First Mothers – Before
Trash talking adopted persons and their original parents is nothing new. Nine years ago I wrote a blog entitled Busted: Adoptive Parents Speak. Although it was indeed the title of my blog post, it was a commentary on the short-lived blog Adoptive Parents Speak, an archive of online comments posted by dissatisfied customers, which is still online.
It’s not nice.
It’s not pretty.
You may want to read that post before finishing this one, but not mandatory.
First Mothers – After
My review moved beyond those bad attitudes and linked them to the obstacles that Class Bastard faces restoring our right to access OBCs, legal documents, our names, histories, and context, not to mention our dignity, which of course, can’t be legislated but can be normalized. It is odd to see how those slutty first moms, routinely shunned by lawmakers and vilified by off- and online adopters are suddenly, according to those two entities, in dire need of state protection from us–the Innocent Result of the selfsame slutty females they now seek to protect. Protection from the very Innocent Result that these champions claim to love ‘as their own” but who they will throw under the bus to protect their own parental entitlement.
NOTE: First fathers, normally don’t need protection unless they have graduated to the legislature or some other pinnacle of political or corporate power.
In 2011 I wrote regarding this hypocritical defense of first mothers –usually by adoptive mothers — when they aren’t trashing the source of “their” child on private discussion pages:
Purveyors of this new mythology are even willing to denounce and demonize the sacred commodities they claim to have saved, (depending on the time frame), from whores, junkies, and “abortion mills,” by turning adoptees into “stalkers,” “trackers” and “homewreckers” when they demand to be treated like the not-adopted who have a right to their own birth certificates. The adopted, once sacrificed out of shame, embarrassment, poverty, or inconvenience are once again sacrificed, this time for the psychological and entitlement demands of others. The “institution” of adoption is more important than those the institution supposedly serves.
Whatever altruism the entitled adoption class claims in public, the subtext is always:
Adoption is all about me.
My kid is all about me.
Sadly–or should I say not surprisingly– nothing has changed.
Weekly standoffs between adopted adults and adopters, PAPs, “Christians, “pro-lifers ” and the simply uninformed occur weekly in social media. It’s like Adopter, Inc is playing Adoptee Bingo. They are big on abortion, crack whores, white saviorhood, and prayer. We, of course, are ungrateful or suffered “a bad experience.”
It is not unusual for a “Christian pro-lifer” or adoptive parent– usually of the Calvinist variety (aren’t they all?) to whomp on the adoptee who dares to critique adoption, bring up trafficking and international child stealing, or recount their own dysfunctional/abusive/creepy adoption story They bully: “Would you rather have been aborted or grow up in an orphanage?” They don’t like the answer. How about being reared by druggies, whores, and pimps? And the ultimate, but not uncommon: “Why don’t you go kill yourself?”
So much for pro-life.
This weekend these folks upped the ante. I wasn’t a party to the tweets that started it all, but this instance is so unhinged that I had to ask where it came from so I could capture it for adopta-posterity. The delightful discourse was led by “Not-a-Bot Lizzie “a Christian Zionist, forced birther, and Trumpette who claims that 99.9% of Covid-19 victims recover so what’s the big deal? Her handle (to use an archaic term) is “yeshua pro_vida,” which says it all. She’s been around a while and loves to insinuate herself into AdoptionLand. I am not sure why except that someday she might acquire one of us. We hope our bad behavior will dissuade her.
Lizzie’s latest responses to adoptees caused a fuckstorm of responses.
Adoptees are terrorists!
There were hundreds of responses and sub-tweets. I am very bad at screenshots. Thanks to the people who sent me the ones they made. I’ve picked a few cut-and-paste follow-ups for your enjoyment, including more Lizzieisms.
They are a cult. Block. Insane people
Lizzie-Not-A-Bot @Yeshua_pro_vida Replying to @penniemoney and @x3r0iD
Would you rather be in the system.?
Lizzie-Not-A-Bot @Yeshua_pro_vida Replying to
No. You all are unimaginable and would rather berate those what want to offer love for the pain you have inside which is very understandable. WHAT is the solution then? Tell US. It’s not right to take out your suffering on people trying to LOVE
Who in their right mind would attack anyones beautiful heart that’s willing to adopt an orphan? “And the King shall answer & say unto them,Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” Matthew 25:40 KJV
Only satan’s minions could have such a state of mind. They are driven by hate and darkness.
BTW, our “pro-life” Lizzie has murder on her mind.
Lizzie-Not-A-Bot @Yeshua_pro_vida
Please pray for my rage at pro choice people and planned parenthood. It’s like literal rage. I want to go all Rambo them. And that’s not Christlike. It’s a serious issue for me. I know it’s sin and hatred isnt of GOD. the flesh is weak.
Hail Satan!
Two people in the body of one. No wonder we are dangerous.
The truth is out!
Adoptees are terrorists. Adoptees are also a (Satanic?) cult, insane, ungodly, self-loathing, and bullies. Posts I didn’t include here refer to us as “dark” and “doom” fill-in-the-blank. Angelika, the Personal Assistant Cat is very relieved and de-stressed that “the cat is out of the bag”. so she can now go about her business. She’s was terribly paranoid guarding my Satnatic Adoption Conspiracy Files. She is now free to pursue her real work of staring out the window, harassing the dog, and using my leg for a scratch post.
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Toward the end of 2001, shortly after 9/11, I was informed by someone who was fairly in-the-know, that Bastard Nation had been put on a terrorist watch list by an adoption-obsessed Bush Whitehouse influencer. I think I know who, but he never admitted it and now he’s dead. He was such a joker. I awaited that knock on the door that never came. Adoptees aren’t considered quite important or dangerous enough.
We should be.
Adoption is the queen of intersectionality. I talked about that for years before I ever heard the actual broader concept of “intersectionality,” which is, of course much more detailed and diverse than what I was talking about. Race, class, sex, gender, abortion, misogyny, economics, poverty, lack of accessible healthcare, homelessness, consumerism, social welfare, reproductive rights, reproductive justice, public policy, state violence, religious wars, culture wars, colonialism, neo-imperialism, public and private acoruption, immigration and citizenship, Real ID, neo-liberalism. taxes, natural disasters, redistribution of wealth (especially children), narcissism, Supreme Court nominees. Class Bastard is embedded in them all.
We should be in the streets.
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I posted on Twitter the other day that adoption is the marriage of the worst aspects of capitalism and socialism. How to make money, uphold whiteness, and expropriate and redistribute natural resources all under the guise of an altruistic “best interests of the child,” spiel, spun by technocrats and the market, not the children being uprooted and anonymized to make some adult stranger with expendable income and maybe respectable credentials “feel complete.” Signed. Sealed. Delivered. Of course, adoption knows no ideology or political or economic system No matter where you live, or what system you live under, if you are a kid, you’re up for grabs. (See the in-progress Bastard Nation International pages if you don’t believe me.) The rot is universal.
The odious Harvard law professor and globalist adoption pusher neo-lib “adoption expert” (because she’s an adopter) Betsey Bartholet, whom I’ve written about before, believes that poor families owe it to their country and their children to send them to a prosperous demographic, ie, The West, “f probably the US, for a better life.” Adoption uplifts everyone, especially economically. The country somehow gets richer, parents have one less mouth to feed, and kids get a “better life.” Not surprisingly, she is a major proponent of “color-blind” domestic adoption –a less expansive version of adopta-globalism– and is critical of systems that hinder it. She claims that black and brown children are not affected adversely by global and domestic family engineering. About 10 years ago during a Q&A session at an adoption conference, I asked Bartholet what her take was of criticism on her blueprint to integrate black and brown children into a “culturally superior” white Western middle-class; specifically, the criticism from transnational and transracial adoptees who have actually lived the results of global musical chairs. She brushed me off saying there were no problems. She had never heard any adoptee complain. When I brought up the critical writings on the now-defunct Transracial Abductee website, from whom I learned so much, she looked askance and went on to another question. Even adoption industry reps in the audience squirmed.
White savior adoptionism is practiced daily on a smaller scale in legislative bodies, the bourgeois corporate media (with some exceptions), and social media where adoption is always good. The occasional stories of kids living in a doghouse or chained to the bathroom sink are considered outlier.
These concepts, though never spoken, however, fuel the Mighty Adoption Wurllitzer.: Classism. Worthiness. Entitlement. Exceptionalism. Rightness. Righteousness. If you doubt that these abstracts run rampant in the public fora. don’t shape received adoption “wisdom”, and is played out politically, then sit in a state legislative committee hearing and witness your rights bandied around. And socially? Join AdopteeTwitter. Then just go shoot yourself
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Obviously, not all adoptive parents are egotistical and/or abusive monsters. Many aren’t. Mine weren’t. We have many adoptive parents who are active in Bastard Nation and have been of enormous support and help. But there is a sector of adopters and fellow travelers who.. well…don’t much like adoptees. even their own. We are disappointments. They don’t like our perceived or real “ingratitude ” when we are no longer cute and plushy fantasies. We question, resent, and destroy personal secrecy and adoption industry and state lies. We seek to reconnect severed familial; ties. When warranted, we blow the lid off abuse at the hands of saviors. These unhappy-with-us adopters and their co-dependent adoption industrialists and friends engender entitlement and commodification.to keep us in our place. Ungrateful bastards that we are, we engender disrespect and destruction to create our place.
I don’t see much point in arguing with keyboard harassers like Lizzie and her gang of know-it-alls. Personally, I enjoy the fray, but I know most people don’t. And I know that the people who attack us don’t care what we say. Arguing is pointless. They live their mythologies. while we live our realities. That’s what makes us strong. Otherwise, we could just go kill ourselves and be out of their way. They’d like that.
So much for “pro-life.”
Angelika, the Personal Assistant Cat, guarding Satanic Adoption Conspiracy Files. No one, not even Lizzie, can get past those claws. Hail Satan!
BARTHOLET. Is she still yapping? And wouldn’t I love to have a private conversation with her kids?
As for Ms. Jesus and her “WHAT is the solution then? Tell US,” we’ve all read and/or been trapped in many conversations like this one., And by the time that question gets asked, the asker has almost always already been given and ignored the answer. Probably because she doesn’t want to raise a kid she can’t own utterly and give her name to.
Your intersectionality point is brilliant. It’s exactly what the so-called pro-lifers and other jerks in adoption want us not to notice…but there it is, slapping everyone in the face.
Bartholet is really a horrible person. She made her comments at the 2011 NCFA conference. It was a real WTF moment for everyone attending her presentation. You should have seen the side-eyes and heard the casual covos afterwards. I didn’t hear one single adoption agency rep or social worker say they agreed with her. It was more like “what’s wrong with her?” :Did she really say that?”
BJ Lifton told me that she and Bartholet were scheduled to be on an adoption panel at a conference. When Bartholet learned she’d have to share the space with BJ she bailed. What a freaking coward.