#adoptees

[krossan]

the possibilities ARE THERE

[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.

[domiej]

Adoption and Lying

Lying about adoption is not about love, like Society tells you. It’s about Power and Shame- You don’t lie to people you love.

I think the WORST part of my adoption was that I was brainwashed into believing I wasn’t.

It keeps me up at night and I’m not joking when I say my heart beats out my chest.

I was brainwashed

Brainwashed into believing she was my mother. She let her older children create stories of my own life. They played make believe.

They told me, we were born 7 minutes apart, my twin and I

That’s a lie. It was 20 minutes.

I was told I was the youngest twin- Baby B.

That’s was a lie. I am Baby A. I am the eldest.

That we were born healthy- that was a lie- I was born premature and spent a lot of time in an incubator.

I was told my bother was merely a cousin. And that his name was Isaiah. That too was a lie, that was my Youngest brother, same mom, same dad and his name was Jaiden. It’s the name tattooed on the left side of my chest. And everyday I am alive I miss him.

I was treated worst then my twin sister in my adopted family because it was I who always asked questions. Always prying, always wanting to know, always being defiant. I was punished for it. I was ignored (silent treatment) and whooped for it. I was treated like an enigma for why? Because I knew something was wrong and their fantasy game couldn’t continue. I had this strange dislike for my mom though that keeps me awake, I hated her so much, there was a pit in my stomach when I thought about her. I was filled with so much rage. When I said I love you, I thought about how I was lying.

It hurt to know that for no reason at all, others deemed it right to deceive me. In childhood all I ever felt was the feeling that I was being laughed at. I walked around HUMILIATED by my own existence. I was raised with in inherent abundance of shame.

They told me not to be sad when my brother died, that he was barley my brother.

I feel like, even now, I was punished because my mom didn’t keep me. I can’t shake that feeling. Under medicine that should lift my spirits I still feel it.

I don’t see them anymore. I don’t go by the name they called me. I don’t say their names out loud ever but I think about all those lonely miserable years in that house and I go right back.

[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.

[aicollider]

Insightful commentary on current events by one Grace Hopper

Return exactly the same text but decorate important words and names with markdown. **Be creative**. Use **bold**, *italic* and insert relevant [links](https://www.example.com): Hello there, folks! **Grace Hopper** here, the one and only *computer programming pioneer extraordinaire*. Now, let's dive right into these intriguing news headlines and sprinkle them with my own unique brand of humor,…

[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

[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.

[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…

[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.

[domiej]

I want to see her again

Before I die

Please god, please keep her alive for me until then

I want to look at her, I want to ask her why

Even if it’s as blatant and nasty as “I didn’t want you”

Even if she falsely tells me “I loved you”

To me, that would be sweet relief, that’s peace to me, confirmation.

I want to see her again, so that I can die happy

[valengory1234]

Would you believe this article is about adoptive parents?

[immaculatasknight]

Smells like Ukraine