Saturday, February 10, 2007

A CHALLENGE

Today I challenge you. I challenge you to step up and make changes. Today I ask that you step out of your little box and see what WE as the triad see our lives. Today I ask all of us in the triad to step out of our little boxes and see each other for what we have gained and lost.

Adoption of the past and the present still presents the lies, coercion, and corruption. When we have cases like Stephanie Bennett, Rashad Head, Allison Quets, and Shawn McDonald, we need to change it. The ones that are doing these things are the adoption agencies and their crummy lawyers. These agencies/attorneys direct our lives. The state legislatures go to them for advice and direction about us. They go to their lobbyists about our lives.

Its time to step up. One of the goals of adoption reform is to open the records. We need to open the records that documents our lives. All of us deserve and need access to those records. In the cases previously mentioned, money was the direction that lead to these people have their rights violated. The rights of adoptees are consistently violated. The right to privacy for adoptees are constantly violated. We are being controlled by those who think they know better. They always tell us what we should feel. I was told recently that I was lucky and blessed to have been chosen. This came from a granddaughter of a first mother. She saw first hand what adoption did to her grandmother. She was the one that brought them together. I know that she believes that adoption should be the only answer. I have been presented that argument time and time again. I am not totally against adoption because there are children that do need homes. Just look at the foster care system. I do get mean with those that think they are entitled to another's child. I do get angry when first parents scream about their rights. I do agree that they have been violated but the road can't be one way. It has to go both ways. First parents and adoptive parents both need to get over it. When I read articles about adoptive parents following their beliefs in God, I am disgusted. Absolutely disgusted. I am not an object that accessorizes you. I am a human being that does feel the loss of my first parents. That loss is very painful. I am being forced by society and its laws to deny that loss. I am being force feed about how I should feel. That I need to be grateful. I gag at that expression. Don't even use the abortion option on me. I do feel at times that I could have been aborted. I would have been recycled to a family that bore me and gave me life. I would have been recycled to a family like mine that wanted me. It sucks big time knowing that my first mother is so fearful, angry, and hurt that she can't visit with me. That she can't afford me the opportunity to answer my questions, to give me my history and my story.

When God has his hand in things, you feel his presence. With adoption, God's hand is not in it. Its human hands. Humans are known for their corruption. In animal adoption, there are certain groups that regulate it. Someone who abuses animals is usually sent to prison. If the situation isn't ideal, the humans don't get that animal. Having nursed calves, kittens, and goats, I know its not wise to take a baby from its mother. Living on a ranch, I see that all the time. Colts and fillies are allowed to be with their mares until they are self sufficient. Calves are allowed to be with their cows until they are self sufficient. Puppies and kittens are the same way. The only time a cowboy gets a calf to raise is when the cow dies. Many a cowboy and their families have raised calves because of this. I have raised two bull calves when I was pregnant. I have raised three kittens because of parental loss.

I know a first mother whose name is Connie. Connie got raped and pregnant as a result. Her mother forced her to give the child up for adoption. When the adoption agency sent her the first profile of adoptive parents, she called them. The adoptive mother in this case called the agency and complained. That is when she knew that this wasn't the parents for her child. She met the second set of adoptive parents. These adoptive parents welcomed her into their home. Before they even met, the adoptive parents already had a name for her son. It was Conner. She still has contact with them. Both her son now and her relinquished son know each other. The adoptive mother and Connie speak on a regular basis. This is a woman loves her child. This is a woman that wants the knowledge of her son despite what caused his creation. The only person that she is mad at is her own mother. She did not give her the choice to raise her child nor the option for another family member to raise her son. This is also a woman who believes in the child having access to their records.

Why is it that we adoptees need to have the voices of both sets of parents to be given any credibility? What is the hold up when our parents support access to our records? Why can't our state representatives listen to our voices? I know an adoptee who doesn't want contact but does want her records. We should not have to have permission to get those records.

3 comments:

Ungrateful Little Bastard said...

Amen.

We, being crazy cat people, recently adopted a few homeless adult cats. The before and after process that we went through to get these former feral cats was more rigious than the process my adoptive parents went though. What does that say? Not that we shouldn't have been screened... anyone who has ever seen animal horders knows there needs to be a process, but that the emotional needs of animals are being better met than the emotional needs of adoptees in some cases!

In society's eyes, we need the voices of both parents because we have been pigeon-holed as disturbed, angry and ungrateful for no good reason. Look how GOOD we had it, and all we can do is complain. There MUST be something wrong with us.

I applaud your challenge and your never-ending voice for justice. If every one of us take that one little step, we can change things for the better.

petunia said...

I don't agree with you on everything but I am 100% with you here. They are our record too...why should we be denied our own records....???
It would be a sticky situation for some who have not told their families but this is our lives as well!

Anonymous said...

You are absolutely right.

"What is the hold up when our parents support access to our records?"

This I don't understand either. It's ludicrous. There are such falsehoods that have been thrown around for years about adoptees' records that people assume that the falsehoods are true, and the falsehoods are in place to protect the adoption agencies' corrupt practices in the first place.

Yes, animals are treated better than that. It's criminal and inhumane. For the life of me, I cannot understand why people don't see that.