What is Adoption Month About... for You?

I cannot believe I overlooked this thread! These are my feelings......... Our nation and President Proclaim National Awareness Months in an effort to attract attention to issues of our health, society and as a means to solve issues and raise attention to things that MAY be solved, honored or perhaps even changed as a result of declaring a MONTH is about something...... National Adoption Awareness Month is about the children who go to sleep every night wondering if anyone will ever love them and claim them as their own..... It is the month when the States are expected to release the statistics of the Foster Care and Adoptions publicly and to review the Federal and state laws and issues that surround taking care of all these children living in Foster Care. It is an effort to help educate the public about these children, the schools about the issues an older child might have waiting for adoption--or after they have been placed into a Forever Home.... It is about educating the public that the children we do adopt from the system may not have a baby picture for the class project... In some ways I really wish that this message will NOT be watered down so far that it simply becomes a blanket for ALL adoption situations.... To me making this a broad issue of adoption in general takes away from the intent of the Awareness the Month was supposed to be about. We have National Breast Cancer Awareness month in order to remind those people with breast to check themselves--have annual physicals, and to raise money to research, support and hopefully oneday find a cure for Breast Cancer.... We do not detract from this effort by also tagging on the fact that in reality more women die from heart attacks---because Breast Cancer is an important thing to remind everyone about--and if found early it can be treatable....and by focusing on this issue lives are saved... When I run at the Breast Cancer awareness events--I do not also bring up the issues of heart attacks...obesity and skin cancer that would detract from the reason we have Breast Cancer Awareness month..... It is important when we have these National Awareness months to focus on the issues of the month... My opinion is that infants will always be wanted no matter how unaware our society is about adoption.... Babies have been adopted as long as history can record...and usually there is no lack of parents interested in learning about adopting a new born... Also, as honorable and important as international adoption is... The federal and state government is responsible for the children in Foster Care and this month is about reminding the public that there are too many children without families in our own country.... I am not attempting to belittle or say that infant and international adoption are not important issues....Because they are important issues... I am simply trying to express my feeling that if we expand this Awareness month to be all inclusive then the reason for it could be overlooked. There is need to care about the children all over the world and my feelings are not to deny these children the possibility of a safe and happy life here or to say that Any method of adoption is less valuable then any other method... My feelings are simply about the original intent and the reason this is a Proclamation from our President. The children that we adopt from the Foster Care system have issues that go beyond general adoption matters. Our children cannot be told they had a loving mother who knew that the baby she loved would be better cared for with a family who was more able... Our children were abused--drug exposed and their birthmother's did not make a choice to give them a better life...In fact the vast majority or our children birthmothers could not have cared less.... Our children have issues that the average people--teachers--and our nation simply cannot imagine unless WE the families work very hard to help educate them. Our children do not feel any honor of being rescued from a nation where for reasons of politics, or starvation, or poverty, war, or epidemic need a new life in a new country... In most cases our children do not even have a different heritage to learn of and honor...or a different land to dream of visiting later when they grow up. Our children came from the crack house down the street and around the corner in your neighborhood. Our children have stories they often repeat and fail to even understand.... Our children say things during school assemblies or classroom conversations that scare other children and cause grown adult to cry.... When the police visit our childs classroom and talk about stranger danger--our child might tell about the night the police came and took the child into care---or the day they met there new family and the fact their new parents were STRANGERS that day--but everyone told them---it was okay to trust these strangers This Time... When our children are in D.A.R.E they might tell the whole class that their birthmother took drugs when they were in her tummy...or that they saw the police raid the house and find the Meth Lab....or that their mothers boyfriend used to burn them with cigarettes, or blow smoke in their mouths because they were hyper........ THESE are ONLY a few of the issues that the public in general are not aware of... I honestly could write a book.... My daughters best friend was adopted from China...she doesn't remember being adopted....She doesn't remember the flight home... She has baby pictures and even a few of herself when she was still in China... She even forgets now and then that she is adopted.... My daughter has no baby pictures and strangers who came oneday and said, "Hi--I am your forever mommy, I love you." This MONTH is about telling American's about the children like my daughter....or my uncle who waited his whole life and was never adopted... This Month is about my going to the school and helping the teachers and staff to understand that Adoption is more then the love of a birthmother who cared about her baby...This month is about honoring the people who have lived in the nightmare and worried all night about a child who is so hurt that FEW people even ponder the realities of what the hurt might intail.... This month is about reminding the people of America that last night over a half million children went to bed in Foster Homes knowing that their picture was taken to be placed in a book where Forever Parents look to find them.... This month is about calling on people who are able to open their hearts to a teenager who may end up living on the streets because they are lost in the Foster Care system....and no one ever told them they mattered more then anything else.....

Amen to Anna. I have nothing to add. She said it all....

I agree completely. Especially the following sentence you posted: "I am simply trying to express my feeling that if we expand this Awareness month to be all inclusive then the reason for it could be overlooked" I believe the focus needs to be kept on the waiting children who go to sleep each night without a family, without a mom or dad, without a future to look forward to. These are the member of the triad that really, really need our awareness and focus. JMHO

Adoption Awareness Month is about allowing the UNHEARD and UNKNOWN Voices to hope.... that at sometime in the future they might actually be a part of the Adoption Triad... .......because right now they are not and without awareness they may never have a side of the Triad or be touched by adoption that would entitle them to become memebers of this site.... ..........These children ONLY wish they could have the chance to be a part of this Triad. This should be a month where the TRIAD joins forces and acts in order to allow the lost...the alone and the hurt people to belong anyplace other then in Foster Care.

THANK YOU HappyMomAnna!!!!! I completely agree with you that the focus of THIS month and the Proclamation recently signed should remain on the many children waiting for a family and NOT "watered down". As I was reading your heartfelt words I thought to myself, how could anyone read what this month is truly about and respond with But what about me? and attempt to divert the focus onto themselves instead of these children? What a shame! This month and this Proclamation is also not about who won the election or whether a person is Democrat, Republican or anything else. It is about children that need homes! In addition to NOT being watered down, it should NOT be distorted. While Christmas does not fall within this month, I wanted to offer a couple ideas that hopefully some will carry into next month. I volunteer with Operation Santa Claus every year in my area whose goal is to gather Christmas gifts for children in foster care. We usually receive many toys for young children however, gifts for teenagers are few. If you have a similar effort in your area here's an idea for those of you that purchase make-up at department stores and receive "Gifts with purchase". One year I took all the cute cosmetic bags I'd collected (how many can one use) from gifts with purchase to the local beauty supply store. They helped me fill them with things teenagers would like and also offered sample some sample products. I also went to the cosmetic counters at the local department stores and they also volunteered samples. I had 10 nice gifts for teenage girls that did not cost very much money. If anyone has a similar idea for teenage boys, please share. These children truly feel the "sting" of being "left out" during the holidays. Another project my city sponsors is "Gift Trees". Trees are placed at the Community Center, the Senior Center and City Hall. Needy families, foster children and seniors fill out "wish list" cards. Reading these wishes reminds many of us how much we take for granted ~ a teenager wishing for a pair of socks, a senior wishing for warm slippers, a foster family wishing for McDonald's gift certificates to use to treat their foster children etc. Many of us take several cards as their wishes are so small. Please open your hearts and remember the children in Foster Care ~ not just this month but ongoing ~ and also the many seniors that are alone. Thank you again HappyMomAnna for your heartfelt and informed post! :)

anna, i saw an earlier thread about this and i had a hard time understanding how people turned it around thank you for letting these children that nobody wants or wants to hear about, have this month to themselves. just so people are aware, there are no families waiting in line for these kids in the foster care system. this is the complete opposite of infant adoptions, who come from loving mothers and want to do whats best for their baby. infant and older adoption.....this is a very very very different issue, you cant even compare the two. these kids just wait and wait and wait and wonder why no one will love them. infant adoptions are coming from a loving mother and going into another loving home older kids dont know whats that like these childen in the foster care system, try their best though, the little troopers that they are...... they put their best smiles on, they put their new clothes on....and still....cant understand why no one wants them.... deep down they wish they were babies, everyone wants a baby.....why cant they be babies again.... they hate their birthdays, because after all, everyone knows when you have a birthday, your another year older, and they know that the older they get, the chances of them finding a family gets slimmer and slimmer but they hold on....they just hold on. and everynight when they say their prayers...all they pray for is a family that will love them and take care of them.... but soon their little spirits slowly start to die. sad fact is.....there are so many of them thanks anna so much, i cant add anything, you gave these children a voice.... i cant understand why people would want to take away this month from these hurt children.... cant we just give these children at least one month where the focus is on them, and just them, and no one else....dont they deserve that. Dont they deserve to get a family too?... i was having a hard time understanding how anyone can or want to, take the focus off these children? it just saddens me. the word 'adoption' affects everyone differently. this is true. everyones experience into adoption is different. but If we start to 'water it down', before you know it, we will have the animal rights in on this, yes, animals get adopted too. maybe even get the highways involved, hey, we all seen the signs, 'adopt a highway' true story.....i have a woman at work who when i told her i was thinking about adopting, she said to me...."thats great, i adopted a whale..... first i was offened, but you see, when she heard the word 'adopt' it immediatly triggered her experience, which is understandabal......that was her experience around 'adoption' so i do understand that the word adoption will have different meanings if they are touched by it. adoption means something different for everyone, but this month was to educate and let people be aware that their are children in the foster care system that need homes too...thats all. i dont see the harm in it. who knows, a family might be waiting for an infant adoption and then november comes....and something just triggers them and they think, "hmmm, let see about maybe adopting a waiting child?" can we give these children that hope. look at this forum.....there are parents profiles on the top of the home page looking for infant adoptions but i dont see any parents profiles on here looking to adopt an older child. that is what this month is about. lets not take this month from these hurt children please please please, we need to find it in our hearts, to let these children have a chance too...let them have this month for just them. let them lay down their heads at night and be grateful that this is their month, this is the month that belongs to them, this is the month, that maybe, just maybe, someone decided too adopt an older child instead of an infant. cant we give them hope? is that too much too ask for? they didnt do anything wrong...really, they didnt. dadfor2

I couldn't agree more. When I saw the other thread taking such a turn away from the original focus, you and Anna were the two people that popped into my head. The things that you, and many other foster/older children adoptive parents have gone through to give these special children a chance to feel the love and security of a forever family. I am hoping that the focus will remain where it will do the most good...that people's awareness will be stimulated and more children will be placed with special, loving, STRONG families. ~D

~D, ..........and Thank YOU!!!!! One other thing that keeping the attention where it belongs does is also serve as a gateway for people to understand other adoption related issues.... or open their minds to realize that the things they may have understood about adoption are not the only things to be understood.... We have all run into people who have a stero type idea of adoption.... Because for whatever reason they have a picture in their minds about what adoption means for them... .........I have met people who had NEGATIVE feelings about adoption in general....and by learning about the Foster Children and the children who wait this negative attitude can be shifted..and over time open to more information and an better understanding about all the issues.... How many of us who have adopted from the Foster Care system have been asked the stragest questions that disclose ignorance in friends and family? For example it seems that all most EVERY single friend we have told about our adoption have asked the same two questions first. 1) Where did they come from? 2) Why did thier mother give them up? To me both of these questions indicate that my friends seem to have two ideas about what adoption is..... I always have to laugh when I answer--They came from the streets of a small town in Oregon and they were not given up they were taken away from thier mother..... ................ and when we do answer these questions there is often a rather stunned look on the face of a person who hears this for the first time.... This month is NOT about foregtting the Triad by any means.... The truth is that many people appear to be rather well informed about issues of infant or international adoption.... and We the people who do adopt these children may actually be the best spokemen for the Triad in general... We suffer many times when we consider the birthmother of our children? Our emotions are often very mixed with everything from anger to the deepest kind of compasion an adoptive parent might be able to consider for the birthmother..... Our journey to love these children brings our hearts often to why did our society fail to help--to change--to interceed in this situation and prevent it in the first place? The vast majority of people I know who adopt a child from Foster Care have a higher esteem and respect for birthmother's in general.... we also seem to view those boirthmother who had the ability to make the decision to place thier child instead of doing or even RISKING what we see done to children.... To us a birthmother who make a choice to place is as equally honorable as those of us willing to love the hurt children.... Not to say or imply that these birthmothers would have ended up being in the situation as the mother's of our children--but to say that We do respect that fact that there are birthmother willing to not allow an innocent child to suffer.... Many of us spend a great deal of time with our hurt children--who in most cases actually know and remember thier birthmother's trying to help these children understand what has happened to them.... We have a situation with our children which requires us to learn how to help our child understand that their birthmother loved them.....the best that she was able....but that her grown up problems were too big for her to deal with and also be a healthy mother.... Many of us have met the mother's and taken our children from her arms on the day of the Goodbye visits.... We know our children LOVE their birthmothers just the same as we love our own mothers.... We know that our children wish and pary that their mothers would have been ok....and we have to deal with helping them LOVE her in a healthy way.... Part of the AWARENESS is that society needs to be supportive of people who suffer from drug addiction and that we need to learn to find ways to be support and not judging of a young woman who is pregnant... We need to go out of our ways to pay attention to young women who are attempting to parent and who lack mean, support, skill or services which will help them be the best mother they are able to be... The AWARENESS of this month is not simply about the children who are already waiting to be adopted--but the children who have young--alone and hurt mothers of their own who do choose to try and parent... When we draw attention to the situation of Foster Care we also creat awareness of the reasons there are so many children waiting in the first place.... The majoity of us who do choose to adopt children from Foster Care do so because we hope to end the cycle.... Many of us are adopting children who were born to mothers who were Foster Children themselves....who aged out of the system and had no support and no families to help them. The mother of my children was a Foster Child herself....when she turned 18 she came home and found her things packed sitting in front of her Foster Home... She had not yet finished High School--she had no parents, no home, no family. The only resource offered was a state program for independant living--with meager at best options and a waiting list.... HOW COULD ANYONE HAVE EXPECTED HER TO CHANGE HER OWN LIFE AND TO PARENT ANY DIFFERENTLY THEN SHE HAD KNOWN HERSELF?

This month is about raising awareness of children in foster care. Not infants available for adoption. Not international adoptions. While all of those ways to create a family are wonderful, this month is about the foster children who need a home. So many people aren't even aware that this type of adoption is available. Or they equate it to the only adoption process they know - infant adoptions, and assume its the same. The question I get frequently (which tells me that people don't understand) is "Aren't you afraid her birthmom will change her mind". The answer is - no, her birthmom did not make up her mind to place her daughter, the government took her daughter due to her inability to parent. I would love to see some of the myths about these children dispelled. I remember the first time we took my daughter to church with us. No one said anything, but I could tell by their looks and reactions that their thoughts were "Well, she looks normal." I felt like standing up and shouting "Just because her mother couldn't take care of her, she is still just a little girl. She has feelings and emotions just like every one else. It isn't her fault." I want people to realize that foster children are just that - children. They play, they laugh, they go to school, they cry, they roll around with the dogs, they like macaroni and cheese, and they hope. Only they hope for a family. What a big dream for such small children. I think Dad said something along the lines of - the least we can do is give them a month. Lets put the emphasis on the children. They deserve it. They've earned it.

Hi... I am one of those people who took the last thread to a whole direction that it wasn't intended. I apologize :( I plead temporary insanity from the election results. Please forgive me for posting my opinions about one issue in a inappropriate way on the thread for another issue. Mistake number one million five hundred and sixty seven and counting... ;) I fully support this effort and hope it remains about the children that Anna talked about... my God Children. My sister is in the process of adopting 2 children through foster adopt. Anna, Thank you for your post. Thank you all for sharing and you are right. With much humility, Kim

lorraine: quote: "No one said anything, but I could tell by their looks and reactions that their thoughts were "Well, she looks normal." I felt like standing up and shouting "Just because her mother couldn't take care of her, she is still just a little girl. She has feelings and emotions just like every one else. It isn't her fault." I want people to realize that foster children are just that - children. They play, they laugh, they go to school, they cry, they roll around with the dogs, they like macaroni and cheese, and they hope. Only they hope for a family. What a big dream for such small children." lorraine, i had to laugh....i had the same experience. i got those looks, my kids were stared up and down by my familiy members, friends, etc....it became so clear that this was not an infant adoption...no one came running over and wanting to hold them... but they kept a distance and just stared at them.... they appeared shocked when they saw a normal kid. a kid who looked like their own kids..... im not really sure to this day what they expected.....maybe a kid who had four noses or something....im not really sure, but it clearly something they had no expected. these foster kids have a stigma around them. yes, alot do have problems, but for the most part, they can function like every other kid. they are not to be pitied either.... they enjoy the latest trends like every other kid. they laugh and sing stupid songs, they smile real bright like every other kid, they laugh when you burb by accident.... but there is one thing that does seperate them from other kids...and that they dont have a place they can call home. dadfor2

Anna, your post is one that needs to be saved and reread over and over... Dadfor2, halfway through your thread I just couldn't manage anymore, will have to come back to read the rest. Thank you both...

mtlover, this election has everyone in a an uproar. i personally have lost sleep over it. I dont want to turn this thread to anything political, but i do understand. i guess the point of what anna wrote was about education, and clearly she has educated. thanks for having an open mind, and i guess thats the reason why anna wrote it in the first place, about awarness and education. dadfor2

Moma Ana, I loved your comment! We are in the process of adopting a ten year old girl in Florida. She was rescued due to neglect and is very sensitive about the subject, as we all can understand. When she makes new friends and they find out that she is being adopted the children have a hard time understanding why a child at the age of 10 is being adopted and always ask where her parents are. In order to save Donna from having to answer that the school and church have given her our last name in everything except the most legal paperwork so we are the only ones who know the details. When she is legally adopted in another 75 days there will be no big change among her peers and only those she trusts the most will be invited to her adoption party. Hopefully more organizations will become sensitive to our special children and make their transitions into their forever families easier. Thanks again.

What does adoption mean to me? This is Adoption Awareness Month. Tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day, is my birthday. Adoption means that many years ago my birth mother gave me up becasue she was a teenage girl and couldn't provide for me. Adoption means that 7 months later, another family took me in and raised me as their own. Adoption means that I didn't grow up with my brother and sister. Adoption means that I was spoiled rotten. Adoption means that I knew I was different from my family, and the extended family didn't consider me one of them. Adoption means that as I grew older, I knew I wanted to adopt a child, to do for another what had been done to me. Adoption means that when I reached 30, I searched for my birth mother and eventually found her, and a new brother, sister, and niece. Adoption means that my birth father refused to have any contact with me, claiming my existence endangered his position as a church elder (Baptist.) Adoption means that my birth mother's church (Catholic) welcomed me. Adoption means that my two mothers became (and still are) best friends. Adoption means that finding my birth mother forced my wife, whose Asian culture considers adoption a horrible sin, to look inside herself. Adoption means that while my wife could accept me, she couldn't accept my desire to adopt. Adoption means that once a month or so, I look through this web site and wonder about what could have been...