Thursday, September 07, 2006
What Have We Acieved?
...
To those who ask, what has been achieved in the past 30 years of adoption reform, I reiterate:
- Legislation, written, sponsored and introduced in innumerable states
- Legislation introduced and successfully passed in four states
- Making the issue of adoption search and reunion a common every day event on every sitcom and talk show
- Risking arrest - and getting jailed - to establish a network of search contacts and PIs
- Writing about the issues of loss in adoption separation in books, magazines and professional journals
- Networking between and among all triad members and professionals
Now, these goals may not be the same goals that others today seek. They were our goals and we went after them. We put every ounce of our time and energy - our lives - into obtaining those goals. And just because they may not be the goals YOU want, do not make light of our efforts and our successes. What have YOU done over the past 30 years to change adoption?
Yes, mothers fought alongside adoptees - and adoptive mothers, and professional - for one common goal: open records. Why? Because every mother I have ever met - and there were hundreds if not thousands - since the late 70s...every single one of us had one common over-riding, pressing goal and that was to find our children and know they were OK.
Yes, we have our own wounds and we work on supporting one another in support groups and some of us did private therapy in addition. We have pain, we have loss. We have a limbo loss that was unrecognized by society and even within our own families. It was supposed to be ignored, not spoken of. We have shame and we have guilt...and we have anger. We have all of the same emotions that every mother from 1950 to 2006 feels when she looses a child to adoption.
But as MOTHERS - we put the needs of our children FIRST, before our own!
Legislatively, there is nothing any of us can do to get our kids back or to replace our lost years with them.
So, we put all our legislative efforts into helping our adopted children restore their lost rights. There was some debate about this. When Carol Anderson was president of CUB, she was much more radical and did not want CUB supporting any bills that did not unilaterally give access to both for mothers and adoptees. There may still be some individual CUB members who feel that way and would not write a letter in support of a bill. But CUB as an organization decided to go along with supporting bills for open records and not deny our children their rights.
The basic feeling is this. We surrendered our children because we were made to believe that they would have a "better life." That better life does not include them being denied their birth and medical records. There is no way for us to be given back what was taken form us - but there is a way for them to be given back what was taken from them. No matter how pressured we were, there is some level of responsibility ultimately that some of us take for having given in to the pressure and not fighting harder (unless you were a minor, or other very unusual circumstance). Regardless though - even if your signature was forged on the surrender papers - the fact still remains that adoptees had no power of over what was done to them as a result.
I believe it is our maternal instinct that overrode all else. We wanted what was best for our adult "children." THIS made us, more than any word ever could, feel like we were really MOTHERS – mothers who CARED about our children and their rights. And that was and still is more important to many of us than obtaining any apology or retribution for what was done to us. This is no one RIGHT way. Our way was not wrong because it was right for us. Those who want to do things differently are welcome to, but there is no need to demean all that went before, especially when it laid the way to you finding your chidlren or them finding you.
Whatever goal each group sets for itself, so be it. CUBs goal remains first and foremost support, others want an inquiry, and BN continues to focus on open records, Fine.
What I'd ideally like to see, however, is ALL of us - in addition - joining together in fighting the FALSIFICATION of birth certificates that continues TODAY! This is the root cause of all of our problems. This state committed fraud is what strips mothers of being mothers and makes them invisible nothing in regard to their children. This is what causes adoptees to go a lifetime without even knowing they are adopted.
Let this by our bi-partisan issue.
To those who ask, what has been achieved in the past 30 years of adoption reform, I reiterate:
- Legislation, written, sponsored and introduced in innumerable states
- Legislation introduced and successfully passed in four states
- Making the issue of adoption search and reunion a common every day event on every sitcom and talk show
- Risking arrest - and getting jailed - to establish a network of search contacts and PIs
- Writing about the issues of loss in adoption separation in books, magazines and professional journals
- Networking between and among all triad members and professionals
Now, these goals may not be the same goals that others today seek. They were our goals and we went after them. We put every ounce of our time and energy - our lives - into obtaining those goals. And just because they may not be the goals YOU want, do not make light of our efforts and our successes. What have YOU done over the past 30 years to change adoption?
Yes, mothers fought alongside adoptees - and adoptive mothers, and professional - for one common goal: open records. Why? Because every mother I have ever met - and there were hundreds if not thousands - since the late 70s...every single one of us had one common over-riding, pressing goal and that was to find our children and know they were OK.
Yes, we have our own wounds and we work on supporting one another in support groups and some of us did private therapy in addition. We have pain, we have loss. We have a limbo loss that was unrecognized by society and even within our own families. It was supposed to be ignored, not spoken of. We have shame and we have guilt...and we have anger. We have all of the same emotions that every mother from 1950 to 2006 feels when she looses a child to adoption.
But as MOTHERS - we put the needs of our children FIRST, before our own!
Legislatively, there is nothing any of us can do to get our kids back or to replace our lost years with them.
So, we put all our legislative efforts into helping our adopted children restore their lost rights. There was some debate about this. When Carol Anderson was president of CUB, she was much more radical and did not want CUB supporting any bills that did not unilaterally give access to both for mothers and adoptees. There may still be some individual CUB members who feel that way and would not write a letter in support of a bill. But CUB as an organization decided to go along with supporting bills for open records and not deny our children their rights.
The basic feeling is this. We surrendered our children because we were made to believe that they would have a "better life." That better life does not include them being denied their birth and medical records. There is no way for us to be given back what was taken form us - but there is a way for them to be given back what was taken from them. No matter how pressured we were, there is some level of responsibility ultimately that some of us take for having given in to the pressure and not fighting harder (unless you were a minor, or other very unusual circumstance). Regardless though - even if your signature was forged on the surrender papers - the fact still remains that adoptees had no power of over what was done to them as a result.
I believe it is our maternal instinct that overrode all else. We wanted what was best for our adult "children." THIS made us, more than any word ever could, feel like we were really MOTHERS – mothers who CARED about our children and their rights. And that was and still is more important to many of us than obtaining any apology or retribution for what was done to us. This is no one RIGHT way. Our way was not wrong because it was right for us. Those who want to do things differently are welcome to, but there is no need to demean all that went before, especially when it laid the way to you finding your chidlren or them finding you.
Whatever goal each group sets for itself, so be it. CUBs goal remains first and foremost support, others want an inquiry, and BN continues to focus on open records, Fine.
What I'd ideally like to see, however, is ALL of us - in addition - joining together in fighting the FALSIFICATION of birth certificates that continues TODAY! This is the root cause of all of our problems. This state committed fraud is what strips mothers of being mothers and makes them invisible nothing in regard to their children. This is what causes adoptees to go a lifetime without even knowing they are adopted.
Let this by our bi-partisan issue.
# posted by Senior Mom @ 8:16 AM 
