Thanks to some great comments from Kelsey and Reena I have been following several new blogs. One of which is Melissa's blog Yoon's Blur. She has also recently joined the Grown in My Heart team and posted her first contribution today called "Your child may grow up to be a lot like me (and that’s not such an awful thing)." I was very moved by what she had to say and wanted to encourage all adoptive parents to read the whole article and share a few of my favorite quotes here.
Her article addresses the issues behind much of the fighting that goes on amongst members of the adoption triad. This immediately caught my attention because I believe one of the biggest obstacles in adoption reform is that we in the adoption triad do not necessarily work well as a team. We have an extensive history of suppressing and remaining indifferent to each other's feelings to the point that we have splintered into thousands of adoption protestant groups that believe only the group we belong to has the full truth. This is not the case. The full truth can only be determined on an individual basis. And the truth of one does not invalidate the truth of another. In her article Melissa reiterates this fact often and appeals to adoptive parents (because the overwhelming majority of the blame and the ability to fix the problem rests on our shoulders) to not be so quick to dismiss the voices of adoptees that don't tow the line as "angry" or "ungreatful." She says of this:
"You (adoptive parents) shouldn’t fear that your children could one day grow up to be a little or a lot like one of us. Rather, your focus should be to be there no matter what your children may feel, no matter what conclusions they may reach. The goal is not to groom a certain outcome in your adopted child, but rather to provide the environment and relationship that will enable and empower your children to become the adults that they will inevitably be. The point is not to control the situation and outcome but to provide the freedom for your children to find their own way."
and
"...adoptive parents would benefit from realizing that adult adoptees as a whole represent the different adults your own children may grow up to be one day. Such a realization should have real effects on the way you view and treat adult adoptees. This realization, however, should not send you into a panicked frenzy of fearful anticipation. By doing so, you’re completely missing the point—you hopefully want to raise an adopted child who grows up to be a critically thinking, well-informed, emotionally mature adopted adult not afraid to question the status quo while living a full and meaningful life, right?"
I needed to hear this. I fully admit that I am fearful of how my son will cope with adoption in his life. And I'm afraid of how that fear may limit my ability to be there to support him in his struggles to define himself as an individual. I am human. We are all human. And the irony is that at the heart of the reason we all fight amongst ourselves in the adoption triad is fear. Fear of the rejection that brought us to the adoption triangle in the first place. Regardless, I realized after reading this article that in my fear I am missing the point that Melissa makes in her article. Above all I want my son to grow up to be a "critically thinking, well-informed, emotionally mature adopted adult not afraid to question the status quo while living a full and meaningful life." More so than I want him to find peace in adoption. So, my actions and reactions need to show that. To my son and to all adoptees.
Hopefully if we adoptive parents can face our fears and work together with first parents and adoptees we can do a lot of healing and also be taken seriously in our call for adoption reform in a society that, at best, sees adoption as a great basis for a horror movie, the butt of a joke, or a tear jerking story to flaunt in the media and at worst sees it as a large unregulated market to try to work to get rich.p.s. It ended up taking me 2 days to get this one out!
