Guilty?

Pin It

What a wonderful opportunity to blog about a topic near and dear to both Jessa and myself. We got to have a lovely chat this afternoon because there has been some wailing and gnashing of teeth in regards to certain members of the adoption triad not being able to voice their experiences, perspective, and opinion on a specific social media site.

*non-affiliated with us*

or is it?

You see there is this little thing called guilt by association. It can’t be avoided. It can’t be ignored. It is unfortunately how most of us make our judgments and collect our knowledge about the people in the world both near and far.

That makes us affiliated to the social media site that we don’t have any tangible authority over. No control to what is said. No control what the actions of that site do to the perception of ‘birthmother’.

Guilt by association is not a problem when things are going well. LOVE IT. Free marketing and advertising and character development! It’s a huge problem when birthmoms are being perceived as having an agenda that we ourselves don’t cater to or there is behavior that we ourselves would never participate in.
sucks, huh?

In the birthmother demographic there are definitely different ‘sides’. Very simply stated there are the women that fall on the side of negative and the women who fall on the side of positive. There is very little cross over. Both sides are justified in their convictions. Both sides are full of women who deserve to share their voice. Both sides have good wholesome people and not so good or wholesome people. There is a vast difference in experience and opinion between these two sides. Yet we are all still birthmothers. We will ALWAYS have that in common.

What one birthmom does and says, especially on social media,
in a public forum no less, creates perceptions about
every.single.one.of.us. 

Does this mean that one cannot freely share their experiences and opinions in public? No
It simply means that you can choose you words, you can choose your attitude, you can choose whether you reply and/or react, you can choose your behavior, you can choose to play nice, you can choose to stir up trouble. Only you can choose, and there’s rarely anything anyone else can do about your choice.

Jessa and I have always striven to allow all members of the triad an opportunity to share their voice. We welcome differing of opinion. We share articles and stories that we don’t necessarily agree with or share conviction with. We try really hard to stand up for those that are not given a platform.
We do however have a zero tolerance policy for unsolicited character attacks and we won’t share false or made up ‘facts’. We try to set an example and we are not perfect. BM4A started by trying to pave a way, create a soapbox per say, for a voice that we believed wasn't heard. We've made mistakes, and corrected them, many times over the years.

We want to encourage our fellow birthmothers to always do the same. We want you to make a choice that builds up, rather than tears down. You don’t have to be a rainbow farting positive glitter tosser to build up. You can express very negative things and still be building up the birthmom demographic.

Together we need to:

• Keep each other accountable – CALL YOUR FELLOW BIRTHMOMS OUT ON THEIR SHIT. Let the rest of the adoption community know when you don’t agree with what soandso said/did.
• Be honest. Truth wins every time. *remember that your truth is not EVERYones truth* 
• Think before you speak/act. Walk away when necessary. You don’t have to reply!
• Consider how your comments/actions reflect on the demographic as a whole. 
• Choose private venues to express ‘how you really feel’ or to vent in.
• Listen. Don’t discriminate. Play nice. Apologize when you play mean.

And most importantly…

please, just DON’T.BE.STUPID! 

Stupid is as stupid does. Stay classy, San Diego. Good night, and good luck. 

Merry Christmas From My House

 Pin It

Today marks the 25th Christmas I've spent with my darling husband Jim.  Wow.  That's a long time!  Through the years we've added four children to our family. Now they're almost all grown up!  Here they are playing a competitive game of Settlers of Catan on Christmas Eve.

Left to right:  Aaron, 13; Rachael, 23; Chelsea, 20; Ben 17
(You can also see my husband Jim sitting in the living room)

All of my children gave me picture ornaments when they were little.  I think something similar would make a great gift for birth parents and birth grandparents.

Aaron, 3rd grade.

Rachael, 2nd grade.

Chelsea, 1st grade

Ben, 3rd grade.

The first Christmas Jim and I were married, we made an angel for the tree top using a fashion doll purchased from the dollar store.  She faithfully stood up top until just a couple of years ago.  We decided to give her a rest, so now she gets to sit back comfortably.

Below is our newest angel.  I picked her up at a thrift store a couple of years ago.  

I love her.  I want to be her!

Here's some more of my favorite ornaments:

The Thai reindeer hung on the Christmas tree of my childhood.  My parents traveled to Thailand when I was 11, and brought home four reindeer, one for each of their children.  

Santa is excited to have such a fancy reindeer!

Christmas Cow

Paddington Bear

I fell in love with a swan as a newlywed.  Quite scandalous, I know.  Jim and I purchased him during an after-Christmas sale.  We were too poor to buy him before Christmas

Rachael  did an internship on the Navajo nation after her freshman year of college, and brought back this handmade Navajo couple.

I asked my children what their favorite ornaments are. 

Ben's likes the one Grandma Bakaitis gave him for his very first Christmas in 1994.

Chelsea likes the Campbell's Soup kid in the moon.  

We have a large collection of Campbell's kids ornaments given to us by Jim's dad.  

 Rachael loves this blown glass ornament made at Greenfield Village in Detroit, MI.  

Aunt Marlene Davis used to volunteer there.

Aaron favors the fixer elf.
He's busy moving about our tree, repairing any lights that might go out .
The elf used to fix Jim's tree when he was growing up in Detroit, but now he works for us.

Yes, we adoptees grow up and have families of our own, and then our children grow up.  We cherish positive Christmas memories from our childhood, and we also create new traditions.    

Have a very Merry Christmas everyone!  

Can the Temple Ordinances bring Adoptees and Birth Parents Closer Together?

Pin It

I had First Contact with my birth mother when I was 31 years old.  I didn’t tell my adoptive parents for months, and maybe never would have, except that my Bishop counseled me to.  My adoptive mother’s reaction was exactly what I expected, which is why I didn’t want to tell.  She was shocked.  She felt betrayed.  She wondered what she should have done differently as an adoptive mom so that I would not have gone down the path of finding my first mother. 

Up until the day he died, even after he developed dementia, my adoptive father was upset with me for having a relationship with my birth mother, because it had upset my a-mother.  “You broke your mother’s heart,” he used to say. 

I’d like to think my parents see things differently now that they are on the other side of the veil.

My mother feared that my adoption reunion meant I was on the brink of apostatizing from the LDS Church.  “You were sealed to us in the Temple!  Your natural parents don’t matter anymore,” she asserted.  She feared that my search for my natural parents meant I was losing my testimony.   She told me that when an adopted child is sealed in the temple to parents, a “blood change” takes place so that the adopted child becomes biologically connected to the adoptive parents.  She felt that the "blood change" should remove my curiosity about birth parents.  She promised to send me some quotes from Joseph Smith, Bruce R. McConkie and John A. Widtsoe about adoption and the “blood change.”  She’d been saving these quotes for years.   But when my mother pulled the quotes from her file and reviewed them, she was chagrined to admit they weren’t about legal adoption.  The quotes were about converts being adopted into the seed of Abraham.

Towards Reconciliation

My parents’ attitudes about adoptees' contact with biological parents were not uncommon for their time.  Unfortunately, these attitudes can still be found in some adoptive parents today, and there's no excuse for it.  I am saddened to read about adoptive parents who close adoptions that were promised to be open.  Do they feel that their status as parent may be diminished if birth parents are in the picture?  Truth be told, I probably would have bonded more closely to my adoptive parents if they had been able to acknowledge my emotional needs.  If an adoptive parent cannot accept a child’s family of origin, he/she cannot fully accept the child. The child will sense it.  I know.  I've been there.

I realize I am preaching to the choir here.  I am sure adoptive parents coming to this blog understand the importance of keeping adoptions open.  But perhaps you could broadcast it to other adoptive parents at FSA conferences and such.  Or send them to this post, please.

Some a-parents may ask, “What about the Temple? This child has been sealed to me.  He is mine now.”   I am going to propose something that may shock some of you.  I don’t think that in the next life it will matter who children are sealed to as much as some think it will.  As we do temple work for our deceased ancestors, we join more and more of the family of mankind together.  If an adopted child traces ancestry back far enough, he will find an ancestor that is common to both adoptive and biological families.  Once temple sealings are performed for that ancestor and descenants, the child may be linked to both families.

In the 2010 magazine booklet Temples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Gordon B. Hinckley says, “For the most part, temple work is concerned with the family, with each of us a members of God’s eternal family and with each of us as members of earthly families…  [As] the doctrine is enunciated in language both beautiful and impressive, the participant comes to realize that since every man and woman is a child of Heavenly Father, then each is a member of a divine family; hence, every person is his brother or sister…”

President Hinckley further teaches that family relationships bound together through the sealing ordinances may continue in the world to come.  Adoptive parents will have a relationship with their children for eternity.  Still, the temple sealing ordinance is a binding ordinance, not a separating ordinance.  It does not separate birth parents from the children they relinquished.

President Hinckley states, "...When asked by the scribe, 'Which is the first commandment of all?' the Savior replied, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.  'And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself' (Mark 12:28, 30–31).

The teachings set forth in modern temples give powerful emphasis to this most fundamental concept of our duty to our Maker and to our neighbors. Sacred ordinances amplify this ennobling philosophy of the family of God. They teach that the spirit within each of us is eternal, in contrast with the body, which is mortal. They not only give understanding of these great truths but also motivate the participant to love of God and encourage him to demonstrate a greater neighborliness toward others of our Father's children."


How can temple-worthy adoptive parents "demonstrate a greater neighborliness toward others of our Father's children [birth parents]" and then close an adoption, denying birth parents a relationship with the one they brought into mortality? Why do they deny their child's emotional needs for this connection?  Please read this post by adoptee and adoptive parent Rebecca Hawkes. She explains much better than I could how adoptive parents can tune into their child's needs.


Children sealed to adoptive parents in the temple do not have greater distance from birth parents than children who are not sealed.  In fact, the sealing ordinance can bring adoptive children closer to birth parents.  The temple does not sever biological ties; it expands families.  There is room for everyone.

Note:

In addition to doing guest posts on the B4A blog, I have started my own blog called Earth Stains.  My messages on Earth Stains are more targeted to adoptees, with a focus on health and wellness.  I hope everyone can glean something from my writings, so please stop by.  I signed up for the Adoption Interview project, so look for my interview on Thursday, November 17th.  I interviewed a fantastic mom named Rachel who has an adopted son and daughter from China.  Rachel's interview with me will be posted at her blog, Everybody Wants a Cupcake.

Happy November!

The 24 most annoying things that people say to adoptees

This is a list compiled by Megan, a real-live adopted individual

The most annoying thing of all: “real mom and real dad”

1. “Did you ever meet your real mom?”

The guy or gal on the street uses “real mom” and “real dad” to refer to birth parents. But my adoptive parents insisted they were the one and only “real.” Every adoptive parent wants to be “real,” and is real. My mother taught me scripts to repeat when someone asked about “real mom.” From my early childhood I found myself in the awkward position of correcting not only peers but adults. The woman in whose tummy I grew was “birthmother” and the people that raised me were “real.” To educate the entire planet on what is real is a huge responsibility for a 7 year-old, especially one that doesn’t understand where babies come from.

When I reunited with my birthmom as an adult I was surprised to learn that she is insulted by the suggestion that she isn’t real mom. Conversely, my birthfather insists that he is not my real father (just don’t go there). To simply my life, I now leave it up to the parents to decide what is real. So, there are two real moms but only one real dad. When people ask about real mom I just say, “If you are referring to my birthmom, we connected a few years ago.” It is much easier to believe that a woman without a face or name is not real.

Substituting the word “real” for “biological” isn’t going out of vogue anytime soon. Adopted children will just have to find their own way of dealing with it.

Other annoying comments:
(I could write essays on all of these, and may do so at a later time.)

Adoption is everyone’s second choice
2. So, what do you call your parents?

3. When I get married I hope I never have to adopt.

4. If I got pregnant my parents would never make me give the baby away.

5. Do your parents have any of their own children? (Those darn semantics again. The guy and gal on the street will use “own children” synonymously with “biological children”.)

Physical appearance
6. Doesn’t it bother you that you don’t know anyone who looks like you?

7. That’s so amazing that you can tan easier than the rest of your family! (transracial adoptee)

8. You look a lot like your parents. (When they know I’m adopted)

9. You and your sister don’t look anything alike. (When they don’t know I’m adopted)

10. You have your mother’s eyes. (Referring to my adoptive mom)

11. What nationality are you? (As a child I usually responded to this question by reciting my adoptive parents’ origins. But sometimes I was being asked why I look the way I do. I didn’t know my birthparents’ heritage -- some people would try to guess it... “You have a square jaw, maybe you’re Welsh.” “Those heavy-set eyebrows might be Spanish…” What a fun game..NOT!)

Us poor waifs

12. Don’t you feel lucky that somebody took you in?

13. You’re adopted? Do you have a learning disability?

14. How many foster homes were you in before someone decided to keep you?

15. I remember when your parents got you. (They picked me up at the market, right?)

Abandoned

16. Your natural mother has probably put you out of her mind.

17. Why didn’t your real mother want you?

18. Well, my mom wasn’t married and she kept me. Your birthmother should have kept you. I feel sorry for you.

My adoptive parents hammered it into my brain and even into my cells that my birthmom loved me very, very much but she wasn’t ready to care for me. I have never felt unwanted or abandoned, despite what peers would say.

Naughty birthmother.

(Wait a minute, I came from her. What does that make me?)

19. You better watch yourself with the boys. You’re pretty and you might have a tendency to be promiscuous like your birthmother.

An adopted child shouldn’t have to hear negative remarks about her birthmother or birthfather. It’s too easy to project those comments onto herself. Remarks about birthparents will affect a child’s self-image. I also worry about adoptive parents blogging about their child’s birthparents. The kid will grow up and read the archives some day…

In denial

20. (At the doctor’s office)
Nurse: Do you have any family history of high blood pressure?
Me: I don’t know. I’m adopted.
Nurse: OK then, do you have any family history of heart disease?
Me: I don’t know. I’m adopted.
Nurse: OK. Do you have any family history of cancer?

21. Being adopted is no different at all than being born to your parents
(Different doesn’t have to mean worse. C’mon guys, let’s acknowledge that
adoption is not the same. Quit pretending. Maybe it’s even more special sometimes!)

22. Aren’t you worried you’ll accidentally date a relative?

Religious Dogma

23. Heavenly Father planned for all of us to be born to our mommies and daddies

24. Your birthmother was nothing more than a vessel for you to obtain a body and come to earth. (People who like to use this pet phrase always speak of the birthmother in past tense!!!)

Sometimes people say stupid things. So what! None of their perceptions can change who I am . I am a proud, joyful adopted person!!!

not knowing

i have many many birthmother friends who are dear to me place their children for adoption in a closed adoption. some of them have had things open up over the years, some have even had reunions as their children turned of age and they found each other. 

but most of these birthmothers, they just dont know,  a.n.y.t.h.i.n.g. 

can you imagine? i cannot. 

not knowing your childs name, not knowing their face, not knowing their parents' names or faces, not knowing what state they went to after leaving your arms, not knowing if they, god forbid, have died. 

i had a distant relative thru a marriage that has since dissolved pass away this last year, he was adopted, and i had to wonder, does his birthmother even know? probably not. and that broke my heart even more than it already was for the loss of this mans life. 

i try to not take for granted the gift and the blessing that is open adoption and the reality of literally being the sole owner of my sons birth certificate from the hospital, its in my filing cabinet. the reality of knowing exactly where he is, seeing faces and meeting several of his extended family.  the reality of being the one to place him in his parents arms and didnt just hand him to a caseworker and watch him get loaded into the back of the caseworkers car never to be heard from again. 

the reality of hearing MY name come from HIS lips. 

the reality of knowing. 

i know and he knows. priceless precious sacred information.

we are lucky indeed. he points to my stomach and his, and tells me that i grew in his tummy. hes still working on exactly what it is he knows, but he knows that it involved him and me, not just him and his mom and dad. 

so many 'dont know' and that hurts my heart. just because 'i know' doesnt mean that i dont have a responsibility in making sure that others get to know. things need to be changed, for those currently involved in adoption, those who have yet to be involved in adoption, and even for those who missed the open adoption band wagon. those people still. deserve. TO. KNOW. 

and its US- the birthmoms of open adoption, who need to make sure it happens for them. we need to raise our voices LOUDLY and support the basic human right that is 'to know'. 

this is national adoption awareness month, and i ask you, women of this open adoption era...

are you aware what the laws regarding adoptees rights in your state are? for past present and future adoptions? 

are you aware of the pain and worry and grief that comes from not knowing? 

are you aware of those around you that are struggling with this burden? 

are you aware of how truly blessed you are to know? 

if you are not aware, than i challenge you to break out of your comfort zone and become aware. and once youve done that, then please, lets rally together and help our sisters who dont know by telling those in legislative positions how important and wonderful and healing it has been for us to know. 

we have been given much and so we too must give! 

adopted: for the life of me

 

it has already aired in OR, but i see in utah and california and other states it hasnt yet. someone record it on their DVR for me! i expect all of you who can and are able to watch this, to seek out more info, to read stories, to click 'share' on facebook when you see stuff about adoptee rights, and share your personal thoughts about this subject.  

i challenge you this month and every month to 'spread the word', tell everyone you know about WHY open adoption has been so great for you, about how knowing has been so great for you, so that one day, we can all know.  

i challenge you to be a voice for those who were told they werent allowed to have one, for those who are not allowed to know. 

as always, adoption luvs

the lime green ribbon represents adoptee rights,
it has been and always will be on our side bar.