Adoptees and the Facts of Life

'You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have The Facts of Life, the Facts of Life'.

And that was what came to mind when I was thinking of recent events that have taken place in the adoption community.  After 13 years being involved in it, watching, learning, and advocating I feel somewhat educated enough to throw my opinion into the arena.  And all the time remembering too what they say about opinions.  So, here goes.

The adoption community is multifacted melting pot of differing religious, political, ethnicities, egos, ages, and genders.  Adoptee's stories while having amazing similarities are as unique to the individual who experiences them.  There is one binding factor I find in most all adoptees that we are instantaneously understood by most immediately without hesitation, accepted for the adopted persons we are.  It IS a pack mentality and maybe the first and only one adoptees ever feel they really belong to.

We fight to expose the dirty, corrupt, and fraudulent underbelly in adoption that exists in ways only we bear witness to every day.  We work to educate the world on the plight of adoptees, NOT what the system of adoption tells the world it is, and bring our voices to change the system that has functioned without listening to us.  The process of adoption and how it functions as human trafficking great disturbs me, hell it out right PISSES ME OFF.  If you knew babies and children were being treated as commodities for profit in the name of adoption it would piss you off too.

Pack mentality is what has changed the world for hundreds of years, even longer.  Pack mentality is what has created numerous grassroots organizations all over the world, and in adoption as well.  Pack mentality is what started adoption reform and created the first progress towards adoptee access to OBCs.  That said there are also varying versions of pack mentality within adoption and all groups have their varying reasons for functioning and operating and how they see and view the issues.  As much as we can agree with any adoptee on how to proceed in adoption education and reform, we can also find ourselves as polar opposites. 

Do I support hate speech, or personal or private attacks, and revenge NO I do not.  What I do support is an adoptee's right for once in their lives to stand up and speak out against the horrors of adoption and the very people who are promoting the industry.  When we try to get people to conform to our idea of how this should be done we once again control them and or label them.  That has been done enough as it is already.

I watch and witness constantly the battle between pro-adoption and anti-adoption.  We as adoptees find our place in the battle to educate and reform.  I have found it therapeutic and empowering to change the world and the lives for others.  While I may or may not agree on how one group proceeds if I don't like it I can certainly state my opinion and walk away and simply not take part or get engaged in certain ideas or behaviors.  Just as there are far left, middle, and right winged politicians so there are adoptees working within legislative and educational activism.  No movement as large as this is ever going to be on the same page at the same time.

The depths of emotion that we carry as adoptees goes beyond explanation even for us much of the time.  We are navigating VERY uncharted territory.  There is going to be controversy, and disagreements, and blatant dislike between individuals and unfortunately groups.  Just as there is in any other "family" type situation.  It's how these differences are met and dealt with that make the difference.  Have I spoken out and gone too far YOU BET.  And, when I have been wrong I have taken responsibility for it.  We ALL have done it and it goes with the territory.  More importantly the old adage "It's not what you say it's how you say it" comes into play here.

I don't agree with everyone or every action I never will.  You can aim and shoot the messenger but really the messengers are numerous and on going and always will be.  What I take issue with is public shaming and blaming and singling people out and making them scape goats and turning on one another.  And this is no passive agressive type statement directed towards anyone.  I feel we are all parts of a whole and when any one of those parts is damaged or breaks it hurts.   It is what the industry counts on is our weak wills and inability to come together to facilitate change.  And those are the facts of life in adoption and what adoption reform and education is about.  Adoptees deserve to regain the very facts of life AND rights that have been stripped from us by the system of adoption.

"Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno".  All for one and one for all!