As is my wont, while looking online for one thing, I found something else. This time a Happy NAAM greeting courtesy of Catholic Charities of Central Colorado popped up on my screen.
For a few seconds I thought I heard my early British heartthrob Laurie London warbling his ’50s hit , He;s Got the Whole World in His Hands. Written in 1927.by Obie Edwin Philpot , Master Sgt, in the US Army , the song proved immensely popular, for decades in spiritual and folk circles, but only London’s white version made it to the Top 40. For those who don’t go back that far, Christian songs were recorded regularly by white mainstream artists and made it to the pop charts Perry Como and Tennessee Ernie Ford ended each TV show with one. Perro Como singing Go Down Moses was too weird, even for a 10-year old to digest. Elvis recorded entire albums.
But digress as usual.
Here ‘s the Happy NAAM greeting: a paper doll family held in the hands of a white child whom I assume is an adoptee holding the family together Personally I don’t think any child should tasked with that kind of responsibility. Unfortunately, in AdoptionLand I’ve met plenty of adoptees who were. What if she goes bad and sets the family on fire?
Using the Whole World in his Hands model, though, the adoptee is God or Goddess of the house. I like that. If I had been the House Goddess, boy would things have been different!
Te page this picture comes from doesn’t help. And really! After all that Catholic Charities has done to block records access and adoptee dignity (and ket’s not forget the laundries), it writes:
With our Open Adoption program, children and adoptive families can know and have a relationship with the birth parents. Research has shown that children in an open adoption have far fewer abandonment issues because of the open relationship which offers the ability to ask questions and have a relationship with the birth parents.
I took a lot of art classes in high school and college and also art history. I am fairly good at figuring things out, but this has me flummoxed. Or maybe somebody just found image online and thought it related to adoption somehow. To me it just shows a false power differential, I expect to see it on Hallmark card some day.
,e