We've all heard that joke about the famous river in Egypt. You know, the one that goes “De Nile is not just a river in Egypt.” Well, there is so much denial in adoption, I could cry me a river. When an individual or couple adopt they must accept that the child will be very different from them. And they need to honor and cherish the child's differences and support the child being who he or she really is. So much of who we are is genetic. This is obviously the case with a person's looks, but people raised in their biological families know that there are Read More
Freedom of Speech
Do adoptees have freedom of speech? I don't think so. Whenever an adopted person tries to bring up the fact that adoption is not all it's cracked to be, he or she is met with rebuttals like, "Adoptive parents love their children just as much as biological parents do", or "You're making an assumption that the child would have had a better life if she'd been kept in her original family." Well, those things may be true. But here's a newsflash: Adoption is not about the adoptive parents love for the child. Adoption is far too difficult and complicated to be simplified in such a way. Oh, how I wish Read More
Reading and Book Signing
Hey everyone in the New York City area: Please join First Mother Forum's Lorraine Dusky for a reading and signing of her new memoir, Hole in my Heart. The event will take place at Spence-Chapin on Thursday, March 31st from 6:30 to 8:30 pm. Here's the link for further details: http://www.modernfamilycenter.org/events/2016/3/31/lorraine-dusky-a-reading-from-hole-in-my-heart "Award-winning journalist, Lorraine Dusky, will read from her recent memoir about her experience as a mother who relinquished a daughter in 1966, and their relationship after reunion, with all of its joys and Read More
Bernie or Bust?
We are interrupting our regularly scheduled adoption programming to speak about the upcoming U.S. presidential election. As usual, the media is out in full force with every type of speculation on how this whole thing will shake out. But there is one group that is becoming increasingly vocal and which I find increasingly alarming. They call themselves "Bernie or Bust". In my opinion, they are acting like a bunch of bullies with their stance that they will take their marbles and go home if their candidate, Vermont senator Bernard "Bernie" Sanders, does not end up being the democratic nominee. Read More
Adoption is about the Child
Shocking, isn't it? To think that adoption is about the child. One certainly wouldn't draw that conclusion from reading this article about another celebrity couple who recently adopted. The entire article is about how long the adoption process took and what a 'crazy ride' it was. Did it never occur to this couple that maybe the reason it took so long and was such a 'crazy ride' is because mothers, even unmarried mothers, aren't falling all over themselves to give their babies to strangers? Apparently not. In American culture, the mindset about adoption is so overwhelmingly from the point of Read More
There’s a “Hole In My Heart”, too
It's a new year and while I stopped making New Year's resolutions years ago, I decided this year to make an exception. There was something I wanted to get to that was just too important to let fall by the wayside of my busy life. And that 'something' was to read Lorraine Dusky's newest memoir, Hole in My Heart. Previously, we had published a guest post giving an adoptive parent perspective on this book. But I felt it was equally important for me to read the book, not only for my own edification, but because I wanted to share an adoptee perspective on it with our readers. Let me first say Read More
A Social Experiment
My life is a social experiment. Truly. All of the decisions that were made for me about who was best to parent me, where I belonged, and even how I would feel about it, were nothing but a social experiment based on the era when I was born. A social experiment, I might add, that was based on half-truths and social prejudices rather than facts. The funny thing is, I was given up for adoption so that I could be raised in a stable two-parent family, and yet my adoptive parents divorced before I even entered the first grade. So I ended up being raised by a single mother anyway. Only this time, I Read More
All I want for Christmas…*
All I want for Christmas...is a baybee. Or so it seems in Hollywood. Every time one turns around there is another story about a Hollywood star adopting a child, thinking about adopting a child, or being touted for having adopted a child. And if it's not adoption, it's surrogacy. It's starting to look a lot like one would not be remiss to assume that the biological connection between a parent and a child is practically irrelevant among many of those with wealth and privilege. But my question is: Do these adoptions always give a child a better life or a stable two-parent family? Granted, I will Read More
It is 2015, isn’t it?
“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” --Arthur Schopenhauer It is 2015, isn't it? I can't stop myself from asking this rhetorical question after reading this at an adoptive parent's blog: "Those who are “flipping the script” aren’t adoptees who are happy and content with their adoption experience, they’re the ones who are angered, feel like something was done to them. The adoptees who aren’t speaking out (and far outnumber those who are calling out adoption) are Read More
The Saddest Sound
To me, the saddest sound is when a fellow adoptee advocates for maintaining sealed original birth certificates on the basis of first parents' presumed right to privacy. And it’s not just because he or she may not desire this information. I can respect an adoptee who feels his adoptive parents are his real parents and that they're the only parents he needs. And I can respect an adoptee's lack of desire for this information. While I obviously do not share those sentiments, I wouldn’t judge another adoptee who feels differently than me about who they consider their parents. But to keep oneself Read More
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