Not for the faint of heart

It's been a bloody couple of weeks in adoptoland, but so what else is new? There's always someone attacking someone about something, engendering hurt feelings. More than two blogs I read have now gone dark, mostly because of rudeness heaped on by people who just want to flog a person rather than have dialogue. Repulsive. Another blog switched venues to shake off idiots, and the rest of us soldier on.

In one case, a first mother friend was accused of bullying (again, that nonsensical "bullying" bullshit when people don't agree!) and then had harpies send private e-mail and stalk her placed daughter, among other things, "wanting to do the right thing." Ugh. I have now lost another one of the few people who actually stands up for adoptees because the troops of zombie non-thinkers attacked her. I actually had a good laugh when one of the brigade started writing about cyber-bullying and cyber-harrassment but posted links to Utah (surprise!) statutes that don't govern interstate commerce and the Internet. Get it straight, people: Utah doesn't run the country. At least not yet. I hate that my friend felt pounded to a pulp for standing up for herself. APs and beemommies in Utah need to do some real soul-searching before they start labeling others. THINK.

As it turned out, the woman my friend had wanted to engage in discussion ended up listening to what adult adoptees had to say, which I suppose we can see as a victory. Again, we were told that a private e-mail would have been sufficient to help her change her mind. I rather doubt it, however. It's easy to brush off one little e-mail as one person's opinion. Guerilla tactics may be dirty, but they certainly get a lot farther for the cause than politeness. I am fucking finished with politeness, especially after that episode. My friend was badly hurt, and I don't forgive that stuff.

Then another first mother was shredded to bits by APs who didn't know thing one about her story. It was complete bullshit. She had asked APs, honestly, if they felt jealous about the relationships their adoptees have with their first families. I don't think it was a bad question, even if it wasn't perhaps worded in the floweriest of ways. Who gives a shit, really? This was one woman's question, one woman's story. She was lambasted within an inch of her life, psychoanalyzed in the cruelest of ways, and measured up as unworthy of her son. It made me SICK.

In yet another delightful episide, an AP provided commentary on a story published in the Modern Love column of the NYT, documenting one adoptee's journey to reunion and her ambivalent feelings about it. While I believe every word this adoptee wrote, as did the AP, the commentary was directed toward the adoptee's APs, who may or may not have made good decisions regarding communicating with their daughter about her first family (or so the narrative seemed to say). I agreed with the commenter. Even if I hadn't, it was her blog, her opinion. But of course, the uptight upright AP brigade, who has done so much good this week all around, had to throw tomatoes at the AP blogger and adult adoptees who shared stories that reinforced AP ambivalence about reunion.

There have been times with my own beloved aparents that I've known they're not really comfortable talking about my first family, and I know that. Do I wish it were different? YES. Am I allowed to say so? YES. This stuff stems back to childhood for me. I can read every word, every tone, every arch of the eyebrow, every silence of my amom's. I know what my aparents are thinking or doing from their presence and absence from discussions. I used to feel it was my duty want to take care of them emotionally, but now that I am 42 and really doing reunion, I know it's not my job. I know they love me and want what's best for me, and I love them, but I am going to take care of my own adoptee feelings for a change. I am sure they can respect that.

So when the writer mentioned her amother's "wobbly voice," asking how reunion went, I could hear it. I know it extremely well. When the adoptee's aparents handed over a thick file of information about her first family, without a word, without offering to discuss it with her, if she wanted--well, that's a parenting choice, but a loaded one. Adoptees know the avoidance tactic. It's okay, but it's not value-free. To say that it is: that's wishful thinking on the part of APs who don't want to look hard at themselves.

Anyway, adopto-blogland is full of packs of bloodthirsty hunting dogs (not like my own adorable lurcher, to be certain) who derive pleasure from tearing flesh from people, preferably first mothers and adult adoptees.

Their behavior is execrable (how I love that word); supposedly they are human, not beast. Yet they tear others down for fun, or to avoid challenging their own beliefs. Probably a little of both. Mostly they think they are mighty superior, but their insecurity is readily apparent to anyone who can truly see.

To those who hide, give up, or seek shelter: I can understand your desire to retreat. But we adoptees cannot. Just cannot. We must fight for ourselves and those who come after us, because we are still the ones who are treated like invisible ghosts, at best, or rubbish to be trod on, at worst. People still insist on speaking for us, saying that their children won't be like us, that it's okay to close adoptions, that it's fine to take children from orphanages filled with "stock" by corrupt practices. It's insanity, and I won't stop pointing it out to the naysayers. It's an uphill battle, and a weary one, but nonetheless important.

My brother, and mother, and uncle, and my cousin all said to me last week: you are so brave to come meet family, all by yourself. To fly to another state and not know what will happen, with strangers. To that I say: it was nothing! Nothing compared to being rejected, over and over; nothing compared to hating myself; nothing compared to most of the things I've done in my life.

Adoptees have the hearts of lions. The rest? Look deep inside yourself, and try to have compassion.