Pushing on a Rope
adoptees rights
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
The 1 Question Adoptees Can Never Truly Answer (And Why They Keep Asking It)
Editor’s note: This is one in a series of posts for National Adoption Awareness Month that seeks to #FlipTheScript on the adoption narrative. If you’re also an adoptee, I invite you to add to the conversation in the comments below. Rob is the adoptive father of a grown son and daughter and a friend with … Continue reading
The searching adoptee’s lament: ‘I wasn’t whole. I didn’t belong. I needed to know’
Here in National Adoption Awareness Month, adoptees like me continue to #FlipTheScript on the dialogue around adoption, finally putting emphasis on how adoptees feel instead of letting everyone else drive the greater conversation around adoption. Last week’s post considered the notion of adoptee as “lucky.” This post looks at a theme I explore in the book I’m writing … Continue reading
For an adoptee, a few paragraphs bring hope … and validation
It’s been a heck of a week for Jeff. Jeff was born in 1965, nearly a year before me, and discovered at age 41 that he was adopted. Trying to sort out your identity when you’re adopted is difficult enough; I can’t begin to imagine what it must be to process that news in midlife. … Continue reading
No beginning, no end. So how do I tell the story?
In Land of Gazillion Adoptees, Amanda Woolston wrote this week about how adoptees’ scant background information reduces them to stereotypes: The lucky, grateful adoptee. The unwanted baby finally wanted by someone else. A perpetual child. A person with an invisible past. Finding in her adoptive parents’ house some redacted records from her adoption file, Amanda … Continue reading
Weather or not, my search goes on
I was not sure what to make of the state of the weather as I set off today to meet the documentary filmmaker working on a film about adoption and adoption search. Just as I reached the train station, the skies opened up — a real monsoon — and there I was with my carefully … Continue reading
Seeking the reflection of my true self
I found myself nodding in agreement this morning reading The Declassified Adoptee. Amanda writes about what it means to have an acquaintance notice the resemblance she and her children share, and what it is like to finally have someone who looks like her. I can definitely relate. Catherine’s birth was a watershed moment for me … Continue reading
Pushing on a Rope 