The Declassified Adoptee

I am always posting about how disheartened that I am with the media's portrayal of adoptees.  My biggest bone to pick has always been that the media goes beyond accurate portrayal of adoption or telling of an event involving adoption, and into enforcing damaging stereotypes of the actual people who live adoption every day.  Adoption is an institution; we should be able to discuss it without portraying unhealthy and condemning views of entire groups of people. My most recent annoyance with this issue was the Sony commercial where a gentleman playing a woman's father growled "you're adopted!" at her to try to distract her from dominating the game the family was playing.  Another recent appearance of adoption in the media was the reporting of an adoptee who was adopted from Mexico that various media sources used to bring up the topic of deportation. The 2009 study I just read reviewed news stories on adoption from 2001 to 2005 (309 stories).  They researched t...

I am continuing to read a book I have referenced here on my blog several times,"The Sins of the Fathers: The Law and Theology of Illegitimacy Reconsidered."  It is a information-packed read, but one I would recommend to anyone who wants to learn more about adoption history.  The book is not about adoption; it is about the history of church views on illegitimacy vs. the state's views of illegitimacy, as they would pertain to the formation of the view of illegitimacy held in the United States.  Witte covers Biblical views of illegitimacy, Roman Law, church law, English Law, and more, and how church and state views have intertwined throughout history. Why is it a good tool in understanding the history of adoption?  The categorization of both legitimate and illegitimate individuals and thus the resulting disbursement of inheritance, as well as the consequences dealt to the parents and the resulting children, in addition to the lack of support for those in n...

Introducing: December's Online Art Exhibit.  This is the first entry of a series of entries I am going to (attempt) to do monthly, featuring an artist who has been impacted by adoption. Carlynne Hershberger Carlynne Hershberger is an artist, teacher, author, blogger, and First Mother. You may be familiar with her blog " One Option Means No Choice ."  She has given me permission to share some of the amazing adoption-related pieces she has done so far for her series "Silent Voices" (working title).  Carlynne creates these masterpieces using colored pencil as well as a variety of other media.  Please enjoy browsing some of her amazing artwork.  The descriptions below each image are written by Carlynne about each piece. Self Portrait This piece was the one that got me thinking about doing a series about adoption. I did a sketch for this years ago but just in recent years did it in color. When someone goes through abuse or a trauma like the na...

I am thinking about the post I made yesterday and about BJ Lifton's quote that I incorporated.  She wrote about an adopted person's two selves.  The self one is the adopted self and the other self is what might have been if they had not been adopted.  Some adoptees wonder what it would have been like to have been raised by their original family.  They may do so based on scant information or misinformation.  Reunion presents a challenge of piecing together what you thought you knew and what you know now.  Then you must decide how that fits into the story of your life.  Do I have these two selves; if so, what do they look like? There are some things I am sure would be the same about me had I not been adopted.  I think no matter where I was raised I would have been a passionate, people-loving person.  I like to think I would always believe in hard work and do what I believe is right.  I would still rely on the...

This week, I read an article by BJ Lifton called "Ghosts in the Adopted Family."  It is about therapists being aware of the invisible grief and loss that those clients impacted by adoption carry with them.  It was published in the Jan/Feb issue of Psychoanalytic Inquiry. The portion I'd like to quote is from the conclusion of her article: "Those adoptees already in Reunion need help in integrating their two selves—the one who grew up adopted and the alternate one who might have been" (Lifton, 2010, p. 8). I have heard adoptees talk about their "Selves," the Self on their adopted path, and the Self as they might have been had they been raised by their biological families.  When you're not reunited and have no one to ask questions to about your original family or are only going by what the agency passed along, filling in the blanks can be difficult.  Some adoptees might not think about it.  Other adoptees might fill in the blanks with t...

In school, we talk a lot about the privileges that come along with being a part of the majority.  Whether it be the  majority gender, race, religion, so on and so forth, where there are more people, other people tend to get out-voted.  Their needs might not be considered, and others, well, they simply aren't very well represented.  Which, in turn, can make things in law and society, very unfair for minority groups.  We're asked to reflect on issues and think about how others feel, how others experience difficulty with things that we never would have thought about because we don't have the same experience. Adoptees, 2% of people, are often asked by others to ponder how their lives "could have been."  "Your mother could have harmed or abused you, you could have grown up poor and your parents took you in."  This is a basic assertion that the adoptee now lives a life of privilege because of adoption.  And perhaps, economically...

I recently read a study from 1984 that focused on opening birth records in New York.  I like to read articles from the past because it shows me the reasoning behind why things are the way that they are and the reform efforts through history.  This study is no exception.  Interviewed were 42 adoptive parents on their perceptions of opening up birth record access to adult adoptees. Why were Adoptive Parents being asked? Per the literature review and historical overview in the article: "Confidentiality has been the traditional hallmark of adoptions carried out by social agencies.  Social Workers and adoptive parents were influential in promoting legislation in the 1930s and 1940s to insure this policy through legal means.  In 1939 "about one third of the states provided for safeguarding the records of adoption from public inspection, and nearly one third made no mention of keeping the records at all' (study's author is quoting Brooks ...