There’s an interesting discussion going on over at Dawn’s blog about personal responsibility. Some decent back-and-forths that got my brain working as I folded diapers and tried to pick a favorite male on American Idol. Points from all sides and my own reality really prompted me to get up off my butt and get this written and quickly so I can watch another guilty pleasure show with my Husband. (We’re totally emo for One Tree Hill.)
These are some points not being discussed by any one side in the discussion right now:
1. The internet was a different place in the year that I placed. Blogs like this here did not exist en masse in 2003. That was part of my speech at the University of Pittsburgh last October. The big birth mother blog explosion didn’t really hit until 2005-or-so with some mothers being a bit earlier than that. But remember, the world didn’t really think that blogs were anything of importance until the past few years. Even if there was a large underground birth mother blogging network in mid-2003, I would have thought, “Eh, that’s just a bunch of personal experience and doesn’t speak as to what the “average” experience would be.”
2. Beyond blogs not really exisiting as they do now, the forum presence was much different at that time as well. When I was expecting, during the two months that I had reliable internet connection while making my adoption plan, I joined a certain well known forum. When I expressed a general distaste for the Friends sitcom storyline with the birth mother, I was all but flamed to a crisp. Birth mothers (or, as I was, an expectant mother at the time) were not welcome to share dissenting opinions at that time. I believe it’s only since first mothers really started laying it on the blogging line that they’ve started to garner some respect. Perhaps the shift has gone from one extreme to the other in some cases (I could see that argument, though not everywhere for certain), but that doesn’t change the reality of the time in which I placed. I was not welcome to ask questions or have opinions that weren’t “yay adoption.”
3. I was bed-ridden and home bound from eighteen weeks on. Libraries were not an option. My internet connection was not a priority (like, you know, food). I checked as much info as I could when I had the ability. I trusted my agency, 100%, to be 100% honest with me. They were my “legal representation.” I had no reason to believe that my rights would not be protected or respected. Yes, I admit and take responsibility for my naievity at that time in my life. I was naive! I was trusting! I believed whatever I was told. (If anything, the process broke me of that sheltered part of my life and now, sadly, I trust no one! Bummer.) Again, if information would have been as readily available as it is today (such as a big blogging presence) and internet connections were what they are today (man, I was on dial-up when I had internet!), well, I could agree more with the fact that I should have done more. I did what I thought I was supposed to be doing. I asked questions of my “counselor” when I had questions. You can imagine the bias.
4. My writing is as much for me as it is for future and would-be birth mothers. As I’ve said in my points above, the information that could have changed what happened in my/our situation was not readily available. It’s becoming more available which is why so many groups are in an uproar about what these “angry” and “bitter” and “regretful” mothers have to say. I write for me. I write for the girl who is living my situation in this day in age. Maybe she’s stuck at home with a complicated pregnancy with no emotional or familial support. Maybe she has an unethical agency feeding her biased information. Maybe she googled something and landed here. Maybe that one thing makes the difference. And that’s what Dawn hits on perfectly when she says this:
I’d say “move forward” means different things for different people and that fighting the good fight via blogging is an activist way of moving forward.
Amen. This is my way of making a difference. (That and the speaking engagements I seem to keep finding. Eep!) Okay, and possibly working with my local hospital (not the one in which I birthed the Munchkin but both boys) on educating them about proper adoption etiquette. (No, really. This is a new and huge possibility brought to me by my lactation consultant. I’ve yet to discuss it with my therapist. Tomorrow! So excited! Very hopeful! Wee!)
I wish that the internet would have been then what it is today. But it wasn’t. And I live with it. I make my own little dent in the adoption world by continuing to speak about my reality, my experiences. Not everyone likes what I have to say and I get that. I don’t like everything everyone else has to say either. But, minus my meltdown last night, I’m refusing to be silenced by any of that. I’m not the naive girl who ran away from a forum because people called her mean names and told her that she was wrong. I know where my responsibility lies in my adoption story. I am forever thankful that my daughter has GOOD parents. (Great! Wonderful! Awesome!) I am thankful that I didn’t let an unethical agency continue to keep me down and that I stepped out and found my own therapist. I am thankful that I have continued to learn.
I accept the responsibility for my pregnancy, for not being strong enough to say, “No, I’m keeping her,” when I was faced with negativity from my family regarding my financial state and for not believing in myself enough to realize my potential as a parent. But I will not take the blame for believing what I was told was the truth and the whole story. I am not a mind reader. In fact, when I try to guess at people’s intention, I usually end up making a bigger mess! I am human. Things I did and decided contributed to the placement. Things other people did and decided also contributed to the placement.
No human lives in a vacuum. Personal responsibility is one thing. But when agencies aren’t being held accountable, I’m wondering where their responsibility lies? Why don’t they have to be responsible for the truth? Why do I have to take responsibility for things that were beyond my scope? Why do I have to take responsibility when I was lied to? Where is that line exactly? I know it’s a gray line. But when you trust someone and something to be honest with you and they lie… where is that line of fault? If my Husband cheats on me and tells me that he is faithful and I believe him… is it my fault when he leaves me for the other woman?
This got wordy! I must go relax with my Husband who was gone for thirty-six and a half hours and leaves again in less than ten. I totally don’t have time to proofread so ignore typos, grammatical errors and anything that may seem confusing. Ah! Now the baby is crying! And the diapers aren’t all the way folded. Oh, internetz.
12 Responses to “My Reality”
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My name is Jenna. I blog here, 
Twitter: thiswomanswork
says:
That was beautifully, wonderfully and POWERFULLY written! You go, Jenna!!!!!
dawn’s last blog post..Ahh, juicy adoption discussion!
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Posts like this one, Jenna, are why I like and respect you so much.
Lori’s last blog post..My fate
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Jenna – You are amazing. I totally agree. As a first mom that could literally be your mom (isn’t your mother a few years older than me), I cannot tell you how much you continually inspire me. How much hope I gain for the mothers and the children of the future knowing that there are moms like you out there.
I have “known” you online (even when you probably did not know I knew…from way back in the day of my lurking on LJ) and I have seen such amazing growth and healing in you.
You get it sister. You totally seriously get it. Your responsibility, their responsibility (whether they be adoptive parents, agencies or society at large). Dont listen to the naysayers and haters. Keep on doing what you are doing. They only screech because we frighten them. The more we talk, the more the world knows the truth, the less babies there will be for purchase. Keep on talking.
You get it.
Keep on talking.
Our girls, yours and mine, will indeed inherit a better world (at least as long as you and I have something to say about it). Their bodies and their children will be their own. They will make educated choices of their own free will and they will know that with adoption comes love AND pain.
Hugs and much love.
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Ditto, ditto, and ditto.
Judy’s last blog post..My Cold (Very) BALD Head; and Hats
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Number one is what I commented directly to the other blog about when she talked about the flaming of adoptive parents. How is your paper going on the blogging change going?
magicpointeshoe’s last blog post..Serafina two days past the dental work
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I presented the paper in October (whilst hugely pregnant) at the University of Pittsburgh (with Dawn and some other amazing mothers). I’ll be giving another version of it, updated and slightly different along a feminist line, in Ju…ne (I think June) this year in Cincinnati. :)
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Thank you for forming these points so concisely, Jenna. A similar discussion took place a few months ago on another blog, and I walked away from it when people started the “you shouldn’t have trusted the agency” theme.
I wrote a bit over at Dawn’s about what you’ve mentioned. Like you, I was extremely ill/bed ridden during my pregnancy and there was no internet in 1989. I went to various libraries and bookstores to no avail. Nonetheless, someone got on and started comparing her research abilities (as an adoptive parent) at the time to mine. I didn’t bother responding, as I’d already seen Nicole attempt to reason with her and others there.
I trusted, like you trusted. I trusted because I did not have the luxury of not leaning on other human beings at that time in my life. I believe most moms who are dealing with an unplanned pregnancy do not have the same reserve/energy/tenacity they otherwise would have… simply due to the situation. And we all, as humans, have times in our lives when we are vulnerable to the point where we must trust others to some degree. Why wouldn’t I have trusted “experts” with knowledge about adoption law, etc?
Why would I have questioned the validity of an open adoption agreement? To me, at the time, that would have been like questioning the legalities of adoption itself. I assumed they were one and the same.
And personal responsibility? If anything, I sherpa-d other’s responsibilities within this context for years and years. It wasn’t until around 2004/5 that I began to lay some of that down or give it back to whence it came.
Like you, when I have written, it has been for those who come after me. I don’t like writing about my experience with surrender (or about the broader issues involved). It hurts and brings me back to ground zeros I’d rather not think about. It also hurts to be stalked and flamed when writing (even anonymously) about the most poignant and vulnerable moments of my life, but I wrote (and continue to comment) knowing that amidst all of that … some pregnant mom may be offered a perspective different from the one her agency is providing. Someone hoping to adopt may see another perspective. Some eyes may be opened just a little.
“But when agencies aren’t being held accountable, I’m wondering where their responsibility lies? Why don’t they have to be responsible for the truth?”
Exactly. The “you shouldn’t have trusted the agency” mentality is frightening. It seems like, culturally, we are letting some very powerful folks off the hook and endorsing some pretty awful tactics. Adoption will never have squeeky clean ethics, so long as we say, “oh, so the agency lied … you should have known better.”
As parents, whether adoptive or birth/first parents, it seems a no brainer that we should unite together with adult adoptees (and our little kiddos) in holding agencies/professionals/lobbying organizations, etc. utterly accountable.
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T; Thank you for that great comment. It’s a great addition to things that I was thinking this morning. For example, if in 2003 I was just on the cusp of available information (by two years but that’s more on the cusp than, for instance, you), what about mothers from generations prior? What about mothers who were shipped off and not given any information at all? Why should they be forced to accept responsibility for others’ actions? There’s SO MUCH gray in this argument. A sweeping statement doesn’t really work for birth parents at all as each situation varies so much from the next.
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This is just an amazing post, J.
I am blown away every time someone snippily comments “you ought to have known better” with regards to first parents and the myriad of pains, hurts, and raw emotions surrounding relinquishment. Regarding coercion. Regarding lies by agencies and broken promises.
We afford much sympathy to, say, elderly people who are taken for their life savings by telemarketing or investment scams. We feel furious that people are preying on the weak, on the vulnerable there. But if a mother is sweet-talked out of her child under suspicious, sometimes outright immoral circumstances? Forget it. Throw her right to the wolves. She just ought to have known better.
Sigh.
Coco’s last blog post..The Bitter End
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Excellent post. You are exactly right. I’m not sure that people realize how much things have changed in just a few short years.
Never mind the fact that we do our research during the nine months of a crisis pregnancy while everyone else gets to do their research for an extended time under less physically and emotionally draining circumstances.
Poor_Statue’s last blog post..Where Have I Been?
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[...] parent presence on the Internet, and activism as a recovery path, check out Jenna’s post My Reality. [...]
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A-freakin’-men. Amen.
Thank you, Jenna, for saying it for all of us.
“I accept the responsibility for my pregnancy, for not being strong enough to say, “No, I’m keeping her,” when I was faced with negativity from my family regarding my financial state and for not believing in myself enough to realize my potential as a parent. But I will not take the blame for believing what I was told was the truth and the whole story. I am not a mind reader. In fact, when I try to guess at people’s intention, I usually end up making a bigger mess! I am human. Things I did and decided contributed to the placement. Things other people did and decided also contributed to the placement.”
Indeed. Yes, indeed.
Nicole’s last blog post..Victim to survivor
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