this woman’s work

Pennie just agreed to sit on the Open Adoption panel I’m gonna moderate at the next AAC Conference! Barring things like finals and stuff. I mean, the woman is busy! And it’s a long way off! But I SO want her to come even just to hang at the conference if she doesn’t want to do the panel!!

Right now the yesses and maybes I have are: Pennie (!!!), Shannon, Jenna and maybe just maybe Bacchus! (One or two people may be still in the works — it’s hard since it costs money to present and so I want to find folks who don’t have to hugely travel. Bacchus volunteered!!!  Barb, I would LOVE for you to come but understand if you couldn’t? And then there’s a birth parent near me who I’m waiting to hear from.) I chose people who have a variety of experiences with openness and different challenges but who are all committed to child-centeredness with maybe different results.

That would make it:

Me (moderating less more than participating)

Pennie (first mom)

Shannon (adoptive mom twice in two different-looking circumstances)

Jenna (first mom who is also, as we know, well-connected to many other people’s stories)

Bacchus (adoptive dad who did foster-to-adopt)

And one or two other first parents to be announced. (I’m kinda rooting for a first dad but am not sure if that’ll happen due to scheduling challenges.) Is that too big? It’s kinda big. It might work if it’s just we five, too, so I won’t fret much. But I’d like to have more as back-up since life happens and maybe people who thought they could come won’t be able to.

I keep tripping over adoption in weird places. I keep meeting people (in real life) who it turns out are adopted, have adopted siblings, lost/placed a baby for adoption, had a mother/aunt/sister/friend/grandmother who lost/placed a baby for adoption, know that there is an adopted sibling/cousin/aunt/nephew who was placed for adoption, etc. etc. etc.

I know I wouldn’t be privvy to these conversations if I didn’t have my own adoption story. I suspect I might not be privvy if my adoption story wasn’t an open adoption story since what leads to these generally intimate conversations is hearing that Pennie is a part of Madison’s life.

Every story is different and every story is in some ways the same. They are all heart-wrenching and moving and so important.

Then this made me think of something else. At the last American Adoption Congress conference, Sharon Roszia asked each triad group to stand. First the adoptees, then the birth families, then the adoptive families. I only stood for the adoptive families even though I am part of an extended birth family. Later I mentioned this to a first mom who was sitting with me sharing pictures and I said I hadn’t stood up because I knew that this family member wasn’t quite out about her adoption and I felt like it was taking on her story. Like I was usurping her story. And this woman leaned in and took my hand and said, “Next time you have to stand!” She said it fiercely. She said, “If you don’t stand, you’re denying that child your family lost! Stop denying her!”

She said it was my story, too, because it’s my family’s story. (And yes, I started to cry. I was already crying when I showed her pictures of Pennie but this set me to sniffling again.)

(I think about how little I know about this story and how afraid I am of digging and yes, it sure helps me understand how this denial happens. I have good intentions — the feelings of the people involved — but maybe those good intentions are misplaced. I don’t know. I’m working through it.)

So likely there are even more of us with adoption stories. Likely there are so many hidden children, hidden shames (hidden families) and really we ought to be talking more about it in real life. Really we ought to be talking about it so that the adoption secrets come spilling out and erase the shame as they come tumbling from the closets we hoped would contain them.

Three new questions up over at Open Adoption Support!!! Questions include: advice for an expectant mom thinking about placement, how to manage holidays and adopting older kids from foster care.

Also, got word that my panel proposal for the American Adoption Congress conference in Cleveland next spring is a go!

Open Adoption: Promises and Truth

Sunday, April 26th 2009

8:45am to 10am

I’m working to line up some fab women (who perhaps you might know! I’m just sayin’!) to share their stories of living open adoption as first and adoptive parents, talking about their expectations before the adoption and the real life challenges and of course the need for more open adoption support.

Once I know for sure who will be there (I have fairly firm yeses from two) I’ll let y’all know.

She woke up and opened two presents: a doll with hair from us and (this will explain the specifics of the doll with hair) a barber kit from Noah. (Noah was helping her take all the barber stuff out and when he got out the straight razor he raised it above his head and started singing, “My friends… my faithful friends!” I love that kid!)

Had a great blogger meet up at Old Wive’s Tale last night. It was the perfect way to end a pretty good week. Attendees included (in order of appearance even though this is not quite right because Marley and Ron were there first but no on else was so they came back later):

1. Heather.pnr (sans firefly, sadly because I wanted to squish on her)
2. Me.
3. Shanamadele (who I only now realized I was mixing up with another blogger’s blog name even though I knew who she was as soon as she mentioned her work but I’m a twit)
4. Marley (who already has a pic of us all up!)
5. Ron Morgan (who should update more)
6. Jan Baker (with whom I gossiped a touch about adoption.com)

So fun!!! Lots of great discussion! Good food! Awesomeness!

A random selection of things I learned at the conference in honor of the child who inspired my appearance there:

• Adoptees have some special needs.
• But they are not broken, damaged people.
• Adoptive parents have an obligation to help their kids understand their special needs.
• We also have an obligation not to treat them like spun glass.
• Adopted kids are survivors, not victims. And are better served being recognized as suvivors, not victims.
• Madison is going to be more than ok. She’s going to take over the world! Noah will help her do it.

Sometimes it feels like dancing on a thin line — recognizing Madison’s grief while not becoming obsessed with seeing it. I heard from many adult adopted people that recognition is important but that too much emphasis on loss is stifling, I feel more confident about meeting her needs as I see ‘em come up without constantly trying to figure out if it’s an adoption issue or a parenting issues. I realize that it’s very easy to see her as someone else than who she would have been had she not been adopted. I’ve talked to Julia about this in regards to her kids’ illnesses. You can’t help but wonder, would things have looked like this if? Would they have been different if? But too much of that is an indulgence our kids can ill afford. Things look like THIS. This is who they are whether it’s because of the impact of this, that or the other. I think it’s the difference between seeing who they are as a distortion of who they could have/should have been and seeing them as exactly who they SHOULD be under the circumstances. I mean, I think Madison is just about the greatest little girl who ever graced this planet; I don’t think she could be any better had she NOT been adopted, you know? She is who she is in part because of her early experiences.

The Dutch researcher, René Hoksbergen (Tatjana! Here’s his site!), talked about emphasizing the positives (he is pretty down on adoption but up on adoptees, who he thinks are pretty terrific people for thriving under challenging circumstances). So Madison’s strength, resilience, adaptability — these are good things that she has developed/is developing perhaps in part to her experience of relinquishment and adoption. As she gets older and thinks more about identity, I can point out the positive ways she’s processed her experience to celebrate her adoptiveness while still recognizing her challenges. I can say, “Missing Pennie can be hard but what I’ve noticed about you is that you have always chosen to face things with optimism. I have faith in your ability to overcome hardships!” (Only I wouldn’t say it all stiff like that.)

This is a subtle paradigm shift for me but an important one. It’s not the same as dismissing her experience; it’s a different emphasis.

(Here I think of talking to Susan about worrying I’ll miss it when she’s asking for help and Susan rolled her eyes at me and said, “You WON’T. You’re here.” And I understand that what she’s saying is that I can rest on my raised awareness and trust my gut. Adoptive parents who spend time educating themselves about this stuff — reading books and blogs, going to conferences and workshops — have developed pretty good guts. This is pretty much what Ron said, too, only without as much eyerolling probably because he doesn’t know me as well as Susan does.)

More later! Off to open presents!

I was worried only four people would show but hey! I got five! (Several reasons for a small turn-out: Lots of people still lined up to get a signed copy of The Baby Thief; a couple of other FABULOUS presentations at the same time; last session of the conference when plenty of people had already gone home.) And the five people who DID show up were lovely people who helped create a conversation at the end of the program.

I saw two great speakers today, one being Barbara Raymond, author of the aforementioned The Baby Thief, and the other being a Dutch researcher whose name I can’t get to right now but who said that adopted people, like all of us, need “connection through history.” And talked some about the value of siblings in the adoptive family (adopted or not) because these are people who our children can either connect to from that sibling’s very first (as in the case of an older adopted child who is already there when a new brother or sister arrives) or who can connect them to their very first (as in the case of someone like Noah who has been there since Madison’s arrival).

He also made me feel very glad that we didn’t change Madison’s name.

In fact, there’s a lot that I heard at the conference that made me feel good about our parenting choices and there was other stuff I heard that made me feel determined to make new ones. (I feel like I’ve got a good handle on the adoption stuff but need to work on the transracial stuff especially since one mom quoted her transracially adopted son as saying, “Mom, adoptee issues are a luxury compared to race issues.”)

I will have more to say but I have a wicked headache and am leaving in about thirty minutes for the blogger meet-up!!!

From Susan:

This morning I was thinking of skipping the keynote by Sharon Roszia but then was very glad I didn’t. She said some excellent things about kinship and the “adoption constellation” (rather than the “adoption triad” because so many more people are affected and included). One thing she said about transracial/transcultural/international adoption that really knocked my socks off was, “You want to adopt a kid from China/Latin America/Russia? Great! Go live there and do it! YOU learn the new language. YOU adjust to culture shock. Why don’t YOU adapt?” People laughed because of course that is “ludicrous.” And then she added (which is true), of course, this will never happen, but wouldn’t it be great if the adults whose IDEA it is, take the responsibility and take up some of the loss so it is not all the kid. I was like, wow. How revolutionary.

Sharon went even further with that. She said that anyone who was unwilling to learn their child’s language shouldn’t adopt internationally.

And of course this (along with Chris Winston’s presentation) made me think about my lukewarm efforts to find Madison community. I am LAME. But this was the kick in the butt I needed.

Yeah, I’m a little ashamed at my whining indulgence so I deleted it. Noah — listening to me whine — had some coping tips that sound suspiciously like what I tell him to do when overwhelmed by bad feelings starting with take a break by leaving the room. So tonight when I have to be here because Brett’s other brother is in town and there’s a big family dinner, I’ll leave the table early to work on the presentation.

Now! Quotes!

This is a paraphrase from Sharon Roszia who was quoting Suzanne Arms, the midwife. You may know Suzanne also wrote a book about adoption (scroll down). When Sharon asked why Suzanne was interested in writing about adoption given that she had no personal ties to it, Suzanne said, “The way we treat women in adoption is a portrait of the way we treat women generally.” Right on.

Sharon says that the system needs to stop asking, “Who does this child belong to?” and start asking, “Who belongs to this child?”

Then this woman named Marcia Pantoni, whose partner is presenting at the conference, said, “Forgiveness is giving up all hope of a better past.” (She told me this is a zen thing and I said I was crediting her because she was smart enough to say it at exactly the right time; whether or not she actually coined it doesn’t matter.)

Then John Sobraske pointed out, “Almost all hero’s journeys are taken by adoptees.” I need to think about that some and then reread my fairy tales.

My favorite presenter so far was a colleague of Margie’s named Chris Winston who did a great job talking about the challenges in finding our children a way to their ethnic communities in a transracial adoption. She gave me a lot to think about and some much needed inspiration.

My least favorite presentation was on opening up an internal dialogue (i.e., imaginary) between adoptive and birth parents only because it was very (as Susan Ito says) Adoption 101. That said, afterwards two women cried and thanked her for the exercise so even though it didn’t offer much to me, it was clearly an important presentation for other attendees so I have no quarrel with it.

John Sobraske is the guy who did the presentation about adoptee angst that I was hoping would apply to Madison. Only it didn’t give me much insight. Clearly a lot of the developmental challenges of life are exacerbated by the additional challenge of adoption and he did a good job of explaining how this looks but there wasn’t much practical information. I struggle with knowing if I’m feeding Madison’s fears or giving her the tools to deal with them. It feels awfully easy to cross the line into overbearing/overprotective. That said, I generally feel good about things when I go with my gut so I’ll just keep on keeping on.

Something else — it’s clear that people who experienced adoption in the closed adoption era feel that openness eliminates a lot of the pain, which I think is true. But sometimes there’s a tendency to downplay that there is pain in even the best open adoption. I’d like to see more acknowledgment that open adoption is still adoption and while the pain is often mitigated, it’s still there. If I didn’t already believe that, the survey responses would have convinced me. (This is why I want to tweak my presentation a little bit.)

Unfortunately I don’t have time to write about it! But so far it’s been interesting and fun and meeting Susan in person was AWESOME (also meeting Micky)! One nifty thing about this conference — adoptive parents seem to be in the minority, which I think is a healthy thing for adoptive parents to occasionally be. (I feel like we dominate so much of the adoption discussion when triad members are together.)

Next year it’s in Cleveland so I’ll definitely go again. Also they’re accepting pitches for presenters — hit ‘em up if you’ve got something to say!

Finally Brett and I are bickering like mad but it’s his fault for not choosing his relatives more carefully. (snerk)

Some (but not all) of the workshops I’m planning to go to at the conference:

Adoptee Psychology—John Sobraske

Adoptee psychology is complicated. This workshop will explore issues like “soul hunger,” precocity, regression, creativity, existence anxiety, buoyancy, hoarding, hypervigilance, hyperadaptibility, hypercontrol and just plain hyper. Special focus will be given to identity paradoxes and diagnostic conundrums. (This guy is up against Joe Soll — seems like six of one, half dozen the other but still. I interviewed Joe Soll way back when and he was very nice but given that Madison is precocious, creative, buoyant and a touch hyper, I’m heading to this one.)

The Hidden Relationship in Adoption - A Look at the Inevitable Ties between Birth and Adoptive Parents— Melissa Holub.

The majority of professional and community attention in adoption is paid to the relationship between adoptive parents and their children by adoption, between birth parents and the children they did not parent, or is focused on issues within individual triad positions.   This presentation will consider a critical, yet often ignored relationship, that of adoptive and birth parents.  Whether they are in regular contact or never expect to know each other’s identities, birth and adoptive parents are bound by the children they share.  This presentation will address the necessity of acknowledging this parental relationship and the ramifications of trying to avoid it.   Conversation between birth and adoptive parents will be encouraged in this workshop.

(Again, two other workshops — one on ethics and one on “Growing up biracial in adoption” tempt me but I think this is where I’m going to be.)

Ethnic Community Connections and Boundaries— Chris Winston

Many acknowledge that it is important for adoptive parents to provide their children adopted interethnically with ethnic community connections. This workshop will present a model of how this can happen in practice.

What Makes An Open Adoption Survive and Thrive— Micky Duxbury

Workshop will explore what birth and adoptive parents need from each other and from professionals as they navigate open relationships. What changes are needed in adoption practices  to  be more inclusive of both birth mothers and birth fathers? How can we help birth parents understand the positive contribution they can make to the child’s developing sense of self?  Duxbury will share the results of her research for her book on fully open adoption along with a challenging dialogue about what each member of the triad can bring to improve open relationships.

(This is up against “Adoption is a Feminist Issue” but I really want to support Micky because I love her book and want to hear more about what she has to say.)

Relationships: From Discord to Harmony— Nancy Verrier

Difficulties in relationships can be found in all parts of the adoption triad. The reasons for these problems are often misunderstood. This workshop will pinpoint the difficulties as well as offer solutions for the healing of relationships for triad members and their significant others. Harmony is possible!

(There’s another workshop at the same time that interests me but how can I pass up the chance to see Nancy Verrier speak?)

And then I can’t decide between these next two:

Open Path Forever a Different Identity–René Hoksbergen

This workshop will include the film The Struggle, featuring Suzanne, a foundling in India who was adopted in Holland. Interviewed at age 12 and again as an adult woman, Suzanne reflects on her comments as a girl as well as her thoughts on being abandoned and adopted and her feelings towards her adoptive parents, boyfriend, and brother. Suzanne’s reactions in the film concern her struggle for identity. René will lead a discussion following the film on the manner in which abandonment and relinquishment inform development.

From Supporter to Skeptic: One International Adoptee’s Journey—Joan M. Schumack

An intensely personal narrative traces the transformation of one international adult adoptee, from ardent supporter of transnational adoption to extreme skeptic, after meeting her birth family in Greece. Handouts list books and websites on international adoption, plus a timeline of her metamorphosis from supporter to skeptic of transnational adoption.

Email me and I’ll send you the url where you can see it in web format. None of the nifty dissolves between the slides but who cares about that really and the images aren’t as pretty ‘cuz they’re rendered for the web. Obviously you’re missing the discussion I’m giving in front of the screens — for example, I share two quotes that are critical of the survey and then I’m going to talk in-depth about their criticism to share some of the shortcomings of the survey and to expand on what I would do differently next time. Another example: when I show the respondents graph I’ll be talking about how I went about finding people to take the survey and some specifics about the people who chose to do it.

(You’ll note the lack of adoptee information in the overview — this will be explained in the talk so it won’t be as glaring as it is if you’re looking at the slides cold.)

This is the second-half of my talk — the first half is about the site itself: how it got started, how people are using it, etc. The last slide is where I’ll talk about goals for the future and I didn’t list ‘em because I’m mindful of what y’all said about just reading the slides.

I’m hoping for audience participation. Hell, I’m hoping for an audience.

I did include several quotes — I chose those that illustrate common concerns I’ve heard either from site participants, blog comments (here) or in the survey. One of them makes me cry whenever I read it (I hope I don’t cry during the presentation).