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Support Info: If you are a Survivor and need emotional support, a national crisis line is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week: Residential School Survivor Support Line: 1-866-925-4419. Additional Health Support Information: Emotional, cultural, and professional support services are also available to Survivors and their families through the Indian Residential Schools Resolution Health Support Program. Services can be accessed on an individual, family, or group basis.” These & regional support phone numbers are found at https://nctr.ca/contact/survivors/ .
MY EMAIL: tracelara@pm.me
For generations in America, after a teenager’s “mistake,” adoption fixed up her problem like a band-aid, one that didn't stick that well.
Though teen pregnancy has slowed down in recent years, teens have not stopped having sex and babies because living in the Dark Ages, we project our fears, phobias and religious beliefs onto them.
It’s not that I don’t understand how a 12 -18 year old girl can get pregnant. But she shouldn't have gotten pregnant in the first place. She should have had information available to her so she wouldn’t get pregnant by mistake. Once a girl has her first menstrual cycle, she can get pregnant. It's that simple. Boys and girls needs to have sex education very early.
But we have the same old problem, even in 2019, when the Vatican maintains birth control is evil and not allowed. If caught using it, you are ex-communicated.
Hey, this isn’t preschool – if she’s old enough to get pregnant, both he and she are old enough to have information. She has the right to know, the right to use (contraceptives) and the right to choose.
Why do we keep information from girls who could become pregnant? That question answers itself. In many religions in 2019, it’s still a sin to have sex when you’re not married. You’re supposed to be a virgin when you marry. You’re immoral if you fail. You are supposed to abstain from sex and say no. If you fail, in many parts of this country, the baby goes up for adoption. It’s a Christian thing to do, a moral thing to do, the only thing you can do. Actually the girl is not ignorant, it’s those who keep her misinformed or in the dark who are ignorant.
What is immoral is any country that won’t educate children and teens about pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease and AIDS. We’re killing them with ignorance.
Here in America, religious and government leaders devised a better solution – tell all kids to abstain. How absolutely ludicrous! You tell them to not have sex and look the other way when you’ve got them at their most curious and confused, hormones raging.
I read in a Rhode Island newspaper in 2004, there was a group of protesting college students carrying signs “Keep your rosaries off our ovaries.”
Speaking of organized religion, how demeaning to girls and women – and condescending to say the least – that she is solely responsible or to blame - that she must control the decision whether to have sex… Or she’s condemned for using birth control, if she can get her hands on it or even afford it.
Again, the same rules don’t apply to the boys.
If girls do have information and can use and buy contraceptives, wouldn’t this curb unplanned pregnancies and the need for more adoptions? Yes, it would and it has.
Perhaps people who read this will invent new ways to educate all teenagers about reproduction and sex and STDS and not push adoption as the sole solution ever again.
and then this tweet:
What do you remember most from your first sex ed class? I remember Mrs. DeBlasio, the school secretary, telling us to never believe a guy who said he couldn’t wear condoms because they were too small and then she stretched one over her head like a ski mask as proof.
Someone asked me recently what had adoption cost me personally.
What a loaded question, I shot back in my email. I said I needed to think about it. Obviously I didn't ask to be adopted!
This situation was thrust on me by a damaged 22-year-old small-town Wisconsin girl who loved Chicago night-clubs and partying too much. She didn't want me after my 28-year-old father (also a big drinker) kicked her out. He moved back to his Illinois farm-town and found a new wife. She went to an unwed mothers home in Minnesota and signed me away.
If my soul wanted a big test this lifetime, this was clearly the route to take. Finding out neither would ever look for me? That painful discovery cost me.
What kind of man would desert a woman carrying his child and who would tell a woman she cannot keep her own baby? Who made them this way? Belief systems, religions, social workers, neighbors, parents, judges, priests? Even your own family can be so damaged, it's risky to find them. There are times now I wish I had never looked but I had to know why I was adopted. Taking risks to find out the truth cost me years.
Being told by my natural mother to never contact her again? That rejection cost me.
I made all the moves, made all the calls, did all the travel and took all the risks to find both parents. I put myself out there to join a family who didn't even know I existed or cared that I did. That hurt cost me. The adoption trade in babies was booming in the 1950s. In my opinion my adoptive parents were not carefully screened. Despite his raging alcoholism and their marital discord after two miscarriages, Catholic social workers still qualified them to be my parents. Very young I was sexually molested by my adoptive dad. That betrayal cost me. I had to pretend for years I was alright when really I wasn't. I tried to live up to their expectations and be the baby they lost. That impossible situation cost me.
My adoptive parents didn't know adopting kids won't fix a marriage and might even make it worse! I had to suppress my shock and disappointment in them for too long. It took me years to get therapy and counseling that worked. This delay cost me.
My lack of trust and being able to love someone cost me a marriage. Many years later I was shocked to learn my ancestry. My father, who had the Native blood, didn't intervene to keep me. How did that make me feel? Betrayed.
I had no idea what to think about being Shawnee/Cherokee since there was no one alive to reconnect me to my tribal culture. That cost me. How can you measure cultural loss when there is no dollar amount or apology that can undo what happened? There is no way to get that back. What did adoption cost me? Everything. What did adoption give me? The strength to persevere.
In south Chicago in the 1950s, my 22-year-old mother imagined my father, 28, would marry her since she was pregnant with me. That didn’t happen.
Did my birthmother’s family support her and allow her to keep me? That didn’t happen.
I was illegitimate but I wasn’t an orphan since I had two parents. Did the state contact my father and ask him to raise me?No. That didn’t happen.
After an orphanage then foster care, the damage done in those months is not something I can describe in words but I only wanted to be with my natural mother. That didn’t happen.
The couple who adopted me had miscarried twice and I was supposed to be the perfect replacement. I had my own DNA and my own ancestors but that didn’t matter. They expected me to be their lost child. That didn’t happen.
I was not supposed to question anything. When I decided I wanted to know who I was, what happened and why I was adopted, I asked my adoptive family for information and the truth. That didn’t happen.
The social worker convinced my mother I was better off with new parents who she never met. Did the social worker tell my mother I would be emotionally distraught, devastated and mentally damaged from being abandoned? No. That didn’t happen.
The church and the state were supposed to conduct interviews and home inspections. Did they find out my adoptive father was a raging alcoholic. Did they stop him from molesting me? No. That didn’t happen.
My natural mother probably thought the church and state and the social worker would protect me after adoption. Did the social worker check on me? No. That didn’t happen.
Many of my adopted friends were sexually molested as teens by their adoptive fathers and other relatives. Will the adoption industry ever admit or release these statistics? No. That sadly isn’t happening.
The adoption industry peddles perfect product placement called babies to people who miscarried, some desperate to raise a child. Do they tell them babies are “blank slates” who will love them unconditionally? Yes. That does happen.
Repost: Lost Daughters blog August 17, 2014 (edited)
If you love something, Let it go free
...If you love something let it go free…If it comes back it’s yours: If it doesn’t, it never was.
I saved this quote from my teens. It came in handy when I was trying to figure out if someone really loved me.
It hit me as relevant for parents who adopted us... you can be selfless for adoptees and you can set us free... especially when we are adults and go into reunion with our first parents (birthfamily).
In 2014 I had a long conversation with a friend whose wife gave up a baby for adoption 40 years ago. I played a small part in their finding the daughter she gave up at age 16. They were over-the-moon elated to finally locate her!
Now in reunion with Barb (not her real name), my friends are trying to figure out what is happening to Barb now that she is in reunion with them and they are obviously looking for clues or signs that she's doing OK. They honestly don't know if they should reach out more... They aren't sure of anything because Barb was in the midwest (and now Florida in 2019) and they live on the East Coast. They just can't pop in for a quick visit. (I told my friends that Barb is not in "their territory," which means they can't even guess what is going on with her adoptive family since she lives in their territory.)
Barb, an adoptee, is young (40) and navigating reunion, trying to balance life as a wife, mother and adopted daughter who now has her new-found first mother and her adoptive mother. (Eight years so far.)
The risk is Barb will upset her adoptive parents, who happen to be quite wealthy! If she is not careful, they might disown her. Barb's husband sees this eventuality better than Barb does, my friends believe.
Adoptees like me went through this dilemma, too. I didn't tell my adoptive parents anything when I was in my 20s and searching. I tried to talk to my adoptive momand failed. Mine weren't wealthy but I did risk alienating them. I chose not to... (Thank God I was not disowned when I told my adoptive mother I was going to my father's funeral in Illinois but all hell broke loose anyway.)
How do we keep our adoptive parents happy with us, especially when we are meeting our first mothers and fathers? Do we keep them separate? Do we tell our adoptive parents not to worry? Or do we tell them nothing?
Reality is many adoptive parents are NOT the ones in therapy or thinking about messy reunion stuff. Adoptive parents have the upper hand as legally-defined parents to the adoptee, and can reject and disown the adoptee at this most important juncture of an adoptee's adult life.
I call this veiled threat emotional blackmail.
My friend and his wife are good people. They don’t want to stir up any trouble. They simply want to know Barb and keep in contact. Barb has children so naturally my friends want to know their grandchildren. They are not pressuring Barb in any way. They are letting her make the moves…but for the past few months, Barb's been very sick. (These details are from my friends, and on Barb's recent Facebook posts.) They gave Barb her maternal-side medical history three years ago but new facts have come to light about ancestry, genetics and it could possibly help treat Barb's illness.
They keep up with Barb’s life via text messages and are on her Facebook page. Barb has not been communicating. Earlier this year they met with Barb and her husband and kids out of state for Barb’s convenience. It’s likely Barb kept this trip from her adoptive parents.(She put her phone on silent when her adoptive mother made several calls to her.)
Why?When Barb was contacted by her first mother, she was so excited she called her adoptive mother to tell her the big news. (Oh No!) Barb learned immediately her adoptive mother was not happy at all and was in fact quite shocked. (Her adoptive mother could not have children, so naturally Barb and her brother filled that gap. Barb has said in so many words said her adoptive mother is controlling and always hovering.) I have no idea if Barb reads blogs or books by adoptees. Obviously she should!
Many of us adoptees and Lost Daughters have been navigating reunion for years and have successfully dealt with issues of how much contact is good, and with who... So I ask your help and advice, blog readers.
What can my friends do to stay close to Barb?
Trace (Lara) DeMeyer (Shawnee-Cherokee-Irish- French Canadian) is the author of One Small Sacrifice and co-editor of the book series Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects.) She also contributed to the LOST DAUGHTERS anthology and other adoption anthologies including ADOPTIONLAND.
Trace is working on a third expanded edition of her memoir to be released in 2020.
NEW ORLEANS — Today, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued an order directing a challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) to be reheard en banc -- before the entire Fifth Circuit. As previously reported, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit had held ICWA Constitutional in August, finding it was not a race-based statute that would violate the Equal Protection Clause. The States of Texas, Louisiana, and Indiana, and several adoptive parents had urged the Court to set aside the August 9, 2019 decision and rehear the case, asserting similar arguments to the original briefing and that tribal membership is determined on an “overwhelmingly racial nature.”
The federal government filed a brief in response earlier this week, arguing that the plaintiffs “miss the fundamental point . . . [namely,] tribes have authority to set their own membership criteria, which may be based in part on biology or descent[.]” The Cherokee Nation, Oneida Nation, Quinault Indian Nation, Morongo Band of Mission Indians, and Navajo Nation (Intervenor) filed an opposition to the petitions for rehearing en banc last month, as did the federal government.
Today’s order does not necessarily mean that the Fifth Circuit will find ICWA unconstitutional, but does vacate its earlier decision and add another round of briefing to the case – which is scheduled for December and January. The Court seeks to hear oral argument during the week of January 20.
Stephen Pevar, senior counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, says the whole point of enacting ICWA was to end decades of unnecessary removals of Indian children from their homes and communities.
“Congress held years of hearings [before enacting ICWA] and many Indians who were victims of state foster care cases testified,” said Pevar. “Based on that testimony and other research, Congress found that it is in the best interests of Indian children to be raised in an Indian home except in extraordinary circumstances. Therefore, the Goldwater Institute is wrong in saying that Congress overlooked the ‘best interest’ standard. Instead, Congress accepted that standard and concluded that there’s a presumption that it’s in the best interest of Indian children to be raised in an Indian home. In addition, the Supreme Court has already rejected the notion that ICWA creates racial discrimination when it imposes minimum federal standards on state courts in their handling of Indian child custody cases.”
But ICWA has come under assault in courts all over the country in the last several months, say legal experts, in states unwilling to deviate from the “business-as-usual” approach, in which an average adoption can bring anywhere from $40,000 to $100,000 in fees and costs for private adoptions, depending on various factors, including living expenses for the birth mother. here
When I first joined my new family, in a new home, in a new country with new sounds and unfamiliar smells and foods, I cried and screamed unabated for days on end. My Mom was so concerned she took me to see a doctor. The doctor diagnosed me with “acute separation anxiety.”
I was 6 months old.DNA does not forget.
And neither do our mothers.
_________
*This is the second essay in a series titled, "Reflections from the Other Side of 10 Years Post-Reunion," that I am publishing as I examine the past 10 years since reuniting with my Korean family. To view additional essays in this series, click here.
We are seeing the beginnings of how organizations transform black and brown children to desirable bodies for adoption. These are the same children Americans seek to adopt when they are considered “over there” or not linked to black and brown adults. Finding Fernanda by Erin Siegel demonstrates the experiences of adoptive parents as they sought to adopt children from Guatemala.We are seeing how children’s bodies are being disciplined to become acceptable bodies of children of color—potential adoptees, potential kin to white families.
Silence is violence, especially now. This is why I urge white adoptive parents of children of color in particular to use your voice and speak. Advocate for family preservation and reunification. See how your child’s immigrant story is aligned with the immigrant experiences of these other children. Adoptees should not be exceptional immigrants, but yet we are. We are heralded while people who could be our parents, siblings, or children are denigrated. And don’t be fooled—your children are not exceptions, not when we see naturalized citizens not having the ability to think their citizenship is permanent. To look away and think, “Well my child would not have this happen to them,” at some point we might be in a situation where they will come for us—adoptees. And then what? I’m reminded of the poem, “First they came for the socialists,” by Martin Niemöller given the ways in which American society is normalizing the behavior and dehumanization of some ethnic, racial, and religious groups over others. A quick Google search will reveal that I’m not alone in this concern.
Compensation of up to $200K for abuse is 'fair and reasonable,' judge rules
Several federal Indian Day Schools operated in Kahnawake, Que., between 1868 and 1988. A class action settlement offers former students a range of compensation between $10,000 and $200,000, based on abuse suffered while attending the schools.
The Federal Court of Canada has approved the settlement of a class-action lawsuit against the government to compensate thousands of First Nations, Métis and Inuit children who attended federally operated Indian day schools.
There is 24-hour mental health counselling and crisis support available to former day school students at 1-855-242-3310 or by online chat at www.hopeforwellness.ca. Counselling is available in English, French, Cree, Ojibway and Inuktitut.
Compensation of up to $200K for abuse is 'fair and reasonable,' judge rules
Several federal Indian Day Schools operated in Kahnawake, Que., between 1868 and 1988. A class action settlement offers former students a range of compensation between $10,000 and $200,000, based on abuse suffered while attending the schools.
The Federal Court of Canada has approved the settlement of a class-action lawsuit against the government to compensate thousands of First Nations, Métis and Inuit children who attended federally operated Indian day schools.
There is 24-hour mental health counselling and crisis support available to former day school students at 1-855-242-3310 or by online chat at www.hopeforwellness.ca. Counselling is available in English, French, Cree, Ojibway and Inuktitut.
November is #NAAM (National Adoption Awareness Month), and before you waste your time watching horribly exploitative films like Instant Family, it’s high time we cleared something up, you and me:
There is no such thing as an orphan. There is only colonization.
Now, before you start throwing dictionaries at me, which would be very unpleasant, we must remember that language is constructed by people, and people are subjective. Though a definition for a word may be one thing, the way we use it is something else entirely. The textbook definition for an orphan is “a child whose parents are dead,” and if we were textbook in our use of the word, then many senior care facilities ought to be renamed “orphanages.” But we don’t use “orphan” in this context, because we understand that loss of parents doesn’t mean loss of family. Organizations like UNICEF have formerly limited the definition of orphan to those children under 18 years of age who have lost one or both parents. Fine, this clears up my former comment about the senior community. But I’d still like to ask a few questions to further shore up what I mean when I say that our intended use is different from the reality of the situation.
When I say the word “orphan,” who is it you picture? What is their race? Where on the globe do they live? There is little doubt in my mind that the image this word conjures is not unlike those at the Live-Aid concert, and that’s not unintentional. Yet, let’s say there is a family of white, upper-middle-class characters in a film, and the main character’s sister and brother-in-law have just died in a car accident. This person’s six year old nephew is now, technically, an orphan. But would you imagine international organizations suddenly showing up at the house to take non-consensual photos of the child, blasting their image and embellished bio to couples in foreign countries, and then asking for tens of thousands of dollars to adopt said child? I doubt it. Our first thought is that the main character should take their nephew in. That’s because we understand that it’s important to #keepfamiliestogether. At least, we’d like to believe we understand that; because we sure don’t practice it.
It is said that more than 80% of the world’s “orphans” have one living parent. Out of the remaining percent who reportedly do not have either parent present, none of our statistics include the role of aunts, uncles, grandparents or adult siblings. The only unifying factor of struggle between the majority of these children is that they tend to come from poor(er) families. This is what separates the aforementioned fictional character from those international children we deem “orphaned;” a family’s access to resources. source: MEDIUM
Adoption is an industry with origins that were never about helping people; it was [and is] a way of redistributing children to those with resources, instead of resources to those with children; somebody makes a better profit that way. When we use the word orphan, what we mean is “without a family in the world.” But this is, by definition, and statistical fact, a falsehood.
The word orphanage is a misnomer for what is better described as a residential care facility; the institutionalization of children to [perceivably] help them receive resources and care that they would otherwise not receive from families struggling through hardship, war, loss, and a variety of temporary, poverty-related experiences. The reasons children end up in these facilities is often because a parent feels they have no other choice, but many are also trafficked away from families because the international orphan industrial complex has beds that need to be filled, a market that needs to be supplied, and the need for people to believe that the crisis is orphan count and not resource inequity.
It is no coincidence that many of the worlds orphanages are located in areas with the highest rates of tourism. Our never-ending stream of funds through adoption, voluntourism, and foreign aid help sustain an international business which has little intention of finding actual resolve. Adoption is one of the only acts in the world where we have earnestly bought into the idea that the more we do, the less there’ll be; but that’s not how supply and demand works.
Steadily and surely, countries have begun to close their doors to international adoption, recognizing this market’s role in creating falsified orphans and dark money operations. Parents come forward to say that they signed papers believing their child was leaving the country to gain a “better education,” not knowing they were terminating parental rights.
Adoptive parents report on appearances of first families who write looking for their child. Newborns and infants disappear without a trace.
Baby factories, trafficked mothers, no oversight, endless, uncritical support from “well-meaning” foreigners, and promises to mothers desperate for a child. This NAAM, adoptees like me are here to remind everyone that “orphan” is a conveniently manufactured identity, meant to extract exorbitant amounts of sympathy dollars, and continue a legacy of genocidal assimilation of poor children at an emotional, cultural, and psychological cost to them and their families. This is why there is no such thing as an orphan (at least in the way we intend it). There is only colonization.
The harsh reality is that the majority of children we are calling “orphans” could be raised in their own families if we: A.) Divested from international organizations that support orphanages and the adoption of their residents, instead investing in and encouraging local initiatives supporting families in their own localities. And B.) Stop believing that we are somehow inherently more fit to raise a complete stranger’s child because we have better access to resources; it’s the most uncritical thing we could be doing. Yes, it may end up being the reason a child, say, gains medical assistance for a disability. But the trade does not somehow absolve all trauma and loss. The supremacy of colonization is that we don’t first fight unyieldingly for all biological families to have the same access to life-giving resources as affluent whites.
We know that the institutionalization of children immediately increases risk in physical and sexual abuse, as well as developmental vunerability and overall health issues. Children raised in institutions are 500x more likely to take their own lives. When these facilities already discourage visitation from biological family members, and international money is funneled into and hoarded by private pockets, leaving many orphanages in poor conditions, it becomes really easy to say, “See?! Adoption was for good.” But this is no better than taking an apple from a hungry child, and then waiting until they cry to point to a stranger and say, “Please pay me so you can feed them; look how desperately they need to eat.”
In situations where family members intentionally leave children in the care of institutions with the hope they’ll be adopted, we have to remember that “a choice made in the absence of other choices has nothing to do with choice”— Liz Latty. And when removal has happened due to reasons of abuse, we have to ask ourselves why the family member(s) became abusive, and how our systems prevent pathways to better quality of life for families at risk.
At what point is our continued support of adoption actually preventing solutions to why families are broken up in the first place; enabling a band-aid that harms children, but helps us feel better about ourselves while putting money in someone else’s pockets. What’s more, regardless of how consensual we perceive exchanges of children to be between adult parties, none of this matters because the most impacted individual cannot and could not ever consent. Not only is separation from the biological caregiver(s) a complex developmental trauma, but adoptions are preventable. A child should never have to permanently lose a family due to temporary experiences of poverty or crisis. That’s what makes it so offensive when people have adoption fundraisers with end goals of $40,000, or when celebrities like Sandra Bullock disclose in interviews that their first thought when Katrina happened was that there would be an opportunity to adopt.
And if you’re confused why a white, domestic adoptee is using “orphan” in reference to themself… Well, in part I don’t believe that international adoptees in my community should have to bare the brunt of such a toxic word simply because their original identities are more often easily erased and exploited. As adoptees (and foster persons), we’ve all been rendered orphans; not by our first parents, but by international systems of colonization that have failed us and our families because of continued refusal to support equity for poor communities, and communities of color.
This NAAM I reclaim my right to an original identity. I come from somewhere. Adoptees Grow Up. This was preventable. And I am not, and no other adoptee is, your orphan.
The First Nations Family Advocate Office (FNFAO) is hosting "Bringing Our Children Home" National Conference November 25-27, 2019 with a Gala Event on the evening of November 26, 2019
We put the Sixties Scoop… InFocus. [2017] That was the Federal Government’s practice of taking about 20,000 Indigenous children and fostering, or adopting them into non-Indigenous homes. Some as far away as the United States and Europe. It happened between the late 1950s and well into the 80s, but the impacts are still felt today. Now, Canada is offering a compensation worth $800 million dollars, for status Indians. This Agreement-In-Principal excludes non-status and Metis. Today’s guests include Coleen Rajotte, filmmaker and an adoptee herself, also an advocate for survivors of the Sixties Scoop. And Marlene Orgeron, also an adoptee. Garth Myers, lawyer at Koskie Minski LLP, in Toronto explained some of the legalities of the A-I-P and took in some heated questions from our guests. The discussion proved important to talk about, and one thing was clear: it won’t be going away anytime soon.
Yay! It's National Adoption "Awareness" Month, in which almost nobody is made aware of anything about adoption except that it exists. Apparently people's brains fall out every Halloween and they have to be reminded about adoption (and furniture and birds, for all I know).
In short, there's nothing special about November. It's pitching the same "awareness" we're told about adoption the rest of the year. That is bullshit, and it needs to change. Some of us who have an actual awareness of adoption have been trying to change it for decades now. Very few people listen.
T he Métis National Council and the Government of Canada will be working collaboratively, Nation-to-Nation, to develop a process to engag...
To Veronica Brown
Veronica, we adult adoptees are thinking of you today and every day. We will be here when you need us. Your journey in the adopted life has begun, nothing can revoke that now, the damage cannot be undone. Be courageous, you have what no adoptee before you has had; a strong group of adult adoptees who know your story, who are behind you and will always be so.
OUR HISTORY
BOOK 5: Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects
