not find out any of the answers to my questions, unless I ask for her permission to contact her through the agency that handled my adoption. Then what if she refuses to speak with me? That idea in and of itself turns me off the idea of even trying to find the answers. How can the pain and suffering of not knowing anything about your child be more than the pain of watching her grow up with another family? The reason this is so incredibly painful is because of the emphasis on how a mother is unconditionally supposed to love their children. This emphasis is apparent in everyday life, every time you see a mother with her child the mother is always looking out for or trying to keep their child protected. The bond between a mother and her child is so intimate that when a mother lets go of the bond with their child it is as if the child has been rejected. A mother letting go of her child is thought of as unordinary and infrequent, when really it has become more common.The idea that there are adoptions where the birth mother is kept informed, given pictures every so often, and receives letters by the adopted parents about how her child is doing sounds phenomenal in the situation of adoption. This type of adoption became popular after closed adoptions, I think it recently has become so popular because people are figuring out that maybe it is more important that the child know who his/her parents are because of the prominence of the value of family in our culture.
This leads me to ask why every birthmother does not have an open adoption. Why would a birthmother not want an open adoption? They get to see their child, the progress their child is making and at least keep some sort of connection with their child. Then this question made me think about an extreme case, what if my birth mother was raped and could not even look at me? What if I am the product of rape? I hope this is not true. If this were the situation this would be very controversial because how is a mother supposed to love their child when their child reminds them every time they look at their child or think about their child of the pain and horror of the rape.
The question I am left with is,
What if I am the product of something shameful and she regrets ever having me? And if this is true how would the child and mother reconnect, if they even could?
After reading your blog entries, this one in particular caught my attention. I understand that this is not just another boring assignment to you, but that you really are looking for answers on a very personal matter. I think that since you are an adopted child this issue of adoption is obviously an emotional one and one in which you may have many preconceived notions based off of your own experience. With this blog entry about open adoption I think you are able to raise many important questions that adopted children are all wondering, but at the same time I am wondering if perhaps this issue of open adoption is something that is to close to you. What I mean by that is that while Professor Torres said it was very important that these blogs were full of our opinions, I believe that this particular entry is purely opinion with out any facts to back it up. I understand that you are still trying to understand this type of adoption, but with this entry you merely ask questions, instead of beginning to answer them. It would have been helpful if you had first introduced the reader to what open adoption was, and the facts and laws that go along with it. This way the reader could then have seen that your opinions were based off of real hard facts instead of just questions based off of opinions. I don’t mean to disregard your opinions or experiences, but I feel that with this assignment we were supposed to immerse our selves in something that we could never understand or accept, something that is foreign to us. Unfortunately I think that since you are adopted this topic is not something that is foreign to yourself and is definitely something that you have either begun to accept or have already questioned throughout your life. I think that many of your opinions seem to be based off of solely your own experience, which I think does not help you in understanding this issue. I really don’t want this to be an attack on you, because I did find your entries interesting to read, I am just not sure if they completely fill the criteria for the actual assignment.
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