Interesting Articles Found Online and Related to Adoption

So I am trying this again; I really WANT to be able to just share links from the site and have them go out from there, but I read tons of stuff all day  and the way it would make this blog look visually would be.. well ugly. Once day I shall sit down and really nail down the coding for what I want, but I just don’t have time.

So the Must Read category isn’t working like I want it to. The Must Read link on the side bar isn’t getting updated enough. And the “this week” idea is failing because I am just not scheduled enough to pull it off. Meanwhile, I have all these open pages on my desktop about things I don’t want to lose or miss and would want to write about, but again, back to time management. I have issues.

So I’m going to TRY something new; a running list of interesting articles and links that I find and to share like that! I actualy would like to spend time on each of these as a whole post, but.. agg time.

Discovery Health: Grandma’s Experiences Leave a Mark on Your Genes

Getting into brain development and DNA; studies are showing that the stresses experiences as a child CAN alter ones actual brain development and that the mutation can be passed down to our children.  It has to do with “methylation” which is explained in the article , so I won’t try to! Here’s where I think it gets interesting:

“Last year, Szyf and researchers from Yale University published another study of human blood samples, comparing 14 children raised in Russian orphanages with 14 other Russian children raised by their biological parents. They found far more methylation in the orphans’ genes, including many that play an important role in neural communication and brain development and function.

“Our study shows that the early stress of separation from a biological parent impacts long-term programming of genome function; this might explain why adopted children may be particularly vulnerable to harsh parenting in terms of their physical and mental health,” said Szyf’s co-author, psychologist Elena Grigorenko of the Child Study Center at Yale. “Parenting adopted children might require much more nurturing care to reverse these changes in genome regulation.”

So this part is kind of obvious as we can accept that continued institutional care for a child IS damaging and a non biological related adoptive home is favorable. It does however, speak to give nod to the Primal Wound theory showing that separation form a biological parent is detrimental to a child’s development and show that adopted children are NOT the “same as if they were born too.” Adoptees ARE different.

Now there is also talk about experiments with rats where it showed that the rat children fared better if given to a “good” mother rat who was attentive even if she was not biologically related to said baby rats, so that aspect of it might seem to favor adoption. A “good mother” who behaves as a healthy mother is favorable over what we might consider an abusive mother. Again, a no brainer. No one is saying that kids should stay with truly abusive parents even if they are related by DNA. However, IF the initial separation causes unnecessary trauma to the child AND if the related mother is able to be “attentive”; then the chances are the child is being more harmed by the adoption than needed. IE: A mother should be a real threat to her child’s well being to warrant adoption.

And, this concept of affecting future generations does provide some basis for the continual pattern of adoption that can be seen down multiple generations.

The New Yorker: Why DO People Insist on Believing Things that Aren’t True

I wonder this ALL THE Time! Like how can people keep on saying the same tired old crap over and over and NEVER seem to accept new information as facts? I call those kinds of people the SHEEPLE.. they get a bit of news from Dr. Phil or Fox and that crap becomes gospel. Talking facts and sense is like talking to a rock.

Now granted, I have always said that adoption issues and adoption information is particularly hard for people to digest because it just hits people on such a foundational level. If a person adopted because they felt it was a good thing and their life and family is based on it being good, accepting the corruption, etc. changes the very nature of the person they think they are. Same with an adoptee who sees their adoptive parents as good folks and their birthmother as making a selfless decision  and even a birthmother who believed that what she did was a positive for her child.

So this article and the studies really touch on that as well. I few of my favorite quotes that bring it home for me:

“When there’s no immediate threat to our understanding of the world, we change our beliefs. It’s when that change contradicts something we’ve long held as important that problems occur.”

“If information doesn’t square with someone’s prior beliefs, he discards the beliefs if they’re weak and discards the information if the beliefs are strong.”

“False beliefs, it turns out, have little to do with one’s stated political affiliations and far more to do with self-identity: What kind of person am I, and what kind of person do I want to be?”

Overall, I think it gives some interesting insight as to how to frame the messages so that people can hear about adoption truths without feeling like they are on the defensive, which would cause them to dismiss the facts and usually the messenger that provides said facts. Which is, I think< a major reason, why any generalizations in adoption really get to people. We do much better attaching the industry and understanding that most adoptive parent DID believe it was a good thing and they ARE good people, but they are exploited  as well. It takes the blame off them and allows them to hear the truth.

And that naturally feeds into this post:

Online Attack For Choosing Adoption Is Not OK

Now not to give lip service to  everything stated, but it pretty much proves the point:

“Don’t automatically assume they are bad, unethical people because they adopted. My husband and I adopted and I think we are good, ethical people.”

So  the MESSAGE that adoption is fraught with ethical concerns cannot be heard and people who believe the same things cannot find a common piece of ground to agree on because of anger. Even though the whole piece very well could be addressing me if I was in a bad mood and feeling snarky, and I could go to town arguing about the defense of adoption fees, overall I have to agree but for different reasons.

And things like this.. I have to agree with 100% :

“I know “expectant mother” is the preferred term until after the baby is born. However, don’t yell at someone who is asking to connect with birthmothers; just calmly explain the difference between the two words. When you are new to the adoption world, you may be overwhelmed—learning all the “correct lingo” can be hard, especially when that lingo isn’t considered correct by everyone. I don’t think anyone is trying to be offensive by saying “birthmother” instead of “expectant mother.”  However, many people have been attacked on social media for their word choices.”

The thing is, again, people WANT to do it right, but they just do not know any better. I know it is hard ( and some people ARE morons and no matter will not change their POV), but if we truly WANT to be listened to, we have to take a hard careful look at how we frame the message. Yes, sometimes it can actually physically hurt to calmly explain something for the 10 millionth time, but look at the big picture. What’s the big goal? Do you want to let off steam and have yet another online fight or do you want people to hear the truth and work to change things?

Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Pregnancy in Prison

So I didn’t know all these things and yes, some were horrible, but these ladies did something wrong, right? After all, they are in prison so being a mother should not excuse them. At least that’s what a bunch of the comments say.

However, I didn’t keep this page open on my desktop for almost a week fr those comments. It was this one that I wanted to highlight:

“As a licensed physician, former public school educator, former child protective investigator and adoptive mom, I must chime in. Having studied child psychology, you should be aware that Reactive Attachment Disorder is the only diagnosis in the entire DSM-IV that is due to a child ages birth to 5 not being significantly bonded to an adult during these formative years. It is caused 100% by a lack of emotional bonding.

You say “if a child is placed in a good, loving home” however there appears to be a lack of child welfare knowledge in this statement. Unless a birth mother has previously identified an adoptive family (highly unlikely for incarcerated mothers as their ability to communicate with outside agencies is limited), the child will be released to a relative care giver or go into foster care. If the mother is in jail for something other than child abuse, she classified simply as “parent unavailable” and is not guilty of abuse. As such, her child will go into foster care in a home with 3 to 5 other infants (not conducive to bonding), and she will be given one or two years to work a “case plan” to reunify with her child – this prevents people from violating parental rights.

You may recall these were originally created to protect European Lords/Aristocracy from losing the right to pass on their wealth, and serfs from losing their paternal claim to their sons and their sons losing whatever birthrights they had. Women were not a part of this equation, however most Americans respect a non-abusive parents right to raise their child. And like it or not, being a criminal reflects poor choices, but it does not make you an abusive parent. FYI – 85% of female prisoners are in for “crimes of poverty”. “Living wage” anyone? But I digress. When an imprisoned mom inevitable fails her case plan (which requires a parent to make visits – not happening from jail!) the child is then placed for adoption, at the age of two when they are pushing boundaries and dare I say, “terrible”.

Unfortunately, well meaning foster parents who are NEVER told about all the needs of the many infants they are caring for, are not the same as a mom who knows her prenatal history, and has been hormonally slowed down (relaxin – look it up) to care for their newborn. Research has already documented that children under five in foster care are not cuddled or held as often (the law disallows it in many states), never co-sleep with an awake parent (bonding), are required to sleep in their on bed alone (no bedtime cuddles), and spend longer periods in automated swings. Why? Because fostering is a JOB that comes with paper work no birth parent EVER has to attend to and strangers in and out of your home who are there to question and judge the home at the case worker’s time convenience – NOT the foster parent’s nor the baby’s.
Additionally, child welfare statistics (public records!) bear out that -with rare exception – nearly ALL children in foster care suffer from some level of attachment disorder and a higher percentage of them have PTSD than previously deployed military personnel (again, public records) due to the traumatic loss not of just their parents, but their entire birth family, and everything that comes with that.
Contrary to popular belief they are not being raised in one home. Rather, they are being shuffled from spot to spot usually in an effort to a) keep siblings together; b) protect them from another child who is acting out; c) because foster parents relocated and can’t take them with them; and d) to actually keep them from bonding to their temporary caregiver in the misguided belief that this will keep them “open” to bonding with that loving, caring family you alluded to.

In closing, as you have “studied child psychology and child development” you are aware that children who do not bond, do not develop the needed empathy that prevents us from being unhealthy at best and psychopaths at worse in our relations to one another during periods of stress and conflict.

So YES, “basically ALL adopted children” – especially newborn infants who NEVER had a chance to develop any bond to the birth family – are “profoundly harmed” because losing your family due to no contribution on your part is “profoundly” harmful. It takes both love AND logic to raise adopted children, and you can NEVER erase the PROFOUND harm of the loss of the birth family – matter how “unfit” that family may seem.

Adoption by definition is born of LOSS and PROFOUND HARM.”

I live with the fall out of older children who did not bond 0 to 5. For them, being loved is painful because they were hardwired for rejection 0 to 5. And they NEVER grow out of it. They live with this preventable, yet incurable mental health disorder for their entire lives. If there is a way to reform a non-violent parent that keeps the child (who this is really about) out of the child welfare system (from which 10,000 age out EVERY DAY because there are not adopted – many whom are child welfare LIFERS), the option should be explored vigorously. I apologize if I offend, but these are thoughts supported by facts that can be easily verified with minimal research.”

I do not know who “Faye” is, but I love her. She’s totally the kind of adoptive mother who I want to hang out and be friends with.