For all the things that are written and told
about adoption, few are the truth. As a reunited adult adoptee
I hope to shed as much light on this issue as possible within
my lifetime.
If
asked by anyone considering adoption "Is adoption a good choice"?
My answer unreservedly would be "NO".
Adoption is NOT a healthy or a good choice. If you ask
a baby if they want to be adopted they would say if they could
talk a thousand times over "NO". Each year hundreds of people
are lied to about adoption, it is time for those who are it's
experts to come forward and share it's reality.
Adoption
is a permanent solution to a temporary situation. It
is important to stress that it is NOT the baby that is a problem,
it is the circumstances in one's life that is or could be
presently challenging.
Adoption
is a negative, punitive exercise of robbing babies and children
from their mothers, their heritage, their roots, their identities,
and their rights as human beings. Adoptees lose from the minute
they are separated from their mothers. This loss is cloaked
in lies, and illusions.
For
those promoting adoption, the idea is that it is a gain for
the baby or the child. Being surrendered for adoption is not
a gain in the least. No amount of money, or a two parent
family, nor anything can replace the real and natural mother
for adoptees. Nothing can replace the heritage and connections
with others in the natural family as well. They won't tell
you this but I will - from day one we grieve and are sad to
have lost our mothers and are not happy! Not only are
babies sad they are also afraid. We know our mothers, we grow
inside their wombs. We hear the music of their hearts, we
know their smell, we trust and love them by nature.
They are ours, our universe - all that we know, all that we
feel, love and are attached to. Adoption takes our universe
away. If someone took away all that you love and all that
you know how would you feel?
When
we are born we only want one thing to be held and loved by
our own mothers. We know them, they belong to us and us to
them. To take that away is not good for babies it is the worst
most abusive act emotionally to inflict. When adoptees lose
their mothers they lose themselves as well. They forever
lose the person that they were born to be, and they lose the
joy and right of being that person.
Above
all we lose trust from the very beginning of the separation.
The loss of trust is not a temporary feeling that is lessened
by being adopted. That is another famous lie promoted by baby
brokers. It is forever and permanent just like adoption is.
When
the first lesson in life is that the one person you love and
trust will go away it is hardly a good start for anyone.
Along with the broken trust is grief and sorrow. This
is not a lesson or anything that should be encouraged to inflict
on helpless infants. Being severed from your mother and family
is not anything that adoptees are happy about. The loss in
adoption for adoptees can rarely ever be expressed or acknowledged.
There is a horrible expectation and false belief that the
adopters and adoption will overcome any damage done to adoptees.
This is another lie - it cannot undo our pain in losing our
real families. In fact it makes the pain worse as it is so
often denied to begin with. The truth is that we are traumatized
from the separation and always will be. The grief that
we feel as infants is not ever acknowledged. This lack of
support also breaks our trust. It also makes us untrusting
of our own feelings when our first feelings are blatantly
ignored. It is normal for babies to be sad and in grief
when they lose their mothers - what is NOT NORMAL IS ADOPTION
to begin with.
Anyone
considering adoption should know and see themselves as having
value and worth. Above all they should know that they are
NOT replaceable. Babies are not interchangeable entities to
be adopted without negative effects either. In truth, the
bonds of nature are not replaceable any more then the mother
or the baby is to begin with!
Along
with the broken trust and the grief, the second lesson in
life for adoptees is to be fake and live in worlds of illusions.
From the minute of the adoption we are conditioned to be someone
else.
Adoptees
are forced to take on the identity of strangers. We are not
born to adopters, social workers or social agencies. We are
born to two parents. Our birth certificates are falsified,
then locked away. Our grief is not locked away though! Adoption
changes our names it cannot change either a babies or a mother's
heart or the lifelong loss that both will forever experience.
One
of the arguments for adoption is that adoptees will gain two
parents. This is ridiculous as we all ready have them. This
is the first lie used to coerce people considering adoption.
If you are pregnant and reading this know reality - you are
the baby's mother not anyone else. The baby also has a father.
The father may be unsupportive, or supportive but the reality
is your baby has 2 parents to start with.
Our
personalities and our lives are assumed to be shaped to those
of our adopters. The famous lie we will be just like them.
Babies are born with set personalities, genes, behaviors,
temperaments, likes and dislikes. This is not an idea it is
a FACT! The idea of shaping a baby that is all ready a human
being with a personality is again not healthy it is negative.
For adoptees fitting into another persons life at the expense
of not being themselves - does not foster self-esteem or happiness.
It breeds only one thing - insecurity, self-doubt and fear.
It is not natural to live with strangers and pretend to be
born to them. It is not fair, and it is not in the best interests
of anyone other then adopters. It denies babies
and children their rights to be only one thing - exactly who
they were born to be.
This
continual lying that adoptees must live with manifests itself
in thousands of ways. Adoptees are sad to be adopted, angry
and insecure. The myth of the happy, grateful adoptee
is nothing more then a blatant fantasy spread by baby brokers,
and adopters. It is hardly the reality that I live with and
not a reality for most adoptees that I know and have worked
with.
It
is a huge burden to deny who you are and to try and be someone
that you are not for someone else. It is not child oriented
it is adopter oriented. It is not fair to expect an innocent
child to be another person. This alone makes the lack of trust
worse. Not only have we lost our mothers breaking our trust
but we also lose ourselves further breaking trust more as
well. The message for us is to be someone else. It says to
us that who we are to start with is not worthy, it says that
it is not good. It says that our mothers and our own heritage
is not good either. If it was of value then why should it
be denied? If it was of value then why falsify, lie and deny
it?
The
denial of our real selves causes irreparable harm and again
breaks trust! This is not in our best interests or any child's
for that matter.
For
adoptees being adopted does not feel like love or happiness.
It feels as though we are unloved. It feels like we are unwanted,
not good enough and not quite right. These feelings are not
just light feelings that adoptees experience for a short time.
They are life-long, deep and permanent. They cause permanent
scars that do not go away. Situations can change. For adoptees
though once adopted forever adopted. The permanency is not
changeable and the negative side effects not worth it for
any reason.
Other
lies that adoption promotes are things like the baby will
be just like the adopters? As I have said we are born to parents
to start with, we have genetic influences that are strong,
and in fact stronger then nurture to start with. Babies and
children will NOT BE JUST LIKE ADOPTERS, they will in fact
favor and be like their real parents. Above all why
should we be just like strangers, we are not their children
we are the children of our real parents. All children should
have the right to love and be proud of themselves, and to
love and be proud of who they are. Adoption turns pride into
shame, love into fear, and robs children of their right to
be happy as they are.
For
many promoting adoption the idea of income and wealth for
the child may sound appealing. Fancy houses, cars and trips
around the world is a shallow way to look at life, Life is
not about money. It is much deeper then that. The poorest
of children if loved will be rich in the ways that count.
Adoption for material gain is wrong. Material possessions
and financial opportunities do NOT replace a babies or a child's
desire to love and be parented by their own parents. NO AMOUNT
of money in a child's life is worth it to be separated from
their real parents. Better to be poorer and loved by your
own then to be richer and live with lies, secrets, illusions
and sorrow.
Another
despicable myth is that the natural mother will be sentenced
to poverty forever. This is a condescending and ridiculous
lie. Having worked with hundreds of natural mothers I can
attest to the fact that the average first mother was not the
negative myth of the starving street person that baby brokers
have lied about for years! A person may well be having some
financial difficulty and may well be worried of providing
for a child at some point in their lives. Finances can change.
Jobs are available, training and education are both available,
other alternatives are available! While a persons finances
can change adoption can not. Again it is a permanent solution
that will not change! If you are considering adoption due
to a temporary financial situation then please think of this
as being exactly that "temporary". I believe humans are more
then capable of productive and healthy changes. Everyone can
learn new things and grow. One's situation now can always
change - adoption can NOT!
Yet
another argument used to promote adoption is the question
of youth. Being young is not a bad thing, it is not negative
and it is not dangerous. Young people can be excellent caregivers
and parents. For those that wish to support adoption and promote
it - this is yet another thing that they manipulate and lie
about. It is as if the young person will be young forever.
They will always be 16, or 17 or the age at the time of pregnancy.
Just as babies grow so do teenagers, so do adults. You will
not be young forever. You will mature and you will grow. It
is more then possible to learn how to parent at a young age.
The baby brokers will convince you that it is not - will you
believe them or will you believe yourself? Above all will
you believe in the lives of strangers or the lives of you
and your baby as being more then possible to be happy and
healthy?
You
can grow with your baby, learn new things and parent a child
at a young age. There is a myriad of resources to help young
people with parenting. Babies living with older strangers
is hardly in their best interests. Being older is not and
does not mean better then a young mother or father period.
Always remember you will not be young forever! It will not
matter to your baby if you are young as your baby will love
you regardless of age.
Adoption
does permanent harm to children. It effects them forever.
It causes low self-esteem, identity problems, fear, trust
issues, grief, anger and a lifetime of not feeling secure.
That is the truth that is what baby brokers will NOT tell
you. That is what I will share as an adoptee and as someone
who has worked with adoptees for 11 years. Adoption is the
only thing that I know of that makes strangers family bound
in secrets and lies, and families strangers by the same secrets
and lies. I hope for anyone reading this that they hear
the truth. Adoption is not good for children!
For
mothers as well I would like to again stress that you are
NOT replaceable. You are unique, your baby knows and will
love you. They are your child, your flesh and blood, body
and soul. You do not replace things that are sacred without
paying a heavy price. And the price is children haunted by
their own faces, that carry forever with them the coffins
of infants that only in being born ever wanted one thing -
to be loved by their own mothers. Babies want to grow into
what they first knew and loved at birth - their own mothers
and themselves. Adoption robs them of their right
to nature, their mothers and the essence of life.
Finally
I would like to ask anyone considering adoption one thing.
If you were surrendered for adoption and you lost your most
beloved person - your real mother? If you were forced to deny
that the loss hurt you and pretend that it did not? If you
were forced to live with strangers. If you were forced to
be someone that you were not. If your life was a lie and you
were forced to be part of a family that you are not a part
of. If your identity was hidden from you. If your identity
was lied about by everyone in your life. If you were forbidden
to know your real name, see your real family, know your real
life - would you be happy or grateful? Likely not. I hope
this article says something to anyone considering adoption.
By
Anne Patterson
Open Records Activist
Adoption Should End Activist
Early Childhood Educator
Licensed Searcher
Reunited Adoptee
Copyright
© 2001 Anne Patterson
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