Court of Public Opinion
By Lynn Deiulis
Personally, I was not aware of any ‘open’ adoptions when I was growing up. I knew there was a difference between ‘public’ and ‘private’ adoptions but that was the extent of my knowledge of ‘different’ adoptions. Without getting all technical, open adoptions are exactly as the title sounds. There is some openness, or contact, between a child or youth’s new family and their family of origin, or sometimes there is even contact with a former kinship or foster family. Openness can range from update letters to phone contact to face-to-face visits with many options in between. Today, openness planning has so many facets and possibilities, however, when I was placed on adoption back in 1959, the rules were quite different. Openness was not typically entertained as an option when adoption was the plan. My parents were essentially told, ‘here is your daughter, raise her as your own and forget about where she came from’. I had no information about, or exposure to my biological family while I was growing up. Yet, people often referred to them as my “real” parents in the Court of public opinion.
I think that when other people judge me, or when I perceive that I am being judged, it is due to being part of a family created through adoption. I and my family have always been judged by society. As a result, when other people think poorly of who I am, or of something I did, my ‘poor little orphan’ persona takes over emotionally.
People who know me see a strong, capable, and confident person. But if they point out a flaw I immediately default to having been adopted, not quite good enough to have been kept by my birth parents. It is uncanny how that drives my feelings and my need to do better. The little adopted girl inside of me often determines my reaction, or response.
Other times I get defensive of my parents as if the person in front of me is judging them as ‘abnormal’ for not creating biological children. All these feelings happen in the seconds it takes me to respond to what someone has said or done. Being adopted does not define me, but it can often define how I take and respond to another person’s comment or question.
Why do I care? Well firstly, I think everyone cares what people think and we raise our children to care what people think as a kind of social control. Historically, the expectations of elders helped create social norms. I believe social norms are intended for things like preventing children from farting in public. After all, parents do not want other parents to think their children are being raised by wolves, do they? I think the court of public opinion kept, and still keeps, people following social norms as a matter of maintaining civility. Though kinship was historically accepted as such, adoption is not always considered a social norm, is it?
I feel that adoption has always been judged in the Court of public opinion. Often adoptive families are considered heroes for taking in and parenting children born to other people. On the flip side, adoptive parents are also subjected to overhearing comments like, “aren’t they afraid of bad blood?”, “such a pity they cannot have children of their own”, or even, “I wonder which one of them is at fault?” Historically, if no biological family was available to take in a child or children, then a community family took in and raised those orphaned children.
Mom simply felt that adoption was an extension of the practice of kinship, not some weird “how do you love another person’s child” thing. What mom never understood, is how other people did not get it, or why they questioned the practice of adoption.
The opinions expressed in blogs posted reflect their author and do not represent any official stance of Adopt4Life. We respect the diversity of opinions within the adoption, kinship and customary care community and hope that these posts will stimulate meaningful conversations.
