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Linda Rosa, RN (via iwasthesilentgirl)
fyi: Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent on what the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children officially disavows as institutionalized child torture masquerading as therapy.
15 notes (via bastardplanet & iwasthesilentgirl)
It happens more than you know.
(Source: brandx)
20 notes
It bothers me a lot that I will never know the name my birth mother gave me or even the actual day I was born. These may seem like incredibly insignificant details to other people but you only notice how important they are when you don’t know your ‘real’ name or real birthday. Does it bother you guys too?
Yes, but moreso on a political level. Personally* it doesn’t bother me anywhere near as much as people ignorant enough to buy into the ableist superstition that adoptees are “primally wounded” burgeoning serial killers will assume.
I empathize with and support any and all adoptees who are greatly bothered by the erasure of the profound makings of identity. We are a marginalized and oppressed class. We are NOT “attachment disordered” we are NOT “damaged goods,” and we do NOT have “Ted Bundy disease.”
(*It IS a total infuriating pain in the ass being denied access to one’s medical history/ having it erased altogether tho)
17 notes (via theadoptionblog)
Thanks to fellow class bastards who informed me that poet^ Rachel Rostad is also an adoptee, I’ll be taking a closer look into her work.
I remember when Cho Chang’s character had yet to be delineated in the texts and the Harry Potter fandom was whitewashing her left and white, crying “but but but she could be white adopted by an Asian family!!!11”
LOL
Adoption is a White Privilege Part 1 | Part 2
Also:
And:
oh and only when Cho was no longer Harry’s main love interest but relegated to the background crying nonstop over her white ex were folks like “k she’s Asian”
21,793 notes (via hyunsooklee & stelmarias)
Oh, that sounds interesting.
*plot twist*
Nothing about the person being adopted.
Shocking!
Brought to you by the official web page for Child Abuse Prevention Month.
Yup.
And I gotta add that even when there’s any substantive critique of the adoption industry, it’s always about the oppression and loss for our birth families, NEVER for us.
Non-adopted POC can talk a blue streak about the inherent fuckery of transracial adoption, but only insofar as birth parents and communities go. We’re a living, breathing reminder of their vulnerability and victimization through no goddamn fault of our own.
S2G bio spawn in general are incapable of comprehending or even considering those whom adoption affects the most by far: children who are actually adopted.
14 notes (via dickensian-werewolf)
This probably belongs on my
seriousadoption blog and not my personal one.And I should probably be writing it during my off hours and not on company time.
But, along the lines of “stealing like an artist” and because it’s on my mind right now:
——-
Adoptees are people. And thus should be conferred all the same legal rights and privileges conferred to
mostall other human beings.We should not be purchased. We should not be sold by the governments of our countries of origin. We should not feel forced to retain the names and associations of our new “owners”. We should not be forced to remain in legal contracts we were not a consenting party to, as in most cases they occur when we are children or babies. We should have access to our birth certificates AND basic knowledge of who we are and the genetics we came from for valid medical purposes. And, legal rights aside, we have rights to our thoughts and emotions, particularly and especially on the social-legal institution of adoption. One up from that in the hierarchy, we have the right to be heard and have our thoughts considered valid without emotional insult based counter-attack. You don’t have to agree with us. But, you do need to be respectful of what we have to say as well as our right to be heard.
Calling someone “angry” or “emotional” with a negative connotation is a typical tactic of an oppressor to invalidate a valid argument for basic human rights. A problem and the genesis of other using the slur “angryadoptee” in response to any adoptee who poses a valid critique of the social institution they have the direct firsthand experience of being raised in.
“Oh, you don’t really mean that, you’re just angry.” “Are there any adoptees left in the world that are still grateful?” “Oh, you’re adopted, your emotions are preventing you from seeing this situation rationally.” “How ungrateful of you to propose that adoption was not the best situation you could have been raised in. Don’t you understand your parents couldn’t have kids? Don’t you understand that your mother didn’t want you.”The messages of the dominant non-adopted culture are infinitely less diverse than the real situations adoptees rise from.
Some of us are the “products” of rape. Some of us are the products of child abductions. Some of us are the result of human trafficking. Some of us “became available” for adoption through wars, poverty, governmental failures and widespread national situations of distress. No two adoptee narratives are exactly alike. To say that they are is to erase the experience of another.
Especially in the case of international adoptions, MOST (if not all) of our narratives are infinitely more complicated than “your mother didn’t want you”. And, also, especially in the case of international/trans-ethnic adoptions we become dual outsiders in our early lives as well as in our returns to our countries of origin. We are frequently not “at home” in white America. Similarly, upon return to our countries of origin, we are not at home being wholly Peruvian or Korean. We become that which is “other”. That which is “neither” and simultaneously “both”. We are a colonized people. That some could perhaps argue belong in the end only to ourselves. Our losses were/are real. Our responses to those are real.
So, to say someone is an “angry adoptee” as if that is: 1) a bad thing and 2) unjustified ——- serves no one other than slurs speaker. And should be an indicator of the speakers interest in the true well-being of adoptees.
“Putting adoptees in their place” will not serve “to make a future generation of adoptees more grateful”. Denying adoptees access to their legal records will not make them go home to live their lives and identities as you assigned them. And, in general, making demeaning remarks at someone who you might bill as “angry”, DOES NOT PACIFY THEM. So, if “sweeping all the angry adoptees under the rug and out of your hair” by shaming them is the goal of using that slur, you really ought to work on your human relations skills.
The thing that gets me (to be bigoted in return for a moment) is that the worst offenders are usually the non-adopted adoptive parents and adoption professionals.
As the future and current “new owners” of children and adults, they have vested interest in adoptees being portrayed as universally happy. Because they “don’t want to endanger” adoption. Or possibly “cause the picture of adoptees in society to take a negative trend.”
I’ve got a fucking idea here. To sound like so much of an “angry adoptee” for a moment. How about everyone focus on the “portrayal of adoptees” being FUCKING HONEST?
If you want to “sell” the idea of adoptees being “worthwhile investments” and “contributors to our communities” why don’t you show all the amazing things we do in spite of the fact our situations and social support really fucking suck?
And, make sure when you do it that you show that *we* did it. Not our parents. Not our schools. Not some fucking celebrity adoptive mother oh-look-at-me-i-saved-26-disabled-babies figurehead. US.
Also, in showing us in our complexity, make sure to show that we’re people not angels.
We’re not here to save anyone from their infertility or be the joy of anyone else’s life.
Adopt children because you want to raise them to be themselves . Not to fill an emptiness in your own personal development.
Adoptive children, like any other child, grow up into adult people. And therefore may evolve into a pokemon you may not entirely be fond of.
No matter what we evolve into, you do not get your money back. So, don’t adopt if you only want a water type pokemon. Or have a set idea in mind that you cannot deviate from, in what you want for or from your future child.
I understand, that naturally, this must be a very difficult concept for adoption professionals and adoptive parents to understand given that the majority of the social institution is based on assuring everyone that “LYING IS OKAY”. As illustrated by the following examples:
Amend birth certificates so that they lie.
Withhold information to first mothers/ birthmothers.
Withhold information to adoptees “until you feel that they are ready”.
Withold legal documents that pertain to the adoptee, from the adoptee, FOREVER.
Etc.,etc.,etc down the lie chute.
But, given that the entire institution is based on a monumental pile of LYING.
How can the same people think anger, if present, is unjustified?
They’d be angry if lying to them was legally sanctioned too!
/endrage
True wisdom here. Thank you so much for writing this. I’ve experienced a lot of this, it becomes internalized. This entry gives me a greater understanding for why Islam doesn’t allow ‘adoption’ [sure you can take care of someone but you can’t change their name]. It wasn’t until I was around 14 that I found out my real last name.
We’re not here to save anyone from their infertility or be the joy of anyone else’s life.
PERFECTION
Thank you!
Standing ovation
all the awards.
38 notes (via dickensian-werewolf & fairyonacidbanging)
yr my number one tumblr crush. that is all.
Apologies for the late reply, that recent endorsement of ableist child torture from thisisnotaboutadoption whatshisface left a nasty taste in my craw and i unplugged for a while. back now, so i thank you and im such a huge fan of your writing and it bears repeating that everyone on this platform needs to be following you, you Classiest of Class Bastards. X
3 notes
Having a really bad week.
I really want to start/restart my Korean family search, but I don’t know if I have the emotional fortitude to do it effectively. Last time, I ultimately let it fall by the wayside because I was so discouraged by all the dead ends. I can’t imagine it gets easier.
My husband’s grandma died last week, and I think the idea of death and our finite time on this earth, the whole idea of losing a mother, is hitting me harder than I thought, and I think that’s what has brought this family search back to the forefront of my priorities. Because what if she dies and I never get the chance to meet her? I’m not sure I’d be able to live with myself if I knew I could’ve searched harder, longer, more persistently and didn’t…and then she died.
I just honestly don’t know where to go from here. My life is such that I cannot pick up and move to Korea for any length of time to do in-depth investigations. I’ve already gone through the traditional avenues (Holt and KAS) and was met with road blocks and zero information at both places. Just the realization that I don’t know what the next step is or how to pick back up or who to talk to is enough to make me burst into tears. I feel so helpless and lost and that’s the worst feeling. What if there’s a family in Korea that I have no way of accessing?
Sometimes I honestly feel like giving up on life, because this—the one thing I want more than anything—is so impossible that nothing else in the world seems worthwhile anymore.
12 notes (via hyunsooklee)
Transethnic, it is an actual thing.
Not in the sense that it has come to mean on tumblr.
If you are talking real transeithnic people, it exists in cases of adoption where the child is of another ethnicity than their adopted parents..This can really create a complicated space for identity.
Now links
Adoption increasingly crosses racial, ethnic lines
Quien Yo Soy? Identity Issues in Transethnically-adopted Children
Is Transracial adoption right for everyone?
Effect of Transracial/Transethnic adoption on Children’s Racial and Ethnic Identity and Self-Esteem
THIS.
My Chinese-American cousin is transethnic. My former foster brother who was a Chinese immigrant and was finally adopted by a white family is transethnic. My Black foster brother who was finally adopted by a white couple is transethnic. My friend from high school who is a Black woman adopted by a white father and Colombian/Korean mother is transethnic.
White people who have ~*native*~ spirits are not transethnic, they are fucking shitbags.
Ugh, we’re transracial/transethnic adoptees, ppl. As a transracially adopted person, I do not refer to myself as “a transethnic” or “a transracial.”
Bolding to mark co-signage. X
254 notes (via dustoffvarnya & culturalappropriationon)
Attachment Therapy (AT) is a growing, underground movement for the “treatment” of children who pose disciplinary problems to their parents or caregivers. AT practitioners allege that the root cause of the children’s misbehavior is a failure to “attach” to their caregivers. The purported correction by AT is — literally — to force the children into loving (attaching to) their parents.
The methods employed in AT are among the most disrespectful, degrading, insensitive, and harsh (i.e., brutal) imaginable. They are intended to overcome the resistance of a child to total obedience to the mother. They are employed until the child’s will is completely broken. If a child is stubbornly resistant to the treatment or the desired outcome — as understandably he or she often is — the brutality of the treatments escalates. This can go on, around the clock, for months or years.
Most often the children targeted for AT are those who have been adopted or are in foster care; a disproportionate number are of minority race or ethnicity, are autistic, or have physical disabilities.
AT has two major components to it. First, there is a hands-on treatment involving physical restraint and discomfort, termed psychotherapy by the professional or paraprofessional “therapists” who carry it out. This is usually accompanied by the second component, a phalanx of parenting techniques which brings AT brutality into the home, on a 24/7 basis. Both components are without basis in psychological theory or research evidence.
- ACT (Advocates for Children in Therapy)
To hell with anyone who propagates this racist, ableist child torture, wittingly or otherwise.
14 notes
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