Weekend Wisdom

“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”

― Gloria Steinem

Go Ahead and Punch Him

The boys have been in sparring classes through our Kung Fu Studio and a while back we started D.  The younger kids are funny to watch during their first class.  They can't reconcile the fact that they are now allowed to hit people.  So they often just stand in one spot and don't move.  If they do punch or kick it is very half-hearted and they immediately turn around to look at their parents to make sure they aren't about to go to time out.

Not D....

 (At the time we took this she was 5 and she is fighting a 7 year old.  You'll notice the teacher has to grab her to get her to stop at the end.  Now there are several boys who have told their moms they don't want to fight her- she is too tough)

An Actual Award (that is Worth Something)

In light of the Circle of Moms fiasco, iAdoptee started a contest for the Top 25 Adoptee Rights Blogs Written by Adoptive Mothers.   To qualify the blog author must be an adoptive mother and they must have done at least one post about adoptee's rights to their original birth certificates.  

I am proud and honored to say I made the list.  

Unfortunately it is a pretty short list which makes me sad because adoptive moms SHOULD care that their children are denied their OBC even after they reach adulthood.  In fact, I would go so far and say that for an a-mom not to care about this issue makes them pretty darn selfish.  The hard work of being an adoptive parent means remembering that it isn't about you.  The minute that baby is separated from from their first family it stops being about you and starts being about them.  And this is a huge issue for adoptees- it is a huge issue for first families and it must be a huge issue for adoptive families too.  So adoptive moms- it's time for us to step up to the plate and realize that providing adoptees with their OBC is about fairness and justice and not about us at all.  So fellow a-moms.... Let's hear your voices.

Look Who Got Glasses!

He only needs them for reading and other close up work but he was pretty excited to get them

Falsified Document? Nope- Just My Kid's Birth Certificate

Did you know that at the finalization of an adoption the child's original birth certificate is sealed, and a new one is issued with the adoptive parents names on it. 

I will admit that this is not a topic I have given much thought about because I thought of it more as a domestic adoptee issue but in reading some adoptee and first mother blogs I realize how fundamental of an issue this is.  And then it occurred to me it really effects my kids too.  For K her Ethiopian issued birth certificate lists us as her parents, although I believe it says adoptive (vs. natural) parents- but without pulling out of the safety deposit box I am not 100% sure.  For D though, we do have her original birth certificate- but due to the nature of Chinese adoption there isn't really much information on it.  But when we re-adopted them a couple of years ago we had new birth certificates from the state issued.  We did primarily to have birth certificates that were in English and more user friendly (D's Chinese BC is 4 pages long in a A4 size folder).  

The girls' new birth certificates are identical to the boys with the exception of the information about hospital, attending doctor and time of birth. 

Identical.

Think about that.  We are listed as giving birth to them.  In one act, the state has legally erased their first families.   

Sign, sealed and filed away.  

  Yes I am their parent but I am not the parent who gave birth to them as the certificate says.

The new document is a legal fiction.

And not only is the document a legal fiction but in the vast majority of states the original birth certificate is sealed FOREVER.  Even after adulthood an adoptee in most states is unable to view their original birth certificate.

Luckily for my kids, because the state did not issue the original birth certificate, it is not sealed and we have multiple copies of them.  Most adoptees are not so lucky.

One thing that I saw clearly these past two weeks is the irrefutable was the way the deck is stacked in favor of the adoptive parents at the expense of the parents who brought the child into the world.   I know that there are adoptive parents who loudly proclaim they are the real parents and they want the paperwork to show that. 

 But at what cost to the child and first family? 

 Adoptees have two sets of parents and if you, as an adoptive parent, can't deal with that. maybe adoption isn't for you. 

I am at a loss to understand why states don't develop a birth certificate that respectfully identifies their original family, acknowledges their current family and does so in way to keep their adoption story private should they want it to remain private. 

However, what I am at a far greater loss to understand why the original birth certificates can not be issued to adult adoptees without question.  That document contains fundamental information about who they ARE, not just who they were.  

Why in 2012 is this even an issue?

Think about this- if President Obama had been adopted- it would have been impossible for him to get his birth certificate to prove he was born in the US. 

IMPOSSIBLE. 

For the President of the United States.

Makes you wonder what they are hiding

For more information about how to support the overturning of these archaic laws and to find out about National Adoptee Rights Day please click here

It's not a Party until there are Inflatables

It Was Meant to Be

 Imagine you are married, madly in love your best friend and soul mate.  Then one day you beloved partner dies.  You grieve heavily and for a long time.  Eventually you meet another person and you fall in love and get married and build a happy life.  Then one day they say to you "It was God's plan for us to be together"  You know that had it not been for the death of your first partner, you wouldn't be together.  How do you interpret that statement?

So I recently spoke an a panel about adoption.  The panel included an adult adoptee, first mothers and adoptive parents.  And one of the adoptive parents was speaking about her journey to parenthood and made a reference to something that I hear all the time from adoptive parents.

"They were meant to be my children"

Sometimes also worded as 

"God knew we were supposed to be your family" or 

"It was God's plan for us to be a family"

Think about what that sounds like to an adoptive parent. To an adoptive parent  it is warm and fuzzy thought.  A sense that the child is right were they should be- right where they were meant to be.  

(Of course, recognize also the inherent judgement implied in it (whether consciously or not) that "here" is a better place then where they could have been.

Think about what it sounds like to a first mother.  Your whole reason for existing was to give birth to this baby solely for the purposes of placing them with the adoptive family.   It implies their whole destiny and purpose was to produce a baby for someone else.  It relegates them to being little more than an incubator and minimizes the fundamental role they have as the child's first mother.  Not to mention first families are so much more than just the people who "made" your baby. 

Now think about what it sounds like to a child (especially when you drag God into it)  God allowed (or worse, caused) the reasons that my first parents couldn't raise me.  God meant for me to be born into this other family so He separated me from my first family to put me here.  And for children removed due to violence or death- "God allowed my first parent to hit me so that I could come here"  or "God allowed my first parent to die because I am supposed to be here with this family"   There are two huge issues  with this.  The first is that it means that being born into their original family was a mistake.  The other is that now the child believes that  God would deliberately cause the issue that pulled the first family apart.  While I am not an overly religious person, I can't imagine how you would come to love/worship/respect a God that you thought deliberately and consciously orchestrated the painful events in your life in order to get you into another family.

And because someone will bring it up- while I do believe that there are a few adoption stories so full of coincidences and "karma" as to wonder if there wasn't some sort of divine intervention pairing a certain child with a certain family,  the difference is in those situation the child had already been separated from the birth family.   In other words the child was already in an orphanage or foster care.  The "karma" is how the child and family connected- NOT in how the child lost their first family.  

I will never accept that God planned on my children's first mother's having to relinquish them- it is too cruel to think that God orchestrated that loss deliberately so that I could parent them.  I can't believe that a mother relinquishing her child, no matter the circumstances is the universe's Plan A.  

Plan A was that my children were meant to be in their families of origin.  

It is only when plan A couldn't happen, for whatever reason, that you consider Plan B.  

Adoption is Plan B