#adoptees

[krossan]

the possibilities ARE THERE

[thepersonalwords]

Blood can help make family, but family often transcends blood.

DaShanne Stokes

[waxdream]

I think in this world, acknowledged and unacknowledged traumas are a key way of dividing us. Someone with a debilitating fear of spiders for example, is going to be dismissed as childish by at least a portion of society, even if their phobia forces them to stay inside, hyperfixated on erradicating all spiders in their space. And yknow, that person may not be depressed, they may not have anything else other than their phobia, but their phobia is disabling. And they go online and see people validating those with disabling depression, and I just think that when something engulfs your life so largely, it's hard not to take that as 'the world doesn't care about my phobia. They just care about depression'.

I've battled with this feeling a lot thoughout my life. I've thought 'noone cares about adoptees', and I just didn't understand why. I remember my school doing an assembly on Autism, and all I could think of was 'well, there's more adopted people than there are autistic people, why aren't we doing that assembly?!' . I tried to make that assembly happen, and was told no because the school had an adoptee who didn't know they were an adoptee. Fucking disgusting behaviour, imo, limiting the education of an entire school because some adoptive parents didn't want to have an uncomfortable conversation. I could have done some good there, I could have taught people what the school refused to teach. The only mention I ever heard of adoption in that school was in health class, where they said 'some people in the UK choose to put their children up for adoption. This is very uncommon'. I felt gross hearing that. That school spent hour long lessons on how to clean your teeth, yet can't even acknowledge that adoptees grow up and sit in your classroom.

It's a kind of outrage you feel, like you're being snubbed in favour of another cause. It's jealousy - I know I feel jealous of people with traumas that are talked about, and I'm not ashamed to admit that. Jealousy is only ugly when you act on it. Feeling it means you're human. But in the real world, I gotta know that it's not the fault of other communities, it's noone's fault other than a society that likes to sweep adoption under the rug.

Recently I feel like the transracial adoptee movement has hit the mainstream, and I see people talking about it as if interracial adoptees don't exist. So I'm going to say that I think being adopted by someone who is the same race as you is an unacknowledged trauma. I think people dismiss our adoptions and pretend we look like our adoptive families. I think our adoptive families get away with pretending we are birth children, which lets our history fester in it's wake. I think not being told about our adoptions is a disgusting thing, and it happens because adoptive parents think 'oh, we can get away with not telling our kid they're adopted, they won't guess otherwise'. I think that even adoptees who aren't told about their adoption are adoptees, and I know they feel the same level of pain as I do. I think interracial adoptees are commercialised and objectified.

I think 'matching a child to the adoptive parent' is not always in the childs best interest. I was put in fostercare at 2 weeks old, and I stayed in it for 2 years because the UK system didn't want my foster carers to adopt me. They wanted to 'match' me to someone else. My parents were considered too old, this being part of the same ruleset that prevented transracial adoption in the UK in the early 2000s. I was desireable as a newborn. People want to adopt newborns. I think if they succeeded in taking me away from my adoptive parents, I would have been trapped in the fostercare system - two year olds are less desireable after all. I have trauma from feeling objectified because of this knowledge. I think anyone would, if they know money was spent, lots of money in court fees and all that, to take me specifically away from my family. And that's a trauma created by the idea that 'every adoption should be a perfect match'. That's why I think the adoptee community needs to come together as adoptees and be a group of it's own, because otherwise we create an artificial divide of people. I think 'adoption should be a perfect match' as an ideology is unrealistic. Sometimes it's just as important that a baby stay with their first match for example, to prevent further trauma. The UK adoption system almost bankrupted a working class family of fostercarers because they felt that it was more important for my adoptive parents to be a young, rich couple. A family of fostercarers who dared to do exactly what a fostercarers is meant to do - love their child unconditionally, to the point that they wanted to stop fostercaring and adopt me. And even though my folks are older, and don't understand autism or any of the stuff that makes me different from them, I still think this is the perfect place for me.

So yknow, I have different experiences to a transracial adoptee. I think mine are less blatantly obvious, because racism is pervasive in this world and disgusting. It makes sense to me why the plight of transracial adoptees is so loud and important. Hell, even your word is being stolen by the 'trans race' community that's trying to essentially cosplay as other races. I also think the adoptee community should be more united - and we should listen to each other, and work as a team. Because Jealousy is a human emotion, I think we're all projecting and feeling jealous of each other, when in reality, we're all jealous of folks who aren't adopted. And that's okay friend. Jealousy is okay. Taking actions based on jealousy isn't, but the feeling? It's okay. I'm jealous of folks who have something they can point to and say 'that's the root of all my problems', because I don't think I have that. Doesn't mean I'm gonna be a dick about it, and it also doesn't mean my feelings reflect reality. Just like how the idealised idea of interracial adoption doesn't reflect reality. It's two different sides of the same coin, like many things in the adoption world. I think the true path to change is changing the views and mentality of those who aren't adopted. Because they just. Don't. Get. It.

[ex-foster]

I've learned so much by listening to adult adoptees. As a former foster kid who was not adopted, I had some preconceived ideas on adoption. I remember being confused when financial aid was being offered to former foster kids, including those who were adopted. I was truly puzzled because I thought adoptees wouldn't need any financial aid because they were adopted and theoretically had someone to take care of them whereas someone who aged out of care virtually has nobody.

But I'm learning that a lot of adoptees have super similar experiences to foster kids who aged out of care. A lot of adoptees are given similar expectations as FFY where they are expected to live independently the literal day they turn 18. Whereas biological children are given a LOT more support than adoptees or FFY.

And even in cases where adoptive parents do want to support their adoptive children to obtain a higher education, they may have not been able to save up for their education the same way that a child living with their biological parents would. For example if the adoption took place when the adoptive child was 8 years old, and then a high interest savings account was made to prepare for their education, they would 8 years behind a kept child who had their high interest savings account established when they were an infant.

[twitcheye]

"You Don’t Look Adopted” by Anne Heffron

If you listen to Adoptees On, the podcast (if you’re an adoptee or a foster you SHOULD, it’s great, it’s by us and for us) you will sometimes have heard guests mention how much they loved this book.  I read it based on that and it’s a great memoir, just painfully honest about what it’s like to go through life like this.  

“Most of my life I have felt both real and not real.” ― Anne Heffron, You Don't Look Adopted

Anne has an interesting website and blog as well, and I’m featured on it as a guest artist this week.  Go look!

https://www.anneheffron.com/blog/2023/5/27/guest-blog-post-art-and-adoption-by-terri-nelson

[eggwhiteswithspinach]

affirmations for adoptees

[goawaywithjae]

I want to address a topic that goes beyond the are they or aren’t they K-pop artists if they sing in English dialogue — which was a big portion of that NYT podcast that I wrote about earlier this week. But first, a brief recap of that hot mess:

In that 47-minute long discussion, the host and his guest explored the use of English in K-pop songs. Their general consensus was that if a Korean artist is singing in English, it’s not unique anymore, because they’re doing the same thing that Western artists do:

[Jung-kook’s “Golden” is] an American album with a Korean face on it basically. So I think if I was a listener that was like, “Oh, this is what a K-pop guy can do? It sounds just like Justin Timberlake.” Why do you need a Korean guy doing Justin Timberlake when we have Justin Timberlake?

This could have been an interesting topic if they had addressed their own implicit bias as well as the obvious question: Why is it that when white European performers choose to sing in English — even though their native language isn’t English — no one accuses them of tapping into an already-saturated market of songs performed in English? We know why. Because to a certain sector of our population, white people singing in English is the norm, whereas Asians — even Asian Americans — appear foreign to them. So for these folks, it’s weird hearing ethnically-Asian musicians singing in English.

[oliveptee]

While adoption and step arnt the typical "nuclear" family you think of, they still are a legally binding family, (infact most families that are adoption/ step you wouldnt know if they didnt tell you) theStandard definition of a family. Found Family can be anything BUT standard,must be unrelated (there for adoption/step doesnt count) orphanages dont count either because it is a process of adoption they view themselves as a standard family (ex: they ARE siblings just minus the parents)

Found Family cant have any standard roles, no sibling/parental roles, while they may feel similar they arnt. Lets look at dungeon meshi, are chilchuck and laois "brothers" no they arnt are maricle and senshi father and daughter? ...obviously not! But they /feel/ and interact like a family without the typical family roles [to some viewers]

Now for why adoptees hate it: Our experiences are often dumbed down for biospawns (people who are not adopted) and refuse to see any trauma involved in it. They romanticize adoption to no end. They treat it like something fictional.

Found Family is a trope, adoption is not a trope. Also the key point in found family is that their not blood related.. exactly something that is majorly insenstive to adoptees and their families.

Its an another extent of romantization. My experiences / other adoptees / even their families are not fictional tropes, and do not exist for the eyes of a viewer/reader. Its dehumanizing. Even to maybe say "using fandom lingo on a very serious issue"

going to ruffle a few feathers with this one

[humanrightsupdates]

Some US Adoptees Fear Stricter Immigration Policies, Mass Deportations

Thousands of Adoptees in US Still Lack Citizenship

The Trump administration’s focus on deporting immigrants has left many intercountry adoptees increasingly vulnerable. Brought to the United States by adoptive parents who, for various reasons, failed to secure their legal status or naturalized citizenship, these individuals now face the threat of deportation from the only home they have come to know.

For decades, intercountry adoptions approved by courts and government agencies did not automatically guarantee US citizenship. Not until the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 were intercountry adoptees granted automatic citizenship, but it only applied to adoptees younger than 18 as well as future adoptions when it took effect in 2001. It excluded those who arrived before February 27, 1983, as well as those brought to the United States on tourist or medical visas, a route that might have seemed fast and simple to some adoptive parents, but that has left their adopted children without legal status once those visas expired.

Many in the non-citizen adoptee community fear the impact of President Donald Trump’s talk about mass deportations and stricter immigrations policies, such as the executive order aimed at “removing promptly all aliens who enter or remain in violation of federal law.” Some of these adoptees have uncertain legal status due to visa overstays. Others, while legally in the US, remain subject to deportation if they have a criminal history, including for drug offenses like marijuana possession.

Some intercountry adoptees did not realize they had no legal status as US immigrants or citizens until they tried to apply for passports or financial aid. Many might still not know. Estimates of how many adoptees lack citizenship range from 18,000 to 75,000, with around 18,000 believed to be Korean adoptees.

Even before Trump’s second term, deportation was nothing new to the adoptee community. According to some sources, in recent years 35 adoptees have been deported from the US to their countries of origin. One Korean adoptee took his life after struggling in his new home; another took legal actions against a system which he felt failed him. Others still hope to return to the US.

[waxdream]

Everyone knows how class affects how a kid is raised. We've seen those shitty tv shows where the poor kid goes and stays with a rich family and gets a culture shock. No-one bats an eye at that. No one is confused that someone going to stay and live with a stranger's family feels weird and alienated, especially when their social class is different. That's what being an adoptee in reunion feels like. We're both white, we share genetics, and yet there is a wall. There's an unspoken line that I have to mold, and change myself to get through, and then grovel at the feet of my birth family to be given a scrap of acceptance and belonging. Non adoptees, apon the first time meeting their cousin, do not get incest joke made about them. Non adoptees on the second time meeting that cousin, do not get the same joke made in front of the entire bio family. This is not a class difference, but the alienation feels slightly like the inadequacy I feel when I'm around a rich friend. It's seeing someone different yet familiar to you, and feeling the discomfort of it all while you try to blend in. It hurts so much more, but that's how I'd approximate the feeling for someone who isn't adopted.

[kali-tmblr]

This sort of treatment is the norm among African boys adopted by Conservative Christians.

Remember The Blind Side starring Sandra Bullock? The movie showed how a kid who had an extremely rough upbringing got help from the family of a school friend, found success in football and ultimately ended up being adopted by the family. Turns out he was never adopted.

Michael Oher says that he was tricked by the Tuohy family into signing documents that made them his conservators. Since he was already 18 at the time the family told him, “that it means pretty much the exact same thing as 'adoptive parents,' but that the laws were just written in a way that took [his] age into account.”

Oher also says that papers were signed so that his story and likeness were given away for free to use in The Blind Side. He also never got a single royalty check for the hugely successful, Oscar nominated film in the 14 years since its release.

[rozmorris]

Finding our true voices and where we belong – novelist and coach Heather Marshall

Heather Marshall’s novels are concerned with questions of family. In her first, The Thorn Tree, the characters are rediscovering who they are as family grows up and their life roles change. In her new novel, When The Ocean Flies, an adoptee comes to terms with long-held misbeliefs, seeded from her earliest days. This theme of leading an authentic life and discovering what that should be clearly…

[valengory1234]

Would you believe this article is about adoptive parents?

[welshie100]

This is absolutely true, thank you so much for this! As an adoptee and fostered kid myself, it’s only until recently that I actually realised that it’s not just the severed bonds with my birth parents/family that caused my abandonment and attachment issues, but also the severed bonds with my two foster families, who I spent a year each with before being adopted by another family. I experienced a lot of loss in my early childhood and that definitely had an impact, and does have an impact for anyone like me whose had multiple placements.

A thing I think should be included with Ruby’s abandonment/attachment issues when we’re writing her, is that she was a foster sibling to a lot of kids. Like a lot of kids. She has effectively lost so many siblings and playmates and even babies/very young children she’s essentially had a hand in raising. Her entire life has been loving and losing. And for foster kids getting adopted or reunited with their parents under better circumstances, she will basically have been unable to grieve that properly because it’s a good thing they’re gone and they’re supposed to celebrate it. She’s clearly very loving and caring even after a whole life of that, even though each time they leave a piece of her goes with them.

No shit she’s going to end up with some attachment issues. Especially if she considers herself the lucky one, survivor’s guilt, Carla adopted her and none of the others, who have probably expressed that sentiment to her directly and asked why, in the hopes they could stay forever too, or just jealousy - what made you so special?

Foster children/youths in the UK also have to choose themselves to stay in-touch. Foster carers cannot directly contact the child once they have left their care. A “clean slate” approach is preferred. So if the child doesn’t request to get into contact — and sometimes aren’t told they would have to or are discouraged from doing so — that means losing contact immediately and for good. Does that remind you of anything? Sometimes it also happens very quickly - it is far from unheard of for a foster sibling to go to school in the morning and find out the child they’ve been living with for months has gone when they come back in the evening. Even with warning it could still often be only days. I think you could argue 73 Yards has more to do with Ruby’s experience as a foster sibling than being an adoptee.

And of course the continuous loss of loved ones mirrors the Doctor’s experience with their companions fairly often. Another thing that quietly binds them that most other people couldn’t understand.

[ghostbsuter]

"My cousin," Wonder Woman nods at Danny during their meeting, once everyone gathered.

Flash, confused, asks. "From... your mother's side?"

Sharing an amused glance, WW shakes her head. "No, from my father's side. Danny is a son of Hades."

"Another demigod then." Batman states and they nod on that.

—

Why yes, when Danny met Wonder Woman in a dire situation, desperate to get away, he jumped right along her idea.

The idea of faking his own origin, in a way to explain the half death-ness without raising the suspicion of the bat (or anyone for the matter), pretending to be a son of hades.

Is this absolutely batshit insane trying to trick the god of the unworld? Yeah! He's having fun.