I'm confused by the whole "like with like" statement. Let's say the child is adopted as an infant. How exactly can you match that baby with adopters who are like him or her? I guess you can match a blonde haired, blue eyed girl with blonde haired blue eyed aparents...but what other criteria would be suitable?
In my case, I did semi-resemble my adoptive parents with my looks...but I definitely wasn't loud or mean. I went to church because they went to church, but not because I had been born wanting to go. I listened to Elvis Presley and Hooked on Classics, not because I particularly cared for them, but because that's what my amother would play on the record player every Saturday while my sister and I cleaned the house. I absolutely hate seafood, while my family loved it, and they would always bitch and moan when they had to find restaurants in Maine on our vacations that would cater to my picky eating habits.
"In fact, adoptions were generally indistinguishable from indentured servitude at best, whereby room and board was provided in return for labor for a set number of years; it has to be considered a relative improvement when adoptions became much more like apprenticeships, providing at least some training in marketable skills."
It's good that adoption became less like slavery and more like apprenticeship how exactly? Because of the "training in marketable skills"?
I was trained in how to hide my feelings.
I was trained to not speak up for myself.
I was trained how to cower in the corner.
I was trained to pretend that our family was perfect.
I was trained to expect to be yelled at at least twice a day.
I was trained how to stop myself from crying to avoid being beaten.
Great marketable skills, huh?
Oh, but if you're ever a P.O.W. in old-regime Iraq or North Korea or someplace like that, you'll do great!
ReplyDeleteThat's what my sibs and I tell each other. We got the same training but with bio-parents for all but one of us who was adopted. So sorry; I KNOW how wrong that is. :(
-Kim @ www.americanmamacita.com
Yes we know bio-kids do it tough too but they know who their parents are, their history, real name, birthdate and details and came home from hospital or were born at home not in an orphange or M&B Home.In other words they know their true identity and don't live a lie.That to me is on of the biggest abuses of children by adoption.
ReplyDeleteMatching? It was highly regarded once but had problems of it's own making it even more confusing for kids and more tempting for adopters not to 'tell'.In the end adopters are adopters and you don't share their genetic inheritance.
I don't understand why non-adoptees think they need to say, "Oh, yeah that happened to me, too." You are NOT adopted, so sorry. Your experience is yours and it is valid, but you are not adopted. Completely different. Spot on as usual, Von.
ReplyDeleteI used to think that maybe screening such as this was a good thing. I dont believe it is. It gives ap's another tool to perpetuate the "as born to" myth.
Like you said, Christina, you can have the same hair color, eye color, etc, but you still do NOT have their DNA. We will never be "like them". It's impossible.
I think the "like to like" thing has mostly to do with broad demographic criteria, not with things like appearance and food preferences.
ReplyDeleteAnd it is very true that adoption and fostering was a Cinderella kind of deal for ever. Now people expect that somehow by putting a child in a different family and doing "attachment therapy" like sticking candy in their mouth every time they make eye contact, that makes adoption something other than raising a child in a different family. That's one thing that really annoys me with adoptive parents I know, the expectation that their adopted kids will feel toward them as biological kids feel toward their biological parents.
@ Von & Linda - I know. I wasn't trying to compare my experience as "the same" as Christine's. Just responding to her pain. But I'm not here to "me too," nor did I even want to get that into my story. I just read Christine's post and as no-one had commented yet, I wanted to support her.
ReplyDeleteI don't think anyone reading my story won't think Christine's isn't worse.
And by the relating to the wrongness, I was referring to watching my abusive parents be able to adopt my brother. I was a late-teen at the time, and we were all warned that we'd "better not do anything to throw off this adoption." And the social worker interviewed us with my parents right in the room. And when we DID in fact bring up some of the issues, our parents hushed us, and the SW moved on through the rest of the process like we'd never said a thing.
I love my brother very much and I'm glad he's my brother. But I am sad that he had to be adopted into the mess we were all born into. A double whammy for him.
So @ Mongoose, please do remember that there's no one way that we bio-kids all feel about our parents either. I get that I don't have the loss of biological identity that many of the folks here do. On the other hand, it's also rough being descended from evil generational patterns and reassuring oneself that both nature AND nurture can be overcome.
I'm here to hear the conversation and understand. But hopefully we CAN all talk amongst ourselves and share what is in common when we read it?
Aww man, I normally resist commenting here but on this I just have to.
ReplyDeleteHow is Kim's experience with crappy parents and adoption not relative,(no pun intended), or maybe more honestly, welcome here? She is a sibling to an adopted person. She's conscious of the experience of her brother being adopted. I may be wrong, but this may be the first time I've ever read a blog comment by an adoptee's sibling who was biologically related to the parents.
It's totally something I want to read about, as an adopted person, and in this context.
"it's also rough being descended from evil generational patterns and reassuring oneself that both nature AND nurture can be overcome."
Kim, I get this and it's been very reassuring to me at times to not be genetically related to some of my non-genetic relatives, and have even been the envy of their kids. I'd love to hear if you were ever jealous of your brother not being biologically related to your parents? I get the catch 22 of this but our siblings are affected too, and I'm talking this time about our siblings by adoption.
If this comment or conversation is unwelcome here I'd love to hear from you at my blog.
Oh, and matching? I think they don't do it anymore because there aren't enough newborns available with which to do it. When I was born, in 1963, I'm pretty sure much of it was lies anyway, it was in my sisters case in 1959. I'll soon find out though as I'm to meet my bio mom in 2 weeks.