I’m so glad that adoptees are taking back National Adoption Month this year with the hashtag #FlipTheScript. During this time of year, especially light and wonderful depictions of adoption can be seen everywhere. Please realize asking me to celebrate adoption is asking me to celebrate the loss of my first family. Celebrating adoption simplifies my story and my identity. And celebrating adoption doesn’t validate the range of emotions the words home, family, love, and citizenship carry for me.
About 65% of Americans are impacted by adoption in some way, either having a friend, sibling, daughter, nephew etc. who’s adopted or by being an adoptee or birthparent, so I’m pretty sure most Americans know that adoptions happen. Why then do we have this month of awareness and what is it raising awareness about? Does National Adoption Month raise awareness of the issue of medical and identity erasure through not having access to original birth certificates? Does National Adoption Month raise awareness about the politics of race in adoption – that black children stay in foster care longer and adoption fees for black children are lower than non-black children? Does National Adoption Month raise awareness that most adoptees become adoptable for preventable reasons including poverty, poor access to health care, social stigmas against single motherhood, gender inequities etc. Surely these causes are not celebratory.
Below is a conversation with The Lost Daughters on National Adoption Month.
Below is just some of the twitter conversation happening – we’re rewriting our own stories by literally flipping the script.
During this #NAM14, please pay attention to the adoptee voices. We’re out there and waiting to be heard.
RTB, I know that you are probably going to get a lot of flak from some adoptive parents for your comments above. I can hear them now.You are part of the cult that puts first parents on a pedestal. You think throwing money at problems will eliminate the need for adoptions because you are so naive. You think adoptive parents are the “bad guys” who participate in unsavory adoption practices. Most of all, you are not grateful and do not feel blessed to have the life you have. I thought that I would get these out of the way so, hopefully, people won’t need to clutter up your page with those old knee jerk reactions.
Thank you and all of the adoptees who are willing to share honestly about your experiences and to help us realize that it is adoption that is not the simple solution but rather, a complex event that reverberates throughout the person’s lifetime. That cute little infant or toddler grows up and is faced with dealing with racial slurs/racism, if a person of color, identity issues, and managing grief and loss throughout a lifetime.Does that mean that adoptees can’t be happy, fulfilled, or have to see themselves as victims? Certainly not .It does mean, however, that they deal with issues that most of us never have to face in the same way. Celebrate family. Celebrate love. But, don’t celebrate adoption. You have flipped the script!
Thanks for this comment, Carol, and for supporting us in flipping the script!
So very well written!! And so very true, a child losing a family and a family losing a child is no cause for celebration but something very traumatic that people do not seem to grasp.
Thanks for reading, Evelien!
RTB, me too! I hope/feel that this year will be better than last. Someday they’ll listen. Thanks for joining the chorus and sharing your voice!
Thanks for listening to my voice!