It's a bird, it's a plane, it's.......adoption

I wish I wasn't adopted. I wish I could just watch a movie and not be triggered by it. But I am and I can't.

I saw Man of Steel last night and it didn't take long for those familiar feelings to creep up. I knew that it was going to bother me a little bit, like most Hollywood depictions of adoption do but it just didn't sit right with me. (I mean, I cried like a baby at the end of Tangled. A princess, locked in a tower waiting for her real life to begin, always feeling like there was something more out there for her, finds out that she was stolen from her parents as a baby and then reunites with them right before our eyes! I was a mess.) Anyway, this was different. It brought back the feelings of guilt. The "the people who raised you are your real parents, why would you want to search" guilt.

This morning I know why.  I googled "Man of Steel adoption" and then I saw it.  The director and his wife/producer were in the process of adopting two children during the production of this movie.  Ahhhhh, they are AP's.  Now it makes sense.  I clicked on link after link and although the heavy adoption theme is mentioned, it's from a very pro-adoption position.  Or I should say pro-adoptive parent position. Identity crisis is mentioned a lot but they don't really separate it from normal teenage development.

That movie triggered so many feelings from my childhood.  Feeling different but desperately trying to fit in. The conflicting messages from my AP's about searching. Telling me it's okay but then acting hurt if the topic comes up.

Clark was obviously different from a very young age but his dad waited until he was how old to tell him that he was adopted? Yikes. It's hard enough to find out that you were adopted but to find out you're an alien too! Then his father tells him he has to keep it a secret because people won't accept him! Blend in son, and just keep pretending you were born to us. He tells him that someday the world would be ready to find out who he really was, apparently by someday he meant after he was dead so he wouldn't have to deal with it.

Don't get me started about the mother. The look on her face when Clark comes home and excitedly tells her that he found his parents and he knows where he came from. She's saying she's happy for him but her body language tells a completely different story.  I knew exactly how Clark felt when she turned her back on him and started walking away. I wanted to scream at her "this is not about YOU!".

In order for Superman to be accepted by his new adoptive family/planet he had to destroy what was left of his people and his homeland. He had to accept the fact that he was different and show the people of Earth how grateful he was for adopting him by protecting them.  But he couldn't even do that as "himself", he had to create an alter ego to blend in.

When is there going to be a real movie about adoption. One that shows how much it hurts the adoptee. One that doesn't depict the birth/first parents as making a sacrifice for the good of the child and then conveniently dying so they don't come back and interfere in their childs life.  These movies validate adoptive parents savior complexes and further promote the idea that adoptees should try to blend in to their new families and be grateful. The whole "be careful what you search for because you might not like what you find" warning.

I want to make a fantasy movie about adoption. In the movie the adoptive parents will actually put the child's needs first and allow them to grieve losing their first family. They won't be insecure and make it about them all the time. In fact they will celebrate their child's differences and not in the condescending my child is Chinese so I will feed them lo mein noodles and talk about their culture once a month. The adoptee will be allowed to talk about their feelings and if they want to search can do so without feeling guilty and ungrateful. Adoptive families will not feel threatened by birth/first families but instead will welcome them into a greater unit, the way they would welcome in-laws.

Until a movie like that comes out, I will have to sit through movies that promote the status quo and validate worse fears like The Kids are Allright and Juno. Those movies keep adoptees and first families in their place. (Be happy with things the way they are and don't ask questions or bad things can happen.)  That's exactly how pro-adoption Hollywood wants it.  Me, I am waiting for a real super hero to come along and change it.

Bring Peri Home!

http://bringperihome.blogspot.com/2009/09/clarifications-from-people-magazine.html?showComment=1252991339959#c921173985215506993

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Don't pray for me

I am not a religious person. There is something strange to me about people who turn their whole lives over to Him and wait for Him to tell them what His plan for their life is. How about taking some responsibility for yourself.

I am not naive enough to think that there is no "higher power" out there. There are too many unexplainable phenomenons and mysteries for me to believe that. I guess I would check the box
"spiritual but not religious" if forced to make a choice.

Where is all of this coming from? Recently I have been overwhelmed with the number of people who are bringing God into adoption just to suit their own wants. They are praying for a baby. Do they realize that they are praying for a mother to abandon their baby? It reminds me of stories I have heard about people who need organ transplants but struggle with the reality of it. In order for them to live they need someone else to die. How do you celebrate that. It's the same thing with adoption. In order for these people to get a baby, a mother, a father and their entire extended families have to lose a child and that child loses them. That child has to then grow up with biological and cultural strangers where nothing seems familiar and live in constant fear of being abandoned again.

Adoption is not a blessing. It is a business. Women, young, poor, unmarried, you name it are taken advantage of. They are told that they are not capable of taking care of a baby and that they should do the right thing, the unselfish thing and give up their babies. They are told to think of all of the people out there who can't have children, they deserve a child. Do it because you love them people say. How does this make sense? It doesn't. Do you know how confusing it is to be told that "your mother gave you up because she loved you and wanted you to have a better life"? I grew up waiting for others people I loved to abandon me because that's apparently what you do when you love someone and want them to be happy.

The bottom line is that agencies make money off of these women. For some reason people feel that they are entitled to have a baby and it doesn't matter who gets hurt in the process. Having a baby isn't a right. If you are infertile and can't have children I feel bad for you, I really do. But adoption is not a cure for in fertility. You don't deserve a child anymore than someone deserves to lose one.

Don't tell me God wants you to have a child. If he did, why are you infertile? God doesn't put babies in the "wrong bellies". Society makes that decision. If you truly want to fulfill His will, why don't you volunteer or donate money to a teen pregnancy program. Help babies stay with their mothers, the mother God intended for them.

What is the beginning?

"We never start a book from Chapter 2. As adoptees, we live our lives from Chapter 2."
-Darryl McDaniels aka DMC of Run DMC

When do things start to count? If I was too young to remember something does that mean it doesn't exist? Do I not have the right to know about myself? Does my history not matter?

What is the beginning?

Did my life begin at adoption? I don't think so.

I love my adoptive parents. I had a great life. Then why do I have this empty hole inside of me that no matter how hard I try, I can't fill. I have tried hobbies, reading , writing, painting, singing, dancing, acting, soccer, swimming, cheerleading....they didn't work. I even tried filling it with alcohol. That didn't work either. It's my missing piece. A piece that I haven't found, and wonder if I ever will.

Adoption is about loss no matter how you look at it. For one family to gain a member, another family has to lose one. A mother loses a child, a child it's mother. Even though that child gets a new family, it will never replace their first family. No matter how much they love their adoptive mother, they will never feel that safety, familiarity and love that they felt from their first mother while they were in her womb. That can not be replaced.

That being said, how do I "move on"? How do I live my life regardless of my missing piece? Do I really have to forget about my past and concentrate on the future? Do I try to start my own family to make up for the first family I never knew? Where do I begin? I don't know.