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Archive for the ‘Adoption’ Category

New question at Open Adoption Support

Jul 10, 2008 Adoption, Uncategorized

It’s one of those not open/open adoptions where the families are seeing each other but the child has no idea who the other family is. In other words, everyone knows that the visitors are the child’s first parents except for the child.

You can weigh in with advice over there.

I am always surprised by the way people say, “My child is fine” and the proof is that the child either had no more questions or didn’t bring the subject up again. Silence isn’t always golden. I really do think it’s our job to bring stuff up in a “Hey, do you ever think about…?” kind of way. I’m not talking about hounding the poor dears but if we don’t bring it up how will they know we’re willing to talk about it? We can’t put all the risk on our kids. We have to assume some (lots) of the uncomfortable discussion burden ourselves.

(Listen, the way that Noah is, if we didn’t periodically bring up adolesence and s-e-x talk the kid would think the storks found babies under cabbage leaves. It’s our job to make sure he isn’t forced to live in ignorance just because he’s too shy to ask.)

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Missing people

Jul 6, 2008 Adoption

Last night I had a dream that I met Madison’s first dad only he was someone other than who he really is. And I was so relieved that I finally met him and that I could see where Madison got this and that and in my dream he was kind and loving and open to being a part of our family. I had Madison on my hip (she was just a baby) and I was talking to him and looking at her and he was surprised because we had all thought this other man was her father (the one who is in real life) and it turned out to be so much easier. We were all surprised.

When I woke up I had that in-between feeling that I could somehow make my dream true if I just held onto it hard enough but then my eyes opened and I knew it wasn’t like that at all.

I don’t give these particular details on the blog so the most I’ll say is that I’m sad for everyone around Madison’s first dad. I’m sad for Madison and for Pennie and for him because he doesn’t know what he’s missing. And I’m sad for me a little, too, (selfish as that is) because I want to know him or at least see him. As Madison gets older and her face changes, I can see this whole other family in there and I feel so frustrated. But the situation is what it is and I just hope that at some point we can have some contact.

And now I’m off to stalk him on the internet — I’m eternally looking to see if he has a myspace or some such account but so far no luck.

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An interesting question

Jul 5, 2008 Adoption

Roni said I should blog this: “[H]ow can you work with someone who thinks so little of the adoptive parent-child relationship?  I know a few other mommas who can barely hear her name.” (I don’t read this as accusatory as it sounds — I think Roni’s genuinely curious and I kinda wondered when/if someone would ask me about that.)

To refresh your memory:

The most incendiary notion in Baby Love may be that, for Ms. Walker, being a stepparent or adoptive parent involves a lesser kind of love than the love for a biological child.

In an interview, Ms. Walker boiled the difference down to knowing for certain that she would die for her biological child, but feeling “not sure I would do that for my nonbiological child.”

from the NYT.

I’ve got to admit that I was surprised that Ms. Walker chose my essay for her anthology and I’m not sure why she chose it although she is nothing but complimentary not just about the essay but about my role as Madison’s mother. So even though she herself feels that she couldn’t love an adopted child as much as a bio child and even if she wonders if it could be true of anyone, she’s certainly been respectful of my relationship with Madison so there’s that. But the other thing is that lots and lots and lots of people feel this way only most of ‘em don’t have the platform of the NYT to share their feelings about it. It doesn’t bother me.

Here, I’ll tell you something funny. Once Pennie and I were talking about a mutual friend who recently adopted a baby internationally. Pennie said, “Wow, I just can’t imagine doing that. I don’t think I could love someone else’s child.” And I started laughing and she got embarrassed because, well, it’s pretty funny, don’t you think? I mean, that’s irony right there for you.

I’m sure there are a lot of my friends, family members and readers here who doubt they could love a child who was not biologically related to them as much as they could love their “own” child. Heck, I had to ask myself that question plenty of times and even still I worried I might be wrong. From caring for other people’s kids for so long, I knew that proximity goes a long way but in the dark of the night, I wondered. The gut-wrenching, instinctive, heedless love I had for Noah — would it appear? Would it take time to grow? Show up right away? Or (I’d cringe, wondering) would it always be a shallow echo?

As it turns out, proximity doesn’t go a long way — it goes the whole way. Did I ever write about the dream I had when Madison was brand new? There was a flood and we — the kids and I — were swept up in it. Without thinking I grabbed Madison because she was baby and she couldn’t swim and I watched Noah bob further way but knowing I’d made the right choice because he could swim. I woke up safe in the belief that my worries about loving were for naught. I love them both. Instinctively. Neither one is more my child.

But it’s hard to really and truly know that if you haven’t done it. Of course people — especially people swept up in that first-time love for a biological child — may not believe it. And of course someone who has raised a step child may mistakenly believe that they are the same thing (step kids, adopted kids) when there are barriers in most step relationships that can get in the way of bonding and make it a harder, slower (but certainly not impossible) trek.

So it doesn’t bother me. Although it does bother me to think that there are people who can only see Rebecca Walker in the context of this one statement because I sure don’t want to be seen in the context of a single statement (especially because I make such ignorant ones sometimes).

Finally, if I refused to work with all the people who fundamentally disagree with me I’d be out of so many jobs that I’d be living in a van down by the river. Especially if I weeded out all the folks who differ with me re., adoption philosophy seeing as how I am, apparently, a freak show. (My friend last night told me this. She assures me it is true.)

I’ve said before that I’m not threatened by these statements but I also get that Madison might be. My feeling about this is that she’s going to have to learn how to deal with it because statements like that aren’t going anywhere. People feel how they feel and we are all of us prone to assume that if we feel that way, everyone else must feel that way, too. Madison will have to stand up to that and I figure my shrugging it off will do more to reassure her than if I was demonstrating that I felt threatened by it. (How can I be threatened by something so fundamentally wrong about me and my daughter?)

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I’m editing

Jun 12, 2008 Adoption

I took home some of my on-site work to edit it since I don’t need to see the products to fix my mistakes. Apparently I have this crazy idea that articles like “the” and “a” are not needed in today’s modern product write-ups. Re-reading my copy has convinced me that I was mistaken in this belief.

Last night we talked to Pennie on the phone. She’s moving to a new apartment at the end of summer and Madison was worried that she wouldn’t know where Pennie lives so she double-checked about that and was reassured. Pennie also got a new PINK laptop and Madison is anxious to get a look at that, lemme tell you. When Madison signed off she said, “Bye-bye, birth mama!”

When it comes to adoption language I think people ought to be able to call themselves what they want to be called. And I feel pretty darn cool about using “first mom” in the official capacity of talking generally about adoption because:

  1. I know this is what many mothers want to be called when we are talking generally about adoption;
  2. I like the way it shakes up preconceived ideas about MOTHERS by asserting primary — first — motherhood to women who place/lose children to adoption.

But in our regular, everyday experience of Madison’s adoption we use birth mother/birth mommy/birth mama (most often Madison uses “birth mama”) and I like this, too, in fact more than I would like first mama. Why?

Well, I was thinking on that last night. For Madison, her first understanding of Pennie as her mother was that Pennie had been pregnant with her and gave birth to her. This is so essential, you know? She was around two when she understood well and truly that she is OF Pennie and she has great respect — as do all little kids — for the tremendous intimacy of being OF her mother. I feel like preschoolers are such little pronatalists and Madison was no exception. For the past couple of years she and her friends have been fascinated with pregnancy and birth and Madison — like the rest of them — talks about when she herself will be pregnant and give birth. While she certainly is a fan of mine, being as she’s a fan of motherhood in general, she naturally has awe in spades for Pennie her BIRTH mama, the mama who made her and grew her and birthed her.

While she has struggled with sadness that she doesn’t look like me, she has also become more and more proud that she looks like Pennie. Yes, it’s scared her but it’s also undeniable that she was adopted, that she was born to one woman and then came to live with another and lately she’s been owning that with assertive pride. I don’t know if this will stick around but we’re celebrating it while it’s here.

I don’t know if, for her, first mama would have this same complicated connotation. I mean, sure, she would still have this all about Pennie but calling her “birth mama” is all wrapped up in her love and recognition of who Pennie is to her.

Her reaction to Nina Bonita is part of this. And her recent gleeful excitement when Noah told her that darker skin is “super skin” because it doesn’t burn like his pale, pale skin does.

Her increased affection for Pennie seems like an accurate barometer for her increased understanding and acceptance of her adoption story. I know she got it at two (she was about 2 1/4 on this day) and she has struggled mightily but I see that sad day at ballet class as a turning point. Since then she’s been talking more about skin color and she’s been putting more on us. She’s also been asserting herself as a black person. (She uses black now whereas before she more often said brown skinned although she does still use brown skinned.) For example, she has told many people about the ballet class and rolled her eyes saying, “I told mommy, I want a class with more black kids.” Then she saw a show with African dance and said, “THAT is what I want to do!” Before when we brought it up she was very negative about the idea. But she’s noticing and identifying more often with black people in her world.

At the same time, she’s seeking Pennie out more. She’s talking about her more. She’s talking about loving her more. She’s always handed the phone to me after talking to Pennie but now more often she’s coming to take it back.

“She’s my birth mama,” she’ll say as she marches away with the phone.

Lemme tell you, it makes this second mama feel awfully good.

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Miss Oklahoma is one of the good guys

Jun 11, 2008 Adoption

When Kelsey Cartwright’s father wanted to learn about his biological parents, he learned the papers that would tell him who had put him up for adoption were sealed from his eyes.

“We worked for a few years to get it open,” Cartwright said Sunday, a day after being crowned Miss Oklahoma at the 36th annual scholarship pageant in Tulsa.
Cartwright said she will use her father’s experience during her yearlong reign as she promotes open adoptions during appearances at schools and before civic groups across the state.

Cartwright, the 20-year-old daughter of William and Kelli Cartwright, said her father’s search for his past was confusing and frustrating.

“You never know what to do next,” said Cartwright, of Collinsville. Oklahoma has closed adoption laws and procedural and legal barriers keep adoption records sealed — even from adopted individuals who want to know the truth about their biological parents and their own heritage, she said.

“You’re stuck with that. But there are steps you can take to get your file open,” Cartwright said.

Read more here.

I’m not much for beauty pageants but this year I’m rooting for Miss Oklahoma.

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