You must have had a bad life…

As an adoptee rights activist, one who doesn’t believe that adoptees are treated equally and who advocates and works towards restoring our equality as adopted adults I am often told by people who don’t know me, or my life story that they “assume I’ve had a really bad life.”

I MUST have had a bad life or else I wouldn’t be criticizing adoption to the degree that I do.

Ignorance I tell ya, its a witch!

Every single time someone who thinks adoption is “great” hears that me, an adoptee, is against adoption to the degree that I am, 9 times out of 10 the sentence following that is “oh, you must have had a really bad life.”

Dismiss.

Because what else is the option for them? To question their own beliefs on adoption being overall “good” and potentially have a falling out of everything they’ve put their hope into? Adoption is NOT a band-aid for infertility, childless couples, building families, saving children, abortion alternatives, etc. Adoption needs to ALWAYS be about the child, and the child’s well being overall.

So for all of those people who “think” I’ve had a bad life, because I’m against adoption… this is for you.

I LOVE my adoptive parents. I was provided for, nurtured, and loved. Infact, I still am. I see my parents every week, they are active in my life and are wonderful grandparents to my children. I was financially well taken care of, I got it all, pool, horse, large house, loving family and I even inherit a HUGE ranch in my future hopefully farther than closer because that will mean my adad has died, and that is a day i NEVER want to live. Just typing that sentence brings tears to my eyes. Its something I’m not prepared for and never will be, hopefully its a day that doesn’t happen for centuries. My afather, defines unconditional love to me. He has never judged me, he has always believed in me, and always takes my side, even when he knows I’m wrong. He is, my DAD. I love him. He “forgets” I’m adopted all the time and has to remind himself. He love me unconditionally and I honor him for that. I know that no matter what, I can ALWAYS to go him. Always.

My amother wants nothing more than to come to the Adoptee Rights Demonstration in July with me, in full support of protesting my sealed records. She supports all of the adoption reform work i do and tries to be invovled as much as she can. I love her too, and as my past posts will show we’ve had our ups and downs, but in the end, shes a wonderful, caring, compassionate, well respected and honorable person in our community. I love her.

Acknowledging the “wrong” in adoption doesn’t mean I’ve had a bad life. It means I’m observant, and not afraid to go against the grain if things don’t look and feel right. Because in adoption, things don’t look and feel right. There is a hell of a lot wrong in adoption, denying that only allows the wrong to continue. Turning a blind eye to that, does nothing for the adoptees of today, from the past, and of the future.

When comparing and contrasting the “good” in adoption, to the “bad” my list comes up with a whole lot more “bad” than “good.” Being concerned with my life growing up should be the LAST of the concerns when addressing the corruption in the adoption industry. I know its hard, because a lot of these judgemental people are holding onto the hope that adoption will give them the family their bodies cannot. Alot of these people have only adoption as a hope for a family, and although I don’t agree that adoption is a “way to build families” I do sort of understand why they are so defensive when someone like me, an adoptee, who’s had a good life, is working to restore the rights of children world wide and provide for them, all the while bulldozing the adoption industry and re-building it from the ground up.

I must constantly remind myself too that these same judgmental people, are where my aparents were one day. When they couldn’t have children, when they were infertile, when they thought that adoptees “would have been aborted if not adopted”, when they walked into an agency seeking a child from the foster care system of white or mixed race, preferably a baby. I have to remind myself that the people I have grown to love and accept as a mother and father figure in my life were where these sheeple people judging me online and IRL are now. Seeing how far my parents have come is comforting that there is hope for the others, because like my amom and adad, these people could be brainwashed by the industry too. In fact, once the adoption propoganda comes into topic, I know they have been. Once the “would have been aborted” “adoption can be a WIN WIN for all” “adoption CAN work for everyone” “right to privacy” topics come up, I’m sure they’ve been manipulated by the same system thats manipulating children from their mothers. The same system that spits in the face of the adoptee who wants equality, the same system that has profited millions of dollars out of all of us, the same system who has NONE of our best interests at heart.

My answer is no, i haven’t had a bad life. My life has been good, overall, when all is said and done i LOVE my life. That does not mean for ONE MINUTE that I should EVER turn a blind eye to the corruption in the industry and work every day of my life to reform that until it is done. I will NEVER stop, until I’m dead, or the system is working for the unconditional benefit of each child effected by it.

So think again before you judge someone you don’t know. Think again before you assume someones had a bad life because they’re working on improving the current industry of adoption. Especially if you haven’t adopted, aren’t adopted, or aren’t separated by a child by adoption, don’t assume to know “it can work” and support an industry you’re not even involved in. Few and far between those who claim to “know how well it can work” really understand adoption and all that comes with it, and dismissing the real truths in adoption by blowing me off as a “bitter adoptee” whos “had a bad life” is only going to hurt yourself and the adoptee in your potential future.