I’ve been thinking about this post for a while, and every time I start thinking about what I will write, I “sigh.” Maybe because its one of the most common questions asked to me, its something I’ve repeated so many times, and still something that baffles me because I can’t believe so many people actually think this way.
I guess first I want to start out by saying, I’m a monkey, and anyone who knows or believes anything about Chinese year signs knows we’re curious and inquisitive. Maybe its the monkey in me or maybe its something else but I have never been one of those people who can just accept an answer because it is said to me. I am one of those people continually questioning my beliefs to make sure they are concrete. If there is anything I want the readers of this to understand it’s that I have tried numerous times to talk myself out of being anti adoption more times than I can count. I don’t want it to be this way. I have questioned my beliefs to such a great extent I feel like I can argue the oppositions side better than they can most of the time.
So when yet another comment comes through in my feed asking me what alternatives i would have preferred for my life since I was in foster care, or what i would like to see happen to the thousands of parent-less children who need families and their families can’t take care of them I cringe. It feels like society is stuck in this bubble that there is parenting your own child….or adoption. There is no in-between, there is no alternative, there is no other option it is one or the other, black or white… children who cannot for whatever reason stay with their family should be GRATEFUL they are adopted and had numerous rights violated in the process and just hush already. How dare we bastards fight for equality because you know the alternative don’t you….we could have been aborted. lol.
I want to write this out and just link it up to the sidebar so that I can just refer commenter’s there because honest to god they come in the hundreds.
Adoption to me is not parenting. It does not consist of parenting. Adoption, is a legal act of transferring legal parental rights to parties. Here is the wiki definition:
- Adoption, the legal act of permanently placing a child with non-biological (adoptive) parents other than the biological (natural) parents.
It has nothing to do with the actual parenting of a child on an emotional level it is simply defining the legal act of taking another’s child in permanently.
That being said….I am not against the non biological parental figures of a child raising him/her when his/her natural parents TRULY cannot. I am WELL aware that there are some parents who are not fit to raise their children. I have sole and full custody of my children, I have taken their father to court and fought to have his rights taken until he is sober and in the right state of mind to be caring for children because at this time and for the past 4 years he has not been. I get it. I know the world isn’t perfect and not everyone can raise their babies.
However, I am not seeking a perfect world when I say that I oppose adoption, I’m speaking out for equality for adoptees. What IS possible is replacement parents, raising other people’s children without violating the rights that the adoptee has violated in every legal adoption of today. (Name changes, fee’s exchanged for the adoption of children, fee’s differing on race, altered birth certificates, sealed birth certificates. People profiting off of an adoption in any way shape or form… ) THE LEGAL PROCESS of adoption, violates numerous rights of the adoptee and that is a fact. That, ladies in gentlemen is what I am adamantly against. I am pro adoptee and honestly ALL of you should be. Adoptive parents, Parents who have surrendered and Adoptees should ALL be against the above things. ANYONE who isn’t hasn’t dug deep enough into the industry then to even have a say imo. loll. And i realize that sounds harsh but there is no good reason any of you wouldn’t be pro adoptee and anti adoption after putting some thought into it. Every argument can be discredited and the rights of the adoptee should always supersede the needs and wants of anyone else in the industry because after all, the adoption is for us…. isn’t it?
Bit of a rant but I’m so sick and tired of people being so ignorant to the fight for adoptee rights and just so closed-minded all together to not see the big picture of what is going on here to ask something so stupid as what would I like to have happened then? What would I like to have happened if I hadn’t been adopted?
To be kept…for my mother to have been given the same amount of support to PARENT me that she was to surrender me for a start. Had she still not been able to and she still felt the need to place me with replacement parents, how about not changing my name at 8 months old? I had a name. and as a mother to 3 I know that my children all knew their name at 8 months… I dreamt about my birth-name, I called myself it when i would play with friends as i grew older, i named my stuffed animals my birth-name and all the while not even my adoptive parents knew what it had been. How about keeping my birth certificate….real? Not altering or sealing it for starters, and there shouldn’t EVER be a single person profiting off of adoption.
Respecting and honoring the rights of the adoptee are the alternatives I’d like to see in adoption. Point me to where the adoptee is even legally represented and honored in the process of adoption please? Because I’m just not seeing it…
Sure we can get into the whole bypassing of “adoption” all together, try legal guardianship, try becoming the legal guardians of a mothertobe who wants to keep her baby and helping to raise your new grandchild instead of separating the two. People call adoption a selfless act but I can find quite a few more selfless avenues where the adoptee is respected if you want the “selfless act” title to be legit.
I honestly can’t believe people don’t see this and are so stuck in adoption as such a mighty act of kindness to a needy infant… it’s so insulting and flat-out mind-boggling to me.
Bleh, I’ll finish this another day and post it up as is…ha! Hope everyone is well and enjoying spring! My garden is growing and my ducks and chickens are flocking around, enjoying the sunshine as I am. peace!
An Adoptee Centric Blog 
Well said. May I reblog this with a link to your site?
Thank you!
Sure tera ! thanks for the support 🙂
Live at the Apollo Theatre: An Unknown Father
“Hello out there!”[Crowd Cheers]
“Thank you,”
“So today, —— Madonna went on down to Africa!” [Apollo Theatre Crowd boo and jeer]
“Yeah, me too,” “…but I will say this… it’s time we do start talking about our kids and our heritage! What do you all say to that?” [Cheers]
“Okay, but before I start here tonight, would ya’ll mind if I took a little survey first?” [Crowd cheers again]
“Thank you.”
“So again, and before there is yet another celebrity adoption of the week – I’ve got to risk a few questions of ya’ll.” [Cheers]
“How many of you out there were adopted as a baby? And when I say adopted, I don’t mean taken in by your grandparents because your momma was a crack ho’ and don’t even know who your daddy be!”[Crowd Erupts Laughing]
“Uh huh, just as I thought, if any at all – only a few and that one black gentleman who confronted me earlier tonight.” [He points far away… crowd looks confused, some laugh]
“All it took was one look at that dude… and he had all the telltale signs as of the adopted…!”
“You know what I mean?”
“Anyway, if all ya’ll were adopted, ya’ll wouldn’t be in here – with me – inside – Live! – …at the Apollo Theatre!” [Cheers and more]
“No, no, no, ya’ll be outside – out there right now – somewhere in Queens, …and as that same black man, you’d all be trying to sell Hassidic diamonds and dressed like an orthodox Jew!” [Laughter]
“Okay, okay, I’ve got one more question, but I must warn you now, it’s gonna drop like a bomb on everybody…”
“Now tell me…, in these United State of America, has anyone ever, EVER, heard of a ‘black baby’ having been intentionally kidnapped in a – real extortion case?”
“…Seriously, I’m talking about cases in real life, people in Hollywood, or even those voices coming out of the puppet mouths over at Hannity’s Fox News Network?” [Laughter]
“Hell, just think about what this means for a moment?”
[He’s Staring directly at a man sitting in the front row]
“And no sir, a car-jacking – sir, doesn’t count as a kidnapping.!” [Adding in a fast voice…]
“Especially, after a nigga be looking in the rear view and seeing a fat little black kid already belted up in the back seat – and this kid is now starting to scream his lungs out!”
“Hell, I always hear of these ‘Karjack Kids’ being dumped off – not at the first, but the second street corner just inside any big city hood. …this is ‘the’ place where EVERYBODY steers clear of these little tyrants. …Now, why is this you say?”
“Well, I think that as innocent sidewalk pedestrian passerby, we’ve all been hardened by the following of incidence at one time or another.”
“And I’m not talkin bout no ‘Drive BY’! Because this ain’t one of those ‘cap yo’ ass for no reason why – bye, bye! It’s more of a ‘See ya’ later alligator – shove a kid from off the floor – and out the door and inta the street kinda fly by!’” [Crowd laughs]
“…And we all know what happens next – right?”
“Yeah, ca’mon’ I know ya’lI do…, hell, we’ve all lived it!”
“This is because just like in any crowded Hood, we black people haven’t ever really come off strong in the Good Samaritan department. – Man we just – like – mind our own goddamn business! …And please Madonna – just leave us the f#&# alone!” [Crowd roars]
“…You see, it will be people like her – these, even with good intentions of adopting, as to why you will soon hear of your first black baby having been kidnapped for a ransom.”
“It was never going to happen here in this country until these white kidnappers, – yes people, I said white kidnappers, – and they changed what we black folk had already long known, …It was because in this country, until now anyway, we already knew there wasn’t a Black Market for a black man to sell black adopted babies…” [Crowd laughs]
“A king’s ransom for a black kid…, hmmm?”
“Man, that’s a whole lotta earmarked money; …and all of it reserved for a greedy Cracker Kidnapper with a human trafficking license!” [While disgustingly laughing himself] …Hell, and even if there ever were any black kidnappers, they still would’ve had to feed this kid. This would include any found fat black kid sitting on a street curb – after his daddy’s Ford Pinto got car jacked! And really, had that risk to a reward of possibly nothing – ever been so entertained by us?”
“Yes, I think so…, you know what I mean, like I said earlier, we’ve all been there man! Umm hmm…” [Rubs his ear as if it hurts….]
“…It probably went down something like this: Two black pedestrians be walking down the street, when one of them, a little boy, says, ‘Hey grandma look at that kid sitting over there, he’s all alone and looks hungry! We should…! Hey! don’t he look like my little broth…’ …Whereby now, grandma’s fingers, having already latched firmly onto this grandson by the ear – pulls him along while saying, ‘No, no, no child, there are plenty of social workers around willing to take that little fat black boy to lunch! Child, what are you thinking anyway? Your momma ain’t no Angelina Jolie – ya know… so let’s get out of here!’”
“And as for Madonna, she came back straight from the source!”
Finally someone “GETS” it. Beautifully written, and I applaud you for sharing your feelings!
Really great post … Yes, why oh why is this so hard for people to get?
Laura
I’m a fire monkey – we share the same views too! I believe one good model is the SOS Villages that really helps children who are orphaned. Legal guardianship is, in my view, the replacement for adoption.
Hi trace, i am a huge supporter of legal guardianship, so much heritage is preserved and records remain in tact, i’ve seen one or two cases where it wouldn’t work but thousands where it WOULD. It really respects the “adoptee/guardianed child”‘s rights and gives them caretakers to fullfill those needs since unfortunately for whatever reason some natural parents cannot.