[cnb1099]

***Please note that this thread has veered off from the original topic started. It is now a "support" hang out for the members who have participated.

Feel free to read, post, participate! This is simply a "heads up" that any replies you make to the original topic will likely not apply any longer.***

I have noticed that for the past few weeks there have been many threads devoted to terminology and poor wording and how adoptees/birthparents/adopted paretns are perceived by people outside of our special "club".

I was always told I was adopted and was asked all the questions as a kid...do you want to find your "real" (GOD I hate that one) parents, how come only you were adopted and not your brother and sister, you can not be adopted, you look just like your family, why did your parents change your name etc.

I am also now in reunion and am still asked questions that sting. I think back to being a child and cannot ever remember seeing any "after school specials" about adoption or reunions, I cannot remember ever hearing about adoptions in the media or being discussed anywhere.

So why is this something that is just brushed away? I heard about not smoking, avoiding unplanned pregnancy, drugs, alternative lifestyles, latchkey kids, runaway kids but never adopted kids. Nothing about kids that live their lives never quite feeling like they "fit". They preached about unplanned pregnancy and abstinance and abortion but never about placing a child for adoption.

We are bombarded with stories of young girls who throw away babies and hide pregnancies and give birth without any medical assistance, in my state we have the law about dropping babies off at hospitals or police, fire stations and the no questions rule but I never see ads about the option of adoption.

Is this still a tabboo subject in society that there is not more "out there" about all the aspects of adoptions and reunions? I could be wrong on this, and have been known to be wrong many times in my life, but I was just wondering if anyone else thought like me...that maybe if there was more information out there, more knowledge given to everyone that it could be a helpful thing?

Just wondering?

[healingfeeling]

So why is this something that is just brushed away? I heard about not smoking, avoiding unplanned pregnancy, drugs, alternative lifestyles, latchkey kids, runaway kids but never adopted kids. Nothing about kids that live their lives never quite feeling like they "fit".

i'd love to know why it gets brushed under the rug....

My honest opinion (and you know how I am about honesty, lol) is that a-parents don't want to believe that their child doesn't feel 100% a perfect fit in their family.... so that leaves the child to feel that they can't say it (like me)...i was told to get out of my fantasy world those other people are strangers and not my family.

good thread...can't wait to hear other people's responses!

[cnb1099]

HF-Lovin your honesty girl...you know that! You remember in high school when you would have "speakers" come in and talk to you about drunk driving or how drug ruin your life...wouldn't it have been amazing to have a birthmother talk about relinquishment and the life process that she goes through and then maybe have an adoptive parent speak about what they go through to adopt and how they tell them about being "different" but loved just the same?

Or maybe an afterschool special about the whole process and years later a reunion....

Pipedreaming I know but it is just interesting to me.

[healingfeeling]

We had speakers about abortion and teen pregnancy....we had speakers about drug use...we had speakers about smoking cigarettes, yup, drunk driving.... never any speakers about relinquishing a child though.

Personally I think we need speakers about cervical cancer too...i had surgery for pre-cancer last year...it threatened my fertility and made me bite the bullet and write to my dad.

The show Felicity had an adoptee on it, she found her bmom and bdad (they were married with 2 other kids)...her bmom hadn't told the bdad and therefor the girl on the show couldn't really have much of a relationship with her. It was sad....but it was only like 2 episodes devoted to that...and it made the bmom out to be a total witch...

we doooooooooo have a couple of actresses on this forum (not gonna name names!!) so maybe we can hold out hope that one of them will start a show someday about an adoptee

[whitsunday15]

Originally Posted by healingfeeling

we doooooooooo have a couple of actresses on this forum (not gonna name names!!) so maybe we can hold out hope that one of them will start a show someday about an adoptee

HMMM........ I have a contact interested already.

On Primetime last night, they were talking about AIDS, and at one point referenced AIDS in prisons. The interviewee on this subject said, "We could make condoms available to the inmates, but that would mean admitting that sex among them actually takes place."
Well, my jaw hit the floor. Our society seems to want to push everything that is not deemed appropriate in "God's" eyes, under the rug. I thought about my mom being 16 and people saying, "NO! That child was not born to that 16 year old. She was born to this 34 year old couple. Now you two go take her and pretend this didn't happen."

To not pretend means we have to talk about it. It seems to me that society wants to see adoption as this wonderful thing for everyone involved. If there are discussions started about a mother relinquishing her baby, and a lot of hurt and pain and suffering are expressed--then maybe society will be forced to realize that adoption is not always this wonderful event. I guess it's easier to pretend, than it is to face the truth.

[cnb1099]

Whit-

You are SO right. And for a smuch as I want to be angry at others for their insensitivity when it comes to the subject of adoption, or my adoption personally, I cannot. This was not a subject that was ever probably discussed in their world so they only know what has been told to them. They see the person who gives birth as the "real" parent not ackowledging the adoptive parents sacrifices in many (I know not ALL) cases, what the adoptive parents went through being scrutinized in the most private matters in order to hav ethe priviledge of staing up nights with colicy, sick, crying babies that would eventually turn into teenagers and more often then not throw that fact that there was another parent out there in their faces (does any of this could like it might be personal? Sorry).

I can remember being a young child ( I am the oldest of three and the only adopted child) and being told my brother and sister that they would not drink or eat after me because I had "different germs" than them. Talk about a million little daggers in the heart...But I can also remember my parents not addressing it just saying that it was not nice..sweep, sweep, sweep.

[cnb1099]

HF- You are so right on that also. Especially this new cervical that cannot even be picked up on a pap..but I must say I did see THAT on the 6 o clock news! YAY! One step in the right direction...

I never watched Felicity but that is very interesting...too bad they had to show the birth mother in such a poor light...but I guess if you are going to show reunions you need to show the positive along with the negative.

[WLD]

My honest opinion (and you know how I am about honesty, lol) is that a-parents don't want to believe that their child doesn't feel 100% a perfect fit in their family.... so that leaves the child to feel that they can't say it (like me)..."

You may be right, it could be that aparents 'forget' that the child may not feel 100% perfect fit in their family because the aparent 'forgets' the child is adopted. In all honesty, i continuously try to remind myself that i have an ason because he is such a part of our family, as much so as our bchildren are, it's hard to 'remember' that he joined the family differently than any of the rest of the children. Maybe we want so badly for all the children to feel as much a part of the family and as loved.
That is so interesting and i hadn't realized but i guess most shows do show one of the members of the triad in a bad light and it varies which one. It's like either the aparent or the bparent 'has' to be bad. it would be nice to see a show where all members are working together for the adoptees happiness.

[cnb1099]

WLD-

I agree with you in my case-my parents I am sure never wanted to shed light on anything that might make me look "dfferent" to my siblings. But it was always out there and even as a little kid they knew it.

I wonder if shedding any positive light on adoption would make a difference in the decisions of young girls who "hide" the pregnancy and make drastically life altering decisions about their choices...Make it a mandatory discussion in a health class when sex education is taught...

[whitsunday15]

Yes, but I see my adoption as negative. I think that BOTH senarios--positve and negative need to be addressed. You can't just talk about the positives--I feel that adoption is already made out to be a positive event. I think more light needs to be shed on the negative side. Young girls need to be educated on what it is going to feel like years after the baby is born and they are missing a part of themselves. And what that child might go through as a result of being separated from his/her mother. Adoption is not always positive.

[cnb1099]

Whit- You are absolutely right. I just affirmed my own thought process here. I made statements based on only what I know to be true based on my own experience without taking into consideration those of this "club" that did not have a good experience, did not go to a good family, birthmothers who were traumatized by their relinquishment...

But then I was NEVER told about those scenarios...I heard plenty about foster kids being placed in bad homes but never ever ADOPTED into bad families. My birthmother was always put to me as a good woman who wanted more for me than what she could give, and the thought that she was anywhere mourning the "loss" for lack of a better terminology was not addressed.

And my parents( I am sorry I have a hard time with using aparents) never really told me all that they went thought just to adopt in the 60s until much later on in life..all of their personal private life on view for strangers because they wanted a baby so badly and could not conceive...(apparantly I releived their stress and they had 2 natural ..that is another awful term...like I am unnatural.. children)

I am sure that people will disagree with me but somewhere someone needs to start putting this out there because adoptions will not go away and we are starting to ask questions...

[whitsunday15]

Originally Posted by cnb1099