Welcome to November, the month that every adoptee I know dreads and loathes: National Adoption Month/National Adoption Awareness Month!( NAM/NAAM) aka National Adoption Bewareness Month! The month that the adoption industry and its mostly incurious friends in the media pull out the stops to remind the country that Adoption is Beautiful. If you disagree, you suffer from a mental disability, had a “bad adoption experience,” or as some of the more eager evangelicals say: You are Satanic--now go kill yourself.” Seriously!
I still get confused over NAM and NAAM, so refer to it as NAM/NAAM. My friend and colleague Greg Luce founder of the Adoptee Rights Law Center, reminded me tonight that I wrote this NAM/NAAM blog way back in 2015, which explains the differences theoretically. Even though the intent appears to differ between each “celebration” the conclusion is always the same: praise, promotion, and support for a greatly flawed and failed social and child welfare experiment that abrogates and ignores the civil rights, and social, emotional, and mental welfare of those the experiment and the institutions it has created claim to nurture and protect. In socio-structural terms, the institution is more important than those it serves. Adoption, of course, finds itself in good company: The Roman Catholic Church, public education, non-profits, the county welfare office, media, home-owner associations, insurance companies,Twitter, the Republican and Democratic Parties, government and its agencies-at- large. So the beat goes on…and on…and on while the recpients victims of their benevolence are either gagged or haven’t figured it out yet.
NAM/NAAM is a great time to rip off the gag.
NAM/NAAM is a great time to come in from the cold. (I don’t like the term “out of the fog” it seems elitist, snobby, and judgmental since nearly all adopted people have wandered the hyperborean landscape at some point.)
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NAM coincides with National Blog Posting Month (NanoPoblano) where bloggers on any subject “vow” to post a blog every day, although that’s been pushed back to once a week for the less hearty. I’ve done this for years and I can’t tell you how time-consuming and annoying it can be, but the Devil’s work is never done!
I notice with a bit of horror that I haven’t posted on Daily Bastardette for nearly a year. That doesn’t mean I’m not blogging, I am, but just not here. I post regularly on the Bastard Nation and Stop Safe Haven Baby Boxes Now! websites. My lack of posting here reflects laziness in cutting and pasting here after the fact, something want to remedy.
I will be writing on a variety of subjects this month. There is a new OBC bill in Michigan. California is very much in the running. Safe Haven Baby Boxes are spreading nationwide like a cancer. Adopted people continue to be ignored in the national narrative.
I have several half-finished blogs on various topics that I hope to finish. They weigh on my back and conscience every day. Some may not be as timely as I planned, but they will still be relevant. Every blog will be posted here first for archival purposes for NaNoPoblano purposes, and then reposted on the o appropriate other site if applicable.
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Poke the Bear! Don’t let the adoptacrats and bullies claim November for themselves. Hijack it for Class Bastard and yourself.
If you are not a blogger yourself, you can also enter the NAM/NAAM fray. Commenting on various social media (I need to get back on TikTok which I hate), is easy, but you can do some other things. Respond to adoptee rights action alerts if any are run. (They will be posted here). You can comment on various NAM/NAAM articles published on news sites. You can write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper or contact a reporter there about the lack of rights in your state or other issues that impact you and Class Bastard. Introduce yourself as an adoptee-voice source for adoption articles. Make a video. My Bastard sister Annette O’Connell, BN Executive Committee, Adoptees United Boarad, and spokesperson for the New York Adoptee Rights Coalition, posted an amazing and inspirational video on YouTube today.
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(No, it will never be X!)
Stop Safe Haven Baby Boxes Now!
I knew you had to be sharpening your quill pen for this!