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Perspective of an adopted Son!

 

There is a national challenge to understand child and adult welfare.  I have spent my whole life...42 years being trained to advocate and teach healthy dynamics, and for me it was life and death because my ACE score was either going to be a crutch or a gift. My training began in my mother's womb.  I started my development out being fed stress chemicals, and fear chemicals, because my mother was surrounded by toxic stress, poor choice behaviors, and a family who did not support her. She is one of my best friends today, but I didn't get to meet her till I was 18 years old.  My heart has multiplied compassion, because that is exactly what my Mother needed, AND I will change the thinking in my environment!
Yep.... I'm adopted and I wish community members, foster, and adoptive parents spoke about biological parents with dignity and respect, because every time you put my birth mom down you put 1/2 of me down. And when you put my biological dad down, you put the other 1/2 of me down. This works the same for divorce. Healthy people don't hurt or abandon their children, so what happened to my parents to cause them to abandon me at birth? And why do awful things happen to children every day in biological, foster, and adoptive families? Please be kind always..... Talk to your kids about their parents with curiosity and a day may come where you need to support their exploration in finding out about who they are and where they come from. All they need to know is you are right there to support them. The last thing you want is for them to grow with anger and resentment deserved or not, it is toxic to their growth. Can we all learn an attitude that promotes peace. Matt Furlong - Therapeutic Foster/Adoptive Parent Advocate and Educator

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Excellent points and perspective, Matt. Adoption is often an act of violence, though we put a lot of flowery language and gloss over the un-pleasantries, especially in the church. This does everyone a disservice, but especially the child who is adopted. Our son is learning his trauma-story, which is interwoven with his adoption story, and only in making it HIS story is he starting to gain victory over his shame and hurt. I appreciate you, Matt!

Chris

HI Matt:
This is great. Do you mind sharing it in Parenting with ACEs as well as it is great! I especially love how you talk about the way a child feels put down when a biological parent is put down. It seems, overall we are all moving from shaming and blaming and more towards compassion (not that this means adults aren't accountable)

I think it's important to talk about adoption because the ACE of abandonment is something all adopted children experience even though there may be reconciliation with the first family and the experience with adoptive parents may be (though it's not always) healthy.

As an adoptive parent, I am especially grateful you share your experiences. It helps me be more informed and hopefully less ignorant/insensitive/unaware of experiences I don't have lived experience with. Although I will say that one "gift" of my father's abandonment when I was a toddler is that my daughter feels like I can "get" some stuff in a way those with parents in their lives, most of the time, sometimes don't. I'm grateful for that. 

We call it the presence of absence. We don't experience it the same, at all and I won't speak for my daughter. And I don't assume it's all the same because it isn't. Anyhow, THANK YOU! 

Cissy

Last edited by Jane Stevens
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