Sweet Little Nest

kids magnifying glass
courtesy of Silly Eagle Books

When people ask us about the adoption process – and ask and ask and ask - one of the things they seem to have the least idea about is how adoptive parents get connected with infants. If they have any images in their head at all, they’re something out of Annie or a scary 60 Minutes episode. Even Susan’s parents, who went through the adoption process *cough*mumble* years ago when adopting Susan, don’t have an accurate image of what the modern adoption process is like.

So, since there are so many details to share (so many that perhaps we should just blog about it or something…) we tend to shorthand it. My summary is something like “When it comes to infants, the state isn’t much involved at all; it tends to be a much more direct connection between adoptive parents and birth parents. The majority share of women thinking about placing a child for adoption look on the Internet and read prospective parent profiles. It’s like online dating for babies.”

It’s an easy way to get the point across. It somewhat accurately conveys the whole process of putting yourself out there and the anxiety of meeting new people. But it’s so much more complicated.

Susan and I can speak pretty authoritatively about online dating – it’s how we met. We each wrote profiles for ourselves, back almost ten years ago, trying to put our best foot forwards while being honest about ourselves. The goal there being to meet up with another person for a forever relationship. The profile we’ve been writing for us as adoptive parents is also for a forever relationship, but the primary person we’re targeting this to isn’t the person we’ll have the main relationship with.

Not to say the relationship with the birth mother isn’t a forever one; those genetic bonds don’t go away. But it’s not the every-day relationship we’ll have with a child we raise. And I find myself wrestling with things I’d never have thought twice about saying flat-out to a prospective romantic partner.

For example – I wouldn’t have hesitated to type the phrase “my brother and his boyfriend” on an online profile. Any woman who was going to have an issue with homosexuality or not be accepting of one of my loved ones because of it… save me the trouble of ending our relationship later by passing me by.

A birth mother, however? Are we prepared to have someone skim on by because they’re not what we consider enlightened, about an issue that likely would never come up in the placement process? So I stare at the word processor and think “maybe I don’t need to volunteer this controversial thing” or “I could word this in a more generic and less revealing way.” Which feels pretty damned crappy.

Not because we’re going to make false promises about how we’ll parent. If any birth mother were to bring up that she was unwilling to place her baby with a family that wouldn’t  teach that homosexuality and race mixing is a sin, well, we’d be sad but wish her good luck finding someone else. But do we volunteer things that someone might find off-putting?

That’s an approach that’s a lot easier thing to justify to yourself when it’s about using a picture that, say, shows the side of your profile without a scar on your cheek. How much can you leave out about yourself before it’s deception and not harmless omission? What price are we willing to pay to be open about who we are, and what’s the right line for us to draw about what we decide is harmless to leave out?

And I thought dating was hard.

‘Manly Harbour pool, 193-’
courtesy of ‘State Library of New South Wales collection’

I wrestled with whether to share this article, for reasons that will be brutally obvious once you get started on the article. Spoiler: the question asker is a complete loon.

Never the less, this question to Salon’s Cary Tennis “How do I tell my daughter she’s adopted? has some excellent moments in it. It’s also got some really awful moments in it, but they manage to raise some interesting questions. If I’m going to defend unpleasantness in fiction then I’ve got to be willing to learn something from real-life uck, right?

From the start I started getting irrationally offended when friends referred to it. I cut off someone because she said “oh, she has really taken to you.” Like, why should she not, she is my daughter.

and

Everything I read tells me that this information should be shared early. However, I also read that adopted children grapple with the issue, agonize over it. I mean, why should my lovely daughter have to deal with something her peers do not?

and wrapping up with

I just want to be her mother, not her adoptive mother. 

To which I say, yeah, totally! What makes a family connection isn’t that moment of conception or birth or issuing of a birth certificate. It’s each moment on top of the next and the next, the decisions we make over and over again to be and stay a family. So why is this one tiny thing so much the topic of conversation that it gets equal billing with being a mother?

But… you are her adoptive mother. It’s a simple and unarguable fact of how that child came into your life. Isn’t that just fine? Adopted children were chosen in a way most kids are not. Does bristling at the raising of the topic imply that it’s a problem or something to be hidden?

Where’s the line between “yes, and it’s no big deal” and “holy cow, would you just shut up about it?”

Anyway, check it out for yourself. I think the writer is a nut and Tennis’ answer isn’t perfect. But I do like his metaphor that I took the post title from.

‘IMGP7574 [2011-10-26]‘
courtesy of ‘JAM Project’

Susan has already talked a bit about seeing adoption in pop culture and the inanity in Glee. She’s not the only person to get bugged by Quinn’s “get my baby back” by a long shot.

Glee Perpetuates Adoption Stereotypes
Adoptive Parent Groups Attack ‘Glee’ for ‘Quinn Wants Her Baby Back’ Storyline
Glee Adoption Story Line Sparks Controversy

There’s even a petition, linked from the Hollywood.org story, asking the Glee creative folks to put together a PSA about adoption realities. The originator, Amber Austin, says “In real, legitimate adoptions, a birth mother cannot simply take a child away from their family or pop back into a child’s life, however this is one of most pervasive and harmful myths about adoption.”

Personally, however, the Glee storyline doesn’t bother me (so far). You’re welcome to believe that’s a matter of my personal leanings – I don’t have the same pre-existing investment in adoption falsehoods that Susan does as an adoptee, and you don’t keep your sanity as someone working in the computer field for long if you can’t get over inaccuracies that you know are grossly wrong.

But the true reason it doesn’t bother me is because I have too much liberal arts education.

Amber uses the word myth above when she means “common falsehood.” That’s not an unusual usage but it’s not the main meaning. Check your dictionary and the first definition is probably a variation on this: “a traditional story, esp. one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon.” There’s a more generic one that I’ve seen around and which I first heard in a myth & culture class. “A myth is a story that may be false on the outside but true on the inside.”

The meaning there being that it doesn’t matter if George Washington ever said that he cannot tell a lie, he did chop down the cherry tree. The point of the story is a supposed lesson about Washington’s honesty. And I’m perfectly comfortable viewing the content and happenings on Glee in the same light: they don’t have to be reality or realistic to tell a valid story.

The point of Quinn’s outburst about wanting to get full custody isn’t that it’s possible or common. It’s a goal stated by a character who we’ve acknowledged is a troubled person. Her life has gone to crap and now she’s decided this is her road to redemption.

Honestly, the fact that it’s a legally impossible goal strikes me as the least troublesome thing about it. It’s not the first time we’ve seen characters on that show set their sights on something that’s impossible. Last season saw Artie decide he’s by god going to walk again, and soon. That was raised and wrapped in a single episode, but I think the parallel is accurate. These are supposed to be teenagers, and the Glee characters’ lack of ability to manage their emotions and set reasonable expectations is probably the most realistic thing on that show.

So I’m okay with Quinn thinking this is what she wants, provided the show shows the likely real result of these actions. I don’t mind her nasty and incorrect outbursts about who the child’s “real mom” is because she’s supposed to be acting out and misguided.

Every way that Quinn is wrong is wrong on the outside but true on the inside – it speaks to the fears we have about how people will perceive our relationship with our adopted child. It reflects the worries we have about managing the relationships in open adoption. It addresses the conflicted feelings birth mothers can have about placing their biological offspring with someone else and maintaining contact.  It’s a rough sketch, not a documentary.

I’m not saying it’s brilliant writing and they could still really screw it all up. But fiction has to show people doing things that fly in the face of reality sometimes. Partly because not every story needs to tell its internal truth with dead-on accuracy. Partly because people do believe some of those stupid things, and showing folks encountering the likely repercussions of acting on those mistaken beliefs might, I think, do more good than a hundred PSAs.