Saturday, December 29, 2012

13 "Scary" (for me) Adoption Bloggers I Love

2012 has been a difficult year for me with regard to adoption. I have felt a lot like my almost-eight year-old, whose assessment of the world changes all the time and seems to depend mostly on what kind of day she’s having. I am almost eight years-old as a parent  – adoptive parenting, specifically – and my understanding and experience of adoption changes all the time, sometimes depending on what kind of day I’m having and sometimes depending on what kind of day someone else is having.  

Citizens of Adoptoland often talk about their Truth. This year I struggled to recognize mine. Not the core, but all the rest of it that surrounds the core and colors my days. I struggled with this because Truth doesn’t live in a vacuum; it lives in context, and in this case, the context is Adoptoland, where the terrain is well defined. Where the (battle) lines are so clearly drawn, the teams so fervently distinct, and the opinions so passionately defended that it seems nearly impossible to accept one Truth without rejecting another, to support someone without injuring someone else. To embrace my Truth without denying someone else’s.

I lost my Truth because I forgot I never had one to begin with. Not one. My Truth is many. And the many often don’t get along and they almost never make sense together. My Truth is disorderly, disjointed, and disharmonious. That’s just how it is.

I am an adoptive parent doing my best and finding my way.

I love my children. I love their first families.

I read things about adoption that I don’t understand and can’t relate to; I read things that make me want to turn away; I read things that haunt me, things that make me laugh, things that give me hope.

I sometimes write things other people don’t understand and can’t relate to. I sometimes write things that make people angry or defensive or relieved.

Some days I hate adoption and wish it would go away. Some days I don’t.

That is MyTruth.

One of my 2013 resolutions is to highlight 13 of the people whose Truth challenges me, for theirs are the voices that shake and unsettle me, and their Truths help shape my own. I'm calling it 13 "Scary" (for me) Adoption Bloggers I Love, not because they themselves are "scary," but because I am sometimes scared by their Truth. (If you plan to make a big hairy deal of how I titled this post, please spare me. This is my Truth. Remember?)

Since I’m aiming to do one a month and there are only 12 months in a year, I’m starting a few days early with Claudia. Claudia writes often and shares her truth plainly. She and I came to adoption from different places, and I am scared spitless by some of her posts and deeply hurt by others. I also have a deeper appreciation for Claudia  and her Truth than I expect anyone to understand.

Claudia’s blog is Musings of the Lame.
I especially hope you will read her REAL Truth About Adoption Campaign
and 29Things I Wish I Knew Before Adoption Entered My Life  posts. I would like to know how you are affected by her words.

Best wishes for all of us in 2013!

Sally Bacchetta
The Adoptive Parent
My Google Profile+

Thursday, December 6, 2012

This Adoptive Parent's Christmas List

1. Pictures and letters from my children's first mothers. They need them.

2. Truth and transparency between expectant mothers considering adoption, prospective adoptive parents, adoptive parents, first parents, and adoptees.

3. Tax credits for women who choose to parent and raise their child(ren), equal to the Adoption Tax Credit available to adoptive parents. There should not be more financial support for people who adopt than for the women who bear the children.

4. More support and better protection for first fathers who want to parent/would want to parent if they knew.

5.  That everyone who reads this will read the post, The Reality of Adoption 2012.

What's on your list?
Sally Bacchetta
The Adoptive Parent
My Google Profile+