Were you adopted in a closed adoption?

dreadgeek · 12-23-2009, 12:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by apocalipstic

I wonder what he would have said if you got a C-.

I can't imagine what it would have been like to not know till I was 17. Did you have zero idea?

None what-so-ever. My skin-tone is almost exactly what you would expect from viewing a picture of my father and my mother (my mother could, until she was in her 70's, almost pass for white and my father was the color of a cup of coffee with no cream in it). The shape of my face is close enough to other members of my family that, in the absence of any other information and based upon what felt, at the time, like the energy of a shameful family secret being kept, and given that there is a group of first cousins on my mother's side who were ALL old enough to be my biological mother, for a long time I figured that I was actually the daughter of one of my female cousins. I had two, in particular, who I thought I might be the daughter of.

As it turns out, though, the story is far more interesting (and vindicates my parents in a really amazing way so I will tell that part of it).

As I said last night, my biological mother was a student at the high school my parents were employed at. From what my mother said, she was a brilliant student. She had a full-ride scholarship to Howard University when she 'got in trouble' (as it was phrased in 1966). This was the late 60's, it was Alabama, there was functionally no such thing as an abortion and, given the morays of the time, for her to be known to be 'with child' would have been a shameful mess and resulted in her losing the scholarship. Along with being the VP my father was coach of the football, basketball and baseball teams. This was in Tuscaloosa. What this meant was that my father was *somebody*. He had won, in his career coaching, some 400 *straight* games so he had some serious juju. As I understand it what they did was 'made it go away'. They would take me on the condition that she was to go to college and never try to have contact with me. The birth certificate I grew up with showed that the people who raised me were my parents. (I did not know the name I was given at birth until late last year) My parents were part of the civil rights generation. There are newsreel pictures of them at the March on Washington and the Selma march. As such they were on a mission that we in the black community used to call 'uplift' (a term much denigrated now). This was just another bit of them doing their part to uplift the race.

All in all, given all the possible fates a black child could have faced in late 60's/early-70's Alabama, I won the adoption lottery. It doesn't make the bits of brutality that I survived better (and there was brutality, I laugh when people think that because I grew up with economic privilege that my childhood was lived in the land of milk and honey) but for all of that, I still feel like I got very, very lucky.

Oh and to answer your question--had I ever brought home a C- I would have been beat. The only reason I didn't get beat that day was because a year before, my mother had cracked a shovel handle around my ass and I had made it clear that days of my being hit with impunity were done (she hit my coccyx, missing my spine just barely. I had no stomach for being paralyzed before I hit 18 so I put a stop to the beating).

Cheers
Aj

Apocalipstic · 12-23-2009, 01:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

None what-so-ever. My skin-tone is almost exactly what you would expect from viewing a picture of my father and my mother (my mother could, until she was in her 70's, almost pass for white and my father was the color of a cup of coffee with no cream in it). The shape of my face is close enough to other members of my family that, in the absence of any other information and based upon what felt, at the time, like the energy of a shameful family secret being kept, and given that there is a group of first cousins on my mother's side who were ALL old enough to be my biological mother, for a long time I figured that I was actually the daughter of one of my female cousins. I had two, in particular, who I thought I might be the daughter of.

As it turns out, though, the story is far more interesting (and vindicates my parents in a really amazing way so I will tell that part of it).

As I said last night, my biological mother was a student at the high school my parents were employed at. From what my mother said, she was a brilliant student. She had a full-ride scholarship to Howard University when she 'got in trouble' (as it was phrased in 1966). This was the late 60's, it was Alabama, there was functionally no such thing as an abortion and, given the morays of the time, for her to be known to be 'with child' would have been a shameful mess and resulted in her losing the scholarship. Along with being the VP my father was coach of the football, basketball and baseball teams. This was in Tuscaloosa. What this meant was that my father was *somebody*. He had won, in his career coaching, some 400 *straight* games so he had some serious juju. As I understand it what they did was 'made it go away'. They would take me on the condition that she was to go to college and never try to have contact with me. The birth certificate I grew up with showed that the people who raised me were my parents. (I did not know the name I was given at birth until late last year) My parents were part of the civil rights generation. There are newsreel pictures of them at the March on Washington and the Selma march. As such they were on a mission that we in the black community used to call 'uplift' (a term much denigrated now). This was just another bit of them doing their part to uplift the race.

All in all, given all the possible fates a black child could have faced in late 60's/early-70's Alabama, I won the adoption lottery. It doesn't make the bits of brutality that I survived better (and there was brutality, I laugh when people think that because I grew up with economic privilege that my childhood was lived in the land of milk and honey) but for all of that, I still feel like I got very, very lucky.

Oh and to answer your question--had I ever brought home a C- I would have been beat. The only reason I didn't get beat that day was because a year before, my mother had cracked a shovel handle around my ass and I had made it clear that days of my being hit with impunity were done (she hit my coccyx, missing my spine just barely. I had no stomach for being paralyzed before I hit 18 so I put a stop to the beating).

Cheers
Aj

I am so sorry that happened to you! It does sound like your adoptive parents were trying to do the right thing by adopting you, but the lies and secrets and abuse were not what you or anyone deserves.

I got in trouble for an A-, and my parents in addition to being missionaries taugh, so I totally understand that pressure...they were the first generation of their families where everyone went to college and graduate school and we were expected to do the same. If I made an A and they knew I had not studied (which I usually had not) then I was in trouble that it was not an A+.

A shovel handle? Economic priviledge be dammed! We grew up priviledged in that sense too, but does it make up for the abuse?

I don't truly know.

You have a great outlook AJ!