"Think before you breed"

I know, kinda sensational for a blog title but it's a direct quote taken from one of the many comments on this article.  Quite a variety of perspectives going on over there.

The article itself isn't surprising to me but it appears that it is to some of the people commenting which is why I wanted to mention it. I've talked about postpartum depression and very normal, less than storybook maternal feelings and reactions to motherhood here before. How myths place unrealistic expectations on females, how the myths themselves create standards and judgments that prevent a mom from telling someone she feels overwhelmed, nothing, or even homicidal.

We don't do ourselves or our children any favors by building each other up to automatically be perfect mommies just by the virtue of giving birth. Hormones, the sound of our heartbeats and voices in utero, and eye and skin contact upon birth aren't enough to carry us through the day to day realities of parenting and life.

In the article they talk about isolation being one of the factors linking cases of mothers murdering their children together.

What could be more isolating than being pregnant or parenting and not having the expected, supposedly natural and always present, conception and birth induced, perfect, sweet, protective, maternal feelings being perpetuated by motherhood myths?

I mean seriously, just who exactly are you going to tell? Sadly, sometimes tragically, probably nobody.

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest -- but the myth -- persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.(Quote by - John F. Kennedy)

I don’t subscribe to the Primal Wound Theory as it's presented and the reason that I don’t is because I was adopted as an infant and I don’t have a primal wound. Not sure one could have a much more valid reason for being a non-believer. It’s basically the same as believing a primal wound exists because one has a primal wound. Except for, my experience negates Nancy Verrier’s declaration that a primal wound is inescapable, universal and that means something.

It means you don’t automatically have a primal wound if you were not raised by your biological mother. Phew, eh?

I am however a believer in adoptee rights. 

I think you can be unwounded and still be concerned with discrimination against adopted persons when it comes to closed records of the adoptee’s own life. 

I think you can be unwounded and still care about kids being born today to parents that aren’t going to raise them. I care very much about who ends up raising them and how they go about it. In fact, I care about how people are raising all kids, kept or not.

Something else I care about is biological parents’ feelings. Their fear, their shame. I believe their feelings should be taken into consideration when opening up records to adoptees. I really do. I’m well aware that the online community say repeatedly that parents, mainly mothers, were not, by law, guaranteed privacy, anonymity. I guess that’s most likely true, I’d be surprised to see a mother pull out documentation proving otherwise. They also say though that mothers weren’t even verbally made promises of confidentiality, not led to believe they’d never be found, led to believe that their secret would always remain a secret.

Don’t believe it.

As with the Primal Wound Theory not applying in my case, I am here to say that my biological mother did believe I’d never find her, that her secret would never be threatened. That it was up to her to decide who in her life would know about me, about what she did 48 years ago and me finding her was “never supposed to happen”. Yes, she was done a great disservice, a disservice I don’t think should be taken lightly.

I’m not sure what the answer is. I’m not sure any legislation will ever be fair to all parties, but I don’t think it does anyone any good to think it’s just adoption agencies and adoptive parents who don’t want open records.

Maybe if we could all just be honest about adoption and how it means different things to different people there could be some progress made.

Not every mother and father wants to be found, regrets having chosen adoption, dreams of the day they will meet their long lost son or daughter. It’s just not fair to perpetuate that type of myth, not fair to anyone, and most especially not fair to the adoptees who yearn to reunite and think it will make everything all better, just as myths and dishonesty are not helpful in achieving open records.

Even though I truly believe we’re the only ones who can make ourselves feel better, it would be nice to get some help along the way and I think a little honesty and a lot more realism would go very far in doing just that. 

How many kids in your family?

Kids. Children. Offspring?

Nothing to differentiate between adult or non adult. How many kids in your family? How many kids do you have? What year was your child born? How many kids does your sister have? Is so-and-so your oldest child? I'm a middle child, are you the youngest child? He's an only child. There are three of us kids in our family.

If one were to insert grown or adult, as in "how many adult kids does your sister have?" it would suggest the sister has some non adult kids. Nobody ever says, "Is so-and-so your oldest adult/grown child?" or "I'm the middle adult child, are you the youngest grown child?".

People use the words kids and children all the time when referencing people's offspring or siblings. It's not meant to infantilize and as far as I can tell, normally doesn't.

Am I missing something? Is this subject a source of angst (Angst as in the English, German, Danish, Norwegian and Dutch word for fear, or anxiety) for everyone but me?