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As for "Find My Family," I hadn't in truth wanted to watch the show. My sense from the previews was it was an opportunistic attempt to play on people's emotions. But then, the invitation came to share my thoughts...
What? Who me? You want my opinion?
I realized it would be a great opportunity for me to examine how adoption is portrayed in the media. Perhaps it was better to educate myself. And, if I had issues or concerns, wouldn't it be more constructive to use this as an opportunity to join in the dialog? To speak up?
Gulp.
I took the plunge. If you're curious, I hope you'll come and join the discussion at "Find My Family: An Adoptive Parent Responds."
8 comments:
Good one on Pack of Three - it helps a lot!
We clearly share similar parenting experiences and views.
I've been reading one that I'm hooked on - http://todayscliche.com/.
I have a feeling you'd get a lot out of it.
Incredible job on your blog; keep it up.
Thanks,
Amy
Amy,
Thank you so much for your kind words. I really do appreciate them. Especially after some of the vitriol that was flung my way on Adopt-a-tude. Whew!
I will check out the blog you recommend. Thank you so much.
Lisa
Those sorts of comments are one of the reasons I stopped participating in the various adoption listserves I was a part of. I realized that my own inner-family drama was stressful enough without also taking on the drama of other people and their stressful families. That was a purely personal decision - I realized that I was carrying around too much stress due to my engagement in such forums. I admire your resilience and your determination to engage.
Lisa, I read your post on Adopt-a-tude and I was dismayed by the anger with which it was received. I thought you made an honest assessment of how the show affected you. I am neither an adoptive parent nor an adoptee (I have a cousin who is adopted) but as the parent of a biracial child, in reading your blog it is obvious that you have made an incredible attempt to keep your daughter connected to the culture of her birth, to provide her with positive role models that physically resemble her, and to honestly and kindly answer her inevitable questions about her origins. These are difficult issues even for me as the "ethnic" parent of a child in a mixed-race family, and reading about how you deal with them is what brings me back to your blog.
To Michelle,
Thank you so much for your comment and your support. I understand and completely respect why you chose not to participate in various adoption listservs. The past few weeks have indeed offered some powerful lessons. I'm realizing there are some people out there who are angry and hurting in ways I can only begin to imagine. It's unsettling for sure when that anger is directed at me. But when I stop and think about it, I know they know nothing about me and that I'm just a foil for a person or group of persons who they believe, rightly or wrongly, stole their child. Some of these folks are in a great deal of pain. Maybe so much so they're blinded and can't see past it.
I see too that while watching a single episode of "Find My Family" was off-putting and left me feeling a bit invisible as an adoptive parent, that that's truly nothing compared with the invisibility a birth mother must feel if she experienced serious regret and years' worth of longing for the child she carried and bore -- especially if that birth mother was very young when she made her decision, and perhaps didn't fully understand the import and long-term ramifications of her decision.
In any event, the experience certainly made me more cautious and a little self protective. (It is the holidays after all!) But I don't regret the experience as it also enhanced my appreciation for the ways in which adoption can, if not handled with a deep sense of responsibility and great sensitivity, be a very murky, painful thing.
I am scrambling to prep and travel for the holidays but would love to visit and spend more time on your site once we're back home.
With warmest holiday wishes to you and your beautiful family,
Lisa
Dear Stayathomemd,
You weren't the only one who was dismayed. :)
Thank you so much for your lovely, lovely note. I can't begin to tell you what it meant to me. Thank you for your warm words and for reaching out.
I don't regret my choice to participate and post on Adopt-a-tude. I learned an enormous amount and it opened my eyes. I'm still processing, questioning, trying to understand it all.
Part of me honestly wonders just how broadly representative these comments and reactions are. Do the majority of mothers who cede their children at birth to adoptive parents feel this way? If so, a lot more needs to be done. Or, is this a small, previously disenfranchised, angry minority that has found the web the perfect platform to vent? I did a little bit of investigating and, interestingly, found that many of the very same folks who attacked me on Adopt-a-tude, have also rallied and coordinated attacks on other blogs that have touched on this and related topics. Food for thought. So, I have no idea if it could realistically be done, but I'd love to see a serious broad based survey that looked at the numbers, proportions, and sentiments among birth mothers in this country.
In any case, statistics aside, I'd be lying if I didn't say I was surprised and shocked by some of the personal attacks. I was almost afraid to look in my inbox this morning. So when I saw and -- peeking through a single, squinted eye -- read your mail, well... I almost cried.
Blessings to you. And warmest wishes for a happy holiday.
Lisa
I also found during my time on the various adoption boards and blogs that people often make assumptions that are simply not true in certain individual cases. So, for instance, our birthmother was not a very young woman who "didn't fully understand the import and long-term ramifications of her decision". Our children's birthmother died. In fact, our kids are "true" orphans in relation to their birthparents. So all of the angst that some people have over adopted kids being wrenched from their arms of their loving but misinformed birthmothers is just not relevant in our case.
Another example was when I posted on one listserve for advice about sending money to our kids' grandmother in Russia. A lot of people were supportive, however a vocal minority responded very fiercely to denounce the idea. Most were concerned that the money would be wasted (to which I responded that if I had said I was going to spend an equivalent amount of money on buying a new appliance I didn't need no one would have told me I was wasting it). One person even said that if I sent money that "word would spread" and more Russian parents might decide to relinquish their children in the hopes of one day receiving money from some "rich American"! Needless to say, I found that argument ridiculous. I decided that the best thing in our situation was to send some money, which I did; the grandmother responded by telling me that her situation wasn't that bad and to save my money because I had enough expenses as it was raising the kids!
Anyway, my point is that I don't have much patience with people who make broad sweeping statements about adoption or birthparents, or any other topic really, without taking the time to concern themselves with the specifics of individual situations.
Happy holidays to you as well, Lisa! I hope that your travels are safe and look forward to seeing you over on my site on your return.
Michelle
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