I wanna link

— 7rin (@7rin) March 19, 2013

@7rin @childwelfarelaw @forbiddenfamily agreed. I am actively working to educate against #blankslatetheory everyday.

— Angela Tucker (@angieadoptee) March 19, 2013

@childwelfarelaw @forbiddenfamily @angieadoptee Not helped by the fact that bits of legislation still call us “as if born unto” = feeds myth

— 7rin (@7rin) March 19, 2013

Much as the Establishment don’t like it, we’ve GOT TO do something major about changing the language around adoption is used if we’re ever going to stand a chance of taking some of the socialisation pressures off adoptees.

It’s why I’m so glad Nicky Campbell favourited my tweet pointing him at the thread linked on Adopted in the UK. It means we’re slowly starting to make a difference. And if we can get Nicky C. on side, I see no reason why we can’t start getting Sir Martin Narey to understand a bit more too.

[Themes] What people really think about: ~ BMOMS

People Say the Darndest Things: What Some People **Really** Think About Women Who Place a Child For Adoption
~~ by Melynda @ Letters to Ms. Feverfew

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Themes Index

[Reblog] Legacy of an Adopted Child

by Searching for Umma
on 13 Jan 2013

I wrote a little about this on my tumblr already, but I can’t get it out of my mind.

Your mother loved you so much, she gave you up. Two different kinds of love: the kind of love that sends you away, and the kind of love that saves you. This is exactly the kind of language that needs to be eradicated once and for all when dealing with adoptees. What does this say to us? Your mother loved you, yet she could rid her life of you permanently. What kind of love is that? And what does that teach us about love? That it’s conditional. That we’re disposable, even when we’re loved. That the kind of love she had for you is different than the kind of love your adoptive mother has for you, because she chose not to provide for you the way your adoptive mother does. What’s more, God was the one who separated you from your first mother, by answering the prayers of your adoptive mother.

Horrible. I hope this poem dies or has already died. The problem is, even if the poem didn’t exist, the mentality would still be there amongst a lot of APs. It’s such a harmful message, but one that I was told over and over growing up, and that I know a lot of other adoptees were, as well. If our first mothers loved us, how could they get rid of us? And if our adoptive parents love us, what’s to stop them from getting rid of us, too? Thus begins the adoptees’ struggles to either continuously please our APs in order to keep from being given up or sent away (in any sense of the word), or to push them away to see how much they’ll put up with before ridding their lives of us, much in the same way our first mothers did.

Read the rest over at Searching for Umma

Support or Celebration?

This thread (which I have no idea how it will go because it’s only just started) highlights a key problem surrounding adoption – celebrating the loss an adoptee experiences.

The link provided in the first post relates to an article where it has been demonstrated that children who lose a parent to death can suffer adversely from this for their whole life. While this is a fact that I would expect most people within society to agree is likely, I raised the point in my reply that the converse is expected for adoptees. Instead of our loss being recognised, we are expected to both celebrate our adoption, and to be grateful for our adoption.

@ermintrude2 @sciencedaily Yet no1 gives a toss this happens to #adoptees too! We lose our parents but r expected 2 celebrate & b grateful!

— 7rin (@7rin) February 10, 2013

@ermintrude2 @sciencedaily Society as a whole.Take a nose at some of 7rin-on-adoption.dreamwidth.org/tag/adoption:s… & you’ll see we get told it lots. #Socialisation

— 7rin (@7rin) February 10, 2013

I further commented that adopters are encouraged to celebrate ‘Gotcha Day‘, and provided a link to a Squidoo article entitled Celebrate Your Child’s Adoption Day! that show cards, t.shirts and mugs saying “Happy Adoption Day”.

Another of the hits on Google is a page from Adoptive Families Magazine that asks the contributors to “Share Your Story: Gotcha Day Celebrations” in which stories of big party celebrations are shared, as well as quieter celebrations.

Thus, my question is, why is there this double standard?

Why is it that if a child loses one parent, it is wholly expected that the child will face some psychological consequence and need support – yet for adoptees we are expected to celebrate the loss of not just one parent, but both of our parents *and* the entire rest of our families, in addition to the expectation that we will also express our unending gratitude for this loss?

Why does this double standard exist, and what can we do to help eliminate it, and instead replace it with support for adoptees’ loss?

EDIT 1: @iAdoptee also posted about this recently, in I lost my parents too.

EDIT 2: The Daily Bastardette posted about Gotcha Day stuff yesterday too, @ Below and Beyond Offensive: Gotcha Day book review.

[Reblog] Used for a cause

*nods all the way through again*