Community: "Rescuing" those in need...

Community and Crisis
Crisis, such as the recent earthquake in Haiti, can bring out the best in people. People rush in to help and rescue others, often at great risk to themselves. The world watches and an instinctive outpouring of compassion and aid rushes forth.
Crisis also invites trouble, such as looting. Akin to looting, there is the danger of an opportunism you may not have thought of- the alleged “rescue” of orphans via international adoption.


Last week, 53 Haitian orphans arrived in the United States, their pending adoptions to American families having been fast-tracked as a rescue and relief effort. In all, 900 children awaiting adoption could be affected by this fast-tracking process. While these children had already been identified as orphans and potential adoptees prior to the earthquake, there are loose estimates of thousands of children being orphaned by the earthquake. Amongst the crisis and chaos, Haitian children are vulnerable to uncertain family-reunification efforts. They are also vulnerable to predatory systems such as organized child slavery and prostitution… and to kidnapping into the international adoption industry.


International adoptions, as with most domestic adoptions, involve the facet of commerce. When a child is adopted, someone has profited; an agency, a lawyer, a doctor, or perhaps an underground “broker.” An organization with even the best of intentions profits, if not monetarily, in furthering its particular moral agenda.
America and other developed nations are fertile ground (pun intended) for the commerce of adoption. Americans have ready access to birth control, and American society widely accepts single parenting. Statistically, there are more couples wanting to adopt than there are American-born babies available for adoption. (Note the newspaper classified sections where prospective adoptive parents resort to advertising themselves, promising an ideal life for the child and “all-expenses-paid” support to the expectant mother.)


An adoption advocacy organization recently posted this position regarding adoption and the crisis in Haiti:
We understand why people want to open their arms and hearts to the children of the Haitian earthquake, but adoption is not emergency or humanitarian aid or a solution to Haiti’s ongoing problems. The immediate rescue effort in Haiti should focus on emergency services, individual and family care and family reunification, not family, community, and cultural destruction and the strip-mining of children. –bastardette.blogspot.com


Have you ever given thought to the “commoditization” of adoptable babies? Is it hard for you to believe that adoption can be an "industry of profit"?

Community- Talk about sensitive!...

I recently joined a national adoption-advocacy group. I’ve been enjoying the thought of the camaraderie of it and have been especially looking forward to attending my first national conference, (hosted by them).

A couple days ago, I had some confusion about using a feature of the organization’s web site and I e-mailed their contact person, asking her if she could re-send a previous e-mail I’d received explaining the new web feature. I received a reply, and it started like this-

“Dear Joy, I resent the welcome e-mail just now…” It continued with a reference to a web site separate from the group’s site. It also had an e-mail address attached that wasn’t obviously anything related to the organization. I was confused. Had my e-mail appeared as some sort of solicitation? What could have happened? I’d included my business name, Adoption Experience Workshop, only as a reference for them in finding my membership information. What in the world did I do?...

My logic was overtaken as I bristled with anxiety at the idea of being resented by someone in the group. Even if I had somehow sent something mistakenly, I couldn’t conceive of a professional opening a reply in such a way. I’d have to cancel my reservation for the conference, never renew my membership, everything and anything I could think of to protest the unprofessionalism- they’d have to fire that person before I’d renew!

In an earlier time in my life, I would have left it at that and I’d go off to fester on it for some time, feeling wounded and victimized. Fortunately, I’ve learned since then. Logic, returning to me quickly, had me on the telephone with the group’s president a few minutes after I read the e-mail. I apologized for my emotion, told her about the e-mail, and explained that I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The president caught on quickly to the content of the e-mail. (You may have guessed it by now, too.) The sender meant to say “re-sent,” not “resent.” I hadn’t thought of a type-o. Talk about sensitive!

I apologized to the president and, able to laugh at myself, (a long, hard-won skill), I said, “Wow, I really am a typical over-sensitive adoptee!” She mentioned that the sender of the e-mail was also an adoptee and would never have meant to hurt or offend. I pictured the sender, a fellow adoptee, and smiled to myself. I was back in the Community again.

Have you had experiences where you questioned your belongingness in a group, later to understand that your insecurities were “all in your head,” so to speak? What did it take- time, or accomplishments, or lots of reassurance from other members- to help you really feel comfortable? Did you ever consider that insecurity arising from adoption issues could have been, to some extent, at play?

Community- Safety

I happened by accident upon a book title on Amazon one day. The book's title, “Adoption Healing,” struck me deeply. I had never heard, or imagined, those two words put together before. It was a curious (and promising) idea, I thought. I ordered the book and it arrived that same week.

And then it sat. And it sat more. It sat so long I began to wonder why I hadn’t just taken it to the used book store yet. I had already concluded that it didn’t look like the “right read” for me, yet I just kept letting it sit. I avoided it. It was almost like I was afraid to walk too close to it. I didn’t want to deal with it, not even in taking it to the book store. A couple months passed. I grew less wary. Those words on the pages- words I hadn’t even looked at yet- were settling in to our house, making themselves comfy on the shelf and maybe watching TV over my shoulder at night. I became unafraid to walk past them. And one day, prompted by nothing in particular, I picked the words up and finally read them.

Reading “Adoption Healing” challenged me to think about, and really deal with, my “adoption emotions.” This book represented the most painful aspect of my life. Having it under my roof prompted subconscious emotions to surface. I needed time for my courage to grow and my curiosity to percolate. When I was finally ready to read “Adoption Healing,” I found insight, validation, and a newfound sense that a whole community of people (adoptees) were out there in the world struggling with the same issues I was.

That book was a life-changer. Reading it was the single best thing I ever did for myself. It was a pivotal step to putting me on a new, more content, less isolated path. I had feared what I most needed… help with my pain and a “community” (though not yet personal acquaintances) who could help me.

Feeling part of any community hinges on having things in common with the other members- this is obviously step one in engaging in a community, right? Well, no, not really. That’s step 2. Step one is about having enough sense of trust in others to feel safe enough engaging with them in the first place. Step 1 doesn’t always come so naturally or smoothly for adoptees. Adoptees, consciously or not, can have a very hard time believing that even their very first community- the adoptive family- is an inherently safe and stable place to be (even though the family may have indeed been completely safe and reliable). So, in my case, it took the relative safety of reading a book about adoption- which I had also been afraid of!) to prepare me for even thinking about engaging in person-to-person conversations with adoptees, about adoption.

I’d offer that, in reading this blog, you’ve just accomplished a courageous act. Participating here could be preparing you for taking that really important “physical” leap into dialouging with the people who make up the community of Adoptees. They’re at support groups and group counseling sessions and conferences. You can’t imagine the soul food these settings provide until you experience them. But in the mean time, I’d like to point you toward some excellent “readable” resources.

BOOKS: There are an abundance of books in publication now on adoption, easily findable on Amazon. Different books suit different sensibilities and there are lots of great books to choose from. There are two books in particular that I consider must-reads for adoptees, as I consider them to be the most important works addressing the “adoptee-experience”. The first is “The Primal Wound; Understanding the Adopted Child,” by Nancy Newton Verrier. The second- which is the book I referred to in this blog- is “Adoption Healing; A Path to Recovery,” by adoptee and therapist Joe Soll. These two books address the core emotional, or even spiritual, aspects of adoption in a way that really provides the building blocks for healing and navigating adoption related wounds. Don’t miss them.

ONLINE: Author Joe Soll also has a web site, adoptioncrossroads.com. It’s a plethora of information on adoption. The site has a 24/7 chat room for adoptees and Joe personally hosts a nightly chat session.

ORGANIZATIONS: The American Adoption Congress (americanadoptioncongress.org) and the Evan B. Donaldson Institute (adoptioninstitute.org). Both organizations advocate for changing and improving adoption practices and policies. Their efforts include political advocacy, education, and research. Take a look at how hard these organizations are working for the benefit of adoptees. Read read read. Until the time comes when you’re ready to talk. And then you'll maybe find that you can’t seem to stop talking… fearlessly…

Community- Through the Looking Glass

Natural disasters, warfare, physical and sexual assault, and domestic abuses including verbal abuse; all are recognized as instances in which someone has been hurt. Society offers help to the sufferers of these traumas in the form of medical attention, counseling and legal protections. Most pointedly, society extends its empathy to them.

Then there are adoptees… Adoptees are stolen away from what many refer to as the most sacred relationship in life- mother/child. They are handed to strangers. They are robbed of their names, their histories, their biological truths, and their existential anchor in the world- their birthmothers. And then they’re told that none of this is significant, nothing really “happened,” they really haven’t lost anything at all.

I call adoption the “through the looking glass” trauma. All other traumas are instances where something that shouldn’t have happened did. Adoption is a scenario in which something that should have happened and didn’t. The “should-have” is the continuation of the mother-child bond and all the universal continuities that go with it.

Because adoption trauma is not the result of an action, but rather is the result of a non-action, or void, it goes broadly unacknowledged as a traumatic experience. Adoptees are often even expected to be grateful for their placement into a “better life.” Adoptees who are aware that they’re experiencing pain related to adoption are left feeling “crazy” and very, very alone.

Did you know that about 1 of 10 people in America are directly affected by adoption, being either adoptee/birth parent/adoptive parent, or living in the immediate family of one of those parties? When you think about it, 1 in 10 is a lot. If you’re in a restaurant full of 30 people, there are two other people in the room with you who are affected by adoption. If you’re surrounded by 100 people in your workplace, there are 10 who are “in the adoption boat” with you. We’re all basically tripping over each other and we don’t even know it. Meanwhile, we’re walking through life feeling alone and isolated in our pain.

This month we’ll talk about finding ways of connecting with others who are struggling with adoption-related trauma. For starters, take a day to notice people around you, knowing that many of them must be "Through the Looking Glass" of adoption along with you. Can you really imagine this truth? Does everyone else look “normal” in contrast to your “crazy”? Do you feel comforted by the thought that other adoptees are nearby? Do you feel even lonelier since their adoptive status is unknown to you?

Estimate how many people you’ve crossed paths with in a day- everyone from family to friends to work acquaintances to people in the grocery store. Divide that number by 10. That’s how many folks you’ve probably encountered who well may be suffering loss related to adoption.

Community- Connecting Threads

“I really love used clothes,” I pointed to out to my friend as I showed off my new, hand-me-down sweater. “It makes you feel connected,” she said. A light went on. Yes, it was a connection! And what’s more personal than clothing? I continued thinking on this later. Was it the sentiment behind the gift of the sweater that was so special? Was it some actual juju, or DNA embedded in the fibers, that conveyed “connection vibes”? It didn’t really matter. I just wished I got hand-me-downs more often. (Most of my friends & family aren’t my size.)

The TV show "Northern Exposure" (of the early 90’s) had a great episode that relates to my sweater scenario. The story goes like this-

A native Alaskan Inuit wants to make the town doctor an honorary tribe member in thanks for medical care she received. The tribe members begin conducting initiation rituals, sometimes to the surprise of the doctor. One evening a man appears on the doctor’s doorstep and invites himself in. Instead of visiting with his host, he quietly paces the house, examining the living room and kitchen slowly and thoughtfully. The doctor impatiently asks for an explanation. Finally, the visitor makes a suggestive gesture; he unplugs the doctor’s coffee maker, picks it up and leaves the house with it, the baffled protests of the doctor following him out the door.

Days pass and there are more visits by tribe members who each help themselves to one of the “uninitiated’s” possessions. The doctor grows increasingly irritated. Just as he’s about to snap, a visit from the coffee-maker bandit turns the tide. The man has returned to the doctor’s house with his own coffee maker in hand- a gift in exchange for the doctor’s machine. Visits continue- throw blankets, clock radio, cooking utensils, houseplants. The house fills with used goods until each “stolen” article has been replaced with another. A community-building ritual has taken place. The tribe and the doctor have shared little pieces of themselves with one another.

The storyline makes me think about my first apartment. I remember the fun I had selecting a new comforter, a block of kitchen knives, some tapestries for the walls. The new things were markers on my passage into adult life. As I continue exploring that apartment in my mind, I start picturing “all the stuff I didn’t have to buy”. The Revere Ware from my mom, the kitchen table from my aunt & uncle, dish towels, lamps, and a set of mugs from my college times at a favorite restaurant. At the time I regretted that I couldn’t shop for and hand-pick every item of my new life. I felt “stuck” with some of the stuff - I always thought that Revere Cookware was ugly and that plaid dish towels belonged in the homes of geeks.

Today, if I imagine that apartment minus the hand-me-downs... those connecting threads between me and others and the past... it looks a hotel room with the personality of a slot in a parking lot. The hand-me-down, checkered dish towels were ritual objects. The bath towels were old friends. Even that damn Revere Ware that I always thought was so ugly became meaningful, its significance stretching beyond its utilitarian function. I still have a few pieces of it today (though I try to avoid using them, due to their enduring ugliness).

What are your most special connecting threads? Clothes, gifts, stories? One of my current “sharing” routines is splitting a meal with my friend when we meet at the pub or the coffee shop. (We eat whether we’re hungry or not.) If you don’t really have any sharing rituals, maybe you’d enjoy creating some. Maybe a friend would even swap toasters with you…

Community- Alone at the Party

My Dad (adoptive Dad) organized the mail on the dining room table. Twice a year there would appear letters from the Children's Home of Pittsburgh, the adoption agency that handled my adoption. One of the letters would include a return envelope. I somehow understood that the envelope was to be returned with a check in it. I imagined the check to be a thank-you present, or an obligation, to the Children's Home for the Home’s bringing me to my adoptive family. The check showed the Home how good my parents were and how well they were taking care of me.

If the letter wasn't the thank-you letter, it was the Invitation. Each year the Home hosted a party for the adoptive families who were created thanks to the Home. Both my brother and I hated going. My brother remembers being encouraged with the enticement of cookies and crackers. We didn't want any cookies and crackers. I remember throwing up on my dresses on the car rides there. Mom always planned ahead and brought an extra for me to change in to.

The party seemed to me to be full of strange and odd beings. The other kids looked normal, but I thought they couldn't be, given that they were adopted like me, and, like me, they were given away by birthparents who did not want them. I definitely wasn’t normal. How could they be? But the reason the other children seemed so strange was that I could see anything “wrong” with them. And I couldn’t see whether they were as uncomfortable, and upset, as I was to be at the Party.

I was at the party to do a job. The job was to show the Ladies who worked at the Home what a good job my parents were doing and to show them how happy I was but I couldn’t imagine that’s what they were seeing. At the Parties I was nothing less than agonized until the moment we stepped out the front door into the cold winter air and started the drive back home. On that hour-long drive I comforted myself with the thought that I was as far as I could possibly be from the next year's Party at the Children's Home of Pittsburgh.

Why was the Party so miserable for me? I've heard that many kids enjoyed that one time of year when they were "around other kids like them." I think I was so pained about the party because all the year through our family pretended as if our family were, let's say, just like families created by Nature rather than arranged by an agency. I worked very hard to believe this fantasy, this falsehood. In the process, I struggled with a lot of pain all on my own; there was a Birthmother out there somewhere who didn't keep me. I didn't know why, and no one could- or would- tell me. Maybe if I convinced myself that none of this mattered, then it wouldn't be real and it wouldn't hurt.

Then once a year came the Party. My adoptive status was to be celebrated? How could it be? It was like celebrating everything that was "wrong" with me, that went unacknowledged and even denied in my household the rest of year through. What in the world was there to celebrate? Perhaps those whose adoptive status was not a taboo subject in their homes found camaraderie at the Party. It was a place where they felt not-alone. Or maybe they were bolder people than I who reveled in a once-a-year coming-out party that acknowledged their adoptions. Everyone is different. I just know that the Party was for me, rather than a festivity, an anxiety attack.

So much has changed for me since then. I talk online about adoption experience, hoping to help others do the same. It took a lot of hard work to get here, learning to take the risk of expressing myself and learning to trust my instinct that being adopted is a different life experience than that of being a birth-child. I’ve learned that my pain has been a real and legitimate experience.

Have you ever been in a situation where you were clearly acknowledged to be an adoptee amongst adoptees (or another adoptee)? Think back to the first time you experienced it. What was it like for you?

What's in a Name? "Sommersby"

December's movie night topic was the movie "Sommersby" (with Richard Gere & Jodie Foster). The story goes that Gere's character has been in battle in the Civil War and returns "home" to wife Jodie Foster. But "home" is actually his new, adopted home. The Gere character has assumed the identity of "Sommersby", a comrade who was killed in battle who happened to look just like Gere.(Far-fetched, I know, but then they didn't have many photos then as reminders... we can suspend disbelief and go with it.)

The Gere character despises himself based on his own past and he will settle for nothing less than reinventing himself. Meanwhile, in the intimacy of the "marraige", Foster realizes that Gere is not indeed her husband. Yet a relationship grows and Foster, along with the community, embrace the new "Sommersby". A problem ensues. The actual Sommersby, now dead, was responsible for serious crimes and is to stand trial. Gere's Sommersby must face trial and its possible outcome- a guilty verdict punishable by death.

As the story progresses Gere's hope for an "innocent" verdict grows bleak. And additional complication arises. Gere learns Foster's character has become pregnant with their child. Gere's only hope to escape execution is to confess to the court that he has stolen the real Sommerby's identity. Even the community, who have accepted him as one of their own, encourage him to confess to "identity theft" so that he can escape being hanged. Gere refuses to confess and he is sentenced to death. Gere goes to his death saturated in his pride, leaving wife and unborn child behind.

Gere was desperate to disown his questionable past and he hinged the whole idea of this "purge" on his name-change. The concept so consumed him that he abandoned a wife and child. In becoming a "new man", Sommersby ultimately seems to have become a lesser man, rejecting profound responsibilites, and love, for his ego. Sommersby's sense- the antithesis of Shakespeare's "What's in a name, a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet"- was that a name is everything...

Can you imagine yourself ever inventing a new name for yourself? Say you were moving to a new city and wanted to a fresh start, to become someone new. Everyone in your new life would know you only by your invented name. What would the pros and cons be?