You Have No Idea What You Are Talking About!
She was raised by adoptive parents whom she has publicly shared that she loves deeply. She is generous and kind with her hard-won wisdom, yet there are people raising adopted children who believe my friend has nothing helpful to bring to the table. I have asked myself why people would say this to her.
The first answer that comes to my mind is that they resent that she now stands for family preservation. She is not out promoting adoption left and right like Evangelical Christians normally do. She is not shouting from the rooftops that babies need more adoptive parents. She is saying that babies need their own mothers. Is this really a radical idea? How many of you biological parents reading this blog would be willing to surrender your own child to another family? I have a suspicion the number would be very few (looking at statistics, I know the number is very few).
As a public blogger myself, I have always known that there are going to be adoptive parents and others who choose to cover their ears when it comes to the tough truths of how adoptees experience adoption. You can choose to read only adoption-positive blogs if that suits your reality better. However, it really just perplexes me that parents who went out of their way to bring a child into their home, would not want to be educated by people who have actually experienced what their own child(ren) are experiencing. Even when it entails reading and digesting the hard stuff.
As a parent, I seek out resources quite regularly to help me understand my child better. She has unique circumstances besides being adopted and I regularly read articles, books and talk to people who have experienced her particular circumstances to better learn how to parent and support her. Isn't that what good parents do?
How is closing our ears and hearts making us better parents?
How is telling an adopted person, "I'm sorry you had a bad experience, but my child is different" ok?
A bad experience does not necessarily mean we don't have something to offer. I've had lots of bad experiences in restaurants. Haven't you? I find that these experiences then help me to inform others about opportunities to improve service, training and food quality. (no I'm not a restaurant manager, just a person who loves to photograph and talk about food).
Did you have a bad experience in high school with bullying that taught you many lessons? How about a bad experience at summer camp? Bad experiences are life lessons that we can share with others. If I can save someone else the pain and misunderstanding I learned via the School of Hard Knocks, then it makes me happy to be able to do so.
If I say "I experienced a closed adoption negatively", it does not mean I am automatically indicting mine and other adoptive parents from the era of my adoption. It is a call to speak about why and how I believe closed adoption damaged me and others I know and how we can do adoption better (or not at all!).
People seem to be a bit sensitive to learning information that, frankly, they need to hear if they aspire to being good parents.
Babies do need their own mothers. This is not a new idea. What is new, in our culture, is promoting adoption as somehow SUPERIOR to biological parenting (it's not) and then shooting the messenger who points this out.
Don't attack people or dismiss people who bring difficult information to your awareness. Ask yourself, "what can I learn from this information that is bothering me?" Are there some places in your psyche and heart that may need re-examination?
Denial is powerful. But it doesn't make you a better parent. And it's doesn't help your kiddo one iota.
Great points Lynn. Why won't they listen?, is a question this mother has been asking for close to 40 years.
ReplyDeleteFrom my experience, adoption has long been promoted as "SUPERIOR to biological parenting". It all depends on if one is on the "inferior" side of the tracks.