I haven’t really written before about the falling out with my adoptive
family, and reading about yet another family buying into an “open adoption” and being shocked when it starts closing got my memory churning. This family thought adoption was best because they were worried they could not provide for the child. Like the quantity of possessions make for better parents. It’s a fallacy our society buys into each and every day. “Things” do not make someone more able or better to parent, love and dedication to your child does. As part of the #FlipTheScript movement I have written this post to follow the Day 8 prompt.
#FlipTheScript - Today's prompt Day 8:Talk about the assumption that adoptive parents are not only better than their children’s birth parents, but also better parents than others who are raising their own biological children.
I can honestly say that my adoptive parents had no business adopting children. Not only were they not prepared to raise an adopted child, they had failed to deal with their own issues surrounding infertility and under laying relationship issues.
While my adoptive family put on a face of normalcy, behind close doors the
situation
was puncutated with episodes abuse and neglect….. mostly directed at me by my
adoptive mother. Why did my adotpive
mother hate me so much? Well she would
not put it that way. To quote her directly “I don’t like you, it doesn’t mean I don’t
love you, but I cannot stand you”. Then she would often try shaming me that
I didn’t have a close relationship with her, like she did with her own mother.
From the time I was 11 until I was done
with Highschool she would say these
things to me weekly. The message
I always heard was that I wasn’t
good enough, and I need to be thankful for the family I had,
show
gratitude, and shut up and go with the
program. However, I am strong willed… I
always have been. You cannot make me do anything I
don’t want to do, and for my adoptive mother my resistance to comply
with what ever she wanted, was met with verbal abuse, victim shaming, negelct, and
physical abuse. I know what its like to be choked, to have your air supply cut
off….the inability to make a sound. I was 11 when she choked me. She acted like
it was an accident, but I know better. Her M.O. was to take away anthing that had any
value to me…. Be it friends, college, art, or even my own husband…. If it had
any value to me, she was out to ruin it, or take it away from me.
Shock the Monkey
While I knew that my adoptive mother hated me, that she wanted to take away anything that had value to me…. I tried so hard to make the relationship work. Grattuide, adoptee loyalty were so ingrained into me … that I really felt like I had been a bad child who deserved the harsh teatment my adoptive mother dished out to me. When my adoptive family turned on my husband, and my adotpive mother specifically attempted to force me to choose him or them, I walked away from them- and I’ve never loooked back. I was so shocked when she did this… I was also shocked when nearly my entire adotpive family turned their backs on me. Never once has anyone ever wanted to hear my side of what happened, and I know why…. Because my adoptive mother has potraied me as thethat I really felt like I had
been a bad child who deserved the harsh teatment my adoptive
mother dished out to me.
It took me years to come to terms with it. For years I cried at how easily I was cast off. It took me five years to deal with it, another two years to find the courage to find my first families.
Through it all, this very hard road I’ve been on… you will find the adoption fallacy that adoptive parents are better than other parents, that they are someone more or better able to parent children. This is a Myth. Adoption cannot guarantee that at all. All they can guarantee is a different set of parents, and a different life- not quality.
When I speak out about adoption from the perspective of an abused and neglected adoptee and the response is “you’ve just had a bad experience, not all adoptions are that way”, I am being dismissed and discounted with those 12 words powerful words. When we dismiss those adopted persons who didn’t have the idyllic home that societal adoption mythology holds to be true, those individuals are dismissed because they challenge the myth.
family, and reading about yet another family buying into an “open adoption” and being shocked when it starts closing got my memory churning. This family thought adoption was best because they were worried they could not provide for the child. Like the quantity of possessions make for better parents. It’s a fallacy our society buys into each and every day. “Things” do not make someone more able or better to parent, love and dedication to your child does. As part of the #FlipTheScript movement I have written this post to follow the Day 8 prompt.#FlipTheScript - Today's prompt Day 8:Talk about the assumption that adoptive parents are not only better than their children’s birth parents, but also better parents than others who are raising their own biological children.
“I don’t like you, it doesn’t mean I don’t love you, but I cannot stand you”
I can honestly say that my adoptive parents had no business adopting children. Not only were they not prepared to raise an adopted child, they had failed to deal with their own issues surrounding infertility and under laying relationship issues.
While my adoptive family put on a face of normalcy, behind close doors the
situation
was puncutated with episodes abuse and neglect….. mostly directed at me by my
adoptive mother. Why did my adotpive
mother hate me so much? Well she would
not put it that way. To quote her directly “I don’t like you, it doesn’t mean I don’t
love you, but I cannot stand you”. Then she would often try shaming me that
I didn’t have a close relationship with her, like she did with her own mother.
From the time I was 11 until I was done
with Highschool she would say these
things to me weekly. The message
I always heard was that I wasn’t
good enough, and I need to be thankful for the family I had,
show
gratitude, and shut up and go with the
program. However, I am strong willed… I
always have been. You cannot make me do anything I
don’t want to do, and for my adoptive mother my resistance to comply
with what ever she wanted, was met with verbal abuse, victim shaming, negelct, and
physical abuse. I know what its like to be choked, to have your air supply cut
off….the inability to make a sound. I was 11 when she choked me. She acted like
it was an accident, but I know better. Her M.O. was to take away anthing that had any
value to me…. Be it friends, college, art, or even my own husband…. If it had
any value to me, she was out to ruin it, or take it away from me. Shock the Monkey
While I knew that my adoptive mother hated me, that she wanted to take away anything that had value to me…. I tried so hard to make the relationship work. Grattuide, adoptee loyalty were so ingrained into me … that I really felt like I had been a bad child who deserved the harsh teatment my adoptive mother dished out to me. When my adoptive family turned on my husband, and my adotpive mother specifically attempted to force me to choose him or them, I walked away from them- and I’ve never loooked back. I was so shocked when she did this… I was also shocked when nearly my entire adotpive family turned their backs on me. Never once has anyone ever wanted to hear my side of what happened, and I know why…. Because my adoptive mother has potraied me as the
It took me years to come to terms with it. For years I cried at how easily I was cast off. It took me five years to deal with it, another two years to find the courage to find my first families.
Through it all, this very hard road I’ve been on… you will find the adoption fallacy that adoptive parents are better than other parents, that they are someone more or better able to parent children. This is a Myth. Adoption cannot guarantee that at all. All they can guarantee is a different set of parents, and a different life- not quality.
When I speak out about adoption from the perspective of an abused and neglected adoptee and the response is “you’ve just had a bad experience, not all adoptions are that way”, I am being dismissed and discounted with those 12 words powerful words. When we dismiss those adopted persons who didn’t have the idyllic home that societal adoption mythology holds to be true, those individuals are dismissed because they challenge the myth.
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