This Reminds Me

Archive for July, 2009

I finished a fascinating book this week - The Baby Thief – The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, The Babyseller Who Corrupted Adoption.

Georgia Tann kidnapped or illegally procured more than 5,000 children in Tennessee in the 20′s, 30′s and 40′s to sell to wealthy(er) parents.  Not all babies either – some were young teenage girls, sold to single men.  Many were school-age children, snatched from their front yards with the justification of a court order secured by bribery.  Scores if not hundreds of infants died in her care, often sweltering in the summer heat of attics.

Horrifying stuff.  And yet – really historically interesting, because she also single-handledly created the first American market for adoption.  Fighting the prevailing national eugenics ferver which condemned children needing homes, she convinced couples to adopt – and thus line her own pockets with handsome fees.

I don’t agree with all of the author’s  conclusions about Georgia Tann’s legacy affecting adoptions today.  Though she herself is an adoptive parent, she refers to us “as the most pampered of the birth triad.”  Sorry.  The adoptive parents I know have been anything but pampered.  I also don’t agree that every single adoptee has the right to know his birth family.  In a perfect world, that would be true.  But if a girl has chosen life for her baby under the condition of anonymity, I think that anonymity has to be respected.   To me, that’s no different than honoring the Baby Moses laws.   This society created the “right to choose,” and that means the right to choose privacy, too – or watch for more girls to make more difficult choices.

The book’s recurring theme is the constant gnawing ache of these adoptees to know their histories, especially if they were taken at an age when they could remember a past life.  Their pain oozes from the pages as they describe frustrating, life-long quests to fill that familial void.

I couldn’t help but think of Julia, whom we adopted at age six.  She remembers Russia, of course – the good and the bad.  And I’ve made an effort to ask her questions about what she thought when she met us – what foods she liked to eat – who her friends were – what she liked to play – so that as she forgets, I can tell her those things as part of her adoption story.

The day we met in the office of the Director of Children’s Home #47 – isn’t she a cutie?!  Keith could easily lift all 37 lbs. of her with one arm.  He said, “I don’t remember this little.”  Rachel, Lois and Hannah were that size around age 2 1/2.

I’ve made an effort, too, to talk with her about her first mother.  We know little about her, but I do know she cared enough to give Julia life, and was in difficult circumstances herself.  Julia will never hear a harsh word from Keith or me about her.  Julia and often speak at bedtime about how we’ll all be together in heaven one day, and how I’m going to hug her first mother’s neck and tell her how proud I am to share a daughter with her.  I want to keep the lines of communication open on First Mother, because I don’t want my baby afraid to talk about her.  Ever.   I don’t want her afraid to “offend” me, or be swallowed by the black hole of loss, frantically “looking for love in all the wrong places.”

I think adopting an older child is a lot like getting married.  You choose them – but they also have to choose you.    There are two families coming together, not just one absorbing the other.  The honeymoon is way easier than the distance.   And while you don’t know what tomorrow brings, you know each of you had a past that will influence it.

An adoptee kidnapped by Georgia Tann said, “There’s a hole in me that can never be filled.”

That hurt me just to read it.

Pray that we families of adoptees do the things we need to do so we don’t have to live it.

Julia flew home today after two weeks in Houston visiting family.  She expressed quite a bit of pre-flight trepidation about flying alone,  but we weren’t even to baggage claim before she started asking me when she could do it again.  I think many of her pre-flight jitters were soothed by (softy) Joe buying her a water bottle, bag of pretzels and bubble gum for the arduous 50-minute sojourn west.

Keith had a surprise waiting for her:  Her first camera.  She’s been asking for one for more than a year.  Keith caught the Disney Pix-Max on a Woot-Off for $30.  Wow, it’s fun!  You can take plain 3MP pictures (yawn), or add Disney characters into your photos either as you take them, or during editing.

Toddler Lois was Power Ranger fan.  She and Rachel used to argue over who got to be the Pink Ranger.

This camera is a “stitch!”

Maybe Winnie can help me make shrimp fried rice tonight?  That’s on the menu, with grilled catfish.

I had a camera when I was nine years old also.  Judy gave it to me for Christmas, and I thought it was the coolest thang EVER because it took amazing black and white photos, like this prize showing me ready for church in a dress my mom had sewn (I am squirming just looking at it, feeling the scratchy full petticoat and the headband cutting off circulation to my brain.)

As Clark Griswold would say, “It’s the old family truckster.”

My nickname at Remco TV Rental was “Flash,” because of my always-clicking Nikon.

So please meet….Flash Junior!

Keith, Lois and Hannah bugged me for years to read the “Harry Potter” series. They always devoured the latest edition within a day of its release. Me?   I perpetually stalled.   My reading time is limited, and there always seemed a more enticing book at the ready. Keith finally goaded me into reading the seven-book series over three weeks this summer, and I loved it. (Thank you, Brother Bob, for preaching such an excellent sermon in 1998 about the first book’s popularity. I’ll never forget your saying, “Your children will not become Satanists by reading this book. If they’re old enough to read it, they’re old enough to understand the difference between fiction and fact. Give them some credit.”)

Our girls are in Houston visiting family this week, so Keith couldn’t bundle us all off to the midnight show of the newest movie opening, as is his custom. He was stuck with just me – a somewhat reluctant partner, I will confess, until he reasoned, “Look, you don’t want me going by myself at midnight with all those kids and looking like a creeper, do you?”

So I couldn’t let him look like a creeper! I had to go, too.  Along with  9+ completely sold-out theaters full of fellow fans at the Quarry.

Quiddich, anyone? I think decades served in corporate America have prepared me for a career as a Beater.

Rachel and Lois borrowed Sarah’s car to go see it in Pearland.  The texts were flying between the four of us.  In fact – the theater auditorium sported scores of cell phone lights before the movie started.  Keith said, “Can you imagine the data streams going out of here?”

I loved those books, and now better appreciate the movies. In fact – like all great books I’ve read – I’ve even learned something from them.

10 Things I’ve Learned or Had Reinforced by Reading “Harry Potter”:

1. Not all witches ride brooms.
2. If you poke a dragon – expect to get burned.
3. What’s accurate is not always what’s true.
4. Home is the place you’re safest. Or should be.
5. Howlers are to be avoided.
6. It’s our choices that define us.
7. You might die for your friends, but the only thing worth living for is an ideal.
8. The past is always part of the present.
9. “Good” is eventually going to win. The last book was a Revelation.

And finally….
10. Nobody loves you like your mother.

Hope you enjoyed this blog.  After all…….”Nothing like a nighttime stroll to give you ideas.” Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire