The Chronicles of Munchkin Land

Chief Internet Evangelist at Google, Vint Cerf, might have landed in your inbox earlier today asking what the power of the Internet meant to you. The link lead to a page entitled Start Something under the header of Take Action. Visitors have been instructed to share what the Power of the Internet means to them, using the hashtag #ourweb.

I thought. And I tweeted as much as I could get about the adoption niche of the Internet in one little 140 character tweet with two separate hashtags.

While those things are incredibly important and should be a flag to wave for any and every adoption blogger, the power of the Internet has meant more and has done more than just those things for me over the years. Speaking very personally, I can list off a number of things the power of the Internet has done for me, has taught me, has done for my little niche at large.

The power of the Internet has:

• taught me that I’m not alone. Of course, that goes along with uncloaking secrecy, but it goes beyond that as well. For decades upon decades, birth parents were expected to be quiet and go on living despite their grief and loss. They were to be happy for their “new” lives, even though those new lives were forever altered. Open adoption brought about a band-aid answer to that pain, but the Internet gave us a space to talk about it. The Internet made it okay to stand up and say, “I’m a birth mother.” Though, of course, the haters will always hate, the power of the Internet let me know that I am not alone in my sad feelings, my happy feelings and my in-between feelings as a birth mother.

• brought adoptees from all walks, emotions and experiences into my life. From them, I have learned much. I have put much of what they have taught me — by words or actions — into practice when I deal with situations that arise in my home with my parented children, outside my home with society at large and, most specifically, in my relationship with my daughter. I am not claiming to have taken every bit of (sometimes unsolicited) advice to heart when it comes to adoptees (as I don’t do that with anyone), but I have expanded my understanding of what adoption means to the adopted child and adult because they were brave and wise enough to share their words. More over, I came to understand the unethical ways we have treated adoptees over the years and why it is so important for them to have their Original Birth Certificates (OBC).

• shown me that different doesn’t diminish, but diminishing does hurt us all. We all have different stories, beliefs, ways of coming to terms with and understanding our journeys. Across the triad and beyond, we are all simply different. Those differences don’t diminish our stories; one story is not more important than the other, one story is not inferior to another. In fact, those differences make our stories all the more powerful. We need the stories of coercion that still exist in today’s adoption industry to be told to understand the changes that need to be made, but that doesn’t mean that the mother who wasn’t coerced doesn’t have an equally important story to tell as well. Our stories weave together and form a larger picture of what adoption means in today’s society. One without the other leaves out the brilliant textures, but bringing them together creates an unmistakable and nuanced voice that cannot and should not be ignored.

• let me not only see but believe that our differences aren’t all that different. Despite the fact that I think our differences lend to the bigger picture of what adoption is and is not, I have learned over the years that our differences aren’t all that different. We come to the adoption roundtable with many titles: birth mother, first mother, natural mother, adoptive mother, adoptee, closed adoption, open adoption, foster adoption, abandoned, taken away, coerced, forced, and on and on. We cling to our titles — and rightly so: they are our own titles. But sometimes, we swing those titles around like swords, fighting with others who stand opposite or even right next to us in our niche. Birth mother against adoptive mother. Closed adoption against open adoption. We clash and smash our sword-titles together, seeing who wins out — but really, we’re just women and men. Titles aside, we are human. We have an innate need to be heard, to be recognized — and that is why we clash. Our differences don’t matter as much when we put down the swords and look at each other and realize that we’re all human. We don’t need to do this, to go there. We are stronger when we accept one another versus when we tear each other down.

• helped me find my peace. Or, whatever peace is at any given time. From both sharing my story and reading others, I have come to accept that my journey with peace will be a lifelong path. There will be peaks and valleys. There will be happiness and sadness. There will be rough patches, no doubt. And while others chastise me, forgetting that our differences don’t diminish or that our differences aren’t all that different, I have found the space to allow myself to be happy when I am happy, sad when I am sad and in between when I am in between. I have come to accept that adoption grief and loss will shade my life forever, but that the shading doesn’t have to define my every day. I am more than just a birth mother, more than just a mother, more than just a woman. The journey to discovering and accepting that was found on the words and experiences that others were brave enough to share over the years. Without the Internet and the power behind your words, I don’t know how long it would have taken me to accept the good, the bad and the whole of my journey.

There are more… many. I’m sure you can think of some now as you sit in your sameness and meander through the memories of what the Internet has taught you about adoption, parenthood… life. I encourage you to share some via the hashtag or on your own blog. I encourage you to remember as you do that we’re not really all that different. And yes, I want to hear you as well.