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I covered the overshares that exist as professional adopters, the proud parents, the gloom and dooms, the "but" adopters, the book writers, the bloggers, the YouTubers, the article writers and the consumers. Then twitter made me take a break. I'm back now. Prior threads below. https://twitter.com/WordyRamblings/status/1288814450611564546
I'd now like to discuss yet another group of oversharers. Sometimes they are professionals sometimes not. They could fit into any of the aforementioned categories. They could be in all of them.
They are the in person oversharers.
Everyone around them knows "their" adoption story. Everyone from the best friend to the mail carrier.
Everyone around them knows "their" adoption story. Everyone from the best friend to the mail carrier.
In some cases they have what could be considered local celebrity. Theres been a little news article about them. They were featured in a human interest segment. They're on the news holding a baby. Etc.
Sometimes they're foster carers and the baby they are holding or the kid they pan to is a temporary placement. Sometimes they're "human interest" story is their fight to keep that kid, and interrupt reunification.
I'm going to lay this as plainly as I can. You're a foster carer. Your entire purpose was to agree to take a child or children in temporarily while reunification efforts are enacted. Your purpose is not to go share endless photos and stories about this kid.
And it is definitely not to be praised for being a carer. It is not to use public opinion thoroughly tilted to your favor to interrupt the process.
Whether that be a news story, or you blabbing your mouth all over town about the kid you just got. What the actual hell is wrong with you? That's not safety. That's not protection. That's not permanency. That's nothing good and you need to stop.
If you're turning your child into a bizarre adoptee show and tell at school you need to stop.
If you're giving random strangers at the grocery store an adoptee's life story you need to stop.
If you're giving random strangers at the grocery store an adoptee's life story you need to stop.
If you're shopping the adoptee around to 15 different therapists because one of your favorite professional adopters introduced you to a new pathology and so you're telling anyone that will listen your adoptee has that too, STOP.
If you're setting dates and times for slide shows at churches where you expound on the beauty of orphan Sunday and are grossly sharing "your adoption story" to congregations in Hopes that will compel them to also adopt and perpetuate this cycle, stop.
If you're going to state legislators and sharing all the intimate facts and details of your adoptee's story to try and make sure laws relegate adoptees to even less access, you're horrible and also need to be stopped.
If you're getting ready to tell some rando facts about your adoptee and discuss adoption because "there shouldnt be a stigma" you also need to stop.
Theres a line between shame of secrecy and shame of publicity and you're getting ready to cross it.
Theres a line between shame of secrecy and shame of publicity and you're getting ready to cross it.
It's become an novel concept in the world but have you considered the following:
Your adoption story isn't yours it's theirs.
You dont have to answer random queries just because someone asked.
Your adoption story isn't yours it's theirs.
You dont have to answer random queries just because someone asked.
Would you consider it equally appropriate to stand inside the produce aisle of the grocery store and have a long protracted conversation with a total stranger about their vaginal delivery and the weight of their placenta?
Would you find it appropriate to ask random people to prove their DNA and divulge the entirety of their medical history to you because you were curious?
Also if you do find those things appropriate, oh my god no they are not.
When you open your mouth to proclaim the rights of the story that rightfully belongs to the adoptee and the adoptee alone, do you also hold back elements of the story that you've decided are "too personal" about you or might paint you in a bad light?
Are you actually completely fine with all of these overshares until someone calls you out personally for being the way you are?
Are you someone fully prepared for the adult version of this child to also tell strangers all about the ways you violated their privacy? Are you ready for an eventual backlash?
Or is that now unfair and strangers shouldnt be airing your dirty laundry like that.
Just because you're doing it in person to a smaller crowd does not mean you're better for it.
Just because you're doing it in person to a smaller crowd does not mean you're better for it.
You're just as guilty as the professional adopter in your favorite publication with a million hits expounding on the intimacy of their child's story.
The adoptee still has to live in the shadow of your expectations.
The adoptee still has to live in the shadow of your expectations.
They still have people that "know them" but didn't ask for that. You've still taken away their autonomy and privacy. You're still teaching them they can't say no.
Want to know how to deal with questions?
Learn some non answers. Make it painfully clear that a story is not the random person's business.
Learn how to say "that's none of your business" because I guarantee you already know that one when it is about you.
Learn some non answers. Make it painfully clear that a story is not the random person's business.
Learn how to say "that's none of your business" because I guarantee you already know that one when it is about you.
And heres my gracious offer to you if after all of these threads and all of these facts and all of this information and perspective. Some of you stubborn ones are still going to think you're the exception. And you're somewhere whining because I said if you argue I'll block you.
Heres my offer. I am giving you a window now. You can, until myself and other adoptees tire of it, @ me. We can play a game. It's called the question game. In it i can ask you any question about your entire life and personals and you have to answer it.
If you choose not to answer I will just assign you an answer and it can replace the truth. It can become the story. If there's nothing wrong with sharing the adoptee life though, then surely the same is true for you.
If you have an actual question and want actual clarification about something, then ask it. But believe me when I say I have no patience for disengenuous asshattery today.
