Liking the post doesn't feel quite right as the content is enlightening but not particularly likeable......it rather feels like I've had an eye patch on when looking at adoption and you Barbara, have given me a laser treatment. I feel a deep sadness for the mothers who lost their children in the worst way, not dead but dead to them. The mothers who couldn't reckon with not being able to have their own biological child and couldn't look at themselves in mirror in acceptance but most of all the children. Children filled with questions they were afraid to ask, deep feelings they could not name and the threats inherent to 'biologically unrelated' children coming to fruition in their small, controlled lives.
I can only imagine the collective sigh in the ether as you opened Pandoras box with both, your lived experience and the factual information you have mined to present from the souls of those never able to speak for themselves, to those gathering now to reinforce your findings as a voice not only for yourselves but for the generations fallen silent , honoring their lives and as a catalyst to reform for future souls whose literal lives are on the dotted line.
And children who didn’t even know they were adopted. I found out when I was 43 that my parents had lied to me my whole life…. please read more about the effect of separation before adoption, no matter the reason, the effect is the same … trauma.
Hi Di, did you read the column on maternal separation - it is impossible to separate a mother and her child without causing significant brain alterations. the studies mentioned here are just a small handful. There are so many more. https://drbarbarasumner.substack.com/p/maternal-separation
Yes thank you Barbara… i’m beginning to understand how that has affected me plus being Frank Breech birth plus adopted into neglect and abuse. I had a childhood rich in experience followed by uni education but no social/emotional foundation - unashamedly an educated bogan
The loss of a “social/emotional foundation” is an excellent way to describe being adopted. However, I think this understanding comes much later in life. for me, I was early 50s before I could reconcile feelings, facts and the public narrative of adoption as a social good for which I must be grateful..
I was one of the mothers for whom my son, adopted at birth, was dead to me - that was the only way I could think of him for 55 years. Those years were not good especially after the birth of another son 14 years later.
"Children filled with questions they were afraid to ask, deep feelings they could not name" is so resonant and poignant. Thank you for your insights.
Oh wow - this was like a bestie moment, an experience where you laugh and say - Yes at the same time - jinx! I remember my adoptive parents never being interested in me finding any biological roots. I practically begged them to be involved, I even tried to sell it as me wanting to show them off, feeling proud they were my parents. The answer was a firm no, nada, not interested. To this day, I recall my Dad researching his family tree. It was a big deal, he had a lady helping him and I was summoned to sit and go through what he’d found. The experiences have left me feeling totally invisible, always looking in on society and never feeling part of anything. It sucks! But today is the day I felt my heart melt because there’s a comment that mirrors mine, you shared a moment with me - thank you ❤️
This is the best set of rebuttals to all the rhetorical claptrap around adoption that I've seen. As a 62 year old adoptee, I'm just now waking up to the way my identity was erased even though I had a happy childhood and parents who were straightforward about my adoption. (They had swallowed the framing and messages, too.) In the U.S. where I live, 37 out of 50 states still cloak adoptee identities in secrecy. Some of our Supreme Court justices used the childless parent trope to justify overturning a woman's right to privacy around reproductive decisions. Which means that in some U.S. states, women who miscarry are being jailed, children as young as 9 are being forced to carry pregnancies to term, and in Texas, a woman who was declared legally dead while 6 weeks pregnant will be kept on life support until the baby is born. The adoption rhetoric spewed out by the adoption industry greases a slippery slope into dystopia.
I just learnt of the truth of women being liable for prosecution for miscarriages in some states under outdated "disposal of the body" laws. I was aghast.
I'm so pleased that you have some answers finally and a theoretical template for what happened to you. That's really important.
My son who I gave up 62 years ago has some difficulties in common with you - the secrecy surrounding his heritage and the erasure of his identity. Unlike you his adoptive home was not happy. For both of us the understanding of the psychological harm that can happen (does happen?) to adopted children has come late in the piece but too late to mean we have any security in the reunion although I believe it has been of benefit to us both.
For him it was a blow that his father's name was not on the birth certificate that he obtained as an adult and now can never be on it because his father passed away in the meantime.
We think fewer than 10 people in NZ have succeeded in becoming unadopted. I personally know of two. It's very convoluted and difficult, when it should be right to disengage from a contract we are not a legal party to.
Liking the post doesn't feel quite right as the content is enlightening but not particularly likeable......it rather feels like I've had an eye patch on when looking at adoption and you Barbara, have given me a laser treatment. I feel a deep sadness for the mothers who lost their children in the worst way, not dead but dead to them. The mothers who couldn't reckon with not being able to have their own biological child and couldn't look at themselves in mirror in acceptance but most of all the children. Children filled with questions they were afraid to ask, deep feelings they could not name and the threats inherent to 'biologically unrelated' children coming to fruition in their small, controlled lives.
I can only imagine the collective sigh in the ether as you opened Pandoras box with both, your lived experience and the factual information you have mined to present from the souls of those never able to speak for themselves, to those gathering now to reinforce your findings as a voice not only for yourselves but for the generations fallen silent , honoring their lives and as a catalyst to reform for future souls whose literal lives are on the dotted line.
And children who didn’t even know they were adopted. I found out when I was 43 that my parents had lied to me my whole life…. please read more about the effect of separation before adoption, no matter the reason, the effect is the same … trauma.
Hi Di, did you read the column on maternal separation - it is impossible to separate a mother and her child without causing significant brain alterations. the studies mentioned here are just a small handful. There are so many more. https://drbarbarasumner.substack.com/p/maternal-separation
Yes thank you Barbara… i’m beginning to understand how that has affected me plus being Frank Breech birth plus adopted into neglect and abuse. I had a childhood rich in experience followed by uni education but no social/emotional foundation - unashamedly an educated bogan
The loss of a “social/emotional foundation” is an excellent way to describe being adopted. However, I think this understanding comes much later in life. for me, I was early 50s before I could reconcile feelings, facts and the public narrative of adoption as a social good for which I must be grateful..
I was one of the mothers for whom my son, adopted at birth, was dead to me - that was the only way I could think of him for 55 years. Those years were not good especially after the birth of another son 14 years later.
"Children filled with questions they were afraid to ask, deep feelings they could not name" is so resonant and poignant. Thank you for your insights.
Everything you say, Kate. “deep feelings they could not name.”!!!
Adoptees do not remain small, they grow up into Adulthood needing information that often is impossible to get.
Oh wow - this was like a bestie moment, an experience where you laugh and say - Yes at the same time - jinx! I remember my adoptive parents never being interested in me finding any biological roots. I practically begged them to be involved, I even tried to sell it as me wanting to show them off, feeling proud they were my parents. The answer was a firm no, nada, not interested. To this day, I recall my Dad researching his family tree. It was a big deal, he had a lady helping him and I was summoned to sit and go through what he’d found. The experiences have left me feeling totally invisible, always looking in on society and never feeling part of anything. It sucks! But today is the day I felt my heart melt because there’s a comment that mirrors mine, you shared a moment with me - thank you ❤️
This is so well stated. Thank you for your emotional labor, Barbara.
This is the best set of rebuttals to all the rhetorical claptrap around adoption that I've seen. As a 62 year old adoptee, I'm just now waking up to the way my identity was erased even though I had a happy childhood and parents who were straightforward about my adoption. (They had swallowed the framing and messages, too.) In the U.S. where I live, 37 out of 50 states still cloak adoptee identities in secrecy. Some of our Supreme Court justices used the childless parent trope to justify overturning a woman's right to privacy around reproductive decisions. Which means that in some U.S. states, women who miscarry are being jailed, children as young as 9 are being forced to carry pregnancies to term, and in Texas, a woman who was declared legally dead while 6 weeks pregnant will be kept on life support until the baby is born. The adoption rhetoric spewed out by the adoption industry greases a slippery slope into dystopia.
I just learnt of the truth of women being liable for prosecution for miscarriages in some states under outdated "disposal of the body" laws. I was aghast.
I'm so pleased that you have some answers finally and a theoretical template for what happened to you. That's really important.
My son who I gave up 62 years ago has some difficulties in common with you - the secrecy surrounding his heritage and the erasure of his identity. Unlike you his adoptive home was not happy. For both of us the understanding of the psychological harm that can happen (does happen?) to adopted children has come late in the piece but too late to mean we have any security in the reunion although I believe it has been of benefit to us both.
For him it was a blow that his father's name was not on the birth certificate that he obtained as an adult and now can never be on it because his father passed away in the meantime.
no one becomes unadopted
We think fewer than 10 people in NZ have succeeded in becoming unadopted. I personally know of two. It's very convoluted and difficult, when it should be right to disengage from a contract we are not a legal party to.
hi Barbara well as we know there is no such things as human or natural rights about adoption
How very true. None, whatsoever
sad...anyway keep warm over there in New Zealand
I want these printed on a set of cards to hand out when those persistently predictable questions are asked . Hand appropriate card and walk away !
That’s a cute idea