National Adoption Awareness Month (NAAM) Day 1 (Flip the Script)

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November has arrived and with it an Ohio monsoon on the first day of National Adoption Awareness Month (NAAM). I debated whether to write anything. No time for blogging much these days so I will say a few things you may have heard before.
Being adopted does not define me as a human being yet it has limited my choices as a full, equal US citizen. It has limited my knowledge of who I was born to and who my ancestors were because of outdated laws created in an era of secrecy and shame. Being adopted in the US has limited mine and my children’s access to important and potentially life-saving medical history and even limited my entry into organizations like DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) which require a paper trail of ancestry to join.
I have spent many years writing and asking people to listen to adoptees Instead of adoption professionals who financially benefit from the industry or adoptive parents who host morning shows.
Adopted people should be the focus of NAAM. Professionals in the field of child welfare should be researching us, interviewing us, reading our anthologies/blogs/memoirs and looking closely at the stats of our long term outcomes instead of asking us how our adoptive parents feel about us searching (If I had a nickel...)
Small inroads have been made. Communities have been formed and word has spread:
WE are the experts. #flipthescript #NAAM2018

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