The Details Of An Adoptee's Life Are Sacrosanct

... or, they should be.

I can't get this post from Cricket's Adoption Blog Of Shame out of my mind. These adoptive parents took it upon themselves to change this child's birthday. Yes, it's possible, even likely, that his original birthday was just a guess, but that doesn't matter. Changing his birthday because it fits better with the school schedule, or because it'll make him fit on the growth chart? As an adoptee, that absolutely galls me. Adoptees lose so much. They should not lose the few details they may actually have.

As others pointed out on Cricket's blog, there may be clues to his original birthday in the date he was given from Ethiopia. The point is, that information is HIS. The details of an adoptee's life belong to the adoptee, and adoptive parents have no business taking it upon themselves to alter them. Even if they later tell him the truth, think about how he will feel knowing that his very birthday was "not good enough." The same principles apply to the adoption story. That story belongs to the adoptee, not the adoptive parents. Changing it, making stuff up or lying (either directly or by omission) is unethical, no matter how well-meaning the intent.

Most of you know that my adoptive parents didn't tell me the truth about what they knew about my adoption. All my life, I was told they knew only that I was born in Chicago. I didn't find out until my mid-20s that my adoptive father was the attorney who sealed my file. He therefore knew everything, from the contents of my original birth certificate to all of the details in my super-secret adoption file. This is a prime example of adoptive parents who had WAY too much control over the situation. A couple years ago I wrote about how too many adoptive parents hold the keys to an adoptee's information. Some of them use that as a form of control. Mine certainly did. Behave yourself, be the Good Adoptee, and we might dole out tidbits of your background as we see fit. Disobey, refuse to cooperate, and we will hold your information hostage... or even destroy it. Which is exactly what my adoptive father did with his copy of my original birth certificate when I got too close to the truth.

But one of the things I managed to discover was my time of birth. To anyone who has their background it's an insignificant detail. To me it was a revelation. A new piece of information about myself! And an accurate one, too, because it was taken directly from my original birth certificate. My time of birth is one of the few things I know for sure about my origins. No one has the right to tell me it's insignificant, whatever their opinion might be. That information belongs to ME.

People who keep an adoptee's information from them, or deliberately conceal or falsify it, have no business adopting. And control of this information should be taken out of the hands of adoptive parents by making it available to the adoptee at age of majority. By corollary, that means there should be no third parties between the adoptee and that information--no confidential intermediaries, no hoops to jump, just the same access to the same information that non-adopted people take for granted.

Vote by Oct 30 for Demons Of Adoption Awards 2010

Don't forget to cast your vote for Pound Pup Legacy's 4th annual Demons Of Adoption Awards. Votes are due by October 30. You can cast your vote here, and (if you have a strong stomach) read more about the nominees here.

From the web site:

Each year Pound Pup Legacy presents the Demons of Adoption Award to raise a voice against adoption propaganda and the self congratulatory practices of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute's annual Angels in Adoption AwardsTM

Until October 30 you will have the opportunity to vote for the recipient of this year's award.

The nominees are:

* LDS Family Services: for being the most secretive of all adoption agencies, using coercive tactics in obtaining infants for adoption and having no respect for father's rights;

* Gladney center for adoption: for being one of the most profit-centered agencies around and blocking open record efforts in Texas;

* Christian World Adoption: for their involvement in "harvesting" practices in Ethiopia and their blind ambition to "save" each and every "orphan" in this world;

* Larry S. Jenkins: for his involvement in nearly every case where father's rights were violated;

* Joint Council on International Children's Services: for promoting the interest of adoption agencies at the expense of children, and pushing agency friendly legislation in Congress;

* Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute for giving their seal of approval to persons and organizations that promote the interests of the adoption industry and pushing agency friendly legislation in Congress;

* Council on Accreditation: for their lack of research done on inter-country adoption agency histories prior to giving out Hague accreditation;

* American Adoption Congress: For failing to remove state reps who were openly working against open access for adult adoptees;

* American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey: for opposing open records for adoptees and "protecting" closet moms, based on a "stack of anonymous letters" claimed to be from "birthmothers".

* Christian Alliance for Orphans: for promoting the business interests of adoption agencies through churches.

* Southern Baptist Convention: for passing resolution no. 2 , pushing the business interests of adoption agencies to the members of their church;

* Adoption.com for systematically banning voices that oppose current adoption practices and their continuous pro-adoption propaganda;

* Scott Simon: for his vomit-inducing book “Baby, We Were Meant For Each Other” and his grotesque crying and blubbering about his purchasing of another human being;

* WE tv: for their hideously exploitative series ‘Adoption Diaries,’ turning what is a highly emotive and complex topic into ‘reality’ show fodder.

Adoption Discrimination: CBS Calls Adoptees "Used Babies"

There has been widespread discussion in the adoption community about an offhand remark from a recent episode of "Rules Of Engagement" on CBS. You can watch the clip here.

One character said, in response to the news that there would be no food at an adoption fair he was planning to attend with his wife:

"A lot of nerve calling it a fair when they're not offering some sort of meat on a stick."

His wife says: "...If we get serious about adoption we need these people to like us."

His response: "If they can't like me for who I am then I'm not going to buy one of their used babies." (cue canned laughter)

And that's just the commercial. I can only imagine how the rest of this adoption-related plot is going to work out.

Okay, yes, this is a comedy. But discrimination against a particular group of people should not be fodder for the laugh track. This is why adoptees and first mothers face discrimination: because people make light of our situations. Losing your family is not funny. Surrendering a child is not funny. (Neither is infertility, for that matter.) There is also something to be said for comedy that isn't afraid to make a point when a point needs to be made. M*A*S*H comes to mind -- comedy combined with serious assessments of the impact of war.

I know a number of adoptive parents who are open-minded, honest, and willing to accept adult adoptee and first mother viewpoints even if those viewpoints make them uncomfortable. In my opinion, these folks totally rock and I wish more adoptive parents were like them. Unfortunately, far too frequently I encounter the other end of the pendulum: adopters with an entitlement mentality, who believe they "deserve" to be parents at all costs, who stick to the stereotypes because anything else interferes with their mental image of themselves as "rescuers." (Go check out Cricket's Blog Of Shame list for some nauseating examples.)

To me, this dialogue smacks of that: "Of course we should be fed, if we're going to an adoption fair! Of course we should be wined and dined and pampered; we're the paying customers! We expect top-notch service and prime quality merchandise -- which we'll return if it doesn't match our expectations." To such people, first mothers are mechanical wombs and adoptees are malleable Barbie dolls who never grow up. Note also the currying of adoption agency favors: Hide your true self, suck up to the agency and maybe you'll be rewarded with a kid. Sadly accurate.

I don't care that the dialogue is supposed to reflect the abrasive personality of the particular character who said it. The fact remains, people who don't have direct connections to adoption (and even some that do) get their ideas about it from TV, movies, and books. Which means that if writers are going to use adoption as a plot point (I'm talking to YOU, Diablo Cody) then they better get their facts straight and realize what an impact their words will have on people for whom adoption is more than just a sitcom.

We also have to consider the impact upon young adoptees, who are at the forefront of adoption discrimination. Many are already ostracized, especially those who are of a different race than their adoptive families. I can tell you how such a remark on a television program would have felt to me when I was a child. In the era of "Diff'rent Strokes," all adoptees were assumed to be poor kids who were damn lucky to be raised by wealthy whites. I hated the show, hated the assumptions, yet it was the only portrayal of adoptees I knew so I absorbed the stereotypes even as I struggled to find my own identity. Adoptees deserve better, and we as a society know better, thanks to the voices of the many people who write, blog, and otherwise share their viewpoints on this polarizing subject. Yet Hollywood is still stuck repeating the same damn stereotypes with a 21st century facelift. Instead of wealthy white men, we get adoption fairs. Instead of adorable black kids, we get international adoptees, donor conceptions, and donated embryos. Same crap, different era.

The dangers of discrimination arise from stereotypes and assumptions. Adoption agencies are to blame for setting unreasonable expectations in the minds of many prospective adopters. The mass media is also to blame for continuing adoption stereotypes: that adopting is "the same" as giving birth, that adopting a child negates the traumas of infertility, that "good" adoptees don't ask questions, that "bad" adoptees search, that all first mothers are "whores" who didn't deserve their children... the list goes on. People still believe this nonsense precisely because it is perpetuated.

What we need is open, honest discussion about adoption: what the stereotypes are, what makes them stereotypes, and how those stereotypes hurt people. Just as we shouldn't accept discrimination based on race, gender, or sexuality, neither should we accept it based on adoption.

If you want to contact CBS, here is the contact information. It wouldn't hurt to contact your local CBS affiliate, too.

Nina.Tassler@cbs.com

Ms. Nina Tassler

President, CBS Entertainment

CBS Entertainment

7800 Beverly Blvd

Los Angeles, CA 90039-2112