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It has been ten months (310 days from today, to be exact) since I found my bio father Gus, and reunited with him. And in those ten months I’ve learned many things too numerous to list on one blog post. But today, here’s the one I will focus on.
The entire freaking world is obsessed with adoptive parents.
Nothing has changed.
And before you say, "It’s just the Christian world, not the whole world..." you're wrong. I promise you on a stack of Bibles, it is THE WHOLE WORLD.
My story hit the news media without me even trying. The extent of my “try” was writing Facebook posts about my father and I to my friends (that were set to public) and made their way into the hands of the media. I was fine with that, and actually honored. However, it has not been without frustration.
One of my biggest headaches in this season has been navigating media inquiries regarding my adoptive parents. One hundred percent of the time, when any media outlet has contacted me, they have wanted to go there. Sometimes literally! One media outlet requested to send a crew to interview both my parents. I said no, that I would refuse to do the interview, if they did. They backed down once I set that boundary.
One news outlet said that if they did not include my parents in the story, their readers would, “not be able to handle it.” I pushed back on this and was told that they (the media) would be bombarded with emails and calls asking about my parents. I said, “So???” They said, “Well, you might be bombarded with questions about them, too.” And I said, “And you don’t think I’m used to that?” I set a boundary by saying, “If you need to contact my adoptive parents to do the article, then I’m not your person and my story isn’t the one for you.”
Recently, I was interviewed by Haley Radke on the Adoptees
On podcast, and she said that she found the media coverage about my bio father
and I refreshing because it was centered on us, and not my adoptive parents. She noted that this is not typically the case. I
let her know that this was only because I fought for that, and set a strong boundary. If the media had their way, it would have been different.
I say all this to let you know…nothing has changed in this regard. Nothing.
They still (even the liberal news media) focus on adoptive parents
first, birth parents second, and IF they focus on the adoptee it is third, but
many times we are not considered. The world is still very much adoptive parents centric.
I was assured multiple times that a story would be adoptee centric, but in every single case, it was never exclusively so, as they would push to include my adoptive parents in some regard.
Sadly an adoptee can be 56 years old, and they are still asking to “check in” with our parents. And they wonder why we say we feel like perpetual children?
I literally qualify to order off the freaking SENIORS MENU at a restaurant now and people are STILL CHECKING IN WITH MY PARENTS.
How crazy is this?
Fortunately for me, I am not trying to get news coverage. I can take it or leave it. Every person who has contacted me has been out of the blue and I have not sought it. If they want to include my adoptive parents in the piece, I can drop it and they can find someone else.
This just gets tiring. I really thought when I hit a certain age, this would stop. But it appears you can technically be in your senior years and people will insist on talking to Mommy and Daddy.
And nobody but us thinks this is bizarre?
