Where do I fit?

I tried to find the cheesiest stock image of "the internet"- this will have to do.
The title of the post is "Where do I fit?" Get it? Hilarious...

The internet is a funny place. There are so many people. There is so much information. You would think that the internet would mean that no one ever gets lonely or feels out of place. But that is exactly how I feel when it comes to reading about other people's adoptions. When it comes to foster-adoption/public adoption there seems to be two distinct camps who do a large portion of the blogging/posting/website-ing.

There are those who have adopted children with a severe RAD (reactive attachment disorder) diagnoses or FAS/FASD (and often a combination) who post a lot on a forum that I sometimes read. These parents post about excrement being smeared all over the walls by 9 year olds, children who throw up at the dinner table every night, kids who light the family pet on fire at least once a day. They seem to try to 'one up' each other on the forum. Now these parents are amazing for taking this on. They are strong, loving people with strong stomachs! I am not one of these parents. I'm just not. I still plan to adopt because I know that not every child in the system has RAD or even FASD and not every adoption situation is like this.

The problem is that this forum seems to have been commandeered by one particular group of parents. If you were searching for information on public adoption and came across this info first, you might not continue to lean more.

When I look at blogs about adoption, I often see a different group of parents. There seem to be a lot of conservative, Christian adoptive families with profiles that mention their five children through "the miracle of birth" and their five children through "the miracle of adoption". They usually live on spacious property in an all American suburb or on a sprawling farm. Again, these have got to be some strong and loving people to raise such huge families.But again, they're just not me.

We're city dwellers living in an awesome, rented apartment. I am an ordained Presbyterian elder and we attend church every Sunday but politically we are very liberal. We are planning on adopting a foster child who will have some special needs but we can't handle every kind of special need. We are ourselves and we are not reflected perfectly in everyone's situation.

Big surprise, eh?


Now that I've written all that, I'll let you know that I have found some awesome blogs, websites and resources through sheer determination and luck. I have also found "diamond in the rough" posts on blogs that otherwise don't help me much. There is also great value in reading about different kinds of families and situations even if you disagree about stuff. The information that you need to help you learn and prepare is out there. You just might have to be patient in order to find it. A lot of this adoption preparation seems to be about patience...

"Avril Lavigne" a parable

So I was reading along in my Aboriginal Pre-Adoption Training materials the other day and I came across this:

"Culture is Privileged: It is important to recognise that non-Aboriginal people may not be privy to many aspects of an Aboriginal culture such as sacred and traditional teachings. They do not necessarily need to have this knowledge for themselves – although the community will ‘privilege’ the adoptive parent with the information they need to know - they only need to ensure that the Aboriginal child has meaningful relationships, support and access to the community, including family and cultural teachings. An important way to facilitate this for the child is through the development of positive relationships by the adoptive parent."

Call me terrible, colonial and ignorant but this made me really defensive. Like, wait a minute, you're telling me that my children should have relationships with random people and go off and do a bunch of stuff that is kept secret from me. Why should culture be privileged? We are all children of this world. I believe in unity. I believe in harmony. I believe in equality. Why should I be left out?
 
Well this seemed like a rather unhealthy train of thought so I got a cup of coffee and went to work and mulled over it for a while. It came to me later when I was thinking about the term "privileged". Privilege is something that can create distance from people but it is also something innately important to all of us. I mean, look at hipsters; I knew ________ before it was cool.

My tie!

As a teenager, my friend gave me the tie that she had worn as a prefect in her private school. It was a great tie. Small, feminine and striped. I wore that tie to my public junior high school with wide-leg jeans, chains, hemp bracelets, black tank tops and bright red lipstick and purple hair (I was the very essence of high fashion). I looked rebellious. I looked alternative. I looked awesome. My outfit was showing the world that I was free and unique.

I wore some form of this outfit to a family dinner one night and my cousin said something that I will never forget. He asked me if I was an Avril Lavigne fan. Was I a what? No way! He thought that I was wearing my tie to try and emulate the singer of 's8er boi'?! I had worn the tie long before Avril came into popular culture. I was so embarrassed and upset and soon after that the tie was relegated to the back of my closet. The tie had lost it's specialness and appeal when it became trendy and everyone and their dog had one.

Now I'm not saying that my children's culture is on the same level as my choice of teenage apparel but it made me think about how hard it was to have something that was a part of my identity shared by the world. This is a small scale parable to help me remember that it is ok for my kids to be Cultural Hipsters. They need to have ownership of their culture and choose what and when to share.

P.S. Shout out to Luke (or your Dad, since I know he reads this). Thanks for asking me about Avril all those years ago!

more classes

Europeans were therefore legally justified in assuming full, sovereign ownership of the “discovered” lands, since Aboriginal peoples could not possibly have the civilized and Christian attributes that would enable them to assert sovereign ownership (p. 121). 

                                                                                               -Henry et al (2000)

Having kids seems to mean a lot of schooling. This is what I get for not finishing college- education karma has come back to haunt me. If karma haunts, that is.

I am taking a course through the local Caring for First Nations Children Society. You see, there are a lot of kids in the system who come from Aboriginal families (decide for your self what that says about the care our government gives to Aboriginal families). But I am not here to debate who's fault it is that a huge percentage of foster kids are Aboriginal. The fact is there are more Aboriginal kids in the system than there are Aboriginal adoptive parents. This means that non-Aboriginal parents will sometimes be eligible to adopt Aboriginal children. This is where an online course comes in.

I am learning about the history of colonisation in Canada and North America. Most of this isn't new to me but it is always difficult to learn about. Forget what you thought you knew about Pocahontas and Thanksgiving; colonization has meant millions of dead men, women and children and government sanctioned lies to cover up a horrible history. The Canadian Government has only recently started publishing statements and reports as to the extent of racist and even genocidal policies. It is important to learn about this history because the history directly effects the lives of aboriginal people today. I will be learning how to help my potential future children stay connected to there heritage. I will be learning how to provide them with positive role models, positive stories from their history and learning how to teach them about themselves without the filter of colonization. Not an easy task for a little white lady.

So I am back to reading texts and doing homework. I'll tell you one thing- it sure beats morning sickness.