Folks, I saw two movies in one day!
It was my husband's birthday on Saturday. We honored my husband's birthday on the 26th instead of the 25th this year. For you see, through numerology, we have discovered that the passport place was correct that his parents had remembered his day of birth wrong.
My husband has always loved going to movies. I on the other hand have a little problem called ADHD, so I don't like to frequent movies as much as he. Since it was his birthday, I let him dictate the day. We slowly woke and went to the theater to see "The Rise of The Planet of the Apes" I'm not even sure if that is the title, but I am a huge Planet of the Apes fan! I remember the black and white then color TV episodes. Loved it!
WOW WOW WOW!!! I cannot rant and rave enough about this movie!!! Of course that is how it all started!!! How did we not all already know!!! Right!
And the preview for it ...TIME... OMG!!! Cannot wait!!!
Movies are getting SOOOO good and so true to reality. It seems all the great shows have the theme of adoption in them. Afterall, 70% of the population is affected by it.
I don't want to spoil it, but you all must go see!!!
Ceasar has identity issues and because of his intelligence he is able to rise above it (accept it), find his identity (heritage) and help his kind (species of origin) rise above for a better life together as one.
After this amazing movie that I truly want to see again IN the movie theater; we came home and I cleaned the house until around six, husband thought another movie sounded good. This time we went to see "Idiot Brother"... Loved it! Steve was getting frustrated with the brother that kept being too honest for his own good. A trait I have that gets me into trouble many times as well. Our problem? We are so REAL, you ask us a question and we tell you our truth; we believe in everyone; we see people at their highest potential of who they can be; we trust everyone... we are incapable of lying.
Movie was great, the sisters get so annoyed with their "Idiot" brother for innocently speaking truth and being incapable of cover ups, making them own their own truth and facing their reality, owning it, accepting it... until at the end, (when he had to go back to the slammer for saying too much and being REAL with his probation officer that he had mistaken as a sincere person that cares) his sisters who at first were so annoyed with him for innocently making them face their truth; bailed him out because they realized his honest integris self is a great way to be.
TO BE REAL with oneself, owning your truth, facing the reality, owning it, accepting it and loving it... IS TO BE LOVING YOU.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
"Antwone Fisher"
I just finished watching the story of Antwone Fisher. It is 3:00 a.m. and I can't stop pondering.
It was a great story, I'm sure most of you have all seen it. It's a true story about a man who is in the navy that has quite the temper and is referred to the psychiatrist. During sessions with the psych his story unfolds. Antwone was born in some prison two months after his father was murdered. He then goes into foster care with an abusive preacher family that is quite dysfunctional to say the least and when he got big enough to stand up to the foster preacher mama and not take her beatings anymore, she kicked him out on the street and then he joined the Navy. The psych encourages him to find his real family.
Now here is where my confusion begins. He finds his father's family first and they receive him well. One of the new found family members takes him to met his mother and upon finding out who he is, she leaves the room.
Antwone follows her back into the back living room and is able to tell her how great of a person he is and questions her why she never came for him. The woman was speechless and appeared a bit cold hearted, not giving him eye contact, holding all emotions in, not saying a word.
Antwone kisses her on the cheek and leaves...
Wow! Really?! I am confused at her lack of response. Me being a mother that has lost a child to adoption and has had a moment of rediscovery reuniting with my son when he was 19... I was expecting a little more remorse or excitement or something. But as I remember back upon my initial (very supervised) first meeting with my son... I too was extremely guarded. I too probable lacked showing emotion, but inside I was aching trying to figure what it all meant.
I felt very misplaced. I felt very inadequate. I felt very undeserving. I guess I could say, now looking back on that moment... I felt like a scared 16 year old girl again that was meeting her maker and nervous to see what exactly will my punishment be.
I hate living with the loss that I have suffered. Not knowing was almost easier. I could block it out and pretend it never happened. I had learned to live with the hole in my heart. Just like any other handicap, you learn to get along around it.
The other thing that I cannot stop pondering about. Wow! What a great family Antwone's father had. Now how come they were not notified? How come they were not the first on the list to go to instead of a foster home?
Well, this brings a memory back to me. When I was that 16 year old girl that didn't know what to do. The "professionals" and society kept referring to the daddy as a "sperm donor". Being as naive as I was, I seriously thought strangers were better than the "sperm donor" to help me raise this child.
I went to an adoption conference last October in Utah. Being in Utah, it was a conference promoting adoption, very unlike the healing adoption conference I had just got back from attending in New York with Joe Soll. They had a b!r+# mothers panel of fresh mothers that had just chose to lose their children to adoption, and they kept snickering referring to the daddys as "sperm donor's".
As I sat with my husband of 24 years, you know, that "sperm donor" of my first child... their snickering hit me hard. I remembered having that same mentality. I realized, oh my gosh, that is one of their tactics. Discredit the father as the father he truly is. Yep, back in 1986, I feel for it too.
This movie is a great reminder that there are two parents that make a baby. Laws need to change. It shouldn't be such a battle for a father to get rights to his child. Children need to stay with family. If the father's family is a better family than that is exactly where the child needs to be.
I was so insecure about myself and did not feel I had the love and support that it would take to raise my son. Being 16, I didn't know what it would take to raise my son. Now being older and wiser and knowing what it takes to raise a son... oh my heck!!! All that he needed was my love. And that is exactly why I gave him up. The professionals kept saying, "If you love your baby, you will give him away." WHAT A CROCK!
I loved him so much, I did not trust me or my family to raise him. I loved him so much, I did not trust the daddy or his family to raise him. Heck, I loved him so much, if the "professionals" told me to place him in Australia to live in the outback, I would have! Well, that is exactly what I did, I followed the "professionals" advice, and placed him in Wyoming with strangers!
Well he loves these strangers and they love him. I'm glad they love him and I'm glad he loves them. I would hate to find out that he had an abusive home as many adoptees do.
But I will forever regret, not having one person let me in on a little secret... All that he needed was MY love.
I still love him so much. Our relationship has forever been altered. It will never be what it could have been. I don't think he will ever love me as much as my other two children. It is a sad reality, just as Antwone said in the end, "I'm glad I found her, but if I never see her again, I'm fine." ... Ya something like that... I feel the same from my son, he is glad that he found me, but if he never sees me again, he will be fine. And the horrible thing about the trauma of being separated? I, his own mother, will refuse and reject him, to save me from the horrible truth... he will be just fine without me. (There is so much more to the story, but some other time, lets just say, I will not be called a whore once more by that little bugger!!!)
Don't get me wrong, this isn't all about me... I know... but let's be honest, its hard having such motherly feelings for someone that has feelings for you no more than some ole' lady down the street who may bake him a pie once a year.
It was a great story, I'm sure most of you have all seen it. It's a true story about a man who is in the navy that has quite the temper and is referred to the psychiatrist. During sessions with the psych his story unfolds. Antwone was born in some prison two months after his father was murdered. He then goes into foster care with an abusive preacher family that is quite dysfunctional to say the least and when he got big enough to stand up to the foster preacher mama and not take her beatings anymore, she kicked him out on the street and then he joined the Navy. The psych encourages him to find his real family.
Now here is where my confusion begins. He finds his father's family first and they receive him well. One of the new found family members takes him to met his mother and upon finding out who he is, she leaves the room.
Antwone follows her back into the back living room and is able to tell her how great of a person he is and questions her why she never came for him. The woman was speechless and appeared a bit cold hearted, not giving him eye contact, holding all emotions in, not saying a word.
Antwone kisses her on the cheek and leaves...
Wow! Really?! I am confused at her lack of response. Me being a mother that has lost a child to adoption and has had a moment of rediscovery reuniting with my son when he was 19... I was expecting a little more remorse or excitement or something. But as I remember back upon my initial (very supervised) first meeting with my son... I too was extremely guarded. I too probable lacked showing emotion, but inside I was aching trying to figure what it all meant.
I felt very misplaced. I felt very inadequate. I felt very undeserving. I guess I could say, now looking back on that moment... I felt like a scared 16 year old girl again that was meeting her maker and nervous to see what exactly will my punishment be.
I hate living with the loss that I have suffered. Not knowing was almost easier. I could block it out and pretend it never happened. I had learned to live with the hole in my heart. Just like any other handicap, you learn to get along around it.
The other thing that I cannot stop pondering about. Wow! What a great family Antwone's father had. Now how come they were not notified? How come they were not the first on the list to go to instead of a foster home?
Well, this brings a memory back to me. When I was that 16 year old girl that didn't know what to do. The "professionals" and society kept referring to the daddy as a "sperm donor". Being as naive as I was, I seriously thought strangers were better than the "sperm donor" to help me raise this child.
I went to an adoption conference last October in Utah. Being in Utah, it was a conference promoting adoption, very unlike the healing adoption conference I had just got back from attending in New York with Joe Soll. They had a b!r+# mothers panel of fresh mothers that had just chose to lose their children to adoption, and they kept snickering referring to the daddys as "sperm donor's".
As I sat with my husband of 24 years, you know, that "sperm donor" of my first child... their snickering hit me hard. I remembered having that same mentality. I realized, oh my gosh, that is one of their tactics. Discredit the father as the father he truly is. Yep, back in 1986, I feel for it too.
This movie is a great reminder that there are two parents that make a baby. Laws need to change. It shouldn't be such a battle for a father to get rights to his child. Children need to stay with family. If the father's family is a better family than that is exactly where the child needs to be.
I was so insecure about myself and did not feel I had the love and support that it would take to raise my son. Being 16, I didn't know what it would take to raise my son. Now being older and wiser and knowing what it takes to raise a son... oh my heck!!! All that he needed was my love. And that is exactly why I gave him up. The professionals kept saying, "If you love your baby, you will give him away." WHAT A CROCK!
I loved him so much, I did not trust me or my family to raise him. I loved him so much, I did not trust the daddy or his family to raise him. Heck, I loved him so much, if the "professionals" told me to place him in Australia to live in the outback, I would have! Well, that is exactly what I did, I followed the "professionals" advice, and placed him in Wyoming with strangers!
Well he loves these strangers and they love him. I'm glad they love him and I'm glad he loves them. I would hate to find out that he had an abusive home as many adoptees do.
But I will forever regret, not having one person let me in on a little secret... All that he needed was MY love.
I still love him so much. Our relationship has forever been altered. It will never be what it could have been. I don't think he will ever love me as much as my other two children. It is a sad reality, just as Antwone said in the end, "I'm glad I found her, but if I never see her again, I'm fine." ... Ya something like that... I feel the same from my son, he is glad that he found me, but if he never sees me again, he will be fine. And the horrible thing about the trauma of being separated? I, his own mother, will refuse and reject him, to save me from the horrible truth... he will be just fine without me. (There is so much more to the story, but some other time, lets just say, I will not be called a whore once more by that little bugger!!!)
Don't get me wrong, this isn't all about me... I know... but let's be honest, its hard having such motherly feelings for someone that has feelings for you no more than some ole' lady down the street who may bake him a pie once a year.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
History of Adoption as I know it
Folks, the more you know the history of something, the more you KNOW about something.
What a naive fool I was at 16.
Here is the history of adoption as I now know it. Thank you Rickie Soilinger, for being a history major and feeling a need for woman's rights in reproduction to be known.
In the beginning of time, there was not the word teenager. Back in the day, when a woman started her period, she would find a husband and start her family... Do you all remember Little House on the Prairie?
When we all started to live longer, the marrying age wasn't 12 years old anymore, and they came up with the term "teenager".
Back in these days, slavery was being abolished. It was no longer legal for Americans to buy slaves... BUT if a slave was already owned, and that slave got pregnant and had a baby, the newborn baby was instantly owned by the slave owner. With this mentality, the slave owners started controlling the females reproductively for their gain, more free laborers. Slave owners were raping their women slaves and basically enslaving their own offspring.
Now remember, back then, contraceptives... rubbers, the pill, anything to control fertility... was illegal.
Women had no rights to choose if they wanted to have a child. Back then, you only had sex to have a baby... even being married, if you were not trying to have a baby, it was illegal to have sex. ...
Fornication is what they called it... But how can you prove there has been fornication if you are married. But if you had sex and were not married, YOU WERE FORNICATING!!! And get this, men were not charged with fornication because it was the woman's fault for tempting them and them losing control of their actions.
Can you already see a need for abortion because of lack of contraceptives. Lots of slaves made a GOOD mother decision to abort her unborn child to save their child the life of a slave, to be owned by someone.
Young woman that found themselves pregnant, most likely not from flaunting her stuff... but for just being a victim of a man that lost control of his body... ran away to cities where they could melt into the crowd. They could start over, whether by having an abortion or trying to find ways to provide for her child. Which back then, was near to impossible. Woman did not get paid good wages, but in a city, a woman could control her fertility. ... Ways of contraceptives and access for abortions was easier and more accessible in a city. Quite different than living in a small community where everyone knows you by name and there is only one community doctor... It is said that young white women in the city were far away from their own mothers and from family supervision which lead them to ruin because no one was training them for their natural roles or protecting their virtue.
For you see, back in this day, woman were judged on their chastity. Only the prudest of woman were respected. Back in these days, an unchaste woman was classified the same level/class as slaves... second citizens as were their "bastard" children.
"The mentality in the late 19th century - having lost their chastity, they had lost their womenly identity, and did not have the capacity to be adequate mothers. Only by keeping and learning to mother her infant would this kind of girl redeem her womanhood and her value as a human being. Woman who abandoned their baby (generally because of extreme poverty and desperation or unwed mothers whose babies died were unredeemed failures." Rickie Solinger PREGNANCY AND POWER... A Short History of Reproductive Politics In America.
Abortions were rising, especially for white American women, "puritan blood"... society was freaking out, fearing abortions were thinning out the population of the white people.
"Abortion risked the racial future of the United States." Rickie Solinger PREGNANCY AND POWER... A Short History of Reproductive Politics In America.
Another thing society feared... babies being raised in poverty, continuing the cycle of poverty. Especially when we have all these affluent women that are having fertility problems or are too prude to fornicate even to try for a baby... okay, now I am just being sarcastic... but you catch my drift. ... JUDGEMENT was going on.
"If a poor mother fulfilled her parental duties properly, in ways approved by self-appointed charity and reform authorities she could be a mother to her child. If she did not met standards-- if she was not married or could not afford to stay home all day -- she had no biological or custody right to keep her child." Rickie Solinger PREGNANCY AND POWER... A Short History of Reproductive Politics In America.
So, in other words... all you mothers out there that are not stay at home mothers, you would be considered unfit mothers and have your babies taken away and given to the rich women that had a husband provide them with the luxury to stay home.
Beginning in the 1920's, more groups started advocating legal contraception.
Folks, it wasn't until 1944 that the male condom was perfected... AND it was not until 1972 that the Supreme Court ruled that unmarried people have the right to contraception.
You figure, before then, such things were seized and destroyed.
"The Comstock Law did enable postal agents to seize huge quantities of contraception-related items. Historian Janet Brodie provides this extraordinary list of Comstock's yield in 1880, giving us some idea of the industriousness of his agents but also a glimpse of what was surely only a tiny fraction of the total amount of materials in circulation that year:"Seized and Destroyed
165 different obscene books
64,094 rubber articles for immoral use
4,185 boxes of pills and powders for abortion
3,421 letters and packages ready for mailing
70,280 opened letters
6,000 names of dealers in obscene materials
901,125 names and addresses of people to whom "smut dealers" sent goods.
Rickie Solinger PREGNANCY AND POWER... A Short History of Reproductive Politics In America.
We can all thank Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett, the pioneers of legalizing contraception and legalizing and disseminating "family planning" in the United States!!!
Okay, so time out... what is the big uproar with contraception and controlling our fertility, again???... I know, I had to keep being reminded, we live in such a different world of reality...
"Birth control threatened to undermine the ideology of feminine chastity and was a threat to family life... birth control could simply poison the wellspring of white woman's political agency (her maternal capacity)." Rickie Solinger PREGNANCY AND POWER... A Short History of Reproductive Politics In America.
Folks, there is so much history and details that have got us to where we are today, but let's just jump to World War II shall we.
World War II started in 1939 and lasted until 1945.
Remember "A League of Her Own" with Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Madonna and Rosie... just to name a few??? Well, that is just how it was during World War II. The war took the majority of our men. Us women stepped up to the plate and entered the men's world of sports and factories... providing for our families AND taking care of our children just fine without the men around. Us women got a taste of equality!!!
Well the men came home and did not like us liberated women!... And I am sure, us women were not going to give up our liberation that easily.
What to do??? ... "LEAVE IT TO BEAVER" folks. ... Yep, June Cleaver reminded us what the "American Dream" really is.... Remember, we want to be a house wife with two kids and live in a crackerjack neighborhood.
Well, now we have the generation of "The Girls Sent Away", Ann Fessler has written about them... What are the neighbors going to think? Let's pretend it didn't happen and force our daughter to give her baby away so that we can save her class status and save the status of her bastard child that will get adopted by a higher class and they can pretend "AS IF BORN TO".
And there you have it, the starting of secrets and lies. We have come a long way. Awareness is the key! You can imagine my upset finding that I fell for societies judgment over the love for my baby. All a baby needs is the love of his/her mother.
Family preservation folks! In order to really KNOW family preservation, we have to KNOW life without family. Let's not let the generations of old fail to teach us.
LOVE ONE ANOTHER ADOPT THE MOTHER
What a naive fool I was at 16.
Here is the history of adoption as I now know it. Thank you Rickie Soilinger, for being a history major and feeling a need for woman's rights in reproduction to be known.
In the beginning of time, there was not the word teenager. Back in the day, when a woman started her period, she would find a husband and start her family... Do you all remember Little House on the Prairie?
When we all started to live longer, the marrying age wasn't 12 years old anymore, and they came up with the term "teenager".
Back in these days, slavery was being abolished. It was no longer legal for Americans to buy slaves... BUT if a slave was already owned, and that slave got pregnant and had a baby, the newborn baby was instantly owned by the slave owner. With this mentality, the slave owners started controlling the females reproductively for their gain, more free laborers. Slave owners were raping their women slaves and basically enslaving their own offspring.
Now remember, back then, contraceptives... rubbers, the pill, anything to control fertility... was illegal.
Women had no rights to choose if they wanted to have a child. Back then, you only had sex to have a baby... even being married, if you were not trying to have a baby, it was illegal to have sex. ...
Fornication is what they called it... But how can you prove there has been fornication if you are married. But if you had sex and were not married, YOU WERE FORNICATING!!! And get this, men were not charged with fornication because it was the woman's fault for tempting them and them losing control of their actions.
Can you already see a need for abortion because of lack of contraceptives. Lots of slaves made a GOOD mother decision to abort her unborn child to save their child the life of a slave, to be owned by someone.
Young woman that found themselves pregnant, most likely not from flaunting her stuff... but for just being a victim of a man that lost control of his body... ran away to cities where they could melt into the crowd. They could start over, whether by having an abortion or trying to find ways to provide for her child. Which back then, was near to impossible. Woman did not get paid good wages, but in a city, a woman could control her fertility. ... Ways of contraceptives and access for abortions was easier and more accessible in a city. Quite different than living in a small community where everyone knows you by name and there is only one community doctor... It is said that young white women in the city were far away from their own mothers and from family supervision which lead them to ruin because no one was training them for their natural roles or protecting their virtue.
For you see, back in this day, woman were judged on their chastity. Only the prudest of woman were respected. Back in these days, an unchaste woman was classified the same level/class as slaves... second citizens as were their "bastard" children.
"The mentality in the late 19th century - having lost their chastity, they had lost their womenly identity, and did not have the capacity to be adequate mothers. Only by keeping and learning to mother her infant would this kind of girl redeem her womanhood and her value as a human being. Woman who abandoned their baby (generally because of extreme poverty and desperation or unwed mothers whose babies died were unredeemed failures." Rickie Solinger PREGNANCY AND POWER... A Short History of Reproductive Politics In America.
Abortions were rising, especially for white American women, "puritan blood"... society was freaking out, fearing abortions were thinning out the population of the white people.
"Abortion risked the racial future of the United States." Rickie Solinger PREGNANCY AND POWER... A Short History of Reproductive Politics In America.
Another thing society feared... babies being raised in poverty, continuing the cycle of poverty. Especially when we have all these affluent women that are having fertility problems or are too prude to fornicate even to try for a baby... okay, now I am just being sarcastic... but you catch my drift. ... JUDGEMENT was going on.
"If a poor mother fulfilled her parental duties properly, in ways approved by self-appointed charity and reform authorities she could be a mother to her child. If she did not met standards-- if she was not married or could not afford to stay home all day -- she had no biological or custody right to keep her child." Rickie Solinger PREGNANCY AND POWER... A Short History of Reproductive Politics In America.
So, in other words... all you mothers out there that are not stay at home mothers, you would be considered unfit mothers and have your babies taken away and given to the rich women that had a husband provide them with the luxury to stay home.
Beginning in the 1920's, more groups started advocating legal contraception.
Folks, it wasn't until 1944 that the male condom was perfected... AND it was not until 1972 that the Supreme Court ruled that unmarried people have the right to contraception.
You figure, before then, such things were seized and destroyed.
"The Comstock Law did enable postal agents to seize huge quantities of contraception-related items. Historian Janet Brodie provides this extraordinary list of Comstock's yield in 1880, giving us some idea of the industriousness of his agents but also a glimpse of what was surely only a tiny fraction of the total amount of materials in circulation that year:"Seized and Destroyed
165 different obscene books
64,094 rubber articles for immoral use
4,185 boxes of pills and powders for abortion
3,421 letters and packages ready for mailing
70,280 opened letters
6,000 names of dealers in obscene materials
901,125 names and addresses of people to whom "smut dealers" sent goods.
Rickie Solinger PREGNANCY AND POWER... A Short History of Reproductive Politics In America.
We can all thank Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett, the pioneers of legalizing contraception and legalizing and disseminating "family planning" in the United States!!!
Okay, so time out... what is the big uproar with contraception and controlling our fertility, again???... I know, I had to keep being reminded, we live in such a different world of reality...
"Birth control threatened to undermine the ideology of feminine chastity and was a threat to family life... birth control could simply poison the wellspring of white woman's political agency (her maternal capacity)." Rickie Solinger PREGNANCY AND POWER... A Short History of Reproductive Politics In America.
Folks, there is so much history and details that have got us to where we are today, but let's just jump to World War II shall we.
World War II started in 1939 and lasted until 1945.
Remember "A League of Her Own" with Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Madonna and Rosie... just to name a few??? Well, that is just how it was during World War II. The war took the majority of our men. Us women stepped up to the plate and entered the men's world of sports and factories... providing for our families AND taking care of our children just fine without the men around. Us women got a taste of equality!!!
Well the men came home and did not like us liberated women!... And I am sure, us women were not going to give up our liberation that easily.
What to do??? ... "LEAVE IT TO BEAVER" folks. ... Yep, June Cleaver reminded us what the "American Dream" really is.... Remember, we want to be a house wife with two kids and live in a crackerjack neighborhood.
Well, now we have the generation of "The Girls Sent Away", Ann Fessler has written about them... What are the neighbors going to think? Let's pretend it didn't happen and force our daughter to give her baby away so that we can save her class status and save the status of her bastard child that will get adopted by a higher class and they can pretend "AS IF BORN TO".
And there you have it, the starting of secrets and lies. We have come a long way. Awareness is the key! You can imagine my upset finding that I fell for societies judgment over the love for my baby. All a baby needs is the love of his/her mother.
Family preservation folks! In order to really KNOW family preservation, we have to KNOW life without family. Let's not let the generations of old fail to teach us.
LOVE ONE ANOTHER ADOPT THE MOTHER
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