“Until death do us part. That’s what adoption means, that should be what parenting is all about.”
John- This is beautifully written and so important. I have a lots of thoughts regarding this piece and will write them out on my blog after I have those discussions that I need to have with my children. I have avoided it up until now but you have given me a good kick in the behind to face this straight on. I will be sure to link to you.
Hi from another adoptee.The Primal Wound is to me not adoption, but the loss of attachment to our mothers which is not something we experience as rejection because it happens pre-words.It is removal from our source of security, comfort and nourishment that causes our trauma, pain and suffering.No one rejected us, mothers usually continue to love and care for us after relinquishment.
Adoption is often a further trauma and sometimes there are even further traumas as in the case of international adoptees who loose their country, culture, language and families.
Once people realise that the adoption industry is all about large profits countries may begin to see that there are other, better ways, such as in the Scandinavian countries.Good wishes…..
You might want to drop by http://eag-oncewasvon.blogspot.com
i hope you don’t mind my linking you (this post, specifically) from my site. because i have been reeling from this news and could not have said it better myself. and the fact that you are an adoptee yourself speaks even louder.
Oh my gosh and there I was thinking to my self, thank goodness my girls are to young to hear about this but now I realize that they are not and they just might hear about it from someone else. Thank you for making me realize I have to talk to them.
Fantastically written and thank you so much.
Parent is a parent is a parent. There is no “off switch”, no backing out.
I agree 100%. I think what makes this worse is the fact that she told her agency in Dec/Jan that things were going so well that she wanted to adopt another child. They then suggested she wait, so she went to another agency and began the adoption process for the second time. When her agency contacted her in Jan and March, she claimed things were going “extremely well”…
So my question is, according to her, things were going well up until March (per her agency). So in a months time, she deemed the child was so unstable, so horrid, so… everything that she sent him packing back to Russia at the advice of an attorney that she never even met??? What the hell… Seriously?
There are so many options out there to families, and it seems like she didn’t take any. The child was homeschooled. There was no therapists involved. All the “helpful advice” she got, was gained from the internet…
It bothers me the most that no charges have been filed, and she still walks free… It just doesn’t seem right.
My mother walked away from me when I was a pre-teen and dropped me off at social services claiming in her exact words “she’s interfering with my social life… i don’t want her anymore”. Only when threatened with legal charges of child abandonment by the intake worker did she start singing a different song…
I feel so for this little boy… as I have been in his shoes… Orphanages, foster homes, abandonment, abuse….
My perspective comes from that of the sister of a boy whom my mother and step-father adopted when I was nine and he was eight. This was in the very early 70s. My brother, before he came to us, had been given up by his birth mother when he was ~18 months old. He had been in orphanages, in foster homes, and even in adoptive homes. Like the boy in the current story, he was given up on more than once. Back then, no one knew about attachment disorder or fetal alcohol syndrome. I give my mother and stepfather some credit in that they “tried” until he ended up in jail at age 16. That said, my stepfather believed in beatings and my mother was (in hindsight) too emotionally unstable to deal with much of anything. I think they believed that providing him with a “good home” would fix everything. My stepfather’s now wife maintains the relationship. My mother does not and hasn’t since he was 21.
My brother has been in jail, psychiatric hospitals, homeless, drug and alcohol addicted, suicidal. In the past five or so years though, he seems to have healed.
I believe that most people who adopt have good intentions but sometimes that’s not enough. The intention, while good, is often misguided and ill informed. Thank you for showing that side of it.
What a well written, thought provoking, and heart wrenching post. Thank you for the good, the bad and the ugly. This post should be in all adoption related books, magazines, agency “informational packets”, and educational materials at schools.
My heart goes out to all concerned. Do I agree that the mother of this little boy was wrong to do what she did? Yes. But do I sympathise with her? Yes; that letter seemed to me to be filled with pain; it did not seem to me that she did this lightly. She was literally concerned about the safety of her family, her friends, and herself. She felt that she had tried everything she knew how to do. If his actions were so extreme as to cause her fear for her safety, and, more importantly, fear for the safety of her other children, I can understand why she might feel the need to do what she did. I don’t approve,l but I can understand. If his behavior was so frightening now at the age of 8, what was it going to be like at 14 or 15? Of course, maybe I’m giving her too much credit; I don’t know what behavio9rs he’s actually exhibited, or what interventions she actually tried before giving up. But it is POSSIBLE that she had actually tried very hard to make this work, had run out of ideas and was afraid that her poor decision to adopt this boy would lead to her other children being harmed. If that’s the case, while I think that her action was an overreation, I can understand where it came from, and sympathize.
I was adopted at birth. I don’t have rejections issues. Maybe its my inate personality, maybe its the way my mom told me about being adopted. My mom told me from the time I was 2 she “picked” me. I always thought that made me extra special, I pictured her walking into a room with a lot of babies and saying I’ll take that one. Maybe because I’m a naturally independent person, it just never effected me (my brother has had some issues and he was adopted at birth too, but he is a very different personality and very different then my parents or me, which may be why). I just wanted to say that cause not all children adopted at birth have rejection issues. I have a child of my own now and I tell people pregnancy is over-rated, but pregnancy and birth was the easy part.
I heard a story when my daughter was young, both the mom who adopted her daughter and myself cried as she told me. A baby was adopted by a single mom, a week later the mom was killed in a car crash, when they tried to give the child to the mom’s parents they answered “that’s not my grandchild, my daughter didn’t give birth”. I mention the story because sometimes there is an attitude that the adoptive child is “not their own”. My family treated me no different than my anyone else in the family. My grandma treated me the same way she treated all her grandchildren, no difference. But maybe in this woman’s case she wasn’t adopting to have a child, she was doing it to impress, look what I did. So when the childe got difficult, well then it wasn’t worth the work anymore.
I don’t care if the child is yours by birth or by adoption, being a parent is the hardest job there is in this world. Getting pregnant and giving birth, that is easy, raising a child is hard. Any parent that adopts an older child should know it won’t be easy. In this country to adopt you have to go through screening, at least you used to have to, I think that all parents should have some kind of schooling on what to expect and if you adopting a child no matter the age, a month of classes on issues and things for the future should be part of the process. You would get rid of the person doing it to look good.
I think this woman is horrible person and while I understand that sometimes the issues are beyond you, then you should be seeking the proper help. Not sending them back on a plane alone. She should be brought up on charges. But the ones to suffer are the children.
And from the some of the stories above you see that giving birth does not make you a mom. Sperm donation does not make you a dad. 3am feedings, cleaning up puke, sitting up all night with a sick kid, holding your pre-teen or teen while they cry over the rotten things the other kid did, seeing your child through the rough spots and not abandoning that makes you a parent.
Being a parent is the only job with no training required, yet it is the most important and hardest job anyone will ever have.
Had to put in my two cents that is me, your note was lovely and thought provoking, thanks.
A beautiful and thoughtful post. Two of my five adopted daughters came from disrupted adoptions–forever homes that lasted less than a year each. One of them had a caseworker who made me promise that I would remain her mother whether or not I was able to maintain the child in my home. I also had to promise not to adopt again until she was 18 (there were safety issues around younger children). Today at age 35, she is not at all violent, though she is not, unfortunately, a completely functional adult, either. A family and lots of therapy made a difference in her life, and she is still a part of my family.
Beautifully said. Like very many of the other commenters here, I have been struggling with this story. Your perspective seems to make the most sense thus far.
The last half of this essay on being a parent instead of just a sperm donor rings very true. It’s being a parent that is difficult. I loved reading this.
Thank you, John. This needed to be said. Adoption is forever. Period. It is not for the faint of heart. I have been eaten up by this story, and have been thinking about how to discuss with my daughters. Tonight I will do so, if only to reassure them – as I try to do every day, with every parenting act – that I will never, ever stop being their mom. For better or worse, we are family. I love them fiercely, with every fiber of my being, and with one especially, that is not always easy. She feels her wound deeply, and we’ve worked hard to help her heal. She is an amazing young woman, and I wouldn’t trade one tough minute of being her mom. I am honored to parent my survivors.
Thank you for giving me the push I needed to bring this whole thing up.
John — I’m glad to read this thoughtful, illuminating account of Artyom’s plight. I’ve been searching around for pieces written from the adult adoptee perspective, and was glad to find yours.
Thanks for this well-thought and vulnerable reaction. I am pondering what you’ve said about the primal rejection. I’ve often wondered if my adopted children view themselves from that lens. At 3 and 5 they aren’t old enough to articulate such feelings, but this post was a reminder to be empathic to that possibility.
I need to re-read this post several times, I think, to get everything I can out of it. Very well put. A lot to think about with regards to my children. Thanks.
“Until death do us part. That’s what adoption means, that should be what parenting is all about.”
John- This is beautifully written and so important. I have a lots of thoughts regarding this piece and will write them out on my blog after I have those discussions that I need to have with my children. I have avoided it up until now but you have given me a good kick in the behind to face this straight on. I will be sure to link to you.
John, this was beautifully stated. I agree with you 100%.
Hi from another adoptee.The Primal Wound is to me not adoption, but the loss of attachment to our mothers which is not something we experience as rejection because it happens pre-words.It is removal from our source of security, comfort and nourishment that causes our trauma, pain and suffering.No one rejected us, mothers usually continue to love and care for us after relinquishment.
Adoption is often a further trauma and sometimes there are even further traumas as in the case of international adoptees who loose their country, culture, language and families.
Once people realise that the adoption industry is all about large profits countries may begin to see that there are other, better ways, such as in the Scandinavian countries.Good wishes…..
You might want to drop by
http://eag-oncewasvon.blogspot.com
i hope you don’t mind my linking you (this post, specifically) from my site. because i have been reeling from this news and could not have said it better myself. and the fact that you are an adoptee yourself speaks even louder.
i deeply appreciate your voice in this.
thank you.
Oh my gosh and there I was thinking to my self, thank goodness my girls are to young to hear about this but now I realize that they are not and they just might hear about it from someone else. Thank you for making me realize I have to talk to them.
Fantastically written and thank you so much.
Parent is a parent is a parent. There is no “off switch”, no backing out.
I agree 100%. I think what makes this worse is the fact that she told her agency in Dec/Jan that things were going so well that she wanted to adopt another child. They then suggested she wait, so she went to another agency and began the adoption process for the second time. When her agency contacted her in Jan and March, she claimed things were going “extremely well”…
So my question is, according to her, things were going well up until March (per her agency). So in a months time, she deemed the child was so unstable, so horrid, so… everything that she sent him packing back to Russia at the advice of an attorney that she never even met??? What the hell… Seriously?
There are so many options out there to families, and it seems like she didn’t take any. The child was homeschooled. There was no therapists involved. All the “helpful advice” she got, was gained from the internet…
It bothers me the most that no charges have been filed, and she still walks free… It just doesn’t seem right.
My mother walked away from me when I was a pre-teen and dropped me off at social services claiming in her exact words “she’s interfering with my social life… i don’t want her anymore”. Only when threatened with legal charges of child abandonment by the intake worker did she start singing a different song…
I feel so for this little boy… as I have been in his shoes… Orphanages, foster homes, abandonment, abuse….
Very well said. I have not found the words to express how this has shook me to the core.
My perspective comes from that of the sister of a boy whom my mother and step-father adopted when I was nine and he was eight. This was in the very early 70s. My brother, before he came to us, had been given up by his birth mother when he was ~18 months old. He had been in orphanages, in foster homes, and even in adoptive homes. Like the boy in the current story, he was given up on more than once. Back then, no one knew about attachment disorder or fetal alcohol syndrome. I give my mother and stepfather some credit in that they “tried” until he ended up in jail at age 16. That said, my stepfather believed in beatings and my mother was (in hindsight) too emotionally unstable to deal with much of anything. I think they believed that providing him with a “good home” would fix everything. My stepfather’s now wife maintains the relationship. My mother does not and hasn’t since he was 21.
My brother has been in jail, psychiatric hospitals, homeless, drug and alcohol addicted, suicidal. In the past five or so years though, he seems to have healed.
I believe that most people who adopt have good intentions but sometimes that’s not enough. The intention, while good, is often misguided and ill informed. Thank you for showing that side of it.
What a well written, thought provoking, and heart wrenching post. Thank you for the good, the bad and the ugly. This post should be in all adoption related books, magazines, agency “informational packets”, and educational materials at schools.
My heart goes out to all concerned. Do I agree that the mother of this little boy was wrong to do what she did? Yes. But do I sympathise with her? Yes; that letter seemed to me to be filled with pain; it did not seem to me that she did this lightly. She was literally concerned about the safety of her family, her friends, and herself. She felt that she had tried everything she knew how to do. If his actions were so extreme as to cause her fear for her safety, and, more importantly, fear for the safety of her other children, I can understand why she might feel the need to do what she did. I don’t approve,l but I can understand. If his behavior was so frightening now at the age of 8, what was it going to be like at 14 or 15? Of course, maybe I’m giving her too much credit; I don’t know what behavio9rs he’s actually exhibited, or what interventions she actually tried before giving up. But it is POSSIBLE that she had actually tried very hard to make this work, had run out of ideas and was afraid that her poor decision to adopt this boy would lead to her other children being harmed. If that’s the case, while I think that her action was an overreation, I can understand where it came from, and sympathize.
Wonderfully written, John. Some seem to literally have a list of “What I won’t do for my kid”. I don’t get it.
Well put and totally agree. Thank you for putting our children’s thoughts to words.
I was adopted at birth. I don’t have rejections issues. Maybe its my inate personality, maybe its the way my mom told me about being adopted. My mom told me from the time I was 2 she “picked” me. I always thought that made me extra special, I pictured her walking into a room with a lot of babies and saying I’ll take that one. Maybe because I’m a naturally independent person, it just never effected me (my brother has had some issues and he was adopted at birth too, but he is a very different personality and very different then my parents or me, which may be why). I just wanted to say that cause not all children adopted at birth have rejection issues. I have a child of my own now and I tell people pregnancy is over-rated, but pregnancy and birth was the easy part.
I heard a story when my daughter was young, both the mom who adopted her daughter and myself cried as she told me. A baby was adopted by a single mom, a week later the mom was killed in a car crash, when they tried to give the child to the mom’s parents they answered “that’s not my grandchild, my daughter didn’t give birth”. I mention the story because sometimes there is an attitude that the adoptive child is “not their own”. My family treated me no different than my anyone else in the family. My grandma treated me the same way she treated all her grandchildren, no difference. But maybe in this woman’s case she wasn’t adopting to have a child, she was doing it to impress, look what I did. So when the childe got difficult, well then it wasn’t worth the work anymore.
I don’t care if the child is yours by birth or by adoption, being a parent is the hardest job there is in this world. Getting pregnant and giving birth, that is easy, raising a child is hard. Any parent that adopts an older child should know it won’t be easy. In this country to adopt you have to go through screening, at least you used to have to, I think that all parents should have some kind of schooling on what to expect and if you adopting a child no matter the age, a month of classes on issues and things for the future should be part of the process. You would get rid of the person doing it to look good.
I think this woman is horrible person and while I understand that sometimes the issues are beyond you, then you should be seeking the proper help. Not sending them back on a plane alone. She should be brought up on charges. But the ones to suffer are the children.
And from the some of the stories above you see that giving birth does not make you a mom. Sperm donation does not make you a dad. 3am feedings, cleaning up puke, sitting up all night with a sick kid, holding your pre-teen or teen while they cry over the rotten things the other kid did, seeing your child through the rough spots and not abandoning that makes you a parent.
Being a parent is the only job with no training required, yet it is the most important and hardest job anyone will ever have.
Had to put in my two cents that is me, your note was lovely and thought provoking, thanks.
Well said.
I’d like to link to this too.
Amen to all of that. Very well said.
A beautiful and thoughtful post. Two of my five adopted daughters came from disrupted adoptions–forever homes that lasted less than a year each. One of them had a caseworker who made me promise that I would remain her mother whether or not I was able to maintain the child in my home. I also had to promise not to adopt again until she was 18 (there were safety issues around younger children). Today at age 35, she is not at all violent, though she is not, unfortunately, a completely functional adult, either. A family and lots of therapy made a difference in her life, and she is still a part of my family.
Beautifully said. Like very many of the other commenters here, I have been struggling with this story. Your perspective seems to make the most sense thus far.
The last half of this essay on being a parent instead of just a sperm donor rings very true. It’s being a parent that is difficult. I loved reading this.
Thank you, John. This needed to be said. Adoption is forever. Period. It is not for the faint of heart. I have been eaten up by this story, and have been thinking about how to discuss with my daughters. Tonight I will do so, if only to reassure them – as I try to do every day, with every parenting act – that I will never, ever stop being their mom. For better or worse, we are family. I love them fiercely, with every fiber of my being, and with one especially, that is not always easy. She feels her wound deeply, and we’ve worked hard to help her heal. She is an amazing young woman, and I wouldn’t trade one tough minute of being her mom. I am honored to parent my survivors.
Thank you for giving me the push I needed to bring this whole thing up.
John — I’m glad to read this thoughtful, illuminating account of Artyom’s plight. I’ve been searching around for pieces written from the adult adoptee perspective, and was glad to find yours.
Really well said, John.
Thanks for this well-thought and vulnerable reaction. I am pondering what you’ve said about the primal rejection. I’ve often wondered if my adopted children view themselves from that lens. At 3 and 5 they aren’t old enough to articulate such feelings, but this post was a reminder to be empathic to that possibility.
I need to re-read this post several times, I think, to get everything I can out of it. Very well put. A lot to think about with regards to my children. Thanks.