Mothers Day

When I was pregnant with my son, pretty much alone and terrified, one of the last entries in my diary was noting that it was Mother’s Day. I notice i often stop writing when things are really troubling me. I think that Mother’s Day when as far as the rest of the world was concerned I was not worthy to be a mother was pretty much the worst one I have ever spent. It was a long way to December when my son was born. To be alone is a terrible thing. To be given the message that you are not worthy is a terrible and sad thing. It is also a lie. Everyone is worthy. I was worthy. More than worthy. So was my son.

I think often of adoptees who have gone in search of their mothers and found them wanting. Wanting in love for them. Rejecting of them in reunion. I don’t understand that. Studies have shown that a very high percentage, around 95%, want to meet their children lost to adoption.

When I read of rejections I want to write to the adoptee and say how sorry I am. I’d like write to the mother too. I don’t understand their response but maybe at some level I do.

When you lose a child to adoption the only way to survive in a world that refuses to talk about or acknowledge your loss is to shut down some part of you. I think sometimes that this is what these mothers fear, opening a flood gate and being overwhelmed by the pain. It is a legitimate fear.

At reunion you truly discover what you have lost. Or maybe you just allow yourself to feel the loss in a way you have never felt it before. I think adoptees go through this too particularly when they have been raised to believe they were rescued from a terrible fate only to discover that may not be true. The original fate if it had been allowed to play out, may not have been that bad. In fact, it might, with a little support, been quite good. Might even have been better.

Strangely, it was my son’s father who taught me something about children. When I found my son, his other children were in their late teens. (His son is 10 months younger than my son – but that’s a another post for another day.). My son’s father said to me, “Sometimes, if you let them, children will help you.” I believe that to be true in a general way but I’m not so sure it’s true for parents and children who have been lost to each other through adoption. I think the feelings of abandonment are too strong. And so the dance of hurt begins.

Sadly sometimes the hurt wins.

I’m not sure why I wrote about all of that. It just came out. I was going to write about how last year I had two Mother’s Days, one here the other in Paris France. So I’ll talk a bit about that now.

By happy coincidence my daughter was there for both of them. France celebrates Mother’s Day later in May. Both Mother’s Days were very She came to spend the weekend with us. Wonderful! In Paris, we went to lunch at the rooftop restaurant, Centre Georges Pompidou. It has a magnificent view of the city. I highly recommend it.

Thinking about my two Mother’s Days got me thinking about the whole Mother’s Day – Birth Mother’s Day debate.

Why don’t we change the name of this day? Why don’t we just move that apostrophe. Or get rid of it all together.

Mothers’ Day. Would that solve the problem? No need for the separate but allegedly equal Mother’s Day and birth mother’s day (There are no capitals there on purpose.)

Mothers Day. I kind of like it.

Much wisdom, per usual, over at The Declassified Adoptee on the subject of having two mothers.

Happy Mothers Day to all mothers and their children.

We are going out tomorrow because my daughter had to work today. She works hard I am proud to be her mother. I am proud to be my son’s mother too.

Peace

UM

Adoption Truth Part II

UM

The offending contest over at Circle of Moms was closed down.

This appeared on the website:

After serious consideration, we have decided to cancel our Adoption Blogs by Moms – 2012 contest. Our Top 25 program is meant to celebrate, connect, and support mom bloggers. Following some feedback from participants in our 2011 contest, we decided to make this year’s Top 25 more inclusive. In doing so, we unknowingly stepped into a very sensitive issue and debate, and we apologize to all the moms who have been offended, no matter what your position on adoption is. We’re committed to finding a way to give all parties in the Adoption Triad a voice on Circle of Moms. If we run a Top 25 Adoption Blogs in the future, we’ll consult with mom bloggers in each part of the Adoption Triad on how to create a supportive contest where all bloggers would feel welcome and respected by Circle of Moms and by all participants. We appreciate the time and energy every participant put into this contest during the past week, and we sincerely regret that we can’t reward those efforts in the way we had planned to when we launched the contest. 

We will be closing the contest at 3pm PST today and all blogs will be removed from the contest page.

Sincerely,

The Circle of Moms Team

Is this a victory?  It feels like a victory. In some quarters there is the feeling that this statement is code for we will continue in the same old way.  I hope not.  I’d like to think not.  Maybe I am naive and overly optimistic.  This is always a possibility. I will wait and see. It’s making me think about this post of mine. Maybe I should add it to the UM Highlights page.  Right after the one about Nietzsche.

The email informing Adoption Truth blog that they were being removed from the contest was alarming.  I was naive enough to be totally surprised and shocked at the blatant censorship. But as my Irish grandmother (and my son’s Irish great-grandmother) used to say, “It’s an ill wind that doesn’t blow somebody some good.”

I have no doubt (but no absolute confirmation) that the decision to remove Adoption Truth from the contest was made as a result of complaints from adoptive parents.  They have long controlled the narrative and who gives up control without a fight.  But I am hoping that some people, inside and outside the Circle of Moms, learned through all of this that there are other voices out there that deserve to be heard, those of adoptees and first moms.  And that those voices will be heard whether you try to shut us down or not. The tone of those voices is all over the spectrum, some are angry and reasoned, some abusive and reasoned, some are calm and reasoned.  But all have the same message.  There is another side to adoption and you need to hear what it is.

In fact, there are many sides/aspects to adoption.  We all deal with the personal impact but most of us, as we come out of the adoption fog, have also come to realize that part of what we need to do is educate.

If you would like to read one adoptee’s journey out of the fog and on to something greater, go and read The Declassified Adoptee

Well written and thought provoking. As always. Really, go and read and learn.

Peace

UM

Talk to the Hand Adoption…

Just talk to the hand adoption!

Hello, It’s me…

The typewriter is back!

You know that feeling you have when there is someone who is an old friend and you haven’t spoken to them in a while and you feel like you should give them a call, you want to give them a call, you like them, but for some reason you don’t call and then you start to feel funny about calling because it has been so long.

Well that’s how I am feeling about the blog.  Unsigned Masterpiece has been quiet for a while.  There is a reason. Over the last few months, in fact over the last nine or ten months, my mother experienced an on-going series of health crises.  She would be on the brink and then she would rally, quite spectacularly, and then we would go through the cycle again.  She lives in another city so there was a lot of driving and long distance phone calls with doctors and my sister.  A lot of worrying about what to do.

My mother died, somewhat unexpectedly despite her health issues, on February 20th.  She was 91.  Although it took us by surprise, I think she may have known because about eight days before she died she asked to have lunch with my sister and I.  We brought in food and dishes to the hospital and had a nice time.   I came back two days later on Valentine’s Day and surprised her.  I brought headphones and the soundtrack to Midnight in Paris and she listened and danced with her feet in her chair.  Midnight in Paris seems destined to be of significance in my life.

During all this, I didn’t feel like writing on my blog.  There also seemed to be a lot of anger floating around in the adoptoland blogoshere and I had enough going on.  I found all the anger and name-calling very sad.   Whether it’s Rush Limbaugh or somebody else.  Certain four letter words applied to women are sexist.

So I just decided to take a break from it all.

The outpouring of affection after my mother died was quite heart-warming.  Many people expressed their condolences, saying that they felt great sympathy for me and my sister and what we are going through.

Me, the year I got pregnant.

I nodded and accepted their kind words but I thought frequently as they were talking to me that there is only one population that understands the complicated relationships that exist between we mothers of the adopted and our own mothers.  They were, more often than not, the driving force behind the adoption “plan” that changed our lives and the lives of our children forever.

That is a big topic and one that I am not going to tackle on my first day back after such a lengthy absence. May be in a week or two.  Today it will be a kind of connect the dots post because that is how it feels to me.  A number of things came together.

After my mother died, my sister and I were going through old photographs to find pictures for a presentation at the funeral home.  It was kind of a nice exercise doing this with my sister.  Lots of memories.  And of course there were many pictures where I knew I was pregnant at the time the photograph was taken.  I was becoming reacquainted with these old photographs right around the same time Mr. Limbaugh was showing us who he really was by calling all women who wanted to use birth control sluts. (Proving it’s not about birth control or abortion it’s about women’s sexuality. Trust me.)  So this is me at the time I could have used some birth control.  Not looking particularly slutty.  In fact, not looking slutty at all.  Looking like the innocent young girl that I was.

You will see in the picture to the right that it is a graduation picture.  I was very close to graduating when I had my son, yet they convinced me that I had nothing to offer him. This brings me to another thing that happened recently. Another dot to connect up.

Canadian mothers are now pursuing the same apology for dubious adoption practices given to their sisters in Australia.  Here is the link to the story in the Canadian newspapers.

One other random dot-connecting event.  I was watching a documentary about Phil Ochs the other night.  The film started with this quote from JFK.

The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived and dishonest – but the myth – persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often […] we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

President John F. Kennedy – Commencement Address at Yale University, Old Campus, New Haven, Connecticut, June 11, 1962

That, if you ask me, is the trouble with adoption.  The myths die hard.  It’s uncomfortable for people to think.

And speaking of avoiding the discomfort of thought.

People asked me if I told my son about his grandmother’s death.  I didn’t because when I told him about my father’s, his grandfather’s, death, I heard nothing from him.  I knew then just what a cold heart I was dealing with.  I did hear from his father however, that was nice.

So I guess, dear readers, you have to do a little work and put all this together into a coherent whole.  My mother’s death, the photograph, Rush Limbaugh, the quest for an apology and the JFK quote, my son’s cold heart.  If you figure it all out. Let me know.  I’ll be here waiting.

Peace

UM

Finding Your Family

Family issues are once again keeping me from posting as regularly  as I had hoped.

Someone asked recently how you would go about tracing your family if you suspected that you were adopted.

This link to the New York Times may provide some answers:  Finding Your Family

You might also try Late Discovery Adoptees

Peace

UM