Since there's a lot of buzz on the internet lately about "Positive Adoption Language", I have been thinking about doing a post myself about "Things That Adoptive Parents and Potential Adoptive Parents Say That Make Me Want To Sob".
I'm going to list some of my top sob-inducers and would love to hear from all of you that read my blog about what phrases or words really boil your blood.
Email me at opphiejane at gmail dot com (also located on my profile page for easy access) and I'll post the results at a later date :)
1. Adoption is the new pregnant.
2. I may not be carrying a child, but I'm still suffering with "Paper Pregnancy".
3. I've been considering parking in the expectant mothers' spots at the stores…after all, we may not get our child for another year, but I'm still expecting!
4. Pregnant women are Breeders/Brood Sows/Tummy Mummies.
5. Our adoption was ordained by God.
6. Don't worry about the anti-adoption haters…they just had crappy childhoods.
7. I pray that the birthmother makes the right decision and gives us their baby.
8. Would you have rathered been aborted/left in a dumpster/raised by a drug addict?
9. Obviously your birthmother chose to give you a better life.
10. The birthmother chose us to be the baby's parents…the birthfather should respect that.
11. I'm offended when adoptees call their biological parents their "natural or first" parents. WE are our child's real parents!
12. Genetics and biology don't matter anyway…it's who has raised the child that matters more.
Now for what it is worth, I am not limiting this exercise to include just adoptees. If you are a natural/adoptive/potential adoptive parent, feel free to send along your own list about adoptees, or even other NP's/AP's/PAP's. I look forward to hearing from all of you!
I'm not doing this so that we all get mad at each other either. I just realized that that was how this might all come off sounding. I just think it's important that we all try and see things from the different members of the triad.
Ooo, Cricket - #8 always makes me hopping mad for a variety of reasons. OK, some of the others do too, but that one in particular!
ReplyDeleteAnother one that setts me off is the decidedly UN-Christian view of many Christian adopters that a natural mother deserves the suffering that comes from losing her child to adoption because after all, it is the natural consequence for her sin. My question for them is this: So what does this mean about the adoptee's pain from adoption? Do they "deserve" it too?
Melynda (from her bed, on her Droid phone, gestating away for another 3 weeks.)
Every single one of them disgust me inherently, but if I had to pick a "favorite" it would be #5. My son and his adopters love to say the "god put him where he was supposed to be", even after they defrauded me out of him with the promise of an open adoption, that closed after only a few years.
ReplyDelete#11 is another one that gets me. They get offended when adoptees call us their natural or first parents? Get over it. I am sure that "incubator" would make them happy.
Yep *5 is my particular favourite,you can get away with anything you like if you just say god ordained it/directed you/willed it.
ReplyDelete"Paper pregnancy" Blech.
ReplyDeleteAlso hate those maps of China with the sonograms on them.
Horrible stuff, and it has to stop.
Interestingly, a guy who is writing a book about bullying stopped by my blog today and asked for anyone who has experienced this to visit his site. I'll post it tonight from home, but you can find the info in the comments on the bullying post.
Duh - paper pregnancy was right at the top of the list. Sorry about that!
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting. I thought you were gonna make a list of "trigger words" (if you know what I mean), in which case it wouldn't have been relatable for me. These, you don't even have to be adopted, adopting, or in any way involved with adoption to think they're gross. I sure do.
ReplyDeleteI think I might have just fainted there for a second. Mongoose, did we just *gasp* agree on something?? ;)
ReplyDeleteMargie..I hate those sonogram pictures of China/Ethiopia/Korea/Russia/Insert Country name here too!
Yeah, I was pretty freaked out too... :)
ReplyDeleteI hate it when people assume I should be fighting against abortion because, gasp, it could have happened to me if it was legal back then.
ReplyDeleteI find it so hard to believe that people would actually say number 8to an adoptee. What is wrong with people? That is a horrible, horrible thing to say.
ReplyDeleteJennifer..#8 happens more than you could imagine. Usually goes hand in hand with the "Aren't you grateful that someone took you in after your birthmother abandoned you/chose to give you a better life?"
ReplyDelete::vomit::
I just want to thank you for visiting my blog. I had no idea that the term "paper pregnant" would be offensive to anyone.
ReplyDeleteMy five year journey of infertility has been filled with so much grief, so many tears, so many hurtful cruel things that others have said that magnify the pain.
I want to be the best mother I can be to our children and I am so grateful that we have the honor to become parents through adoption. I just want my children to know how wanted they are, how loved they are already.
I realize that our children will arrive with their own losses (biological and maybe cultural) and we absolutely intend to celebrate who they are (and grieve their losses).
We aren't adoption because it's some kind of fashion statement. We aren't adopting because my womb is malfunctioning. We are adopting because we have empty seats at our table and empty spaces in our hearts that have been waiting for a very long time to embrace our children into our family.
Hi Stacy..thanks for stopping by...
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, adoption shouldn't be about finding a child for a family. It should be about finding a family for a child..when all other avenues have been exhausted.
Gratefulness has no business within the scope of adoption. I'm not grateful that my natural mother gave me up..and it's not for AP's to be grateful that children are available for adoption from such pain and loss.
Not trying to be harsh here..but I hope you'll do some more reading..adoptees' blogs are great places to start. "Primal Wound" by Nancy Verrier is another.
Thanks for your advice Christina. Perhaps you should read more of my blog before you judge me so harshly.
ReplyDeleteYour exact point is something I am quite passionate about and something that I have written several posts about.
Yet, you were so quick to judge that your words did more harm than good on my blog today. You took what was meant to be an exciting announcement to our friends and family (who have grieved for five long years alongside of us as we mourned our infertility) and you deeply wounded us all.
"Gratefulness has no business within the scope of adoption." I'm so sorry that you live a life void of joy and hope. But, you have no business trying to undermine that in the lives of others. Feel free to visit my blog and actually read it sometime. Your kind, respectful comments are always welcome. But please keep your judgmental cruel words to yourself.
Perhaps you should read more of MY blog Stacy before you brush me off with your "neener neener neener" mentality. I am the grown up version of the child you covet. I am the ungrateful child that wishes she grew up with her natural family. I am the child who was supposed to cure the hurt places in my aparents' hearts because they were unable to have children of their own. Instead I was abused..emotionally, mentally, physically and sexually...by the very people entrusted to my care.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, even if I'd grown up in the happiest of happy homes, I STILL would have longed for my natural family.
What am I supposed to feel joyful about in regards to being adopted? Can you answer that? Be warned though, telling me that I should be grateful I didn't end up in a dumpster, or that I wasn't aborted, or that I didn't grow up with drug addicts will not hold water with me. Nor will it hold water with many adoptees who agree with me that there is no such thing as "paper pregnancy".
Um, Stacy, honey, you are not the only woman who has lived through infertility. I know more about that side of things than you would know and yet, your approach to this staggers me as those I know who have been through this pain (one being my best friend of over 20 years) would never in a thousand years dream of hurting others in the way you do.
ReplyDeleteI know from your perspective what we say seems cruel and mean, but that's because you are not looking outside your perimeter and seeing it from the other side. There are other ways of being involved with a child without adopting them.
All the things you have told Christina NOT to do, you have done here not to mention you have accused me of slander which I am not guilty of. Christina has been more than kind sharing with you things you NEED to hear even if you don't want to and you have merely invalidated and dismissed her. Not a great way to show you are going to be a great adoptive parent.
Late to the party, but I'd like to add one to the list that I've just tripped over after following the link under Stacy's name to her blog:
ReplyDeleteThe miracle of adoption.
Adoption is NOT a miracle, but a man-made construct designed to find homes for children, and now horrifically mutated to instead find children for APs.
Thank you Christina-- reading through your posts. I am learning so much from your blog and other Adult Adoptees. I do understand your list-- I am embarrased to say that I once used the term 'Paper Pregnant.' I never referred to suffering with paper pregnancy-- but I don't think that really matters.
ReplyDeleteI also had a shirt with the outline of China and "baby" written in the middle of the country. I discarded that quite a while ago.
I am annoyed by all that is on your list-- the God one and APs as saints especially.
The comment that I hear too often from other APs when I try to recommend that they read Adoptee blogs is, "Oh, we hope to avoid most of 'that' by being Open and loving our children enough."
'That' being the anger, grief, identity struggle that so many adoptees talk about on their blog. I really don't understand what APs are so scared of-- I would be more scared if my daughters did not express these feelings to me.
Sadly, these APs will likely get what they want-- their children will not express anger, grief etc. to them-- but they will still feel it.
I also used the term birthmother. I think the connotation I was assigning to it personally was good--but the wording not so much. I now refer to my daughter's firstmoms and first families.