We got our plane tickets
Mar 3, 2008 The Story of My Life, work work work
And we’ll be in Portland for a little more than a week. Well, we’ll be in Oregon a little more than a week because we also need to get to Eugene and Cannon Beach. I’m trying to figure out how to see everyone — most of my mom’s family is there (my grandmother, two aunts), my brother, Brett’s brother, Wick, and Wick’s family. Also friends galore! Should be hectic. But fun, yes, definitely fun. We’ll be there for Easter, Madison’s fourth birthday and our anniversary (18 years together, 14 years married). Did I mention hectic?
I really need to get some work done before I head to — you guessed it! — another meeting. Ohio has its own share of hectic.
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This is for David
Mar 2, 2008 mp3
Because I want to make sure he’s good and hooked on showtunes.
This is from the revival of Sondheim’s very first musical, Saturday Night. It’s the title song and my favorite part happens at 3:04. I like this a lot because it’s such a simple, classic showtunes song and the guys have these great, smooth voices and they’re simply singing beautifully instead of indulging in vocal acrobatics. And I have crushes on all of ‘em. (I have no idea what they look like but they sure sound pretty!)
Here you go: Saturday Night
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An assortment of things
Mar 2, 2008 Adoption, The Story of My Life, work work work
• For Yondalla (and others), I added a plugin that lets you edit your comments! Here’s hoping it works!
• We got our plane tickets for Oregon. Hit me up if you’d like to try to meet up. I don’t know when we’ll be in Portland because I need to see my brother in Eugene and we’re also planning on getting the kids to the beach. I’m just glad we finally got the dang tickets!
• My horoscope says I’m going to come into money this month. It also says:
Your artistic side will be very strong too, so if you write for a living, you’ll be even better positioned to make use of these aspects. Do you write screenplays or novels that have vivid, imaginative descriptions? Are you a copywriter for an ad agency, or do you write compelling press releases? Great! You must set aside time to devote to your work then. You’ll be astounded at the results and people who know you will say you have set new standards.
(Are you listening Barb? We’re gonna be rich! And famous!)
• 172 responses on the survey so far. Yeehaw!
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Tags: horoscopes, plugins, Portland, random, wordpress, writing life
Sarah asked
Mar 1, 2008 Adoption
“My question is about adoptions that have already taken place. Once the law is changed, women choosing to place will know from the beginning that the information will be available. They will be able to make decisions about whether and how to place and about who to tell and when with that understanding. If we passed a law now that opened up all past original birth certificates, it seems like there would be a generation of women for who the rules would be changed in the middle of the game. They made all of those decision assuming that information would never be available, and suddenly it is. Instead of being asked to tell who they needed to tell from the beginning, they would be asked (in some cases) to admit to those people that they haven’t told them for years.
So should there be a ‘grandfather clause’ that says that the law only applies to future adoptions? If not, is it because the situation this places some women in is no different than the current situation, in which some adoptees search successfully even without a birth certificate? Or is it because the right of adoptees to know their story outweighs the right of the women who placed in this case?”
I’m going to use a heavily edited version of Marley’s testimony to answer this question (note: Bastard Nation brooks no compromise — i.e., no grandfathering — on this issue and I agree with them):
The not-adopted need not justify why they want their vital records nor are they forced to ask their parents permission, appear before a judge, join a government-run registry, seek mental health counseling, or spend years getting a bill, such as HB 7, passed to get them. The not-adopted have a presumed right to their own birth certificates and can do with them what they please. All arguments for passage of HB 7 as written must then flow from the presumed right of all adults to unrestricted access and ownership of their true birth certificates, not just some. If adoptees are not equal legally to the not-adopted in terms of identity, then the right of anyone to possess their own birth certificate is not a right but a state favor. The real question, then, is who owns your identity? You or the state? …
I know of no adoption reform organization in the United States today that does not support unrestricted access. The Evan. B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, The Child Welfare League of America (which sets best practice standards), The National Association of Social Workers, The North American Council on Adoptable Children, the National Adoption Center, and Ethica: A Voice for Ethical Adoption all support unrestricted access. In November 2007, the Donaldson Institute, the premiere adoption research organization in the country. released a report: For the Records: Restoring a Right to Adult Adoptees, in which it calls for the unsealing of all birth and adoption records to adult adoptees. In December I attended a meeting in New York sponsored by the Donaldson. Attendees came from as far away as Tennessee, Florida and Texas. They all agreed that the day of compromise is over. Records for all. …
Rights are for all citizens, not favors or privileges for some US law does not privilege rights by race, religion, ethnicity, age, or gender. I cannot think of any other judicial procedure where records are sealed from those to whom the procedure pertains.
When access to original birth certificates is understood and accepted as a civil right, there is no justification — not even “protection” — to limit an adult person’s right to his or her records. As Marley also says in her testimony, it’s “about rights not reunion.” This has nothing to do with what people might choose to do with the information; it has to do with whether or not they have a right to access it. I believe they do.
In this and other testimony, proponents of Ohio HB 7 point out that there are ways for people to get their birth certificates. Here in Ohio, you can go before a judge and hope that he or she will approve your request to access it. As Bestsie Norris testified:
The original birth certificate is not sealed upon relinquishment or termination of parental rights.
When a child is placed for adoption, the original birth certificate is not sealed or altered in any way. It stands as the child’s legal birth certificate, and in Ohio is available to the public as are all birth certificates, until the adoption is finalized. Not all children who are released for adoption are adopted right away (and even if they are it does not finalize for at least 6 months). Some children released for adoption are never adopted.
This is important because I think most of us don’t realize it. (I didn’t realize it until after Madison came home.) It’s not surrender that seals records; it’s adoption. Any adoption professional who has told a woman that her child’s birth certificate will be sealed upon surrender wasn’t told the whole truth. Further Betsie says:
Although birthparents may have wanted privacy from the public, or even friends and family, at the time of the birth and adoption that does not extend in the vast majority of cases to not wanting their now adult child to have information about them. They placed their child for adoption under the only system that was available to them at that point in time. Birthmothers who did get to see their child before adoption often report that, during the short time they had to say good bye to their baby, they whispered to their child how much they loved them and how much they hoped to see them again in the future.
Many more birthparents say that they were told, or otherwise thought, that the records would be open to their adult child, than say they were told they’d be closed. Given this information, it only makes sense to allow those records to be open to the adult adoptees.
This is important, too, but I think that when it comes right down to it having access to your original birth certificate is a civil right and any argument against it is irrelevent.
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Tags: adoption ethics, adoption reform, Erica, Madison, open records
Growing up is never easy
Mar 1, 2008 Parenting
Madison fell on the couch. Not off the couch — she fell backwards on the couch and hit an oddly shaped toy and hurt her neck. There are few things scarier than having your child scream, “I fell and hurt my neck! Ow! I can’t move! Ow!” Because I didn’t witness the fall I had no idea how far and how hard she’d fallen. Turns out she’s ok but her neck is sore and she was really scared.
She’s scared about bodies these days. She’s scared about getting hit by a car. She’s afraid that someday she will accidentally lie down in the middle of the street and a car will run over her. She asks often, what will happen to her if she does this? We go over all the ways this will not happen. We talk about how she is always safe in the street and how Mommy or Daddy are always with her when we walk down the street. We talk about how she would never lie down in the middle of the street but that if she did, Mommy or Daddy would move her. But what if it does happen? She demands to know. So we talk about doctors and hospitals and ambulance drivers and through it all I want her to see the many, many safety catches there are in this world. She is strong and healthy. Doctors and hospitals are there to help us stay that way. She will be ok, I tell her often. Whatever happens, she will get through it.
But she’s still nervous about forgetting and lying down in the middle of the street. Because now she’s old enough that she knows she has more autonomy and as much as kids want to grow, all that freedom looks pretty frightening.
“It’s not easy being three,” she told me this morning. “Sometimes it’s scary.”
Noah is having his own challenges. I noticed that the more he embraces his tween-ness (music, friends, long hair, cool clothes and a smart mouth) the more he retreats to his Ramona and Moffat books. I did get him to make a leap to Zilpha Keatley Snyder this week and he just finished The Egypt Game. (You may remember that his favorite books are about ordinary kids doing ordinary things.) He reminds me a little of David Stanley so I hope he’ll go for those next. I’m not sure though because when it’s nighttime and he’s ready to head to bed, he wants something calm to make up for all the growing he’s done that day.