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Aug. 1st, 2009 01:11 amWe have our voices. we are old enough and technologically minded enough to be talking about this is in public, in virtual space, where all you have to do to hear us is click your mouse. and we are saying. we would not have chosen this, there is too much loss here, we are not grateful, we need to know where we come from, we support women's rights to keep their children whenever possible
when it comes to adoption we are the people who both legally and socially had the least power, are the least listened to, none of the choices made were ours, if we stray away from the acceptable, very narrow script about how we were "better off" being adopted about all the "chances" we wouldn't have got otherwise, about how our mothers were just somehow socially and morally defective we get infantilized, told we are bitter, ungrateful, anomalies, we are still far too often referred to as "adopted child" when we have been adults for years, decades
stop telling us that our lived experiences are inadmissible because they are "anecdata". stop telling us you want to see research proving the things we say. in lots of cases there is no research. Why would there be? we live in a world that doesn't believe there are any loosing sides to adoption so who's going to pay for research into what they are? before anybody does any research into what we are saying they have to believe we are telling the truth and they have to not be part of a system that benefits from adoption
we know that a high percentage of adoptive parents are abusive, we know that adoptive parents often resent us for not being related to them, for not turning out like them, we know that growing up with people you are related to is not the same as growing up with people you are not related to, we know that love isn't always enough
we have our voices and you should be listening to them even if, in fact especially if you think adoption is a good idea, a good way of building families. if you are an adoptive parent or a prospective adoptive parent who isn't going to change their mind you need to be listening to us. Being adopted is never going to be easy for adopted children but if their parents liste to the experinces of adult adoptees
when it comes to adoption we are the people who both legally and socially had the least power, are the least listened to, none of the choices made were ours, if we stray away from the acceptable, very narrow script about how we were "better off" being adopted about all the "chances" we wouldn't have got otherwise, about how our mothers were just somehow socially and morally defective we get infantilized, told we are bitter, ungrateful, anomalies, we are still far too often referred to as "adopted child" when we have been adults for years, decades
stop telling us that our lived experiences are inadmissible because they are "anecdata". stop telling us you want to see research proving the things we say. in lots of cases there is no research. Why would there be? we live in a world that doesn't believe there are any loosing sides to adoption so who's going to pay for research into what they are? before anybody does any research into what we are saying they have to believe we are telling the truth and they have to not be part of a system that benefits from adoption
we know that a high percentage of adoptive parents are abusive, we know that adoptive parents often resent us for not being related to them, for not turning out like them, we know that growing up with people you are related to is not the same as growing up with people you are not related to, we know that love isn't always enough
we have our voices and you should be listening to them even if, in fact especially if you think adoption is a good idea, a good way of building families. if you are an adoptive parent or a prospective adoptive parent who isn't going to change their mind you need to be listening to us. Being adopted is never going to be easy for adopted children but if their parents liste to the experinces of adult adoptees
