Adoption 2: Finding Out
If you haven’t already, read Adoption, Part 1
The concept of “home” has always been my Holy Grail. I have spent my whole existence focused on obtaining a home, even though I technically had one. Why did I feel this way?
My mother says that I was told I was adopted “all along.” But this is not true. I remember the first time I heard it. I remember the day because it was also the first day I realized that my mother could lie to me.
I remember I was in kindergarten. My younger brothers weren’t in school yet. I looked like my brothers, except for the eyes. Mine were brown, theirs were blue-gray; a good blend for my mothers’ hazel eyes. My father had brown eyes, but we were all brunette. I blended.
One afternoon, my mother had our baby books and was showing us pictures and locks of hair from our infanthood. The cover of my baby book had writing on it, and I asked my mom to read it to me. She read: “Our Adopted Baby.” I remember the sensation of all the blood draining out of my head, and asking her, “I was adopted?!” She was incredulous. “Yes, we’ve always told you that you were adopted!” she snapped at me angrily. I was unprepared for this sudden anger and it scared me. Then she got even more pissed and said some stuff in a snotty tone. Then she dismissed any questions I had and changed the subject.
I may have only been six years old, but I knew bullshit when I heard it, even if I didn’t have the vocabulary to articulate it. I knew that my parents had never told me I was adopted.
But yet, mom just said they had told me “all along”.
Either she was lying, or I was mistaken and had “forgotten” I was adopted. Parents don’t lie, so it had to be my fault, my mistake. That was my first lesson. Tis’ far better to accept responsibility for situations for which you are not culpable, than it is to admit that you can rely on no one. I decided I must have forgotten. But, how does a child “forget” they were adopted?
Even at that young age, as my mother sat in her tacky green ’70s chair surrounded by three children hanging on her every word and dying to have their sticky fingers touch the black and white photographs — even then, as I made the decision to accept her hint that I was somehow feeble-minded for forgetting such a fact, I knew somewhere deep down that I had never heard that I was adopted until that day.
That has always been my family’s way of handling things. Or one of the top five ways:
- Deny, deny, deny
- Find a way to shake any responsibility
- Quickly change the subject
- Refuse to admit anything is “wrong”
- When caught in a lie, stick with it and accuse the other person of needing “psychological help” (that one rang big in my teenage years)
I came out of the proverbial adoption closet on the playground the next day, telling all my friends about me being adopted as I swung on the swingset. I remember one kid saying, “that means your real parents didn’t want you!” but comments didn’t phase me. I just said, “Get off my case, toilet face!” and kept swinging.
I was happy and full of hope. I felt special. At that young age I couldn’t understand why, but I felt like it explained everything.
Just an aside question from the adult Mary: What kind of attention-seeking fuck buys a baby album with the title “Our ADOPTED Baby”? Danger, danger, Will Robinson!
I was adopted by my stepfather, but it was a much different situation than yours. I knew my biological father all my life. I just realized that he sucked and the whole heroine addiction thing wasn’t going away, so I decided to let my stepfather adopt me. So, in a way it was like I divorced my biological father.
But anytime I tell anyone that my father adopted me when I was 23, they automatically think I was a homeless, parentless wanderer before he took me in. Go figure.
Comment by Mel — Sunday, July 24, 2005 @ 1:31 am
your family’s way of handling things was .. wow. hit pretty close to home.
it’s inspired me to write, and for that i thank you. : )
Comment by marie b. — Sunday, July 24, 2005 @ 3:34 am
Well hells bells, wow, Holy shit! The idea I would have thought was to make you feel like everyone else, not have a different label on the book.
I remember my best friend and I routing through her moms papers one day trying to find her birth certificate so she chould hand it in at school in order to go on a trip to Austria. Her mom kept putting it off for weeks. We found it, and it said she was adopted… she was 14 and devastated. I thought it was kind of cool, 2 sets of parents, and if she found them, two sets of christmas and birthday gifts - what can I say, I thought about the gains not the losses.
Comment by Lynne — Sunday, July 24, 2005 @ 6:48 am
Comment by drunkenlagomorph — Sunday, July 24, 2005 @ 6:56 am
By the way, after I made this entry and went to bed, I had a dream I was being chased by the Lost in Space robot, and that other famous black 50’s robot with the bubble arms. The robots! The ROBOTS!
Comment by drunkenlagomorph — Sunday, July 24, 2005 @ 7:00 am
That baby book- GEEZ! Who would buy a baby book that says that? I’m feeling a little pissy about that and it didn’t even happen to me!
It’s my feeling that once you’re adopted, there should be NO difference between biological children and adopted children. Of course, maybe I feel that way because none of the four kids in my family have the exact same gene pool. Technically each sibling I have is a half-sibling (my mom got married a lot), but it’s never *felt* that way to me.
“Our adopted baby” my ass. [gives the finger]
Comment by RisibleGirl — Sunday, July 24, 2005 @ 11:41 am
PS- that other robot was names Robbie the Robot. I only know this because he was at the science fiction museum a couple of weeks ago.
Comment by RisibleGirl — Sunday, July 24, 2005 @ 11:41 am