For all the things that are written and
told about adoption, few are true. As a reunited adult adoptee
I hope to shed as much light on this issue as possible within
my lifetime.
If asked by anyone considering adoption
"Is adoption a good choice"? My answer unreservedly would be "NO".
Adoption is NOT a healthy or a good choice.
If you ask a baby if they want to
be adopted they would say if they could talk a thousand times
over "NO". Each year hundreds of people are lied-to about adoption,
it is time for those who are its experts to come forward and share
its reality.
Adoption is a permanent solution
to a temporary situation. It is important to stress that it is
NOT the baby that is a problem, it is the circumstances in one's
life that is or could be presently challenging.
Adoption is a negative, punitive exercise
of robbing babies and children from their mothers, their heritage,
their roots, their identities, and their rights as human beings.
Adoptees lose from the minute they are separated from their mothers.
This loss is cloaked in lies, and illusions.
For those promoting adoption, the idea
is that it is a gain for the baby or the child. Being surrendered
for adoption is not a gain in the least. No amount of money,
or a two parent family, nor anything can replace the real and
natural mother for adoptees. Nothing can replace the heritage
and connections with others in the natural family as well. They
won't tell you this but I will - from day one we grieve and are
sad to have lost our mothers and are not happy! Not only
are babies sad they are also afraid. We know our mothers, we grow
inside their wombs. We hear the music of their hearts, we know
their smell, we trust and love them by nature. They are
ours, our universe - all that we know, all that we feel, love
and are attached to. Adoption takes our universe away. If someone
took away all that you love and all that you know how would you
feel?
When we are born we only want one thing
to be held and loved by our own mothers. We know them, they belong
to us and us to them. To take that away is not good for babies
it is the worst most abusive act emotionally to inflict. When
adoptees lose their mothers they lose themselves as well.
They forever lose the person that they were born to be, and they
lose the joy and right of being that person.
Above all we lose trust from the very beginning
of the separation. The loss of trust is not a temporary feeling
that is lessened by being adopted. That is another famous lie
promoted by baby brokers. It is forever and permanent just like
adoption is.
When the first lesson in life is that the
one person you love and trust will go away it is hardly a good
start for anyone. Along with the broken trust is grief and
sorrow. This is not a lesson or anything that should be
encouraged to inflict on helpless infants. Being severed from
your mother and family is not anything that adoptees are happy
about. The loss in adoption for adoptees can rarely ever be expressed
or acknowledged. There is a horrible expectation and false
belief that the adopters and adoption will overcome any damage
done to adoptees. This is another lie - it cannot undo our pain
in losing our real families. In fact it makes the pain worse as
it is so often denied to begin with. The truth is that we are
traumatized from the separation and always will be. The
grief that we feel as infants is not ever acknowledged. This lack
of support also breaks our trust. It also makes us untrusting
of our own feelings when our first feelings are blatantly ignored.
It is normal for babies to be sad and in grief when they lose
their mothers - what is NOT NORMAL IS ADOPTION to begin with.
Anyone considering adoption should know
and see themselves as having value and worth. Above all they should
know that they are NOT replaceable. Babies are not interchangeable
entities to be adopted without negative effects either. In truth,
the bonds of nature are not replaceable any more then the mother
or the baby is to begin with!
Along with the broken trust and the grief,
the second lesson in life for adoptees is to be fake and live
in worlds of illusions. From the minute of the adoption we are
conditioned to be someone else.
Adoptees are forced to take on the identity
of strangers. We are not born to adopters, social workers or social
agencies. We are born to two parents. Our birth certificates are
falsified, then locked away. Our grief is not locked away though!
Adoption changes our names it cannot change either a babies or
a mother's heart or the lifelong loss that both will forever experience.
One of the arguments for adoption is that
adoptees will gain two parents. This is ridiculous as we all ready
have them. This is the first lie used to coerce people considering
adoption. If you are pregnant and reading this know reality -
you are the baby's mother not anyone else. The baby also has a
father. The father may be unsupportive, or supportive but the
reality is your baby has 2 parents to start with.
Our personalities and our lives are assumed
to be shaped to those of our adopters. The famous lie we will
be just like them. Babies are born with set personalities, genes,
behaviors, temperaments, likes and dislikes. This is not an idea
it is a FACT! The idea of shaping a baby that is all ready a human
being with a personality is again not healthy it is negative.
For adoptees fitting into another persons life at the expense
of not being themselves - does not foster self-esteem or happiness.
It breeds only one thing - insecurity, self-doubt and fear.
It is not natural to live with strangers and pretend to be born
to them. It is not fair, and it is not in the best interests of
anyone other then adopters. It denies babies and children
their rights to be only one thing - exactly who they were born
to be.
This continual lying that adoptees must
live with manifests itself in thousands of ways. Adoptees are
sad to be adopted, angry and insecure. The myth of the happy,
grateful adoptee is nothing more then a blatant fantasy spread
by baby brokers, and adopters. It is hardly the reality that I
live with and not a reality for most adoptees that I know and
have worked with.
It is a huge burden to deny who you are
and to try and be someone that you are not for someone else. It
is not child oriented it is adopter oriented. It is not fair to
expect an innocent child to be another person. This alone makes
the lack of trust worse. Not only have we lost our mothers breaking
our trust but we also lose ourselves further breaking trust more
as well. The message for us is to be someone else. It says to
us that who we are to start with is not worthy, it says that it
is not good. It says that our mothers and our own heritage is
not good either. If it was of value then why should it be denied?
If it was of value then why falsify, lie and deny it?
The denial of our real selves causes irreparable
harm and again breaks trust! This is not in our best interests
or any child's for that matter.
For adoptees being adopted does not feel
like love or happiness. It feels as though we are unloved. It
feels like we are unwanted, not good enough and not quite right.
These feelings are not just light feelings that adoptees experience
for a short time. They are life-long, deep and permanent. They
cause permanent scars that do not go away. Situations can change.
For adoptees though once adopted forever adopted. The permanency
is not changeable and the negative side effects not worth it for
any reason.
Other lies that adoption promotes are things
like the baby will be just like the adopters? As I have said we
are born to parents to start with, we have genetic influences
that are strong, and in fact stronger then nurture to start with.
Babies and children will NOT BE JUST LIKE ADOPTERS, they will
in fact favor and be like their real parents. Above all
why should we be just like strangers, we are not their children
we are the children of our real parents. All children should have
the right to love and be proud of themselves, and to love and
be proud of who they are. Adoption turns pride into shame, love
into fear, and robs children of their right to be happy as they
are.
For many promoting adoption the idea of
income and wealth for the child may sound appealing. Fancy houses,
cars and trips around the world is a shallow way to look at life,
Life is not about money. It is much deeper then that. The poorest
of children if loved will be rich in the ways that count. Adoption
for material gain is wrong. Material possessions and financial
opportunities do NOT replace a babies or a child's desire to love
and be parented by their own parents. NO AMOUNT of money in a
child's life is worth it to be separated from their real parents.
Better to be poorer and loved by your own then to be richer and
live with lies, secrets, illusions and sorrow.
Another despicable myth is that the natural
mother will be sentenced to poverty forever. This is a condescending
and ridiculous lie. Having worked with hundreds of natural mothers
I can attest to the fact that the average first mother was not
the negative myth of the starving street person that baby brokers
have lied about for years! A person may well be having some financial
difficulty and may well be worried of providing for a child at
some point in their lives. Finances can change. Jobs are available,
training and education are both available, other alternatives
are available! While a persons finances can change adoption can
not. Again it is a permanent solution that will not change! If
you are considering adoption due to a temporary financial situation
then please think of this as being exactly that "temporary". I
believe humans are more then capable of productive and healthy
changes. Everyone can learn new things and grow. One's situation
now can always change - adoption can NOT!
Yet another argument used to promote
adoption is the question of youth. Being young is not a bad thing,
it is not negative and it is not dangerous. Young people can be
excellent caregivers and parents. For those that wish to support
adoption and promote it - this is yet another thing that they
manipulate and lie about. It is as if the young person will be
young forever. They will always be 16, or 17 or the age at the
time of pregnancy. Just as babies grow so do teenagers, so do
adults. You will not be young forever. You will mature and you
will grow. It is more then possible to learn how to parent at
a young age. The baby brokers will convince you that it is not
- will you believe them or will you believe yourself? Above all
will you believe in the lives of strangers or the lives of you
and your baby as being more then possible to be happy and healthy?
You can grow with your baby, learn
new things and parent a child at a young age. There is a myriad
of resources to help young people with parenting. Babies living
with older strangers is hardly in their best interests. Being
older is not and does not mean better then a young mother or father
period. Always remember you will not be young forever! It will
not matter to your baby if you are young as your baby will love
you regardless of age.
Adoption does permanent harm to children.
It effects them forever. It causes low self-esteem, identity problems,
fear, trust issues, grief, anger and a lifetime of not feeling
secure. That is the truth that is what baby brokers will NOT tell
you. That is what I will share as an adoptee and as someone who
has worked with adoptees for 11 years. Adoption is the only thing
that I know of that makes strangers family bound in secrets and
lies, and families strangers by the same secrets and lies.
I hope for anyone reading this that they hear the truth. Adoption
is not good for children!
For mothers as well I would like to again
stress that you are NOT replaceable. You are unique, your baby
knows and will love you. They are your child, your flesh and blood,
body and soul. You do not replace things that are sacred without
paying a heavy price. And the price is children haunted by their
own faces, that carry forever with them the coffins of infants
that only in being born ever wanted one thing - to be loved by
their own mothers. Babies want to grow into what they first knew
and loved at birth - their own mothers and themselves.
Adoption robs them of their right to nature, their mothers and
the essence of life.
Finally I would like to ask anyone considering
adoption one thing. If you were surrendered for adoption and you
lost your most beloved person - your real mother? If you were
forced to deny that the loss hurt you and pretend that it did
not? If you were forced to live with strangers. If you were forced
to be someone that you were not. If your life was a lie and you
were forced to be part of a family that you are not a part of.
If your identity was hidden from you. If your identity was
lied about by everyone in your life. If you were forbidden to
know your real name, see your real family, know your real life
- would you be happy or grateful? Likely not. I hope this article
says something to anyone considering adoption.
Copyright © 2001 Anne Patterson. Anne
is a author, adopted person, and licensed private investigator
with 11 years' experience and 95.4% success rate in reuniting
families separated by the adoption industry. Visit her website
at www3.sympatico.ca/searches
Copyright © 2001 Anne Patterson
