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Thread: I recently got into it with the aparents again about "adoption sucks" things and noticed some interesting trends in their responses. Nothing you all haven't noted before but I feel like writing it out.
I was explaining legal guardianship and how it retains family ties in the event that a child needs long-term outside care (emphasizing that even this is a last resort).
I asked why we insist on separating people from their family tree forever just because their parents were going through a rough patch when they were born.
I tried to emphasize that the permanency of adoption is the problem. I can never be part of my natural family again in the eyes of the law. Even if they're doing better. Even though I'm an adult. Even if we all want to be together.
Amom didn't get the point of that. Why would I want to be part of a family who didn't raise me? Wouldn't LG cause kids to be dumped on the street when they turn 18? (She brushed me off when I reminded her that bio parents can do this as well.)
That encounter really drove home how adoption has cheapened the definition of family. That family is limited to proximity and privileged adults' feelings and thus interchangeable.
But what this ignores is all the other parts about being in a real family. The genetic mirroring, the culture, the language. Even the country. It's easy to play those things down when you don't have to live your whole life separated from them. But they're essential.
Deep down inside, we know this to be true. That's why the "you're adopted" insult stings. People inherently understand the difference. The mental gymnastics comes when we try to equate blood family with legally-assigned "family," not when we distinguish them.
Side note: This isn't to discredit the value of "chosen family" relationships and such. That's very different. I have people who are "like family" to me but we don't *actually* think we're related just because we like each other. It's not a forced relationship.
Moving on.
Moving on.
Second: How desperate APs (or at least mine) are to justify why an adoption *had* to happen. To the point of being incredibly hurtful.
Amom proceeds to come up with every excuse in the book for why "more help" wouldn't have kept my family together. Even though I had kept siblings (older and younger) and all source witnesses agree my mother didn't want to part with me.
I don't have definite answers but the main likelihoods have obvious solutions:
Severe health issues as a baby? How about a health care system that doesn't bankrupt people for being sick? Fear surrounding possible legal status? *looks for Facebook post about families belonging together*
I asked why no one bats an eye when the state gives adopters $800/kid/mo in "adoption assistance" but the same people would lose their minds at the suggestion that it go to struggling families? That's almost $10K/yr.
Well, Western society thinks parenting while poor or brown is an abomination but parenting while a well-off WASP is an entitlement, even if the kids aren't yours.
So she resorted to reminding me that my mother didn't visit me in the hospital or foster care, implying I was unwanted. When I pointed out how hurtful it was, she insisted I "needed to know that." (Read: Be reminded that she's the savior here. *eye roll*)
To the kept, these things are simple observations. To the abandoned, it's the source of the trauma that follows us every moment of our lives.
Why didn't she visit? Probably something simple like a lack of transportation or knowing what rights she even had. (There's a language barrier, and I can't imagine the social worker was eager to go great lengths to ensure understanding.)
It's not that there aren't answers about how to keep families together. It's that acknowledging them requires APs to face the fact that their successful quest to "build a family" caused another family (likely multiple) an eternity of unnecessary brokenness.
Acknowledging solutions places the unique nature of true family in the spotlight as something worth upholding. It also does away with the "as if born to" lie and exposes the false nature of "adoptive families."
These pills are apparently too tough to swallow for even the most woke APs. So they grasp at straws to avoid having their happy bubble popped and be forced to admit that they participated in an unethical and dishonest industry at another's expense.
That's all for now. My blood pressure has been through the roof since midnight and I can't walk it off because the air is full of smoke. Meanwhile, amom has probably forgotten the conversation even happened.
May you all find a sliver of happiness in your day. Adoption sucks. Fight the system. Also, #citizenship4adoptees, in case anyone forgot. K, bye.
