The Adoption Rabbit Hole

This one requires coffee

I had a whole different post to send this morning, but I’ve been down a rabbit hole of listening and discovery—something I usually try to avoid— and so instead it’s somewhere in the 5:00-ams and I’m writing this. 

As some of you may know, I’ve spent the last nineteen months working on a book about taking my sons to meet their birth mothers and families. I sent out a first draft to some intrepid readers a few months ago, and got back such a widely differing set of opinions that I was left with one conclusion:

I had not done a very good job of writing it.

Well shit.

That’s OK. It’s my first book. And by “first” I mean “also probably last” at this rate, but onward.

Adoption is a very messy subject. It’s filled with crevasses and dead ends and jump scares and joys and sorrows that are never what you think they’re going to be. They frequently catch you by surprise.

Or at least they do me. It’s occurring to me that I may be very bad at many things. If I could just learn to run down a flight of stairs as smoothly as Scarlett O’Hara I’d apologize for all my flaws and beg forgiveness. But being me, I’m more likely to ass-over-tea kettle down and require an ambulance before I ever get to the sobbing drama part, so we’ll just have to let it go.

What I have learned in the past year is that adoption is trauma no matter what, even if the adoptee is not traumatized by the adoptive family.

“Trauma” is by far the most overused word of the decade, but it does actually exist in pure form, and even infants suffer what’s called by some “primal trauma” when separated from their birth mothers. It doesn’t matter how good the adoptive family is in many cases, kids separated from bio moms have much higher rates of depression, suicide, other mental health issues and struggles, and general hardship.

Those of us adopting kids were told none of this, even though the myths, lies, and coercion rampant in adoption have been known (passive tense) by the multi-billion-dollar adoption industry for quite some time. At its core adoption is based on inequity, white saviorism, the duplicity of religious shame and profiteering, and sexism. How many birth mothers would relinquish their child if the thousands spent on adopting that child were instead given to her to help with housing and stability? How can we assess if birth mothers gave up their children through “free will” when the balance of opportunity and power is so skewed, and when societal pressures to relinquish are so profitable for the agencies?

In the U.S., adoptees’ histories are erased by law. They have no access to their own birth certificates, original family information, health histories and records, or their given names. Birth mothers requesting open adoption and continued contact with their child are assured they’ll have it when the adoption agencies know that state laws forbid it. The percent of women wanting continued contact with their child is something like 80%. They don’t get it.

All of this information takes a lot of will and fortitude to bushwhack through. How much of that is there, really, by adoptive parents who love our children, want to do right by them, and, once informed, need to parse the effects of our own actions on the people we love the most in this world?

tl;dr: not too much.

I spent years taking my kids to therapists asking for help, saying something was wrong, wondering why they were struggling, asking what I could do, only to be told by several condescending professionals that I was “Being such a mom” and should relax—nothing was wrong.

Narrator’s voice: In fact, something was wrong…

There is a very strong adult adoptee community on TikTok. Like all very vocal communities, this one shares a particular point of view. Certainly not all adoptees feel traumatized, though it can be argued that all adoptees suffered that primal trauma. The incidence of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse perpetrated on adopted kids by adoptive parents and siblings is staggeringly high. These adoptees most especially have the right to a loud voice and a safe harbor.

So I recorded a TikTok. In pure Boomer form, it somehow has double captions. I ramble. I took no care with that whole “lighting, hair, and makeup” thing people apparently do.

As of this writing it has over 50,000 views. 166 people have saved it to “favorites,” meaning they want to watch it again. I’ve gotten numerous private notes thanking me, and been invited to several conversations by adult adoptees.

I made another one, much shorter, about the concept of gratitude, and how absurd it is that adoptees are expected to feel it.

More notes, more engagement. 

All this to say, I’ve got a lot of thinking to do as I work on version 2.0 of this book, and a lot more learning to do.

Including how to stop those blasted double captions, and how to remember to brush my hair.

Guess I’ll be back in the rabbit hole if anyone wants me.

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Morning Teaistisms

This morning needed a giant iced coffee, vanilla, with some protein shake, lots of ice, some simple syrup. In other words, coffee ice cream through a straw.

It’s a hell of a breakfast, I’ll tell you. Wakes you right up, yet you’re so full you’re not completely opposed to a nap…

Alas, there will be none of that today.