Kerry's blog

There was never a time I did not know I was adopted. In fact, there was never a time I did not feel different, not-quite-right, and not altogether like those around me. I have always felt like I was the outcast, the mixed mutt..the runt... the one who got chosen to live among strangers not because I was wanted, but because someone had to choose me, otherwise I'd be put down or left to die, whichever created less stir for the public.

I was born in 1968 in Newfoundland, Canada, a hot-spot for infertile Americans in want of a healthy white newborn who was "orphaned" by its unmarried and "unfit" mother. I was not born an American; I was manufactured to become one.

As an adult, I learned the facts surrounding my adoption story were nowhere near the "facts" my adoptive mother told me about my adoption history.

According to my adoptive mother, I was a bastard child; the unprotected result of a drunken woman's illicit affair with a traveling marine biologist. According to my adoptive mother, my birth mother was married, but not to the man who fathered me. According to my adoptive mother, due to strong religious beliefs, keeping the child from an affair, and terminating an unwanted pregnancy were not options for my first mother to consider. According to my adoptive mother, the best my first mother could do was give her baby up for adoption. Apparently she chose a service that worked closely with people in the United States.

I was told my birth mother was an educated, married alcoholic who made the same mistake so many women make: she had unprotected sex and got pregnant; she decided to keep the pregnancy, but not the baby.

from the bMother POV v. the abused adoptee

http://www.southernminn.com/waseca_county_news/news/article_d5184db0-2188-51f3-ac6a-362999655b5d.html

As a believer in God, and follower of Jesus, I have always found the rationale for adoption given by practicing Christians both amusing and hypocritical. I could never understand how God would "want" man to separate mother and child, simply because a society ruled by misogynists say an unwed pregnancy is unlawful. After all, when Mary found herself pregnant without a husband, at no point was she "counseled" by adoption facilitators and told it was in the best interest for the unborn child to be relinquished, and given to council-approved strangers, while she was to act as if the pregnancy never took place. Instead, Mary, the only mother of Jesus, was told to have faith; she was told support would be provided, through the assistance of a benefactor. That benefactor would be a man named Joseph, a man who would provide for Mary and her child, for 13 years. It should be noted, at no point during Jesus's time on earth did he ever claim Joseph was his father. Instead, Jesus (and Mary) recognized God as his only father. I myself found the crucifixion of Jesus to be the most revealing of all typical adoption issues owned by a child who has been abandoned by a birth-parent. According to the New Testament, it was at the lowest loneliest, most painful point in Jesus's life, he cried out loud, to his father, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

It is possible that at some moment on the cross, when Jesus became sin on our behalf, that God the Father, in a sense, turned His back upon the Son. It says in Hab. 1:13 that God is too pure to look upon evil. Therefore, it is possible that when Jesus bore our sins in His body on the cross (1 Pet. 2:24), that the Father, spiritually, turned away. At that time, the Son may have cried out.

[From: Why did Jesus cry out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?" ]

All too easily and frequently, when many followers of a fundamental belief-system want to justifying the questionable actions they are making for the sake of others, they will use (and quote, when needed) the holy-book they read, as if that's all a person needs to do in order to explain questionable rationale and behavior. Through blind unquestioning faith, (and a collection of argument-sustaining quotes), many fundamentalists feel free and justified to change the lives of others, radically, and permanently, without giving much thought to the future natural consequences that will result, when man tries to play God, on earth. I find this misuse of the bible both arrogant and lazy.

Now I admit, I myself am guilty of my own faith-based cockiness and laziness. For decades I have been guilty of irresponsibility as it applies to decision-making in my own life. I have allowed my personal faith and relationship with God, (my Heavenly Father, as I have always seen him), to control my life, and relieve me from the burdens and challenges that go with independent thinking and responsible risk-taking that can lead me to a better life.

Back when I was torn between committing suicide and getting married (as a way to end the misery I was experiencing in my suffocating and toxic adoptive home) I chose to believe God's call for me. I saw what I wanted to see, in the form of a formal proposal of marriage. I saw what I wanted to see because I wanted an answer made FOR me. I admit, as smart and bright, and capable as people thought I was and could be, I was too ashamed to admit I was too damaged and afraid to take personal responsibility for mistakes I was making due to ill-informed decision-making.

My oldest is leaving for her second year of college this Sunday.

I have been bracing for this week, since May.

Thankfully, last year's experience was a very positive one.  My daughter made frequent home-visits, and made Dean's List each semester.  She made the loss and absence easier, because she not only came back, she came back as a better individual.

But the departure... the going-away... it has never been easy for me.

I like to think of myself as a very insightful individual, but boy, this age-old Adoption/Fear of Abandonment Issue really caught and threw me, and slammed me in the heart, gut, and head.

Today I read an article featuring yet another Reality Show that will help promote the adoption agenda.  Yay...because we don't have enough shows that exploit the unfortunate and the ignorant.

Personally, I am against any program that promotes the breaking of families, all so an adoption plan can become a reality.

I do, however, strongly support programs that promote the helping and mentoring of others, all without some sort of trade-agreement.

And so I must voice my POV regarding the Blind Side Amother's mission, a la adoption advocating "reality" TV.... a genre that is as far from reality as Pluto (remember that planet?) is from earth.

According to Leigh Anne Tuohy, she states, “If every faith-based organization would be responsible for placing one child in a loving home, then that would wipe out the need for foster care, and then we can work on the kids that are on the street, because these kids are on the street through a cycle that was by no choosing of their own.”

The other day an AP pointed out a comment made on an adoption forum.  The comment written by Kevin Kruetner,  active adoption forum participant and AP, urged other APs to sign a rather sloppy petition to the President asking for post-adoption support for adoptees with Reactive Attachment Disorder.  His rationale to support the proposal revolved around his own experience seeing other APs with adopted children "suffering with this disorder".  As if that limited exposure to troubled adoptees makes him an "authority" on child behavior and what an adoptee needs pre and post adoption.

What concerns me is the seemingly endless conversation I have with many APs, in private. 

I am told REPEATEDLY the pre-adoption curricula in many  ICA programs revolves around scrap-booking and other nonsensical topics that can be seen as "adoptive parent instruction".  Many private agencies do NOT provide educational programs that educate the PAP about more serious adoption issues like trauma, stages of loss and grief in a child, or how stress and trauma affect a child's ability to learn in a school environment. The Amothers who complain to me tell me they are completely unprepared to care for the children they receive -- children who have experienced trauma, and often speak a first language that is not English.  To add insult to injury, the same agencies who fail to prepare these AP are also conveniently absent when troubles begin at home and at school, after the adoption is complete.

As a result, it seems many AP "abandoned" by their adoption agencies turn to unlicensed unmonitored "parent educators" with the hope that these individuals can help the parent cope and change an adoptee's unwanted behavior.  PPL's archives feature the sad end-result when an AP takes discipline and punishment and techniques to "train and control" an out of control child to a dangerous extreme.  

[See: cases involving forced confinement, cases involving torture, cases involving Attachment Therapy, posts featuring various form of discipline, and posts featuring various forms of punishment, just to name a few.]

Today I received a phone call from my oldest who is away at college. She was very upset and in need of some extra support and empathy. The trigger? She received an e-card from my Amother... a Valentine wish, telling her how loved she is by her only known (and living) grandparents. How could this be an issue? Throughout my daughter's life, my Amother never showed a sincere interest in my daughter, or any of the other 3 children I have given birth to. The only time my Am would do something remotely "loving" or "grandmotherly"  for my own children is if she knew she was being watched by other family members, neighbors or friends.  In this particular case, my husband (in denial that some adoption issues do NOT go away, especially if the AP refuses to acknowledge there is a problem) made a call to my AMother, demanding she make an effort to keep in touch with ALL her grandchildren, not just the ones she has through her bio-son.  At first she denied she had a bias, but social networks, like Facebook, make it very clear she's lying.

Since my Amother has always owned a bias against the adopted child in her life, any and all "loving gestures"/"efforts" would always come off as being as sincere and filled with the depth of emotion as one would have when completing an annoying task found on a list of "Things to Do/Prove". My Amother's attempts to get close to me and my children have always been superficial at best, making the possibility to bond and love her, with sincere heart-felt emotion, impossible.

So today, my oldest got the email reminder that she has a "loving" grandmother who has never shown a sincere interest in her life.  In my daughter's mind, this disinterest can be seen and proven in all the photos that feature school, family, social events that "loving" grandma missed, but managed to attended and participated in when the same events involved her bio-grandchildren, of similar age. 

Today my daughter got the reminder that her grandmother is still up to her old tricks - she, as usual, is showing an insincere interest in only one side of the family - and she's only showing an interest because someone must be watching what Super Mother/Grandmother is doing these days to keep in touch with ALL of her grandchildren.  If there's one thing my AMother wants others to think it's this:  she treats both her bio son and her adopted daughter equally, and this equal-treatment extends to all the grandchildren -- each is given the same amount of love, support and interest, which has never been true.

Today my daughter got the reminder that her grandmother is not loving, not when it comes to the children produced by the adopted child. Instead, the grandmother she has, through adoption, is more interested in how she is perceived by others, and how her actions can help preserve her precious reputation.  

korea- money won't fix it

Recently,  the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), a government-funded group of independent experts,  addressed a comprehensive review of the available data on ways to detect maltreatment of children.

In a sobering acknowledgment, the USPSTF believes that there is not much that can be done to detect cases of child maltreatment that aren’t glaringly obvious. There’s simply not enough research to make a case for advising physicians to take specific actions during well-child visits, for example, to help determine which children are at risk. In 2010, nearly 700,000 children were victims of abuse and neglect; 1,537 of them died.

 [From:  Child Abuse: Why It’s So Hard to Determine Who’s at Risk, January 23, 2013 ]

The report continued:

The researchers at OHSU analyzed 11 studies that evaluated the effectiveness of child abuse and neglect prevention programs or interventions that took place in clinics — such as meetings with a social worker, for example. They gave parents questionnaires that assessed such risk factors as substance abuse, depression, stress and attitudes toward physical punishment — as well as noting whether parents were concerned that their child may have been physically or sexually abused. Doctors discussed the risk factors with parents and referred them to social workers if needed. After three years, researchers found that parents who took part in risk assessments and received social work referrals, if necessary, had decreased incidences of abuse, fewer reports to Child Protective Services (CPS) and better adherence to immunization schedules.

And still, no official correlation was made as to which parenting preparation programs work better:  those made available through adoption agencies, or those made available by non-profit programs like Nurse Partnership Programs for at-risk first-time mothers.