Friday, March 30, 2007

My Comment about the previous post

I am re-posting a comment I left on my last post. Someone asked why I care if people are so angry about adoptions..... I answered
"Because there are hundreds of potential adopted mothers who are checking out blogs to see how adoptees feel. I want them to know that there are happy adoptees - more happy than not. It's fine that people tell about their bad adoptions and about the bad agencies. It's good to know what not to do....what to look for...but let's be honest...the percentages of bad experiences are very high on the blogs.

I am going to repeat myself here but just because people look (for their bios) and there are organizations for reunion - this DOES NOT (necessarily) mean people are upset by their adoptions or that they have been psychologically damaged in any way. This is curiosity - as an adoptee myself, I know what that is myself. I am also not saying you are wrong in the way you believe or that there are NO bad adoptions.
I just REALLY DISAPPROVE of people using their own experiences to PROVE that everyone feels the same way they do.
You can keep saying that that 6 million number ( adoptees in the country) doesn't matter but it does. There could be 10,000 people that have had bad experiences and, as bad as it sounds, that is a drop in the bucket. It's 10,000 too many, granted, but not that many in the scheme of things. Should those 10,000 be mad? YES
Should they work for change? Maybe
What about the 20 million who have had terrible bio parents? and 1/2 the country's kids who are victims of parents divorcing? 1/2 of those kids are messed up too....we have a country of messed up kids but thank goodness there are some good one's out there and the percentages of a potential bio moms finding a GOOD family for their child are very high"


For those of you with bad experiences...try to celebrate the good. I know you are angry and you should be. If you were not adopted maybe your life would have been just as bad or worse...have you thought about that? It may have been better too....we will never know. I'm sure there are kids out there who were treated poorly by their bioparents and prayed they WOULD have been adopted.

Let's celebrate the good that comes from adoption...there are 100s of a-moms on blogs who are great moms and have great kids! There are many adoptees out there who have had awesome lives....
And believe it or not, there are some biomoms out there who are at peace with where thier child is....with great adopted parents that they chose for them!

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

God bless you!!

There are people all over the world with limbs missing who are at peace. Sons who watched their fathers murdered who have joy in their hearts. Mothers who stood on the shore and saw their child drown who have learnt to swim again and to even splash about happily.

Thank you for your voice of reason.


There is no reason for any of us to be anything less than joyful knowing that God has each and every one of us in His heart.

petunia said...

Sometimes there is truth in sarcasm.

Anonymous said...

I am an adoptee, happy one at that. I couldn't agree with you more.

Unknown said...

Petunia:

Why are you doing this, it is so evident you are not even adopted.

Lots of adoptess have commented that your writing seems false like a prank or a joke, and I admit this is true, because no human heart works so simply, all people have conflicted feelings.


But what really convinced me is that in my last comment, where I said that I didn't see how your adoptive parents could really love you and not want you to know your roots, you ignored it, which is so not adoptee behavior to ignore slams against their aparents. Most adoptees would have responded and angrily to a statement that not only insulted your parents but their abilitites and their bond to you.

I used to feel sorry for you because I thought you just had extremely selfish aparents who usurped your rights to your feelings, now I feel sorry for us because you don't even have aparents, you are just a disturbed woman making stuff up to justify your own bond with your adaughter.

Mother's considering relinquishing listen up:

These are the kind of people who pass homestudys.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
petunia said...

I have the best aparents in the world. They had four bio children and wanted me later in life....and I'm barely hanging onto my 30s - thank you....although I've been told I look younger.:) Do not provoke me Joy. I am hard to wrankle and I don't delete too many bad comments but I WILL delete crappy things you say about my parents.

petunia said...

Is it really so difficult to believe there are happy adoptees?

Unknown said...

No, I think most adoptees are "happy" in that they lead normal productive lives.

What I don't believe is that there are adoptees who will both blog about adoption and have no internal conflict about it, that is endemic to adoptess.

I think the idea that there is a person is "happy" about any one thing all the time is hard to believe.

Life isn't split like that, good vs. bad, things just aren't that simple.

Most people love their parents very much but still wish they did some things differently.

I just don't believe YOU, I think you are just writing what you wish was true.

And if you study infant child development you will see, that the broken bond is significant.

You are just angry that some people are telling the truth, not the one they want to be true, but the one that is, adoption, reunion, are not simple things.


And plus saying your parents were not the age of parents of women your age, is nothing compared to saying How can you say they love you if they can't love all of you?

If they don't want you to know about your ancestry.

Would you want your daughter having a secret relationship?

That is why I had to tell my aparents, out of respect, because I do love them, and didn't want them to feel like I would betray them by keeping something like that from them.

But that is what an adoptee would have picked up on, and you did not.

petunia said...

I WISH i was adopted? what's that?
Come on...you're just having a hard time accepting anyone is happy.

Anonymous said...

Petunia,

The things you say are so true. You are a shiny example of how adoption works.

Don't let the bad ones take your light away. You can be the flaming example to others.

Anonymous said...

I am a happy adoptee but I'm afraid to blog anything about. These people are pretty ruthless!

Anotheramy said...

My two cents: Petunia tends to color things in black and white. Her adoption was wonderful, her aparents were wonderful, not all aparents were wonderful but tough luck, that could happen to anyone. To the adoptee the blog comes off as an insult. Petunia comes off as criticizing others for their beliefs whether they be religion, sexual preference or adoption. Those of us with very different experiences take this as a slam of our feelings and beliefs. That because she didn't have a bad experience, the rest of the adoptees should just get over it. I strongly believe that happy adoptees need to blog. We do need some balance, and I personally, dealing with poor placement, would enjoy hearing a success story. Petunias blog doesn't come off as a success story, it comes of as holier than thou, it worked for me therefor the rest of you are whiners. Even I, one of the most thick skinned bio mothers in the blogging world that I have seen, get POed at the cut and dried "I am right, you are all wrong and I am going to twist your words to prove it" attitude that I read here.
As I have said before, people who write strong controversial opinions expect strong controversial replies. If you don't want them you either find another way to express your views, turn off comments or delete.

petunia said...

Amy,
I will say this again---I hate repeating myself so many times....
I KNOW there are some bad adoptions...I've said how i feel bad about them, and I hope they can do some good with their bad experiences...
But I DON'T like when people say they are ALL bad. I DO see the world more black and white than most...I think the world is too "grayed down" and everyone should feel their own way, all is relative - pish posh! There is a black an white if you are a Christian and believe in the bible and that IS how I see things. There is wrong and right but I am not taking away from your bad experiences or anyone else's. I'm sure they are legitimate and I feel bad that you had to go through it. I just ask that people SEE that they are in a small percentage - that doesn't mean you are wrong.
Most of these gals think that ALL adoptions are bad because theirs was.
Why are people only reading what they want to?

Anonymous said...

Petunia,

You insist on using the term "bad adoptions" - there mare many adoptees, including myself, who do not view their adoption as bad because of abuse or lousy adopters. They view adoption itself as bad - the practice of separating children from their people so others can become parents, changing an identity, sealing the original one and not allowing children to know their own parents. How can this be viewed as anything but inhumane?

People are angry and are trying to heal because they lost their own family through the system of adoption, and mothers and fathers lost their children through the system of adoption.

This is what many people are speaking out against. You have every right to talk about how wonderful being adopted was for you....but you are also encouraging and promoting family separation when you support adoption. Adoption is separating families.

There are thousands of groups with reformers advocating for change in adoption practices and laws....these organizations aren't only about reunion. They are about supporting one another, bringing awareness, and coping with the pain and loss that adoption created.

petunia said...

Michelle, I don't believe for a moment you think your life was good...if you did you would NOT be complaining like you are. I can't blame people that have had a bad go of it being mad, upset and blaming the system but people that have had a good life do NOT balk so much.
Adoption is putting the child first and giving that child the best life possible. It is the MOST humane thing one can do. If a person cannot parent and cannot give a child the basics or knows the child would be in an abusive situation --- the best thing IS adoption. It has happened for thousands of years (despite the "fostering" term that has been slung around) and it will go on....because this is NOT a perfect world where everyone can parent and everyone can have biological children).
I will continue to talk about the goodness of adoption...blood is NOT always the most important thing - love is.
People should be able to find the information and talk to their

Anonymous said...

I wish I could say that I enjoy dialog with you on this blog or that it is interesting, Petuniua....but you repeatedly misinterpret and ignore key points. You use the same old tired argument about abusive parents and kids needing to be adopted.

You are so off-base with thnking that me and others who are like-minded had a bad life. Adoption laws, practices and false perceptions created distress for me in my life, not my adoptive parents. You do a great diservice to your brothers and sisters in adoption who are strggling to come to terms with being adopted and everything they lost because of adoption.

At least the people who are speaking out have got the courage to do so....that's what's rare, but oh, so, admirable.

petunia said...

Michelle,
Talking about making the same old tired points.....
You are abviously NOT hearing me. I believe adoption can be a good thing. Yes, there are bad practices, bad agencies, bad adoption lawyers, unscrupulous people --- BUT....there are more good than bad and to throw the baby out with the bathwater is ludicrous.
You are advocating elimination of adoptions because it "destroys families"...I say it builds families. The biomoms do have to come to peace with it but she should never have been coerced in the first place (one reason for adoption reform - but how much more can they do but explain, council and leave it up to them?)
We ARE from different ends of the spectrum....I'm guessing your probably a libral demorrat as well....just a guess.

Shoe said...

Isn't it really weird how uptight people get about adoption? I mean... people freak out at the unhappy adoptees, and they freak out at the happy ones. I just don't understand why everyone's experiences just can't be their OWN experiences without everyone else projecting shit onto it, you know?

It's so strange. I am an adoptee who blogs privately because, in part, people used to send me the most horrific violent hate mail. It doesn't even matter if I'm happy, unhappy, at peace or not, I made pains to say that my experiences were my own and that I wouldn't project that onto someone else. Why can't people just accept that! It seems like adoptees get attacked no matter what... it's just WEIRD to me. I truly don't get it. I don't.