Pushing on a Rope
#RaisedonLies
Finally recognizing ‘a basic human right’ for NY adoptees
Dawn Millward didn’t expect anyone to respond when she Tweeted earlier this month asking adoptees to share the names they’d been given at birth, but the replies kept coming. Kristen. I was Kristen for 9 years before I was adopted and it was changed in 4th grade….” I was Megan Patricia Doyle for 6 weeks before … Continue reading
A victory for adoptee rights in NY
The voice on the other end of the phone 10 years ago was smug and self-righteous: “What you’re asking for is against the law. You should just forget it.” What I was asking for was a copy of my original birth certificate, the first record of my birth created before I was adopted, and New … Continue reading
Adoptee rights bill offers validation, truth
Thursday’s editorial in The Greenwich Time and Stamford Advocate couldn’t have said it better: “Give adoptees their birth certificates.” YES! It made my heart sing to flip the page and see the headline (extra points to the editorial writer for not referring to adopted people as children). And once I read it, and saw that … Continue reading
Can We Talk? Adoptees are Missing from the Conversation Around Adoption
The reporter’s query called to me. Wedged between a Huffington Post come-on for “Boozy Coffee Cocktail Recipes for the Holidays” and Anonymous’ assignment for “Restaurants on Farms,” it was like a beacon in this morning’s HARO newsletter: “Things Adoptive Parents Think You Should Know About the Process.” Curious to know more, I clicked for the … Continue reading
In search of my better life
One of the arguments proponents of adoption often raise is that it gives adoptees a better life. Better than what? And who’s to know? Ask a non-adopted person to discuss adoption and they’ll probably tell you it’s a chance to give a child a better life. Maybe, and maybe not. One thing that’s certain adoptees … Continue reading
#BeingAdoptedMeans
Different. Incomplete. Alone. Angry. Confused. These are just a few ways adoptees are describing themselves on social media lately as National Adoption Awareness Month looms in just a couple of weeks. And as part of the ongoing effort by adopted people to #flipthescript on the whitewashed adoption dialogue we’ve been fed all our lives, adoptees … Continue reading
The hardest thing I ever did
My colleague, Jackie, shared her life story recently. As is true for so many of us, it is a journey punctuated in equal measure by happy surprises and huge disappointments, false starts and clear sailing, personal setbacks and awesome achievements. Time and again, she was able to reinvent herself, to grow as a result of … Continue reading
Think you know how it feels to be adopted? You’re probably wrong.
An acquaintance who knows I’m adopted — I’ll call her Sue — took time after one of my exercise classes last week to tell me about her boss, an adoptee who found her half-sister after doing DNA testing. Sue’s boss had flown from Connecticut to Seattle so the siblings could meet. It had been a good visit, … Continue reading
Pushing on a Rope 