Saturday, November 3, 2012

What has and has not happened…


Adoption = Perfect Product Placement
By Trace A. DeMeyer (author-adoptee-blogger at American Indian Adoptees)

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 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.

Trace blogs at www.splitfeathers.blogspot.com.  Her adoptee memoir "One Small Sacrifice" is available on Amazon and Kindle.