Still Stinging
Posted: July 30, 2007 at 1:21 amI sat and listened, unable to just get up and leave, as a casual summer acquaintance (camp friend of my cousin) launched into a scathing diatribe about her friend who “gave away” her baby. She just “popped it out and gave it away.” Unfortunately, though I was shooting daggers at my cousin’s head, she was engaged in conversation with her friend’s cousin and with five other separate conversations going on around me, no one could hear my heart breaking.
I wanted to say, “I know you’re not a mother yet. I know you have no personal attachment to adoption. I understand that, therefore, you are unlikely to really grasp everything that goes on between the two subjects. And you’re actually a really smart and really nice woman. But man, you need to shut your trap.”
Instead, I nodded quietly. I didn’t engage the conversation to take it any further. I tried to manuever the conversation back to Old Navy’s maternity clothing line which had launched her into the most uncomfortable mostly-one-sided conversation I’ve been involved in, oh, in a really long time.
Removed about twenty-two hours from the ear-burning words, I can think of many things that I could have said. Even respectful things that still allowed this woman to think on her own. Things that weren’t attacking or demeaning. Maybe just subtly challenging. Then part of me wishes I would have said, “Well, I placed my first born for adoption. Does this change your entire view of me?” Which, we all know, that it would have and, quite frankly, at eleven thirty on the last night of camp, I didn’t really feel like explaining the most horrific experience of my life to my cousin’s camp friends. It’s hard enough explaining it to my camp friends.
What could I have said? What should I have said? I think this is yet another type of conversation that I really need to be working on, personally, to be prepared for: people that don’t own a title of “your” friend but maybe a friend of the family or a friend’s friend who, a) don’t know about the adoption and b) start demeaning birth parents. Is there a way to handle this without outing oneself? Or should I already be in a place where outing myself is okay, no matter who the person is? Am I lagging behind in regards to healing and that specific want/need for privacy (or is that secrecy)?
I’m full of questions lately, no? Quite frankly, I just don’t have the answers I need… sigh.
That said, there’s a birth mom somewhere around Columbus, Ohio who is, obviously, not getting any support from, at the very least, someone who claims to be her friend. If that’s you: I’m here.
The Discussion
see what everyone is saying
OH. MY. WORD. I’m just sorry you had to go through that crap. That’s just awful.
I don’t have any sterling words of wisdom, what to say or do, etc. etc. I just want you to know that I’m here and even though I can’t understand it from your vantage point, I’m here for ya.
(and I’d punch her for ya too)
I have yet to bite my tongue in this situation. I end up in this conversation about every other year.
“That is really rude. Not only to the woman you are talking about, but to her child too. Having a crisis pregnancy is one of the most sad and difficult things to go through especially when the woman makes an adoption plan. Horrible things are said towards her, and you wouldn’t wish that experience on your worst enemy let alone someone you say is your friend. *And* furthermore, would you want to hear someone talking that poorly about your mother?!?”
It amazes me how quickly I blurt that out.
Ouch!
ICK!!
Poss. xxx
Ouch. And yuck.
I like what magicpointeshoes said. I think you can reply in an intellectual way without having to get personal: “Actually, it’s a myth that women who place don’t care about their babies….blah blah blah…” I like mps’s way of bringing in the feelings of the child because everyone can feel for the child.
The attitude this camper expressed is pretty much the same attitude that all of my friends and family expressed when I chose to place. It sucked. I really thought that people who knew me would get that it wasn’t about not caring, but I guess the stereotypes run deep.
As to what you “should” be doing or where you “should” be? Kick that out of your head right now, missy! I admire you so much and if you bite your tongue now and then while you work through this? My respect for you does not diminish one iota.
I struggle with these questions too. I don’t think there is one answer. You just have to do the best you can day by day. What you do/say/don’t say today will be different tomorrow. Don’t be hard on yourself.
The first thing I try to do is pray. For the talker, for the woman talked about, for myself, for my kids and all their parents. That’s about the best thing that can be done I am sure.
Usually, if I say anything I say “I am sure she did/is doing the best she can.” It sounds trite but it is a truth that sometimes sinks in.
BTW, I tagged you with a meme. If you feel like more questions, LOL.
Wow. I’m sorry you had to sit through that. Maybe, just maybe, I could try to find some purpose in it — that you brought it here so anyone who finds you, and those of us loyal to you get a good reminder of the nonsense that is still out there, of the sentiment that a woman who placed her child must also face — from a friend, no less.
As an adoptive mom, I’ve found myself in conversations similar, heard comments similar, and usually am struck so dumb that I don’t know what to say — and most important, how to say it smart enough, poignant enough, succinct enough (and not too emotional so they just chalk me up to being just that — “too emotional”) which is hardest for me, because it hits so close to home, so real.
Sometimes I think that people who don’t know me well, when they say these things to me, they are expecting me to nod in exuberant agreement. As if they are saying something that is supposed to make me feel more comfortable.
Total hogwash. So frustrating.
But I’ve tried to subtly (and not so subtly sometimes) jump in and try to rescue a conversation that’s so ridiculous. I’ve had eyes rolled at me, as if I’m some militant crazy adoption person.
Gosh, it’s hard. I’m sorry Jenna. Arg.
Ouch! How ignorant of this woman to think that a fellow woman could “pop out a child and *give it away*”.
As an adoptive mom who gets a lot of stupid comments and/or questions around me, I try to educate as best as I can. But given as I said a few days earlier, I find I have more questions than answers lately being blessed to be in this ongoing dialogue through your blog.
My daughter just turned three and I find as time goes by that the *adoption plan* that brought her to our family feels more and more like hers to tell now that she is verbal. I am saying that in response to your question – should you be outing yourself? My gut instinct in a situation like this where the other person is not likely in a place to be able to truly hear what you have to say or support you in your own healing journey is to say no, you don’t have to out yourself to help her understand.
It would be like me sharing the deepest hurts of my past with someone who is a *casual acquaintence*. I don’t feel it would be healing to me to share at that casual level huge hurts with someone who very likely will just open wounds barely closed.
I have tried to come up with a few well thought out, well rehearsed statements to answer moments like this. So I am not caught off guard.
I don’t know if any of this helps but I am deeply sorry anyone would ever think that a first/birth mom views this process the way this women described.
Kelli