What annoys me about the adoption establishment?

I am pleased to be a part of this effort led by Land of Gazillion adoptees. The posts so far, which we have listed here have been amazing. This post is just Rally’s unleashed opinion. It does not constitute the opinion of any other collaborator on this blog. I swear, they didn’t even see it before it went up.  Direct all comments to me. (I am not really worried, I just love smileys. )

Before I started this blog fourteen months ago, I already knew that many things annoyed me. I said to my partners: How about a regular Friday column where we would list whatever thing that is particularly annoying that week and invite others to add. And FacePalm Friday was born. One of my favorites is the descriptive adoptive parent term post from last May. See here.

But I digress…this post is about my overall annoyance of the adoption establishment. There are so many things about the 3P’s that annoy me-Process, the Postadoption lack of resources and the People that I want to say but ultimately, it comes down to the

The messages about adoption have been controlled for so long by the adoption establishment, that the general public is JUST NOT AWARE of the issues and that is a major purpose of why this blog exists. I don’t have to look any further than who rang today’s NASDAQ opening bell- the National Council for Adoption (NCFA) ! Money and adoption unite again!  “The National Council For Adoption, an adoption advocacy non-profit that serves children, birthparents, and adoptive families as the authoritative voice for adoption, will visit the NASDAQ MarketSite in New York City’s Times Square.”

Who the  died and branded the NCFA the authoritative voice for adoption! THIS is the  that the general public sees DAY AFTER DAY AFTER DAY. Bethany had their  message play ALL DAY at the SUPER BOWL . Places like Bethany have multiple, names, initiatives and are very sly in their marketing and the general public cannot make the connection. (You need to scroll to the very bottom of the webpage to see the tiny print with the Bethany copyright on it.)

WE need to control the message. Now, who are WE? WE are the people that have the TRUTH. This includes many adult adoptees, many original family members and some, yes there are a few, adoptive parents that are sane and care about ethics. We have organizations and blogs with the word REFORM in them, not “Journey to” this or “red thread” that or some Bible verse. We don’t pray for families to separate, we don’t sell insane adoption “merchandise”, we don’t put adoption agencies on a pedestal and act like some freaky cult.

Do you know who has the LEAST say in adoption? The US Taxpayer. They have their money taken and handed to the industry through adoption tax credits and subsidies and they are clueless to what is going on. Awareness of the false messages is high with adult adoptees and original families. We are doing our part to make APs aware (they should be aware, but they just aren’t–ignorance begets ignorance), but we need to educate the 90+% of the general public who are NOT involved in adoption, who will in turn also influence the legislators to do something about this. If they understood that they were unknowingly playing adoption Santa and  their own wallets were being hit, I think that could prod them to act.

In the meantime, we all need to voice our opinions to legislators, governments, media and whoever else will listen. A list of places that we all can complain to is on this pdf

Naming names time

Because I consider my audience to include the general public and APs who unfortunately don’t research who the people are in the industry, I will include a number of names now.

There are 5 categories of the establishment that I want to mention. These people control the message from A to Z: adoption agencies; adoption lobbying groups; publications; adoption service providers; and connected-to-the industry organizations and individuals.

It is obvious WHO the adoption agencies are. The rest are not so obvious.

The lobbying groups include secular and religious groups. JCICS and Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI), which consists of powerful elected officials from both major political parties, are two of the main secular groups. The religious groups include The National Council on Adoption (NCFA), Hope for Orphans, Together for Adoption, Christian Alliance for Orphans, Both Ends Burning Campaign and I single out Bethany Christian Services as they are the most insidious, largest conglomerate on the planet Earth setting up foster care systems as well as placing internationally. Foster care even in the US (see surrogate family concept ). Bethany influences many of the religious groups because they are members of multiple lobbying groups just mentioned.

Publications–Adoptive Families magazine was begun by and is run by the adoption industry. Most things in it are completely biased and blessed by the industry. Adoption Today is better but still avoids the hottest issues and diverts some of the truth.

Adoption Service Providers. Yes, I separate this. There are “entrepreneurs” like who we discussed on Monday , the APs who start dossier services , APs who charge by the hour for consultations, APs who charge for fundraising advice and on and on. There also APs that don’t make money but do it for “savior” reasons-those who “advocate” for children as if they are social workers. Those that provide adjunct services that are the bulk of their business are also included—some international adoption doctors and their organization American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Foster Care and Adoption section.

AAP adoption section?  You see, many of these doctors are members of JCICS–they fight for JCICS issues. They may or may not realize what they are fighting for…but ultimately those that speak out on JCICS behalf have their entire careers banked on IA. There are many IA doctors who only have a small portion of their practice as IA. Those are not who I am talking about. I am talking about the entrenched ones, the “famous” ones, the ones you see interviewed everywhere. Issues with teenagers, mental illness, placement in RTCs and what to do if their child will not be able to live independently as an adult are not ever addressed by this group. So many APs are now having to deal with getting guardianship of their soon-to-be adult adopted children who never recovered from their preadoption life. Love WAS NOT enough and none in the adoption establishment give a about assisting any of these families. Admitting that these are the issues would be bad for business. Shut out from support groups and shunned by the adoption establishment and sometimes their own families, these are some of the silent victims. You can say “they should have known better” to adopt severely disabled and/or neglected children all you want, but the fact is that this affects our whole society now and YES THE TAXPAYER who will have to dole out SS   until these adults die…

Connected-to-the-industry organizations and individuals: Elizabeth Bartholet and Jane Aronson, DO come to mind when I think of individuals granted the podium whenever anything “bad” comes up about adoption so they can whitewash it over. These two are deeply entrenched with the industry-one for research, the other for her NGO and service provider businesses.

Organization: I will give a riddle. It has 6 letters and begins and ends with a vowel. Yea, they are not on the link list on our home page. That is not accidental. Ask how they were formed, who formed them and who really sits on their Board of Directors and those answers will lead straight to the devil industry. Come clean or shut up.

Disruptions (I use this term interchangeably with Dissolutions)

Lastly, I want to take this opportunity to tell you about an effort of mine this week. The silence on this issue is another annoyance of mine. In addition to updating a slew of horrendous adoptee abuse and death cases in our How Could You? files (Fun fact: I almost named that archive crAP for what I say every time I hear of a new case), I had another AP tell me the awful story of their needed disruption (yes, needed) in great detail. You see, I have been working on a summary of international adoption disruptions that I have been collecting since November 2010. The industry will tell you that this never occurs. DOS reports only give self-reported Hague adoption figures. In FY2011, only 29% of international adoptions were done under Hague. They reported 5 disruptions. Well, so far I have collected 116 stories of disruptions during this time. Yesterday, I took the unidentifying information and sent it to Senator Lugar who not only heads the Foreign Relations committee but is part of the CCAI. I also sent it off to DOS.Now neither the executive branch nor the legislative branch can say that they haven’t heard about international adoption disruptions and the tip of the iceberg data collection that I have done. Sadly, this is probably the ONLY place that you will hear about it as I suspect it will just be buried, erased, .

 

REFORM Puzzle Piece