My little sisters
Jun 11, 2008 Adoption
I went out to eat last night with three of my four sisters. So it was my big sister, Erica, and my little sisters Lindsay (no web presence) and Whitney. It was fun but hectic because three out of four of us are too loud (Lindsay is the nicest most listening-est of the bunch).
I have had a shaky relationship with my little sisters up until the last few years and sometimes still I feel totally lost around them. This is because the first arrived when had just turned 14 and the second arrived when I was 17 and I still hadn’t quite got over my dad disappearing from my life. Now that I’ve had my own very small, very time consuming kids I understand how it can look like the teens don’t need you as much as the littles but the 14-year old memory of myself is still a little bruised. (FYI: Teens need their moms and dads just as much as 3-year olds.)
It’s a very uncomfortable thing to be jealous of teensy-tiny babies who then grow up into enviable girls, tweens and teens.
Now I’ve accepted that they have a father I wish I’d had and that as a result, they have relationships with him that I will always miss having. I still feel that loss pretty profoundly and I also — through the loss of that part of my dad — feel the loss of my extended family. My little sisters have gone out to California and met the relatives and recently went to the Friedman family reunion. I haven’t seen most of my west coast relatives since we moved out of there in 1977. I miss the connection, too, in large part because that’s my Jewish side of the family. I hurt for that family history, I really do. But there are six of us (my dad’s kids) and none of us feels like we got enough (even the two youngest because heck, don’t we always want more of our parents?) and I just can’t push my way through to claim the things I wish I had.
My reaction is to stop and grieve it and not try to grab at the things or push because there’s always someone else pushing and it seems like it’d be too easy for us to fall apart and turn into one of those families where people start a fistfight at a funeral or something. You know? And I do know that pictures and mementos won’t heal the hurt anyway. I don’t really remember my grandparents and there’s not a lot I can do about that. i was shy with them when I was a kid and only saw them once as an adult. I can’t ever get that time back.
(One thing though — I have Grampa and Granma’s mezuzah — the one that hung on the doorway of their apartment. I wish I had more but at least I have that. It’s the only thing I have and it means a lot to me.)
In some ways I feel closer to Brett’s grandparents because I knew them a little better and had more of them as an adult. Brett’s family never splintered like ours and so I don’t feel the same crazed worry that we won’t get any of the things — the pictures, the books, the history — that I wish I had from my own family. (My mom’s family has splintered across generations, too, and my mom has missed out on a lot of this stuff so her kids have, too.) It’s something Brett takes for granted and I’m relieved that I can take it for granted, too. This is why we moved back — so Noah could have the memories that Brett has and that I missed. That’s why when Noah was a month old I knew we were going back even if Brett didn’t know it yet.
But this makes me think of Madison and how her family not only splintered, it cracked right from the start. And I know that likely she will grieve the way that I have only harder because in some ways she will have to fight her way into our family (her adoptive family), too.
When she was already here for a few months, Brett’s sister-in-law was pregnant with her first baby. They found out they were having a girl and she sent an email out to everyone saying that it was the first girl-child on Wick’s family tree in so many generations. (I can’t remember how many but Brett’s dad is the only son of an only son and Brett is, of course, the oldest of three brothers.) I wrote back and said, “Actually Madison is the first daughter on the family tree in so many generations.” She apologized and said she only meant the first genetic daughter. Well, all hail genetics, right?
Where will Madison get to feel “real?” Where can she rest and know that she belongs to her family? Will she get cut out of things because she’s not the genetic daughter? And cut out of her birth side because she wasn’t there to participate? When Brett’s dad’s family flag flies (seriously, they have a family flag — Brett comes from a long line of WASPs), will Madison feel proud or like an impostor or both?
I hope I get better at dealing with my own grief so that I can help her deal with hers someday. And I left dinner last night knowing that we have to get her down to see the Southern side of her birth family somehow. We need to figure out a way to do that.
Possibly related posts
Tags: Adoption, adoptive-parenting, Erica, lindsay, open adoption, sisters, whitney
Over at OpenAdoptionSupport.com
Jun 8, 2008 Adoption
I got this request from someone through the contact form there:
I am Alex for South Dakota State Senator Nancy Turbak Berry’s office. I am
doing public policy research on adoption. We are hoping to come up with
some positive, helpfull legislation on adoption, such as increased funding,
incentive programs, subsidy programs, just to name a few. Anyways, any
ideas would be great. Right now I am looking at the issue of support for
adoption of special needs children. Also, some other issues we are looking
at are mult-racial adoption policies and same sex couple adoption
policies.
I told him/her that I’d post the request at OAS and you can find it here. I’m closing comments on this post to push ‘em all over to OAS and I’ll be sure to give Alex a heads up.
Possibly related posts
Tags: adoption legislation
Fabulous writer needs your help!
Jun 5, 2008 Adoption
My friend Deesha Philyaw is working on an article about transracial adoption for a national newsstand magazine, which I happen to absolutely adore. I can’t WAIT for this article to hit the stands! I’ve gotten to read some earlier drafts and it’s going to be AMAZING. But Deesha still needs one more person to interview, specifically a white person who either adopted or is planning to adopt and who — for whatever reason — does not want to adopt a black child.
Hey, before anyone feels the need to comment on that, I gotta say that I have known many lovely, fabulous, kind and anti-racist white people who have chosen not to adopt transracially. It may be that they feel daunted by the challenges or that those challenges are exacerbated by personal circumstnaces. Which is to say that I know there are some of you in my reading audience and I dearly hope you’ll respond. Here’s what Deesha emailed me:
I’m looking to interview adoptive parents (or those considering adoption) who ruled out adopting a black child specifically. I’d like to talk to those who are comfortable sharing their reasons for this decision. I can use pseudonyms or quote them anonymously. While I promise not to debate with them about decision, I may present them with opposing points of view (play Devil’s advocate) and ask them to respond, if they can.
Deesha is smart, kind, compassionate and a terrific writer. You can either write to her directly at deesha AT deeshaphilyaw DOT com or leave a comment here and she’ll contact you.
Possibly related posts
Tags: Deesha, transracial adoption, Writing
Second choice vs. Second best
May 30, 2008 Adoption, Infertility
Sang-Shil Kim has a moving post explaining why sometimes we adoptive parents don’t do a whole lot of good with our fine platitudes. Still I think our platitudes are the best we can do. I can’t rewrite history and the truth is that first I tried to get pregnant. This may hurt Madison or it may roll off her back — I don’t know. It’s one of the things I can’t control for her.
I’m not abdicating responsibility here but I’m recognizing the limits of my influence. I can’t make things not hurt Madison and it seems developmentally appropriate for an adopted person to process his or her adoption through their parents’ narratives (both by birth and by adoption) and so at some point she likely will need to integrate my infertility story with her birth/adoption story.
As a parent, one of my challenges has been to find the careful balance between taking responsibility appropriately and taking on too much responsibility. For example, my infertility journey wasn’t such a terrific thing for Noah. I was preoccupied and depressed and Noah couldn’t understand why I wanted another kid when he was so happy being an only child. There’s an entry somewhere in my archives where he said to me, “Why am I not enough for you?” I know it’s not the same as an adoptee struggling with hard-core feelings of rejection but I’m saying that every parent has to understand the way their choices impact our kids AND the limits of our ability to address that impact. Ultimately, our kids need to figure out how to live with inconvenient truths. I don’t think it helped when I said, “Oh Noah, you’re just so swell that I need to have another one of you little ankle-biters around the house.” But it’s all I could say. It was true that I wanted another baby and that having “just” Noah didn’t fill this need in me. It was also true this wasn’t about him only how could I expect a 5-year old (I think he was five) to understand that?
Madison — like every adoptee — gets it coming and going. For one, she has to find a narrative that works to explain to herself why she is not with Pennie. She can go to Pennie for answers but she’ll need to find a way to make sense of it herself. For two, she has to find a narrative that works to explain to herself why I tried to get pregnant before turning to adoption. She can read my blog and watch me work through it in virtual time but that doesn’t mean it will answer all of her questions satisfactorily. This is one of those times where I can’t fix it.
I don’t abdicate my responsibility to her to help her process this but I do recognize that it’s her work to do and that even if I do the best job I can, I can’t control her feelings around it.
Possibly related posts
Madison has an elephant in her pants
May 28, 2008 Adoption, Uncategorized
She has a stuffed elephant tucked in the front of her pants and my stats right at the very minute say that I’ve had 666 visitors. Quick, someone visit so I can erase the Satanic number!
I’m not getting too far into the infamous Mme Tay comment (because then I’d have to read the whole discussion and I’m not going to) but I’ll address what Suz said since her site is where I first heard about the dust-up:
It seems that several adoptees felt validated. There is some service there, no? When they spend their lives being told to be grateful, having their feelings and rights ignored, I would imagine it would be of service to have someone finally say what you knew all along - even with a nasty tone and intent.
Could she have been nicer? Of course but when so many people in adoption avoid, deny, lie about, manipulate and abuse the truth, its is a bit refreshing to have one person be honest - even if they forgot their social graces (and is likely a total nutter) … For me, and I would guess some adoptees, its about being SEEN.
Certainly honesty in adoption is in short supply although I don’t think whatsherface Tay was being honest so much as she was being nasty. Well, there’s no point arguing about that any old way (because it could be she’s just some troll and not what she’s representing). The real point that Suz was making (I believe) is that there are plenty of adoptees who have grown up feeling like replacement kids (and there’s enough adoptee narrative for us all to nod our heads in understanding) and that many of ‘em would have a much easier time finding healing if their adoptive parents would say, “Yes, you weren’t what I really wanted.”
At the AAC conference I attended a terrific talk led by Barbara Ann Gowan who talked about her experiences growing up a biracial adoptee in an African American family. It was one of my favorite presentations. Anyway, she was talking about a friend of hers who adopted a child with serious special needs and later had two bio kids. She didn’t adopt after infertility; she adopted because she knew this child in another capacity and when the opportunity to adopt her opened up, she took it. One day she said to Barbara, “I am harder on her than I am on my other kids. I don’t like her as much.” (Important point: When she said this, too, her daughter was presenting some major challenges.) Barbara’s response? Good for you for being honest — now go get help.
Some of the adoptive parents in the audience were offended by this other woman’s feelings. How dare she feel differently about her adopted child? How dare she express those feelings? And Barbara patiently tried to explain that her friend should be applauded for being honest with herself because if she couldn’t be honest with herself, she couldn’t get help for herself and for her daughter.
I think that there can be barriers to attachment in adoption that simply aren’t there in a lot of bio relationships. Not that attachment is a sure thing in bio relationships either. Attachment barriers can be emotional, circumstantial, physical — there are lots of things that get in the way. In adoption there are additional issues like our kids’ histories or the circumstances surrounding their adoptions. Being honest about those issues can help us head them off. (Like reading up on attachment before we bring older infants, toddlers or older children home. Like finding support as we struggle to build relationships with our kids’ first families. Like confronting any residual infertility grief before we begin our homestudy.) And like Barbara explained to us, it helps us handle problems when they arise after, too. So honesty is, as always, the best adoption policy.
I know how guilt can cloud a parent’s ability to be honest though because as a kid I experienced that, too. And as an adult, I saw parents in shelter and now I see parents in my social group who can’t confront the harm they do their kids because to confront that is to be swallowed up by guilt. We parents — adoptive or not — can help each other cut through our denial by having honest discussions, sure. But Ms. Tay? That’s not the way to do it. The way to do it is the way Barbara did it — by sharing stories with compassion and kindness and by holding people responsible even as we accept their limitations. And yes, we adoptive parents need to not gasp in horror when others among us say, “You know, I’m having these socially unacceptable feelings…”
To me there are two issues here. The first is that hate-mongering comments suck, period. Gross generalizations don’t serve discourse. The second is that apparently honesty IS in such short supply that some people found the comments comforting. But to my mind, that doesn’t make her comment ok; it just highlights how much more work needs to be done.
(For the record, I wasn’t offended on my own behalf by her stupidity and gross generalizations but on my daughter’s behalf. My daughter is indeed a prize. She’s pretty f*cking amazing, set-the-world-on-fire fantastic and sure as heck not a consolation package.)
And now my stats are 697 and Satan has been banished from my statcounter. Cool.
Possibly related posts
Tags: adoptive parents, adoptive-parenting, flamewar, flamewars, mean commenters