Adoption Muse

Real Mothers

Six year-old Belle is comfortable telling people that she and her sister were adopted, but then she has to deal with her young friends' budding perceptions of adoption.

Adults sometimes use the term "real parents" with me when they refer to my children's biological parents, so of course their kids are picking that up. Belle's classmates have asked her about her "real" parents. This seems typical for first grade, so I shouldn't  be surprised.

I remember in my elementary school it was customary to be asked, "What are you?" by other children, and you were supposed to answer "Jewish" or "Christian." Those were the two accepted answers. I used to answer "Nothing" or "Half and half" and it always bothered me, every time, because I hated my answers. I don't think I ever discussed my discomfort with my parents. Belle, on the other hand, is uniquely open about discussing her adoption.

Belle: Sometimes[my school friend] says you're not my real mommy.

Me: Oh! But you know I'm real. And Nora (bio mom) is real, too. We're both real, see?

I encourage her to pinch my arm and we laugh, but I know this isn't quite satisfying. Am I real just because I'm here, physically? And if Nora isn't physically here, is she still more real than I am?

Definition One: Giving birth lends authenticity to one's motherhood: it is physical. Therefore, Nora will always be a "real" mother because of the physical birthing experience. And beyond that...

Definition Two: Real mother - the one who does the physical care-taking? The feeding and toileting and administering of medicine? But a nanny could do that, or a nurse.

Definition Three: Real mother: loves you above all else? Thinks of your needs before her own? Yes. This definition fits me.

Real mother: What if she is dead? Or disappeared; out there, somewhere. Is she still real? (Yes. See definition Number One.)

Definition Four: Egg donors as real mothers? Only via genetic material, which is real, therefore, yes. Genetics determines the realities of personality, physical appearance, talents, health.

While I was writing this piece, I found myself looking up the meaning of "phenomenology" and "ontology:" philosophical concepts of "reality" I never got around to studying in college. Maybe there should be a course on Adoption and Phenomenological Reality in 21st Century America. Maybe this blog is just the beginning. It's starting to feel real.

The Man and The Lady

"The Family That Grew" is a book written by Florence Rondell and Ruth Michaels, published in 1951 in New York. The illustrations were updated for my 1965 reprint copy, the edition lent to me by my friend Dominic who is an adult adoptee. It was his book as a child. A big improvement over "The Chosen Child" of 1939, "The Family That Grew" acknowledges the existence of biological parents on the first page. Except - they're called "a man" and "a lady!" It reads, "A man and a lady start every little baby. And that's how you started, too."

There's acknowledgment that the biological parents care about their child: "when you were born, the lady and the man who started you also wanted to take care of you." Then it says, "Sometimes, though, something happens so that people cannot take care of the babies they start, and that happened to the lady and the man who started you."

1950s dominant culture is very evident in this book. The baby is kept always physically apart: in a crib, a carriage, a high chair. The baby's food comes in jars from the store. The mother stays home and the father works outside the home. But already, in 1951, the adoptive mother and father are proudly telling the "grocer" to "wrap up his very finest baby-foods, for the wonderful new baby they were adopting as their own." In other words, the adoption is not secret, and the adoptive parents feel pride, rather than shame that "As much as they wanted it, no baby grew inside your Mommy."

The last part of the book talks about the child's birthday and makes reference again to the adoption and the biological parents - although indirectly: "Every birthday, Daddy and Mommy thought again how glad they were that you were born, and that they adopted you. They thought of the many wonderful things you had done together since you were their child, and they were your Father and Mother." These lines acknowledge that there was a time before the adoptive parents were the parents. But it doesn't make any more mention of those two people, the "man" and the "lady."

I suppose the use of "lady" versus "woman" is an attempt to give the biological mother respect, dignity, standing, but the "lady" is never called a "mother." It was assumed that there could only be one mother. Especially since the mother's role was so narrowly defined ("After your Mommy finished the shopping, she took you the playground...") If that's all mothers do, it doesn't leave much room for different types of mothers.

The Chosen Baby

The oldest book I have that was written for children about adoption is "The Chosen Baby" written by Valentina P. Watson. This book was published in 1939 and revised in 1977 with new illustrations, but, I'm pretty sure, still with the original text. I sought out this book because I got to talking with a guy in cafe and when he heard I was writing about adoption, he told me that he had been adopted and that he really liked "The Chosen Baby" when he was a young boy. I was curious to read this book he remembered from his childhood and see what it taught kids about adoption.

The most striking thing about the book is that it doesn't mention the biological parents at all. The baby appears at the social worker's office, lying peacefully in a crib, alone. First a baby boy, who is already old enough to drink orange juice, then a baby girl, a few years later. Open adoption wasn't even a possibility then, unless it was negotiated at home between friends or relatives. If an agency was used, the adoption was closed. "The Chosen Baby" is written very warmly and I can see how it would be comforting to a child, except for the burning question that would eventually have to arise: "where did I come from?" That question is answered in various ways in adoption books of the 1950s and beyond.

Another aspect of "The Chosen Baby" is revealed in it's title. When the adoptive parents in the book meet their baby boy for the first time, the social worker says to them: "Now go into the next room and see the baby. If you find that he is not just the right baby for you, tell me, and we will try to find another." The emphasis on this all-important choosing is so interesting to me. I think it is supposed to reassure the adopted child that he is wanted. But it insidiously raises the question: what if they saw him and didn't like him! What if they said no?

In today's open adoptions, adoptive parents don't get to choose their baby (although they can say no before the baby is born) and social workers are pretty strict about "you can't change your mind once the baby's born." I think this is an important and not often-discussed aspect of open adoptions versus closed and public adoptions. Biological parents do not really get to "choose" their baby. Some babies come out healthy, some sick. Some come out grumpy, some happy. Some come out looking like their mother, some like their great-grandfather. When biological parents pass on the torch to adoptive parents, they are also communicating the "take me for who I am" message so intrinsic to unconditional love.

My Flesh And Blood

My Flesh And Blood is a documentary film released in 2003 and directed by Jonathan Karsh. It features a family of one mother and eleven adopted children, most of whom have disabilities ranging from mild to severe. It is an excellent film in terms of content and editing and I'd give it five stars for its portrayal of open adoption. It gave me a glimpse of what open adoption might look like when the children are teenagers.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how the teenage years will mean I can no longer write about my children without their permission. It will be a time when they may not like me to say anything about them at all. It will be their "show" so to speak, as their lives become separate from their parents'. The writer Ariel Gore had a nice interview in The Oregonian newspaper last week. She commented:

"When you have a 3-year-old and they do something funny, you're allowed to talk about it. But most of the insane stuff that happens when your kids are teenagers are really more their story, and they don't want you writing about it. So, you get back to this place of having to be silent. You're totally traumatized by everything, and you can't talk about it with anyone; it's terrible."

There is a fine line between sharing your life with strangers with the goal of educating them, wanting to show them your reality, or wanting their sympathy and understanding. I'm thinking of My Flesh And Blood, and of All Aboard Rosie's Family Cruise, another wonderful documentary about 500 queer families on a cruise ship together. Exposing yourself and your family can be so rewarding and so risky at the same time. I've written an email to Susan Tom, the matriarch of My Flesh And Blood with the hope that she can shed some light on this dilemma for me.

My Birthmom Would Be Mad At You

As I crossed the street the other day with three kids, a tricycle, a scooter and roller skates, my 5 year-old daughter commented, "If a car hit me now and I died here in the street, and then you went to San Francisco this summer and my birthmom asked you where I was and you said I was dead, she would be really, really, really mad at you!"

This comment of hers made me think about the accountability of adoptive parents to birth parents in the eyes of the child. Clearly, Belle thinks I am accountable to her birthmom Nora. I, too, have felt accountable to Nora over Belle's lifetime. I sometimes picture her watching Belle like a fairy godmother and ask myself if she'd like what she sees in any given moment. It's a good check for bad behaviors such as "sure, go ahead and eat that junky Sponge Bob ice cream!"

I once read a blog posting by an anti-open adoption commentator in which he said that parents of open adoption are really foster parents at best. I think my own grandmother would agree with him. She doesn't understand why I would want to keep in touch with my kids' birthmoms. She worries that it makes me feel like less of a mother...and more like a foster mom. Well, I DO see myself as a foster mother sometimes, in the most positive light. Not because I'm planning for my daughters to "go back" to their birth families, but because I'm well aware of their birthmoms as real women with a real role who will never forget their daughters.

When Belle made her comment, I found it interesting and funny. Funny that she imagined Nora wouldn't know Belle was dead until several months after the fact, and that life would carry on as usual, with me flying to San Francisco even if Belle wasn't there for me to pick up and take back home. (She'll be vacationing in CA with her bio-aunt and uncle this summer, like last year.) I also think Belle feels like someone's got her back, and it's her birthmom. I like that she has that feeling about Nora.  I also like the fact that Belle clearly sees me as responsible for her well-being and safety, as a mother should be.

Reincarnation

For some reason there is a New Age vibe around me lately, namely, friends who are reading Henry Grayson (New Physics of Love, Mindful Loving) and books on reincarnation, psychic ability and intuition. As my thoughts wander through recent conversations with these friends, I am meditating on links between reincarnation and adoption from a philosophical point of view.

In his 1999 book "Old Souls," Tom Shroder writes about children in Lebanon, India and the U.S. who claim to remember past lives. Shroder is a journalist, and so tries to see these cases as either "true" or "false" but he would have done better to approach the subject as an anthropologist. There are certain cultures and religions that believe in reincarnation and it is in these cultures that remembrances of past lives seem to be more common.

I myself have been reading "The Singing Creek Where The Willow Grows: The Rediscovered Diary of Opal Whitely" published in 1986. Opal Whitely was born in Washington state in 1897, but she was convinced all her life, starting from a very young age, that she had been adopted by her American family. She believed her first parents, whom she called her "Angel Father" and "Angel Mother" were Henri d'Orleans and Princess Marie of France.  No one believed her, of course, nor did they believe that she could know French or all the historical details that filled her  childhood diaries. Hoff called her a schizophrenic and a genius.

I think most children wonder how they came to be born in a certain time and place, to certain parents.  Many non-adopted children have adoption fantasies, wishing or wondering if maybe they were adopted as infants.  And I'd guess that adopted children fantasize about what their lives would be like if they'd stayed with their birth families.

You hear people talking about how an adopted child was "meant to be" with their adoptive parents, but I think that's just a way of making people feel better. It's true that I can't imagine not being my children's parent, but that is the mystery of the bond of love.

Moments in time

Things have been quiet on our family's adoption radar screen, but here are some recent "screen shots."

Jacob, our one biological child out of three got a birthday card from his paternal grandfather. It showed a monkey swinging from a "family tree" and had a rhyming poem about "you must be smart...it's heredity!" The family tree had spaces to fill in for mother, father, mother's mother and father's father.

Belle and Alice are old enough to travel alone by airplane. I'm thinking of sending them to the Bay Area for a week this summer together to visit Belle's birthmom and sister. When Jacob heard this, he cried and cried that he wanted to go, too. Poor guy! It's hard having only one mom and one dad.

Jacob spoke of one girl at his preschool being his friend. He does not make friends easily and unfortunately, this girl was diagnosed with brain cancer. Yesterday Jacob and I visited her at her home, post-surgery. It turns out that "Shelby" (pseudonym) was also adopted through the Independent Adoption Center in California, just like Jacob's two sisters. Weird! Her two moms are awesome and I can't wait to get to know them all better.

Gregory and I are still having trouble adjusting to Alice's personality and vice versa. I suppose this happens in all families, but when the child was adopted, I think there is more guilt involved. Part of my strategy in dealing with this is to help her find environments where she fits in perfectly, so she'll realize there is nothing wrong with her. Her biggest love right now is computer games and electronics, so I'm trying to set up play dates for her with families who have boys ages 5-10. She did meet a girl a few months ago who made lots of squeaking and squawking noises, just like her, who she really wanted to play with, but I called the girl's parents three times and then gave up when they didn't call back.

There's a little girl in Alice's kindergarten class who is a foster child. I'd describe her as delicate, sweet and fragile. She and I have bonded a little, and she told me she misses her mom. Her foster mom is a kind woman in her 50s. The foster mom told me that "Abbey's" mom terminated parental rights this month but Abbey doesn't know yet. Getting to know Abbey has really opened me up to children in the foster care system who are school-age. I could easily imagine adopting Abbey; why wouldn't anyone else?

There is also a boy in Alice's kindergarten class who was adopted at birth by a single mom. He is petite and elf-like, quiet and smart. When it came time to tell birth stories in class for a unit on birth and babies, "Mark's" mom said she didn't want to participate. She doesn't talk much to Mark about his birth or his birth parents. She says he hasn't asked yet. She hopes he can have a chance to be different from his birth dad, but lately I am feeling that genetics are much stronger than environment.

The Trouble With IAC

In Issue #37 of the zine Hip Mama, my piece "Our Story" appeared, reprinted from this blog. In it, I wrote:

"There were things about our IAC (Independent Adoption Center) experience in 2001-2003 that made me
uncomfortable, even angry at times, and sometimes confused."

I've had several comments since then from people asking me to elaborate on this sentence, especially prospective adoptive parents looking into IAC. This posting is an attempt to answer them. The short answer, though, is that I think the Independent Adoption Center is taking positive steps to improve their organization and services.

In October, 2007 I wrote to Ann Wrixon, IAC's Executive Director. Here are the excerpts from my letter that list my specific concerns:

Dear Ann,

...My first impression of the IAC office at Pleasant Hill in July of 2001 was that I might not fit in. In the photos that covered the walls, all the baby girls were done up in pink bows and the baby boys in blue suits, and the parents looked very straight, White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant. The waiting room gave a sort of “cute” nursery vibe, as if, I thought, to make the prospective parents long even more for a cute, cuddly baby. I wondered immediately if this was, under the surface, a fundamentalist Christian organization.

In the informational session...I was uncomfortable with the “marketing” speech. I suppose it was the first time I thought of adoption from the perspective of “marketing” adoption agencies to birth mothers, “marketing” adoptive parents to birth parents, and in general the financial aspects involved in adoption.

When we signed our contract with IAC, I wondered further about the money. Where was it going? Who was getting it? IAC was a non-profit, but the costs seemed very high. Beyond paying the staff and paying for advertisements and other marketing efforts, we were told the money would go to counseling services for the birth parents and the adopted children for the duration of their lives: a sort of, “whenever, wherever” service. If you look at it that way, it seems an impressive and valuable service –but all this time I’ve really wanted to know: how many people actually use these counseling services once adoptions are completed?...Who form the bulk of the recipients (children, adolescents? young adults?) And where are they located– in the same town as an IAC office? Are they in location or region more than others? Rural or urban? Knowing these statistics, I’ve always thought, would help me in accepting where the money is really going...

The next part of the IAC adoption process that sticks in my memory had to do with a comment our very well-meaning adoption social worker made. She was commenting on another prospective couple that had been waiting a long time and she told us that she suggested to that couple to remove the fact that they were Jewish from their profile letter. She said she told them it might help attract more birth mothers if they didn’t mention it. This really offended me, but I didn’t comment. I’ve wished all this time that I had said, “That’s not okay. The message we’ve gotten from IAC so far is that as prospective adoptive parents, you have to be yourselves, open up and trust that you’ll match with the right birth parents that way.” Part of why I said nothing was the ever-present feeling I had that my chances of being a parent were in the hands of the social worker.

Up until we got the hospital, I felt that our social worker was available and responsive. As soon as Alice’s birth was underway, however, all that changed. I seem to remember someone commenting that the adoption agency has to take a low profile during the birth so as not to be accused of influencing the birth mother’s decision process at this crucial time. That kind of makes sense: the presence of someone from the agency might make the birth mother feel pressured to follow through. But I remember feeling lost and having the sense that I didn’t know how or when to contact a social worker at IAC or the hospital outside of office hours...I felt a sense of discomfort, maybe even fear, on the part of both IAC and the hospital in “getting involved” during those two or three days. Looking back, a better explanation and preparation process was in order for both parties."

Ann Wrixon responded to my letter in October, 2007 thus:

"I did want to let you know that we have already made some of the changes you
suggested. For example, you would not recognize our office in Pleasant Hill.
It has been completely redecorated, and all frilly, pink, and cute nursery
stuff is gone--I found it so offensive when I started to work here that when
the lease was up we asked the landlord to redo the color scheme and we took
down ALL the decorations."

"Our adoptive parents are much more diverse than in 2001, though the majority
are still white."

"...The informational session
has undergone a makeover. It is more a conversation and broader discussion
of adoption and the options that prospective adoptive parents can consider
rather than a hard core marketing pitch."

"We have also done a careful analysis of our fees. In comparison to other
organizations offering the same services our fees are low, but that does not
mean it isn't a lot of money (and the perception in the assessment is that
our fees are high). We do try to be as transparent as possible now. We post
our Form 990 on our web site which is a detailed accounting we give to the
IRS each year about how the money is spent."

"As for counseling, it is mostly birth families who use the counseling
services, but we are seeing more and more adolescent adoptees who are coming
in to talk with us about various issues. However, the IAC assessment again
definitely noted a need for more post-adoption services by IAC alumni
families so this is an area of your memo that really meshed with the
assessment."

"I was horrified by your description of an IAC counselor suggesting someone
not mention they are Jewish. Today a counselor would be fired for making
such a suggestion. Other alumni also noted the same feelings you had about
your hospital experience. I am so sorry. You should not have been left so
alone."

Baby Delivery

Alice, Belle and Jacob decided to play "baby delivery" the other night. This game consisted of one child crawling into a box and the other two children pushing the box through the living room to the couch where I was sitting.

Alice: Bing Bong!

Me: Who's at the door?

Alice: It's a package!

Me: Wow, I wonder what could be in this package?

Alice: It's a baby!

Me: Oh, my! Let's open it at once.

(Belle pops out.)

Me: Hello! Where did you come from?

Belle: From the baby hospital.

Me: Oh?

Belle: That place where the babies are born and their parents can't take care of them.

Me: Do you mean an orphanage?

Belle: Yeah, an orphanage!

Me: And you were sent to me in a box? I can't believe it! (We hug and kiss, and then the next child shouts "My Turn!")

In this pretend play, I think the kids were combining two story ideas: stories about orphanages in China and America, and a story about an African American slave who mailed himself in a box from the South to the North to freedom. That book is called "Henry's Freedom Box" and is by Ellen Levine, Scholastic Press.

Juno

Gregory and I watched the film Juno last week. Directed by Jason Reitman and written by Diablo Cody, Juno is a product of the United States, released in 2007. It's about a sixteen year-old girl who gets pregnant with her best friend/boyfriend and decides to place the baby for adoption. She chooses an adoptive couple from an ad in the local Penny Saver newspaper. She chooses them by their photo and it's only later, after meeting them, that she finds out she and the husband share similar tastes in music and film.

The character of Juno says she wants a closed adoption. The attorney who is facilitating the adoption offers an open adoption where the couple would send photos and letters, but Juno says no. She thinks she wants it to be over and done with, that it was important to choose the couple, to know they were rich, beautiful and loving.

Only, in practice, she behaves differently. She comes to their house to show them the ultrasound pictures. She comes when she is lonely, or upset. And although the film ends shortly after the baby is born, I would guess that there is an ongoing relationship between Juno and the adoptive family.

I enjoyed seeing a new film about adoption, and I liked the film despite painful memories of what it is like to be on the "waiting" end of adoption. How vulnerable one feels when one is hoping to be an adoptive parent. There's a great moment when the husband reacts: "the Penny Saver?!" and you can really feel his embarrassment. Likewise, the film depicts the pain of giving birth to a baby and then letting it go. There is another great moment when Juno's father tells her, "You will be back here someday (in the hospital), but on your own terms."

Seeing Juno made me re-live the months leading up to our adoptions, and made me remember how tense those months can be, and how emotional. It made me want to become an adoption counselor even more. It's going to take a while, though. My new projected goal is to enter the MSW program at PSU in fall of 2009.