Well, There You Go Then

I need to STOP looking at my Google Reader.

Chinese Infant Adoptees Form Attachments Quickly

I formed an attachment to MY adoptive mother too, but I think it was more out of necessity and the fear of being abandoned again than anything else.

In A Nutshell

I was going to give this natural mother a Blog of Shame award, but I just couldn’t bring myself to bother. I’ve commented on her blog before and have always been struck by the angry way she discusses adoptees and their feelings. She’s a first mother…and from what I recall, her daughter doesn’t speak to her any longer. This is going to come out sounding bitter, but really, I can’t really blame her daughter for cutting ties if this is how her mother feels and expresses herself.


“People, I am just going to say it, being angry is ok. Yep, definitely. Being silly about hiding how you feel is ok. Being hurt is ok. These are honest emotions. But good grief! You are not babies anymore! If you are hurt, angry, feeling less than, take a look in the mirror. Ask yourself honestly if the words you are saying are not part of the problem. Ask yourself if telling someone who may or may not have been waiting for over 20 years to meet you that you are happy to have been adopted, that you don't care if their families don't know, that you hate them, ask yourself exactly how you would feel.”


So we should lie? We should deny our anger and just get over it? While I don’t understand the mindset of adoptees who are happy they were adopted, I’d never discount their feelings. One of my best friends is adopted…her adoptive parents went on to have a biological daughter four years later. She has never once, in the two and a half years since my reunion, said that she wished she could find her mother. She is content with her afamily and glad that she was adopted into a loving household. I’d never tell her she was wrong for being happy, but neither would she tell me that I’m wrong for my feelings of anger and pain.

In the words of my former therapist, you can’t take other people’s feelings personally. Those adoptees that Lori is ranting against aren’t ranting and raving against Lori. They are ranting against their own particular situation. One that only they have walked through. To tell them that they are part of the problem is just horribly presumptive.

Until you’ve walked a mile in someone else’s shoes and all that jazz…in fact, Lori says that adoptees should put themselves in their natural parents’ shoes…

“The fact is that you aren't in her/his head and you can't possibly know exactly what your words are doing to them. You can't possibly know if the person is being hammered down yet again, by YOU. You can't know.”

What about what your words are doing to adoptees who read your blog? Reading how immature we are for having feelings different from what you think we should have…

“You are, supposedly, mature, adult people. Yet you know you have issues with abandonment (in the very least) and that you should work them out and you don't. No, you don't. You would much rather beat the crap out of the person that you found/were found by, than face the fact that your problems are yours. After about 18 - 20 you can't blame your parents, none of them, for your problems. You can say they caused them, truly, but you are choosing not to deal with the problems in an honest fashion.”

I’d really like to know whose blogs she’s been reading…I think I’d like to add them to my blogroll if they aren’t already there.

What Is An Object?

Definition of OBJECT


1
a : something material that may be perceived by the senses
b : something that when viewed stirs a particular emotion (as pity)

2
a : something mental or physical toward which thought, feeling, or action is directed
b : something physical that is perceived by an individual and becomes an agent for psychological identification
3
a : the goal or end of an effort or activity 
b : a cause for attention or concern 


An object is NOT…

a child. A child is not something that is to be coveted. A child is not an object to be shunned just because you don’t have one.

However, according to this blogger, a child IS an object, as is pregnancy itself.

“It’s easy for the children to become a representation of all that you want, and so far, don’t have.”

So here’s the thing. Maybe I’m not so different from this blogger after all. As a child, I totally and completely coveted my friends’ parents and their lives. I wanted to be in a family that was my own. The huge difference is, I wasn’t allowed to leave the room just because I didn’t look like my adoptive relatives. I couldn’t tell my mother, “Hey, can you move me to a different table because I don’t look like the cousins?”.