Reading Recommendation: “Are you accidentally upsetting your adopted student?”

You would think that teachers, in the trenches of our current culture wars would recognize this. Apparently, they don’t since Herriot covers everything from schoolyard bullying to family tree and baby photo assignments, to teacher-inculcated adoption gratitude, all of which are familiar to American adoptee eyes and ears. Continue Reading →

Veterans Day: Birth family thoughts

As an adoptee, I desperately wanted to know about my family of origin but was not keen on re-joining them.  I became quite adequate in snooping through desks, dressers. and closets all to no avail. Many years later it appears that all I had to do was ask and I would have been given what little information my adoptive parents possessed, but what is the fun in that? Continue Reading →

From the Bastard Nation Archives: 365 Reasons Why You Can’t Have Your Hospital Records – or- Why You Should Never Tell a Paper Pusher You’re Adopted

Over 20 years ago Bastard Nation Founding Foundling Deer Watson compiled a daily calendar of excuses Bastards get on why,we can’t get our own birth and court records .(The names of some contributors may be familiar to you. Even with great changes in culture and law, most states continue to jerk us around. the same way. Read the list and see which excuses pertain to you. Continue Reading →

Donald Trump’s Adoption Fuck You: NAAM2019 Proclamation v LBGTQ Rights

Despite Trump’s unicorn ride, the following day, November 1, just in time to kick off NAAM2019 , the Trump Department of Health and Human Services announced its intention to implement a new rule that would strip Obama-era protections for LBGTQ individuals. and couples regarding access to social services. The new rule would allow recipients of HHS grants ,including faith-based adoption agencies and foster care Continue Reading →

Patron Saint of Ungrateful Adoptees: William of Rochester. It’s always about them!

Cockermay Doucri, has fallen into the memory hole ,and his fate is unknown. Clearly he was not interested in religious tourism, baking for the poor, or a no/low pay apprenticeship. Perhaps abuse was involved.  Perhaps he was just not a nice person. He does, however, live on as the spirit of the crazy ax-killer adoptee, making him the Parton Saint of Ungrateful Adoptees.  Happy NAAM2019 Dave! Continue Reading →

2 Short Questions: Memes and Matt Walsh

OK., I’m in a jam tonight. I can’t think of anything to write about that won’t take a lot of time and research,which I don’t feel like doing.  So here’s a couple of short, unrelated observations/questions.. ,

What in the world dos this meme mean? Continue Reading →

Adoption Advice from Pat Robertson: Promotes family destruction; international adoptees are “weird;” and more

oday RIghtwing.Watch posted Robertson’s latest advice on adoption during his regular 700 Club Q&A session. You never know what the dottering old fool will say: AIDS comes from towels; let’s nuke the State Department;  let’s assassinate Hugo Chavez; feminists are socialists who practice witchcraft and kill their husbands and children; Hait’s shitty economy is the fault of the devil. So today he advised a young unmarried Christian couple, who seem to be perfectly, or at least passably happy, break up and ship the baby off to an adoption agency. For everybody’s own good.  Poor people shouldn’t have babies. Continue Reading →

My Essay “Gotcha Day: Turning the Private into the Public” in today’s VIsible Magazine

Gotcha sounds like trapping a rat under the stove or grabbing up the last flat-screen TV on Black Friday at Wal-Mart. It’s a predatory term. A scary term. A cheap term. A violent term especially today with kids in cages at the Mexican border being siphoned into the Christian adoption system. Gotcha relates adoption to aggressive consumerism; and that consumerism to a public act of virtue. Continue Reading →

Notorious MLJ strikes again: MLJ Adoptions $500 Discount. Who says adoption isn’t about money?

The Indianapolis adoption agency has jump-started its annual November  #NAAM child sale. This year, the agency, long known for #NAAM commercial gimmicks to reel in customers,,is offering a  $500 discount on PAPs’ second installment payments. Continue Reading →