Way back in January, I posted the following on the birthmothers community on LiveJournal:

If you are a birth parent (mother or father) in an open or closed adoption who relinquished voluntarily or had your rights terminated, PLEASE TAKE THIS SURVEY. They are looking for 600 participants by December 1, 2008. Let’s blow that number out of the water.

(You can read a little more about it (if you want) prior to taking the survey on the birth/first parent blog.)

Today, May 19, 2008, five months and three days later, I get this comment from the community’s maintainer.

This poll is being removed for using biased language.

Said post was then deleted.

The info for said community reads:

This community is for birthmothers and birthmothers only - a safe haven to share personal experiences, support, and discussion related to placing children for adoption.

Feel free to open up with your experiences, feelings, desires - anything related to being a birthmom - whether good or bad.

We love and support each other here, so please join!

But what it should read is:

This community is only for birthmothers who have the same experience as the maintainter. Any dissenting opinion, experience or difference in general is not welcome.

Feel free to open up with your experiences, feelings and desires - as long as they are happy ones!

We only like you if you are happy!

I am tired of the blatant hatred passed back and forth between birth mothers. I have had it up to here with being chastised in group settings because I don’t think adoption is great. I am completely baffled as to why, if someone thought the wording was “biased,” they couldn’t just say so in the comments section at the very end of the survey. Some of the questioning WAS biased and I said so in the comments at the end. (For example, some of the questions were completely exclusionary or didn’t take consideration of various experiences.) But there ARE mothers in that community from the closed era. So why was it removed?

And why so late? I mean, even Adoption.com let the post stay up.

I’m just tired of the fight anymore. I’m tired of being treated like crap because I believe in reform. I’m tired of being the bad guy because I’m willing to speak up. I’m tired of not being accepted in a group that I am a member of simply because I’m not spouting rainbows and sunshine.

And yet, I keep on keepin’ on. Because someone has to, especially with people like that in our own ranks. Ugh.

AdoptionBlogs is hiring bloggers for the following topics:

Adoptee
Adoption Search
Crisis Pregnancy
Hoping to Adopt
International Adoption*
Transracial/Transcultural Adoption

*International Adoption bloggers will have to cover one region in addition to the wide scope of IA in general. Regions include Africa (Africa, Ethiopia), Asian (China, Korea, Viet Nam), Central/South America (Guatemala), Eastern Europe (Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine).

Bloggers will be required to write one post, per day, Monday-Saturday. The blogging software allows for pre-writing and publishing at a set time (so you don’t have to be “present” to write a post on Saturdays). Posts are required to be 300 words or more to be considered for payment with the expectation that the average will be around 500 words per post. Covering current events surrounding your topic is encouraged as is creating new, relevant content. While personal stories are welcome, a broader scope of adoption in general is the ultimate goal.

If you are interested in the available positions, please e-mail a cover letter, brief resume and three writing samples that cover your topic(s) to editor@adoptionblogs.com. Questions can also be e-mailed to the same address.

(For my readers specifically: someone you know and love has joined our ranks. Stay tuned!)