Monday, April 16, 2007
Family Preservation!
.
Followers of this blog and/or my writings on other blogs and lists might have noticed the following:
- The art/logo on this blog has changed several times as have my attempts to change the status quo of adoption and existing post-adoption approaches.
- I attempted to persuade BN to be more open to including and end to falsified birth certificates along with their primary goal of opening records for ADULT adoptees….
- I dialogged with OUSA and CUB about attempting to see past their differences and work together on mutual goals…
- I dialogged with CUB in an effort to get them to carry out more of their family preservation, outreach and educational mission…
I did what I could in all of these areas - and will continue to...albeit on a more limited basis. I recognize – once again – life’s biggest lesson: the only one you have any control over or can change is yourself.
There is a place for BN in its solitary pursuit of the rights of adult adoptees, and a place for CUB in its support of mothers and fathers who have lost children to adoption (as many fathers did NOT relinquish). Those are both needed and worthy goals (not that I ever thought otherwise or was suggesting either goal be stopped or even diminished, only added to.)
What has become crystal clear to me at this juncture is that:
FAMILY PRESERVATION needs its own separate group/organization to focus PRIMARY ENERGY on THAT specific goal! Those of us who do not need or want to focus our primary energies solely on support or open records of other purists but have more zeal about the PREVENTION of UNNECESSARY adoption, need our own vehicle to focus PRIMARILY on FAMILY PRESERVATION.
I would like this blog to focus on brainstorming the best way to focus efforts of the willing on family preservation!
Please stay tuned. Step One (tomorrow) will be the formation of a definition of “Family Preservation” – input WANTED!!!
It is no easy task, as...in order to define family preservation, one must first define "family"...and, in order to do that terms like mother and father need to be defined in today's technological world!
So, please put on your thinking caps and tune in again tomorrow...same time,same place! :-)
Why is there a need for FAMILY PRESERVATION?
“I feel Adoption in a larger perspective now. It goes way beyond my personal experience and I think as my knowledge of adoption has increased, my anger has increased and it’s gone way beyond the anger of a mother who’s been robbed, exploited of her child.” Laura Watkins-Lewis
“… this is not about my relationship with my lost son or even my raised children or any other mother/child in particular, but the larger, less specific issue of the lack of respect for women and children, the broader sense of entitlement that people with more wealth and power are allowed to exploit those who are weaker and less powerful for their homes, their families and their dignity. [Family Preservation] is now, for me, a Social Justice Issue.
“I still need support for my relationship with my damaged and angry lost son, but that relationship is what it is, and no amount of my wishing that I could make the past 40 years end up somehow different will make it so. But, the larger issue to me is that it happened at all. Not just to me but to the many. The larger issue to me is that [unnecessary family separations] continue to happen today, as evidenced by the Stephanie Bennett case (www.sendevelynhome.com) …. To me, infant adoption in America is Human Trafficking. Go to www.adoption.tk/situations and look at the ads there. It looks, for all the world, like a used car ad, and yet, these are living human beings. Small, powerless and fragile. You can almost sense the dealers (child recruiters) out kicking their tires and checking their low mileage! They even list the price. Some look as if they can be driven right off the lot! This is vile and repugnant to me.....I can't take on the entire world, but adoption and my own loss made me aware of the larger sense of greed and entitlement that allows these evil practices to continue. …I must make my own pain, my own misery, my own loss count for something…. “ Sandy Young
Check out: www.PPFFPP.org
AND...Bring Baby Evelyn Home!!!
Followers of this blog and/or my writings on other blogs and lists might have noticed the following:
- The art/logo on this blog has changed several times as have my attempts to change the status quo of adoption and existing post-adoption approaches.
- I attempted to persuade BN to be more open to including and end to falsified birth certificates along with their primary goal of opening records for ADULT adoptees….
- I dialogged with OUSA and CUB about attempting to see past their differences and work together on mutual goals…
- I dialogged with CUB in an effort to get them to carry out more of their family preservation, outreach and educational mission…
I did what I could in all of these areas - and will continue to...albeit on a more limited basis. I recognize – once again – life’s biggest lesson: the only one you have any control over or can change is yourself.
There is a place for BN in its solitary pursuit of the rights of adult adoptees, and a place for CUB in its support of mothers and fathers who have lost children to adoption (as many fathers did NOT relinquish). Those are both needed and worthy goals (not that I ever thought otherwise or was suggesting either goal be stopped or even diminished, only added to.)
What has become crystal clear to me at this juncture is that:
FAMILY PRESERVATION needs its own separate group/organization to focus PRIMARY ENERGY on THAT specific goal! Those of us who do not need or want to focus our primary energies solely on support or open records of other purists but have more zeal about the PREVENTION of UNNECESSARY adoption, need our own vehicle to focus PRIMARILY on FAMILY PRESERVATION.
I would like this blog to focus on brainstorming the best way to focus efforts of the willing on family preservation!
Please stay tuned. Step One (tomorrow) will be the formation of a definition of “Family Preservation” – input WANTED!!!
It is no easy task, as...in order to define family preservation, one must first define "family"...and, in order to do that terms like mother and father need to be defined in today's technological world!
So, please put on your thinking caps and tune in again tomorrow...same time,same place! :-)
Why is there a need for FAMILY PRESERVATION?
“I feel Adoption in a larger perspective now. It goes way beyond my personal experience and I think as my knowledge of adoption has increased, my anger has increased and it’s gone way beyond the anger of a mother who’s been robbed, exploited of her child.” Laura Watkins-Lewis
“… this is not about my relationship with my lost son or even my raised children or any other mother/child in particular, but the larger, less specific issue of the lack of respect for women and children, the broader sense of entitlement that people with more wealth and power are allowed to exploit those who are weaker and less powerful for their homes, their families and their dignity. [Family Preservation] is now, for me, a Social Justice Issue.
“I still need support for my relationship with my damaged and angry lost son, but that relationship is what it is, and no amount of my wishing that I could make the past 40 years end up somehow different will make it so. But, the larger issue to me is that it happened at all. Not just to me but to the many. The larger issue to me is that [unnecessary family separations] continue to happen today, as evidenced by the Stephanie Bennett case (www.sendevelynhome.com) …. To me, infant adoption in America is Human Trafficking. Go to www.adoption.tk/situations and look at the ads there. It looks, for all the world, like a used car ad, and yet, these are living human beings. Small, powerless and fragile. You can almost sense the dealers (child recruiters) out kicking their tires and checking their low mileage! They even list the price. Some look as if they can be driven right off the lot! This is vile and repugnant to me.....I can't take on the entire world, but adoption and my own loss made me aware of the larger sense of greed and entitlement that allows these evil practices to continue. …I must make my own pain, my own misery, my own loss count for something…. “ Sandy Young
Check out: www.PPFFPP.org
AND...Bring Baby Evelyn Home!!!
# posted by Senior Mom @ 1:31 PM 
