I was thinking a few days ago about the power of narratives, both the metanarrative of the adoption-positive culture we live in and the narratives of the movement for adoption reform.
November is National Adoption Month, which means that all members of the triad are out sharing opinions and ideas about this crazy practice that we call adoption. The loudest voices, those of adoptive parents, dominate the adoption-positive narrative. Often viewed as the saviors in the adoption triad because of their heroic efforts of provide children homes, they've helped to construct a narrative that’s become hegemonic in scope. Its important to critique this narrative, as it is swallowed so uncritically and readily that there are few spaces where adoptees can even suggest that there might be some problems with adoption as it is currently practiced without drawing vitrolic backlash.
I’m proud to say that more than a few adoptees have taken to social media to share their stories under the hashtag #flipthescript. #Flipthescript means to call attention to adoptee voices, many of whom directly challenge the adoption-happy narrative that the rest of the world seems to want us to accept as a personal truth. Adoptees who post about adoption reform are indeed “flipping the script,” when they argue that their voices should be taken seriously and given greater space in debates about adoption.
There is currently no shortage of people ready to tell adoptees how to feel about their adoptions. Even in adoptee circles, debates about whether adoption is ultimately a force for good or an instrument of destruction continue to rage, not only in the month of November, but in daily interactions between adoptees. These two polarized viewpoints often clash in public forums about adoption and pit adoptees against each other in a weird emotional competition of who can feel the happiest or most anguished about their adoptions.
On one hand, there are many adoptees who seem to follow the dominant narrative and are happy about their adoptions. In real life, I've met adoptees who reproduce (as we social scientists would say) the dominant adoptive narrative of adoption as a social good and as a winning situation for everyone. They insist with all seriousness that they have nothing but joy and gratitude towards both their birth and adoptive parents. These adoptees often refer to their adoptive parents as their “real” parents and discuss their adoptions in glowing terms. Many claim that they’re very happy with their adoptive families and reject any suggestions that their birth families could have done better.
This adoption narrative often creates an emotional straitjacket for adoptee, as it insists that adoptees feel nothing but love and gratitude to their parents after being “saved.” Some adoptees find it empowering, as it turns what would otherwise be a tragic story into one of joy and hope. Nevertheless, it gives very little space to anyone who might critically question its validity or feel pain or trauma.
On the other side are adoptees who advocate for change to current adoption practices, who often refer to themselves as being “out of the fog,” when they reach a point where they begin to examine critically what, exactly, adoption means to them. Those seen as being “in the fog,” those adoptees who see no need for reform or refuse to search, for example, are assumed to be laboring in a state of massive denial, a state of false consciousness, or a type of Stockholm syndrome. Adoption fog often frustrates adoption refomers who think that they've seen the light about the inner workings of the adoption machine and they often seek to bring this knowledge to others and bring them “out of the fog” where they can see clearly. The logic is more or less that if enough adoptees could agree on the need for reform, we could finally succeed in overturning those frustrating closed record laws and advocate for children in a better way.
This alternative narrative does indeed give voice to a subordinate discourse about adoption and its this voice that adoptees seek to highlight in the #flipthescript campaign. Positive thinking about adoption is still the norm, so this is the minority viewpoint for now. Although it is a critical [and very necessary] narrative to larger debates about adoption, the narratives of adoption as pain are still limiting and prescribing that adoptees follow this script. Adoptee reformers often repeat to non-adoptees, “Listen to adoptee voices,” over and over again, but what do we make of adoptees who refuse to acknowledge the existence of a primal wound? Of those who don’t fit our pre-made narrative of pain and rage? What if adoptees happy about adoption are actually happy about adoption?
I in no way mean to denigrate or detract from the very important work that adoptee reform advocates do or the narrative that they've created. I’m personally skeptical of the happiness narrative, as I think there has to be some big wounded parts in every adoptee, even if they’re not cognizant of their pain yet. I am interested, however, in the idea that in creating a counter-narrative of the Adoption Rainbow story, we've painted ourselves into a rhetorical corner. In flipping the script, have we created a mirror image of the original problems of the happiness narrative? In demanding that everyone come “out of the fog,” and insisting that everyone must feel traumatized and awful about their adoptions deep down, are we not creating the same type of emotional straitjacket that we seek to reject? We’re tired of having people tell us how to feel about our adoptions (e.g. permanent gratitude), but then leave little room for adoptees who don’t feel the same way. We insist that they’re hurting and that we know better. We lecture them about our traumas and struggles, insisting that they must have the same sort of feelings and attacking them when they don’t.
How do we, as adoptees who think that adoption needs some serious reforming, feel about people who refuse to fit our narratives of adoptees as suffering from a primal wound? Have we really just come to a higher state of consciousness about our adoptions and the adoption-industrial complex? Is it possible that there are adoptees who really do feel happy about their adoptions?
If we’re going to lead in the world of adoption reform, we’re going to have to lead by example and listen to those people, too and take their adoptee voices seriously. Their feelings are as valid as ours.
Just thoughts.
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