Hi, everyone...I've been busy....
Thu, 2008-10-02 20:59 - Pinky McFatfat
Besides working my two jobs, I have had a lot going on.
As some of you may know, I was able to reunite with my bio family (aka my real family, as I actually prefer to call them) in June of this year. In between sewing gowns and working in nursing, I've been seeing them a lot....my feelings are very mixed.
I have 2 half-siblings and a step sister. They all come from a very small town. My half-sister (Tanya) seems OK, but we have little in common. My step sister (Dawn) is much older and once you meet her, is very obviously an alcholic....That immediately makes me shy away from her since I was razed with an a-sister who was chemically dependant and who I later had to care for. My half-brother (Jim) is the only one I seem to have any real connection with, but we are not able to talk openly very often because of everyone else being around....and Jim has warned me on several occasions that everything I say will be reported back to other family members. I have no doubts about this.
As for my mom, except for the few initial phone calls, I only see her on family occasions. She works almost non-stop.
It's all been very surreal.
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Realities behind reunion
There have been lots of times I would engage in the fantasy of meeting my real-family (a very politically incorrect term to use, according to many AP's by the way... <rolling eyes>)
But the simple truth for me has always been this: my Afamily was so messed-up, the last thing I would want to do is tempt the fates and risk ruining family-reunion fantasy with reality, especially since my biologic family is in another country.
The loss has been not knowing if I have real blood siblings who could have liked and loved me, but the gain has been not having to deal with more family dysfunction than I have already had to endure. I simply could not bear any more "bad relationships", especially those within a family concept. Besides, once I learned I was the first-born, my dream of having an older sister died, so with that secret-wish no longer possible, the drive for me to find "more" did actually quickly subside.
Your case is different, because you were adopted within your own family. [I still have trouble deciding which is "better" -- to be adopted by complete strangers, or to be adopted by family members. Either way, you're still not kept by those who should have wanted you the most... and I think no matter what, that little truth hurts.]
Are you glad you met your siblings, (do they think of you as such?), or has that all been a complication you could have done without?
Genetic Tendencies
There have been lots of times I would engage in the fantasy of meeting my real-family (a very politically incorrect term to use, according to many AP's by the way... <rolling eyes>)
Be careful. My real mother used to tell me my eyes would become permanently crossed when I used to make that face. Given the genetic tendency in facial expressions, I imagine your real mom can roll her eyes with the best of them.
I hope you find her some day.
I still have trouble deciding which is "better" -- to be adopted by complete strangers, or to be adopted by family members.
In a general context, I think this would be a no-brainer. When available, for many reasons adoption by extended real family would seem to be the best option, for both real mother and real child.
Why do you think otherwise?
Dad
Real family
The point is, there never is a general context. Every child grows up in a specific context in which at most some of the generalities hold. So I'll stick with the specifics for now and tell you what adoption did to my family. I won't rehash the story, if you want to you can read most of it here.
There are a few things where my adoption harmed the family. It showed its hostility to an outsider, an in-law. Instead of helping my mother to take care of me after she and my father separated, they let her slip further and further away. At the time she was living next to my grand mother (the center of the familial universe) and no one did anything. When my mother realized she wasn't doing well and eventually asked my adoptive mother to take care of me, everyone applauded the decision, supported the idea, after all my adoptive moter was childless and very much in need of a baby.
After I was adopted my mother was no longer part of the family, was never invited anywhere ever again.
Something else happened too. It split up the family. My father wanted nothing to do with me. Seeing me was too confrontational to him, so every family gathering revolved around the question, whether I would be there with my adoptive parents, or he would be there with his new wife and children. I hated the tension that came with it, but couldn't do anything about it. After all I was child, how could I make adults behave like grown-ups.
So when we strip the generalities aside their is not much gained in my specific situation for either the real mother and the real child. How that translates to the general picture, I don't know, but it sure leaves room for skepticism about this prefered solution.
When hope turns to empty despair
Thanks to little details like closed/altered records, and two governments dedicated to protecting their own "special interests", I have every reason to believe I have exhausted every path I could find in terms of finding her.. and "him", my real father. [Of course the church hasn't helped, but that's another issue, entirely!]
People forget, that which gets written on a birth certificate, or other "legal document", is not always the truth as it truly existed. People lie, just to get what they want, when they want it. It happens everyday, so why should adoption/identification papers be any different?
There are names to protect, and identities to hide, all because selling babies is still a huge booming business. Sadly, there are many who will lie and cheat the average unsuspecting person just because there is big money to be had when goods and services can be made available to the desperate and needing. [It's a shame those reborn babies weren't made back in the late 1960's -- I'm sure that would have been the perfect gift for the woman who "just HAD TO HAVE a baby".]
Meanwhile, I have learned first-hand how the business behind Search and Reunion is just another side to the "cost of adoption" -- this selling-pitch preys upon on the hopes and dreams of parents and children in a way that makes me want to scream like a lunatic on speed. Only when I began my own search did I learn just how two-faced the adoption industry can be. [One of my favorite pieces is this one about stand-in-mothers, http://poundpuplegacy.org/node/20392, a crime if I ever did think of one.]
The money being made from human loss and misery is just unbelievably mind-numbing to me.
Ahhh...such are the joys only an adoptee can truly <cough, cough> appreciate and enjoy.
Reunionitis
My half-siblings do think of me as their sibling....but as you brought up birth order, things are askew. I was also the first child, but was razed as a middle. I constantly wish to defer all things to my younger sister, Tanya, or even my step-sister, Dawn. I was, and still am, close to my a-brother so I think that has helped me with my half-brother, Jim.
In my case, if I had to be adopted at all, it would have been significantly better if I had been adopted by complete strangers. My adoptive parents sought to adopt from their own family because they were much too screwed up to ever even begin to adopt from an agency or even the state of Pennsylvania. There's no way they would have made it past a single interview, psych exam, or even income evaluation.
It's Jim's opinion that our mother still has a lot of guilt about my going to live with her aunt and uncle...hence her avoidance of even mentioning it. And he does believe that she could not have possibly raised me on her own, given her own situation with my grandmother. Early childhood was difficult for both him and Tanya (but their lives did become better eventually in mid-childhood) and would have been worse for me. He agrees that I would have had the odds more in my favor if I had been adopted by strangers...
Speaking of being adopted by strangers...
Shortly before the death of my a-mom, she told me about the day she came to get me from the hospital. The Doc who delivered me told her if she really didn't want to take me in, he would gladly adopt me. Dr. Twigger knew everyone in that little town and might well have known what was in store for me. He had 4 sons, all adopted, 2 of which were from patients who told him that there was no way they could care for the child they were about to have....
It really makes me wonder, and often not in a good way.
Extended Family Adoption...
To some it would seem better...
My a-father was a crazed (or just plain insane) Korean War vet who should have been locked in a VA hospital. My a-mom was the child of a black-out alcholic and a schizophrenic. Neither of them knew anything about raising pets, let alone children.
As for the pets, when they would annoy a-dad...well, they had an odd tendency to be shot in the backyard. There's nothing like coming home from 1st grade to bury your little dog because it barked too loudly.
I could put down an entire list of everything that occured to we children, but I don't feel like it at the moment. It certainly was not picnics in the country and bike rides. I feel very sorry for the 2 children that were theirs biologically. In the respect of abuse, we were all treated equally. My a-brother functions well in most respects, but has been in and out of therapy for years. My older a-sister medicated herself with whatever chemicals she could grab and eventually decided to take her own life (five years ago this May). As an adult I can at least say those were NOT my REAL parents, George does not have that option.
All of us should have been removed from their care.
I have no bad will toward my mother about the adoption, however strange that sounds. She was 17, and her mother forced her to sign me over to her aunt and uncle. When I was in my 20's, I found a series of letters between my grandmother and my a-parents that proved my grandmother had sold me to them. My mother had no knowledge of this until this past June. I could tell it really hurt her, and I have not mentioned it since, and probably won't ever bring it up again. We were both victims of circumstance.
My choice
Until I was 9 years old, I had a family. My mother was deceased, I had a father, I had two sisters and one brother... There was no need to use the term "real" to talk about my family. I know which parents I had to honor.
By selling me to two strangers, the adoption industry put me in a situation where I had to use the words "birth" or "biological" to talk about my family and call these strangers "daddy" and "mommy".
As a child, I had no other choice than considering my adoptive family as my real family and my family as my biological family.
As an adult, it is my choice to use the word REAL for the family that God gave me. Since most APs believe that their adoptive children are sent to them by God, I have to add that my REAL family is the family that the adoption industry has torn apart.
Thanks to the adoption industry, my family and I became like strangers: we don't speak the same language and we are culturally different. I use the word "birth" or "biological" to talk about them but I still know my birth family is and will always be my REAL family.
The adoption industry has done enough damage in my life. I just don't care which words are considered to be politically in correct by the adoptive parents or which words belong to the positive adoption language according to the adoption industry.
The family that the adoption industry gave me is my ADOPTIVE family and the family that it separated me from is my REAL family.