Random Thoughts: Adoption and Anger....

Random Thought Number One: On Anger

I've been wonder why anger - in and of itself - is seen as a bad thing. A negative. A criticism for everything one with passion says. Anger out in violent ays, yes. That's not nice at all and should be squashed.

Also anger held in, denied, can cause many issues for oneself and for others.

I was angry with my friend I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe; I told it not, my wrath did grow.—William Blake

Someone also said: "Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret."

But anger that is expressed in intelligent discourse and or motivates? What's wrong with that? It's actually the goal of anger management classes.

Does anyone criticize the mothers of MADD for using their righteous mother lion anger at their kids' senseless deaths to empower them into trying to spare other kid's lives???

Why then should those of us hurt by adoption not channel our anger to saving others our hurt? Why are we too often dismissed as angry and bitter as if:
1) we have no right to be, and
2) that makes everything we say untrue or less valuable or significant?  Why?

"....the red-hot emotion has a positive side, say psychologists who study anger. In studies and in clinical work, they find anger can help clarify relationship problems, clinch business deals, fuel political agendas and give people a sense of control during uncertain times. More globally, they note, it can spur an entire culture to change for the better, as witnessed by the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the earlier women's suffrage movement.
"Imagine what the women's suffrage movement would have been like if women had said, 'Guys, it's really so unfair, we're nice people and we're human beings too. Won't you listen to us and give us the vote?" says social psychologist Carol Tavris, PhD, author of "Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion" (Simon & Schuster, 1989). "To paraphrase Malcolm X, there's a time and a place for anger, where nothing else will do."  When Anger's a Plus

Of course, note that I did say anger expressed intelligently. Cursing and ranting and raving do not win points, and certainly do not educate anyone.  When you feel like you want to strangle someone - take lots of deep breaths. DO NOT HIT SEND whether in email or a blog comment.  Instead, open a word file and begin to compose your reply. Then edit it. Remove all insults and attacks.  Reread and edit again before sending or posting.  When I am REALLY, REALLY pissed, and/or it's a close friend or family, I wait a day to a week and reading it yet again before sending. You will discover how much more effective your anger can be when it is tamed in this way!

Also, re-read the email or post you are replying to. If you are like me, I find that when I am pissed, I mis-read!  I too easily can skip a "not" that is vital, or basically misinterpret a lot.  re-reading when you have a cooling off period can be very enlightening. Too bad far too many "conversations" on the net are rapid fire.

If you follow this method and are STILL called angry or bitter, in a dismissing way, then stand your ground and say: Yes I am and I have every right to be! And my righteous indignation does not detract in any way from the facts I am presenting or the points I am making.

Random Thought Number Two: The "Better" Life 


Recently I've encountered the joyful, happy adoptee - more insidious to me than an angry one, any day!

Their rhetoric goes like this: "I'm glad I was adopted. My life is so much better than it might have been."  Yes, you've been told that, it's been ingrained into your brain since you were a tiny tot and told that you were rescued, saved and chosen!  But do you ACTUALLY know for a fact what the truth is?

Have you met your mother and father? Siblings? Do you know if anyone ever abused or neglected you or if your mother was just deemed "too young" to even TRY to be a mother? Was she pressured, coerced, forced to relinquish? Did she marry? Is she a career woman? A professional? School teacher, mother, nurse? Is she  a good, worthwhile human being?  Could she have been any of this had she not suffered the trauma of carrying a child and loosing it?

Amazingly, the vast majority of happy, joyful, glad-to-have-been-adopted have never met their mothers because they "don't need to" and yet they make all kinds of assumptions that confirm how much better off they are and how grateful to have been adopted.

Others look at the financial aspect, how many more material "advantages" or a better education adoption provided them with. One argued that she knew for a fact her mother as poor. So i asked would it not have bene better than for someone to have helped her so she could have kept you? maybe given her a job with day care? Helped her find affordable housing?

Recently an "anony" MOUSE commented on an old blog post saying this:

I'm a victim of "family preservation", I would have given anything to have grown up with a family that wanted me, and because everyone was so scared to violate THEIR rights or preferences, I'll be dealing with the emotional fallout for the rest of my life. I would have rather lived in a cardboard box with strangers that wanted me rather than been forced to stay with "parents" that didn't. 

My reply:

You are only a victim if that is how you CHOOSE to see yourself! You are also the capability of being a survivor! 

Look, NO ONE gets to choose their parents (with very rare exception) - not the parents we are born to or those who raise us. It's ALL a crap shoot! A spin of the wheel of fortune. AND, there are good and bad natural parents, good and bad foster parents, and good and bad adoptive parents. 

Adoption does not - by any means - guarantee a better life. It only guarantees a different life!  

AND, no matter how good and loving one's adoptive parents are, adoptees still have to deal with feelings of having been rejected or abandoned, and they have to deal with lack of being treated equally as compared to non-adopted folk in regards to access to their own birth certificate and thus their medical history.  

So, at best, it's a trade-off and not equal trade. You MAY gain in the bargain, but you are guaranteed to loose your medical history and your equality. 

Adoption: You may gain in a re shuffle of the cards you had no control over or choice in to begin with, but you are guaranteed to loose your identity, your medical history and your equality....as well as your kin, your heritage and in some cases your culture and language.

Not exactly a win-win. Very much a win-loose, at best.

And those are my random thoughts for today...Watch this space for updates.

#3: Bio

The term "bio" is very offensive to most mothers. We are mothers who lost children to adoption or others who relinquished. natural, real, first, and original mother is also acceptable. But please refrain from using "bio" - it is so very cold and clinical. ALL of my children were born to me. Flesh of my flesh. They are my children. NONE are my "bio" children.

Conversely, we are ALL biological creatures. Unless anyone has a robot for a mother or a child! :-)

Bio is a science class or a brief biography.

#4. On the Utter Randomness of Adoption


So many adoptions occur because people are made to believe that adoption offers a child a "better" life.

Truth is that all adoption is a random reshuffling of the hand you are dealt. It's a spin of the wheel of fortune, a toss of the dice. A crap shoot! And it's totally random as to who is next up at bat and gets your kid.

Choosing photos and a bio (ah, see, that's where that word belongs!) guarantee absolutely NOTHING! As Doctor Gregory House is fond of saying: People lie! people especially lie when they want something and they likewise may want to hide some things, like even their true identity or location.

They may be good people they may not. They may stay married, they may not. You may get married, finnish college and wind up better off than them!  You may marry your child's father and have his or her full siblings. You may never be able to have any other children and thus have given away the only child you'll ever have - that was not something you were prepared for, huh?

Mother I have known PERSONALLY have found their kids, living in a car; abandoned at boarding school; deceased since they were infants, toddler or as teens or young adults...beaten, battered, sexually abused, emotionally abused,

Adoption provides NO guarantees. the only way to guarantee who your child is raised is to do it yourself!