Well, it’s that time again! National Adoption or–if you please –National Adoption Awareness Month (NAM/NAAM) when adoptees stock up on barf bags and bunker in while the multi-billion-dollar Adoption Industry and its incurious media toadies commodify us like we’re a can of tuna. Somewhere along the line, we’ll even get a NAN/NAAM Presidential Proclamation from Donald Trump written by a Heritage Foundation intern, which I’m sure we will all appreciate. I wonder how many of us are stashed away in the Great Leader’s closet?
The pièce de résistance, however, is National Adoption Day aka National Adoptee Erasure Day, where hundreds of children will get their names changed and their birth records sealed.
The National Adoption Day website is pretty mundane, but it features a tip sheet on how to plan your own local celebration.It starts:
- Organize a coalition of local partners to support planning and implementation of the event, including:
- Judges
- Department of Children’s Services
- Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA)
- Child attorneys
- Children’s rights groups
- Adoption agencies
- Adoptive parent groups
- Business leaders
- Faith-based organizations
- Elected officials
What’s missing from this picture?
- Adopted people
- Adoptee Rights Organizations
I know. I’m old and was adopted way before adoption became a public spectacle, not an intimate family event. My bio mom adopted 2 kids 10 and 12 years after I was born, and I cannot imagine either her or my adoptive mom throwing such a hoo-ha.
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Surprisingly, the National Council for Adoption, (as of this writing) seems to have forgotten about NAM/NAAM. Nothing on its website indicates the month or the special day exists. The closest it comes to acknowledging either is their annual Adoption Hall of Fame reception and ceremony on November 19, scheduled for the Observatory at American Square–a poshy rooftop event venue. The event is tied to the Congressional Coalition on Adoption and from a look at its prices, serves as an NCFA fundraiser. This year’s 4 inductees* are 4 people I’ve never heard of. Two are connected to the CCA. I really have to smirk at all this. Bill Pierce the crypt keeper of sealed records, and the dreaded founding president of NCFA , although a 2000 inductee himself, had great distain for the CCA and complained to me once that events like this were “hoity-toity.”
The relative quiet on NAM/NAAM 2025 is strange since adoption has not lost its happy glow, but we have an entire month for it to shine through the clouds.
Whatever happens, I am back here for the duration
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I have been remiss posting on DB this year. Blog-wise everything has gone into Bastard Nation and Stop Safe Haven Baby Boxes Now. Being the lazy lout that I am, I was too lazy to cross-post here. Blogging about NAM/NAAM is a band-aid solution to this remiss, but I am making an early New Year’s Resolution to get something up here 1-2 times a week, in the future, even if it’s short. (“Daily” still sees impossible.)
For November, I will blog every day about our most unfavorite subject. I have done this for over 10 years, and it is exhausting. A killer. On the brighter side, though, I am also blogging for National Blog Posting Month (Cheer Peppers Division) (NanoPoblano2025), which coincides with November’s Nam/NAAM and is definitely not related to adoption, so there is a double commitment.
I have no idea what I will write about. Adoptee civil rights baby boxes, adoptee deportation and citizenship, and reproductive rights for sure. There is so much more to address that pops up in the news or social media–most of it cringy.–that I tden to drop one thing and pick up another. I will persevere. Everything I write on DB will be cross posted to the BN and SSHBBN pages when appropriate.
If y’all have any subjects you’d like me to cover let me know. Maybe I can do it, maybe I can’t.
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*Here is a complete list of inductees. US House member Jimmy Traficant has been removed from the list. Many years ago, I had a 2-degrees-of-separation “relationship” with him– and boy the stories! Traficant was the former Mahoning County Sheriff AND an associate of the Youngstown mob. When I saw that he was inducted into the NFA HOF, I nearly stroked out. Ohhoh!. Then laughed. Somebody didn’t tell them what we from Northeast Ohio knew. Traficant was later kicked out of Congress and then convicted of ten felony counts including bribery, racketeering, and tax evasion and spent time in Allenwood. But remember: James Traficant thought adoption is beautiful, though I can’t remember why NCFA thought he was.
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(No, it will never be X!)
Stop Safe Haven Baby Boxes Now!
Poke the Bear 2025
Day 1 – 29 days to go!
Thank you for your words and honesty. I’m an NPE. I know it’s different. But we share some types of loss. Looking forward to reading more this month. Thanks for peppering with us 💜
Thanks so much!