73adoptee - adoption search, reunion and reform

This article from the Chicago Tribune illustrates something I've written about before: the increasing problems adoptees are increasingly having trying to get legal documents like passports due to their amended birth certificates.

Gabriele VanderWoude was still in diapers when she arrived in the United States, 53 years ago. In 1956, she was issued an Illinois birth certificate after she was adopted by American parents. She later obtained a Social Security number and a voter registration card. She said she has been voting since she turned 18.

Shortly after she applied for the passport, the State Department asked her for more information. She sent copies of her adoption papers, but months later the government asked for more documents. In April, VanderWoude sent a copy of the card showing her entry into the United States.

Thursday afternoon, an official with the passport office in Charleston called VanderWoude with unbelievable news: It could not issue her a passport because she is not a U.S. citizen.

VanderWoude, 55, said she and her mother have always believed she became naturalized when she was adopted 53 years ago.

Sounds to me like this woman was issued an amended (read: legally falsified) Illinois birth certificate upon her adoption. Like many adoptees I, too, have one of these legal fakeries, with no way to obtain the real one. When adoptees are adopted (NOT when we are relinquished) our original birth certificates are sealed and the fake issued in its place. When we request our birth certificates, the fake is the only one we can get. Clearly this document, which we have been assured is "just as good as" the original, is far from it.

We've already seen how some adoptees have been unable to use their amended birth certificates to obtain driver's licenses. This shows how adoptees can also be barred from obtaining passports. Yet the adoption industry continues to claim that it is necessary to seal adoption records, and to put ineffective and expensive mechanisms in place of unfettered access to original birth certificates. Will this woman be forced through the ignominy of the Illinois Adoption Registry or Confidential Intermediary program, in a vain attempt to obtain her original birth certificate? I went that route, and not only did not obtain my original BC but in fact was barred from it forever, or at least until the law changes. Quite frankly I am afraid to try to get a passport or travel outside the country even though I was born here. Ms. VanderWoude and I are both nonpeople solely because we are adopted.

The article continues:

VanderWoude said she still does not understand how she has been able to vote, why she was issued an Illinois birth certificate, or how her residency status was never discovered before.

I know why she received that fake BC: because nobody cares what goes on amended birth certificates. They don't care how adoptees may be affected by this legal fakery as their lives unfold. It is a means to render the adoption process as opaque as possible, to the sole benefit of adoption agencies and practitioners. Adult adoptees are caught unawares, just trying to go about our lives like everyone else. In short, we are rendered a subclass of society because our original birth certificates are unavailable to us.

Unfortunately I don't think this woman will have much success. Because she was born overseas, she may have to undergo the process of becoming a U.S. citizen. This is not an isolated problem. Whether born in the U.S. or abroad, adoptees whose records are sealed are at risk. Only when ALL adult adoptees have unrestricted access to our original birth certificates, the only document that counts for anything, will we be equal to our non-adopted peers.

Labels: adoptees, birth certificates, civil rights, illinois, open records

An adoptee I'll call "Donna" has been threatened with legal action, simply for trying to exercise her right to access her information and speak with another consenting adult. Donna's story in her own words tells it all. This is shared with her permission. Some details have been edited to protect her identity. Donna says:

Thirty years ago I requested information from the Tennessee DCS. Of course I was denied, but they asked my bmom to write me a letter. She did and explained her situation.

Fast forward to earlier this year I requested info again hoping she would change her mind. I paid $150.00 for the information and received about 100 pages of information including the names of her brothers, sister, parents and the address and phone number of her brother. There was a lot of information that I did not know about, including the fact that I was born in City X, Tn., where I currently live. She lived here too at the time of my birth. My aparents was told she lived near City Y, Tn and that was where I was born. They were lied to, I know because aparents would never lie about that. DCS asked if I would like them to contact as I was not allowed to initiate contact with bmother due to the document I signed. Only DCS could do this at an additional cost of $135.00. I told them to do it and I had to make a list of who all I wanted them to contact. So I wrote a check and listed bmom, bdad, bsiblings, baunt and buncles. When I was leaving the office the case worker commented that I was about to let the cat out of the bag and their would be some shocked people. I though about that for 2 days and decided to not contact anyone except bmom and then let her tell others. DCS could not search for bfather because even though he was listed a bdad he was not on bcertificate. The same day I decided I would like to contact buncle as I had his number and he lives here in City X. I called DCS, Person #1, and she said there was nothing saying I could not contact him just do no harm. I even asked her if this would violate the documents I had signed and she said no. I just could not contact bmom or attempt to contact her through a third party.

So, I called buncle and talked to him about 30 minutes. I told him about my great life and family and he said he would tell his sister. I told him about the signed documents and that I was not attempting to contact bmother through him. I just wanted to talk to someone I was related to. My bmom lived w buncle before and after birth so he was aware of my existence. He was very kind and insisted my bmom would want to know these things, but she probably would not want contact with me. I told him if he did talk to her to tell her I always loved her and never blamed her for what she did.

Well, a few weeks later I received a letter from DCS, Person #2, telling me I had violated my sworn statement not to contact bmother through a third party. I called her and tried to tell her I was not doing that and said if I did it again I would be charged with violating the statement and could go to jail. So I wrote them a letter explaining everything so there would be documentation of my side. I then received another letter basically saying that no one at DCS would give me permission (basically saying I lied) and again stated that I violated the statement.

Still with me? I'll understand if you've had to take a moment to go slam your head against a wall. Personally I had to sit here with a wine cooler and a bowl of chocolate chips* to email Donna some questions. (*Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet chips. For this, it should have been Twilight Delight Intense Dark!)

I asked Donna the following:

What information did they deny you? Did they provide any non-identifying information or was it all contingent on your birth mom? And was this when they made you sign that document promising no contact, or was that when they provided the names? Did you have an amended BC, and did it say City X or City Y? Did they ever say in writing that this would not violate the documents you signed, or was it just verbal?

Donna responds:

I sent the request to DCS. They sent a letter requesting specific information about me and a drivers license. I sent that. They sent another letter and a form that had to be filled out, signed and notarized. This is the document that I listed who I wanted to contact and had the statements about violating the confidentiality agreement that I had with DCS. Only DCS was allowed to search for an extra $135.00. I did that and returned it with a check for $150.00 as requested. And $135.00 for the search. A few weeks later I received a letter saying that they had the information and I could have it mailed or come and get it. I went the next day to get the info. I was take into a private room where they showed me about 100 pages of information. I looked at it all and they said they could copy it for me for 25 cents per page. I paid them for that and got all the information to take home. It included my parents names, grandparents names and her brothers and sisters names. It also included the city and state they lived in. It had all the visits documented with her, the doctors information, the foster care names and information and all my doctors visits. It also included the home visits with my aparents before and after adoption. My buncle's address and phone number were included. He also lives in City X as do I. My amended bc said City X as birth place, that is where my aparents lived. They said after the contact with buncle, that Person #1 had given me permission to contact, that I had violated the agreement both in writing, 2 letters and over the phone.

Donna shared with me some of the paperwork she received. This is one of the threatening letters sent to her by Tennessee DCS.

This is to acknowledge the receipt of your letter regarding contact violation. First I must state that you were advised wrong on contacting aunts, uncles, cousins and spouses. You need to speak to the person that advised you that you can contact these persons or person.

As stated in my letter of January 22, 2009, your birth mother has the right to veto contact with these individuals on her Contact Veto Registry form. She had received her Contact Veto Registry form and in accordance with the adoption law allowed 90days to respond. You made contact with her brother before she sent her form back to our office for us to determine her decision on contact. So this is a violation.

You also stated, "I then told him if he did talk to her about me to tell her thank you and that I have never had any bad feelings about her giving me up for adoption". This is an attempt (aim, try, seek) at contact via another person.

I know you were advised wrongly, but your Sworn Statement (paragraph four) is clearly defined. Your birth mother disclosed this information to me. She received it from her brother, who you contacted as well as other information you disclosed to her brother.

I might add that a recent audit resulted in an investigation of Tennessee DCS for misuse of taxpayer funds and workers looting foster kids' savings accounts. Check out the article's comments for more insight into other peoples' experiences with this particular agency. I'm no lawyer and I don't play one on the Internet, but I think they're trying to cover their asses by using Donna as bait so they aren't targeted for legal action. I also think this business of not letting her contact birth family members without paying them to do it is purely a way for them to make more money off adoptees and birth families. Remember Chynna and her experience with the Florida DMV? Poor Donna has no resources to fight this, no money for an attorney, no powerful politician friends or other means of asserting her rights. I am concealing her identity because I don't want her to suffer any further than she already has. What's really sick is I'm pretty sure all of this is legal according to Tennessee's "open" records laws. Maybe someone more familiar with Tennessee can speak to that.

This is exactly what the people in control of our adoption records want. They want us to be powerless. They want us to have no option except to pay their ridiculous fees and subject ourselves to humiliation. If they make mistakes, they foist responsibility off on the adoptee, pitting a daughter against her mother when all Donna was trying to do was gain access to information and contact a member of her birth family that was willing to share in that contact. If Donna is able to reunite with birth family members at this point, this experience may sour any chance of ever speaking with her birth mother. I ask you, is this fair? Is it right? Are you going to let Donna and others like her suffer alone?

Or are you going to click here, find your legislators and let them know your opinion on adoption records access? Are you going to sign petitions and send postcards to lawmakers and contact news media when they write horribly skewed and fearmongering articles like this one? Because if we all slink away with our tails between our legs, nothing will ever change. If you are outraged by this, take your anger and put it to good use. People like Donna need your support. And if anyone has suggestions for her, please sing out.

Labels: adoptees, civil rights, open records, tennessee

Rhode Island needs your help. There is a bill in progress that has passed the House but may not pass the Senate. Please write in support of this bill. For more information and links to legislative email addresses contact T.R.A.C.E. at www.trace2009.org. T.R.A.C.E. is attempting to fight compromise legislation that would deny equal rights to ALL adult adoptees in Rhode Island.

As usual, the sticking point is the fallacy of birth mother "privacy". You may want to point these legislators to the Evan B. Donaldson study "For The Records: Restoring A Right To Adult Adoptees".

http://www.projo.com/news/content/ADOPTEE_BIRTH_CERTIFICATES_06-30-09_K8ESS5V_v17.398b4a3.html

After years of trying, advocates pushing to make Rhode Island one of the few states that allow adoptees access to their original birth certificates won a major victory in the state House of Representatives.

But it appears unlikely that the Senate, which reconvenes Tuesday for a one-day session, will go along with the change.

Labels: open records, rhode island

I mentioned a while back that I wanted to read Patrick Tracey's book Stalking Irish Madness: Searching For the Roots Of My Family's Schizophrenia. I had the opportunity recently to do so and it's an intense journey through one family's experience.

Being an adoptee, I can't help but read it through the lens of adoption. Knowing that my birth mother is Irish by descent, and knowing that there is some hitherto unidentified mental illness that runs on that side, naturally my curiosity about this book was piqued. I'd like to highlight some of the things that spoke to me and how it relates to my experience as an adoptee.

The notion that madness had favored the Irish had been kicking around since the 1850s... Genetically speaking, the Irish are no more at risk than any other people. But in their darkest hour their rates of insanity were pushed to extremes... [T]he Irish population in America had been largely Protestant and comparatively well screwed on. These newer arrivals, these Irish Catholics, were another thing altogether... Anyone could point the finger of blame--at the long history of famines and the malnutrition they spread, at drink, at religion, at emigration, at British inhumanity.

As a class, we adoptees are similarly tainted. Not too long ago it was thought that unwed mothers were of unsound minds, and that this supposed deficiency was transferred to us, their bastard offspring. Remnants of this mindset remain today in the knowing looks and snide comments we receive when folks find out we are adopted. People don't say "bad blood" anymore, but they still think it, and our super-secret-sealed adoption records only confirm it. Reading this book makes me wonder more about my blood relatives, not just the immediate relations but those stretching back into antiquity.

I know that for most people, the idea of going insane is unthinkable. For most families sanity is a given, as easy as breathing, as sure as seeing the sun rise in the eastern sky. For too many of us, however, there is a creaky gate that swings open at the cusp of adulthood, and on the other side is madness. On us sanity rests no more securely than a hat blown off in the wind.

For most families, biological ties are a given. Origins are a given. The fact that you have Aunt Mary's nose and Uncle Jed's propensity for stupid jokes are a given. Most people learn this with ease, over time, through all the little remarks families make in their daily lives. Not so for adoptees, however. Conversations of this nature cease when we walk in the room or, worse, continue while deliberately excluding us.

That mental illness that runs through my birth mother's family affected many of her relatives and siblings, one of my birth uncles "severely". I don't know what that illness is, its impact, how it might be treated. Reading this book makes me wonder anew: is it schizophrenia? Depression? Manic disorder? Something I haven't heard of but ought to know about for the sake of my children? It's an anvil hanging over my head, waiting to fall. I have been led to believe my birth mother is Catholic. Did the Irish Catholics Tracey mentions lend some irregularities that even now are floating around in my bloodstream like nanites, waiting to take control? Until my records are unsealed, uneasy thoughts are my only heritage.

Tracey continues:

[T]he diocese itself was no place to go for comfort. From the Victorian era until recent times, it ran a Dickensian regime. If there were not enough landed men to marry, a girl was sent to live behind the walls of a nunnery. If she first found herself pregnant, she was a slattern, her child a bastard. If the child survived the pregnancy, the Church wouldn't baptize him, damning him, effectively, in a false God's name. If he died, the Church wouldn't bury him. As a rule, a child born out of wedlock could not be registered with the parish. Illegitimate stillborn babies were laid to rest in fairy mounds across the county line. Today, recuperation ceremonies are held in border villages to reclaim the remains, and a new sense of tolerance prevails.

I would venture to say it's not tolerance that prevails, but the sense that "this could never happen today." Except it does. One Irish woman Tracey meets says:

"[L]oads of people have turned away a Yank because they think they're coming for the money. Back in my mother's day, illegitimate children given up for adoption had to go to England. Now there's a new law they can come back to claim the farm."

Same in this country. When adoptees reach out to birth relatives, one of the first assumptions outsiders make is that we're after some sort of inheritance. The only inheritance most of us want is the one rightfully due us: our heritage. There's no money in the world that could ever replace that. Although, I do like the idea of those poor stillborn bastards being buried in fairy mounds. Perhaps they now live in that other world, dancing and singing at neverending feasts, having become fairies themselves. The thought brings me a measure of comfort.

In the same chapter Tracey writes something that will doubtless hit home to any adoptee or birth relative who has ever tried to search:

This is why I am not enamored of genealogy... What irks is that at some stage... a gap appears in your factual understanding of who your ancestors were. I realized this going in. I knew that even in this computerized world of name searches, the most mundane details of lives lived 160 years ago can be as hard to unravel as the tangle in my grandmother's knitting bag. Sooner or later if your people were peasant Irish, the trail goes cold, the search thwarted at a sudden turn.

Or, if you're adopted, the trail stops cold at the first crossroads: your parents. Funny how people can understand this if someone like Tracey writes about it, someone who is "legitimately" pursuing his genealogy. But if an adoptee or birth mother searches, roust the villagers and grab the pitchforks! Why the dichotomy? Why must we be forced to live in the dark?

I'd highly recommend this book to anyone, but for adoptees it may be of special interest. It illustrates how genetic ties, no matter how far removed, impact those of us living in the here and now. Disturbing, yet provocative. I wish I could travel to Ireland and see the places my ancestors once lived. What could possibly be the harm to my birth family in that? Why am I not permitted such a journey simply because I am adopted?

Labels: adoptees, heritage

I've been meaning to post this for a while. Please go over to Change.org if you haven't already, and vote in favor of restoring adult adoptee access to original birth certificates. (Why? See here.)

http://www.change.org/actions/view/restore_adult_adoptee_access_to_original_birth_certificates

Labels: adoptees, birth certificates, civil rights, open records

Okay, this is really funny, in a gallows humor kind of way. Apparently some wag at the University of Illinois redacted the name of a famous local ballplayer in an overzealous attempt to redact information presented to the Chicago Tribune under the Freedom of Information Act. From the Tribune article:

It looks like the University of Illinois dropped the ball -- and violated the spirit of the law -- when redacting public documents connected to its shadow admission process for well-connected students.

...

The e-mail is dated March 2, 2005, the day Santo failed in another bid to enter Cooperstown. U. of I. spokesman Tom Hardy said the employee handling the redactions didn't know who Santo was and assumed he was a rejected student.

"I know it may surprise the Tribune and die-hard Cubs fans, but Ron Santo is apparently not a household name," Hardy said.

This is a wonderful example of how arbitrary and capricious the redaction process can be. Mistakes like this happen ALL THE TIME when adoptees and birth relatives try to access records. Except we typically don't have the clout (heh!) that an organization like the Tribune has to fight it.

We don't need uninformed office workers redacting stuff willy-nilly from adoption records, because when mistakes are made, there are often no second chances. We need transparency in access, a clear-cut mechanism that treats everyone equally whether adoption is involved or not. And guess what? We already have one: the same process everyone else uses to access birth certificates. Illinois should eliminate conditional access in favor of legislation like Maine's, which restores adult adoptee rights to unmodified, unredacted original birth certificates. Anything less is a strikeout against our civil rights.

Labels: adoptees, birth fathers, birth mothers, civil rights, first mothers, illinois, maine, open records

The Chicago Tribune has published numerous articles about what they refer to as the State Of Corruption in Illinois. One of their exposes is on clout-based admissions at the University of Illinois. To that end, they published an editorial about the attempts of their journalists to gain records under the Freedom of Information Act. Their experience will resonate with any adoptee, birth mother or other relative who's tried to gain access to adoption records.

The ongoing series, "Clout Goes to College," doesn't identify the applicants. Cohen didn't ask for their names, nor did she expect they would be released. The privacy provisions White alludes to require the university to redact identifiers such as names and Social Security numbers before releasing the documents.

But the 1,800 pages of documents eventually surrendered by the university went far beyond that. Applicants' test scores, grades and class ranks were blacked out, for example. That information wouldn't identify specific students, but it would show how far the rules were bent to admit them.

Names and positions of third-party players who lobbied trustees on behalf of an applicant also are marked out, as are references to people who are clearly public officials themselves. That information wouldn't compromise the privacy of individual students. It's not exempt.

In countless other instances, information is blacked out or pages are missing, with no explanation or clue as to what is being withheld. Asked to justify those redactions, the university flatly refused. "Your request would mean that the Illinois FOIA requires us, in response to any inquiry by a requesting party, to go line by line, word by word and explain why each redaction was made," general counsel Thomas Bearrows wrote.

Actually, that is what the law requires. The law says release the information or explain why it's exempt. There are two reasons for that: to ensure that the university is basing its denial on a good faith interpretation of the law, and to provide the requester with a basis to challenge the denial.

When I read this I could only give a cynical laugh. The Tribune is tasting the bitter pill that Illinois adoptees and their birth relatives have swallowed for decades.

When The Powers That Be want to keep things secret, they use the magic word "private." Information is redacted regardless of laws that specify what can and can not be revealed. I ran into this during my ill-fated experience with the Illinois Confidential Intermediary Program. As I described in my post, "Caveat Emptor On Confidential Intermediary Programs":

Just about everything is “confidential,” but what exactly constitutes “confidential” is equally unclear. Officially, it's what's in the Illinois Adoption Act, 750 ILCS 50, Section 18. But in reality it's whatever the [Illinois Confidential Intermediary] program decides it is.

For example, details were redacted from my birth mother's letters, such as my maternal grandfather's age of death, which are listed nowhere in the Illinois Adoption Act as being “identifying.” Similarly, I received mixed signals as to whether or not I was permitted to receive copies of the correspondence sent to my birth mother (redacted for identifying information). When contact was first made, I asked for and received the first letter [the program] sent to her. But later, when I asked for copies of additional correspondence (again, redacted for identifying info), it suddenly became “confidential.” Perhaps it's only “confidential” when you begin to question the process.

Interestingly, program policies and procedures are also “confidential” – to the public as well as to participants. If you're not allowed to know what steps have been taken in your search, how are you supposed to know if you're getting what you paid for?

I'm glad to see the Tribune experiencing the same sorts of ridiculous redactions the rest of us have, because maybe it will encourage them to respond to complaints concerning adoption records access. So far, the Trib's stance on transparency in Illinois government has not included adoption records. Questions on their public forum concerning adoptee birth certificates went unacknowledged by their editors. So, too, have requests for some sunshine to be let into the dark recesses of Illinois adoption politics. The Tribune has invited Illinois citizens to inform them where this state of corruption needs to be cleaned up, and has made a point of supporting causes that might seem like small potatoes. I would like to encourage them and other Illinois-based media to examine how adoption records access works, or doesn't, in this state. And if you believe in equality, I would like to encourage you to contact the Tribune and others and urge them to support unrestricted adoption records access.

Those affected by adoption should have the exact same access to records as everyone else. Equality for all is the only equitable solution!

Labels: adoptees, birth fathers, birth mothers, first mothers, illinois, open records

A thousand years ago, my Celtic ancestors were routinely attacked, often violently, by their Viking neighbors. England enacted a tax upon its citizens, called Danegeld, to finance protection from these sea-borne invaders.

I think about this sometimes because I am a modern-day Celt captured by Vikings. My adopted father, the attorney who sealed my adoption records and lied about my origins, was profoundly proud of his Scandinavian roots. He was half Swedish and half Danish, the son of first-generation immigrants. When I was growing up we had books about Scandinavia littering the entire house. In fact he was appointed honorary counsel to Denmark for our tiny little corner of the Midwest, and was even knighted by the Danish monarchy for his contributions to his culture. We went to Denmark for the ceremony, and although I didn't participate in it, I recall my adoptive mother being very keen to try to set me up with the Danish prince. (No, REALLY. She was, shall we say, kinda wacky.) My childhood was spent listening to my adoptive father expound upon his heritage while he was simultaneously, and unbeknownst to me, denying me mine. My Danegeld was paid in the stripping of my Celtic roots. What an ironic repetition of history.

There are tons of great books, articles and blogs from transracial adoptees out there, which I enjoy reading because they enhance my understanding of my own adoption experience. I especially like Harlow's Monkey, John Raible's and Yoon Seon's blogs, Gang Shik's over at the Korean Adoptee Nexus, and the fantastic book "Outsiders Within: Writing On Transracial Adoption" by Jane Jeong Trenka, Julia Chinyere Oparah and Sun Yung Shin. I wonder, how does being severed from our cultures affect adoptees in the long term? What can be done to preserve the heritage of adoptees?

Because being "American" or "whatever your adoptive family is" isn't enough. Our transracial adoptee friends have their heritage stamped across their faces, which too often causes them grief they don't deserve. I have an idea what that's like because I was the only adoptee in our neighborhood, so I was often held up as the prime example of adoptees or, more accurately, bastards. (As in, "this is our adopted daughter," emphasis on the adjective, or "look, there's that weird adopted kid," as if the two automatically go hand-in-hand.) Some adoptees return to their roots by learning the language and traditions of their missing culture, or even moving back to their countries of origin. Check out GOAL's Homecoming program. Kickass!

For adoptees like me, who were adopted into families of similar race, it's a simple matter to deny that we have any culture at all, to assume that we can be assimilated at whim. But we are also stripped of our cultural roots, as distant as those roots might be. I think cultural roots run far deeper than most people want to believe. You can't just take a Irish lass like me and dump me in with a bunch of Vikings and expect it to magically work out. We still KNOW, to the core of our being, that we are out of place... even if we're not supposed to.

For example, as a teen I became strongly interested in everything Irish, although I had no way to know I was actually exploring my own heritage. This interest was severely curtailed by my adoptive parents. The more I became interested, the less they liked it. In retrospect I hope it shook my adoptive father to his balding Danish pate, the fact that I somehow knew I was Irish despite never having been told. And he definitely knew because, as I later discovered, it was one of the things he wrote down from the initial conversation with his good ol' buddy the delivery doctor. Admittedly, our rocky relationship was due to more than just culture clash, but I have to wonder how my adoptive father could be so proud of his own heritage while actively hindering my attempts to know mine. (My adoptive mother was Irish, actually, as well as English and Welsh. She seemed to have little interest in her own heritage and certainly none in mine.)

Why are my cultural roots considered less valid because I'm adopted? Why is it okay to pursue genealogy unless you're adopted, in which case you must be a psychopathic potential stalker? I think all adult adoptees deserve the full and complete truth of our origins. No one should ever have to pay the Danegeld of their cultural heritage.

Labels: adoptees, culture

Think we're making progress in our society toward equality for adoptees? Think again. As this article from the Tribune explains, the tagline for the new Warner Brothers movie "Orphan" is:

"It must be hard to love an adopted child as much as your own."

Oh. MY.

If you think that's bad enough, take a close look at the media coverage of the outrage. ABC News ticked me off more than the tagline itself with their headline: "'Orphan' Horror Film Outrages Adoptive Parents." As if there are no adult adoptees who might find it a wee bit offensive as well!

Scott Rowe, senior vice president of communications for Warner Brothers, admitted the company, "messed up" in promotions for the film, which is due out in July.

Warner Brothers was besieged with complaints from parents and organizations that deal with adoption, foster care and orphans [emphasis mine] who were troubled by the story line of a deranged and homicidal child.

Speaking out in blogs, listserves and in phone calls and letters to the movie executives, adoptive parents say [emphasis mine] the trailer is especially offensive.

"They were right," Rowe told ABCNews.com. "Their complaints resonated with us."

Rowe said the company is moving "as quick as possible" to remove the offending line from the film's marketing materials.

So it's offensive to adoptive parents and adoption professionals, but where are the adoptee opinions? Nowhere. We don't exist, not as adults. Because it's far easier to disregard our opinions on adoption, a subject upon which we are unacknowledged experts, when people pretend we don't grow up. Like Lost Boys in Neverland, we are supposed to remain invisible to the outside world. Meanwhile there is no shortage of people willing to speak for us, as if we are incapable of voicing our own opinions.

Adult adoptees have the same problem as adopters of explaining this grossly discriminatory tagline to our kids, who may worry that maybe they, too, are "bad seeds" because they descend from our tainted adopted blood. We have to put up with the knowing looks and snide remarks from friends and associates who are aware of our adopted status. Those of us with sealed records are expected to Pay To Play in vain attempts to regain that which every other citizen of the U.S. takes for granted: our original birth certificates. Adoptee rights are lightyears behind those of minorities, gays, and others who have had some success achieving the respect they deserve as equal members of our society.

Thanks, Hollywood, for making our point in such a blatant manner. Adoptees are second-class citizens. Why don't you just brand us with B-for-Bastard on our foreheads like the old days and be done with it? Now if you'll excuse me, I'll slink back to my dank adoptee cave with the rest of the grues.

Labels: adoptees, civil rights, media and adoption

I can't say those words without thinking of Daniel Jackson in a parallel universe, but I digress. This article concerning Ireland caught my eye. I enjoy all things Irish, as I've noted in the past, but this article had little pleasantness to it. It's about the struggles of those who, as children, were routinely abused by trusted individuals at Catholic institutions across Ireland.

Boys and girls in Ireland were beaten, sexually abused and emotionally terrorized for decades in workhouse-style schools run by the Roman Catholic Church where a "culture of silence" protected victimizers rather than the children in their care... Those are some of the findings of the controversial report unveiled in Dublin after a nine-year investigation by Ireland's Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse.

The Catholic Church sponsored scores of reformatories, orphanages and industrial schools where more than 30,000 boys and girls deemed to be delinquent or incorrigible were sent from the 1930s until the close of the 20th Century. In some instances, the children's only "fault" was to be born out of wedlock. [emphasis mine]

If I had been born into another space and time, if I had been living with my Celtic kin across the ocean at the time my possibly Catholic birth mother became pregnant with me, this could easily have been my fate. Gives one pause over one's breakfast paper, let me tell you. It makes me think about all those kids out there to whom this is still happening today, whether in workhouse-style conditions like these or at the hands of their adopter "rescuers." In classic style, we bastards become the scapegoats for the perceived sins of others.

I can only hope these men and women find justice for the wrongs done to them.

Labels: abuse, adoptees