Nerved Up in the New Year – Publication of My Memoir

There is a lot of pressure as we enter 2023 to declare a resolution. I have
made my share of resolutions in the past, most rarely kept and remarkably
unimportant in the landscape of my existence. This year, I am tasked with a new
challenge to remain resolute. As much to my surprise, dismay, and delight, I
have signed a publishing contract for my memoir The Killing Closet.

The book, a story of hiding, will likely be released in the Spring of 2023
and I am nervous. When I shared my state of terror with a dear friend she replied,
“Of course you are afraid. All the nerve-endings are on the outside
now. This is something new. You’re not used to being vulnerable.”

I wrote my memoir in an angry tirade after my adoptive father, Jo died in
2015. A stranger had inherited my childhood home. I was cut from the will. The
inheritor of all my childhood things accused me of abandoning my father. She
dumped our photos in a dumpster and sold the rest of our memories in an estate
sale. As usual, I put pen to paper to prove a point. I wanted to show
all the ways that my father had abandoned and abused my family. I’d show the
inheritor!

After the initial throwing up and bleeding-out of words, I revisited the memoir,
and an unexpected understanding overcame me. I came to understand that I loved
my father despite all the years of hating Jo.

As a savvy reader, you have likely noticed that I have yet to use a pronoun
when referring to my father. This is because my father died a woman. She
transitioned in her 70’s.

While the book shares the horrors my family survived, I hope that it is so much more.

It is a story of adoption and the muddied river of methodologies used by social and private adoption agencies to place infants in the 1960s and 70s.

It is a story of embracing one’s truth and the truths of your
children. A child’s identity is not a parent’s to define or control. Only
nurturing their truest selves will help them to live happy lives.

It is a book about mental and physical abuse. Abuse is the extreme
outcome of control or lack thereof.

It is a book of strength, survival and finding safer ground. We left
our abuser and lived to tell the stories.

It is a book of acceptance. Accepting that we are a world of diverse
needs, wants, genders, sexualities, and identities is the pulse of the story.
My father’s parent’s failed her as did the society of her era.

Finally, it is a book of moving forward from our failures. I failed
my father in her last-ditch effort to show me who she was. She wanted to visit.
I refused her. The harsh judgement of the legions of humans who suffer abandonment and a lack of acceptance is where my fear of publication bubbles up most
fervently.

For all the evil she delivered, it was my human duty to give her a
final revelation of her truth. My dear friend argued with me on this point,
having witnessed the tumult of my childhood firsthand.

While it is my truth, and I cannot change my past, the real meaning of The Killing Closet will ultimately be defined by readers.

So, I march forth into 2023 ready for the revelations it brings while shaking in my writer boots! Happy New Year lovely readers, and friends.

With hope and a healthy dose of apprehension,
V.L.

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Washington State Bill to Protect Adoptees from Abuse: Why Not Enforce Current Law for ALL?

While well intentioned, a new bill introduced in Washington state has me wondering about the way America measures the worth of its children.  The bill, sponsored by Democratic state Rep. Mary Helen Roberts, is aimed at protecting adopted children from abuse and neglect.

I believe that adoptive parents should be held to a high standard of behavior because they are given the monumental responsibility of caring for a child who has already faced tremendous loss. However, it doesn’t make sense to single out adoptive parents with a new child abuse law.  Instead,  laws that are already in place need enforcement.

I’m pretty  sure that Rep. Roberts would agree that:

Every child, no matter its race, country of origin or parental connection should be guaranteed a safe home in America.

A recent Washington Herald article, states that the proposed bill would “require prospective parents to disclose their planned approach to discipline and punishment.”

Totally Sever/Flickr.com

This is a lovely notion, and in a land of lollypops and rainbows every prospective parent would be honest about their intentions.  I can just hear them at a home visit saying, “Well Miss Social Worker, I’m pretty sure I’m gonna beat the crap out of the kid everyday, lock them in the closet when they get on my nerves, and starve them occasionally for a hoot.”

Let me say from personal experience, that several home visits and screening did not stop my adoptive parents from adopting two infant children, and that my adoptive father had a track record of domestic abuse under his big, bad belt at the time.

Some will defend that at least Roberts is doing something, and I agree. Her Bill is bringing attention to the tragic stories presented in the  September 2012 “Severe Abuse of Adopted Children Committee Report.”  This State of Washington report details the abuse of 15 adopted children, two of whom died at the hands of their adoptive parents. Plus, her adoptee protection bill calls for several screening practices including; the assessment and training of prospective parents, and the establishment of adoption support services.

The problem with the proposed law is that it will no more stop adoptees from being abused, than current child endangerment laws prevent biological parents from neglecting, maiming  and killing innocent children everyday.

I was particularly offended by a quote in a Capitol Record article  in which David Gusterson of Adoptive Parents of Ethiopian Community says, “We have a duty as a society to be doing a much better job, in particular when we’re bringing in children from other countries. We drag children in from other countries and they end up locked in closets, abused, starved or dead.”

Does this mean that a child adopted into America from a far off land, rather than being pushed out on American soil, is more valuable and deserving of protection?

I don’t think so. How about you?

Learn more and contact Rep. Mary Helen Roberts.

Blessings for violence free homes for all,

Vicki-lynn

Moscow to Manhattan: Russian Adoption Ban puts Focus on American Abuse

Happy New Year!

I have been mulling over the Russian adoption news announced in late December, and after two weeks of contemplation, here’s my take on the situation. As most of you have heard by now, Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has banned the adoption of Russian children to US residents.

President Vladimir Putin

The Wall Street Journal reports that the adoption ban was “pushed through parliament to retaliate for a new U.S. law aimed at punishing alleged Russian human-rights violators.” Reportedly, Putin also considered recent cases of American’s returning adopted children when they could not cope, and the killing of 19 Russia adoptees in American homes.

In February, I blogged on the news that a  Tennessee woman put her Russian born adopted 7-year-old on a plane back to Russia, due to his violent behavior, and the death of Nathanial Craver,  a 7-year old Russian adoptee killed by his adoptive parents.  In that post, I suggested that all countries require etxtensive psychological testing for prospective adoptive parents.

While I feel horrible for the fifty or so families who were in the process of adopting from Russia, when Putin pulled the rug on the adoption process, I feel worse for the 19 murdered Russian children who were sent to live in our great country, where parents are purported to be superior and the opportunities abundant. Those orphans left Russia with the same heart hope that every abandoned child carries, and landed in the killing fields of poorly monitored US adoptive homes.

Child abuse is rampant in America. Monitoring and background checks of prospective adoptive families are lax, and even long term monitoring would not expose all the demon parents out there. However, more needs to be done.

Just because you happen to be American, and want a kid does not automatically entitle you to adopt one. Adoptive parents should be held to high standards, because they are raising a child already damaged by abandonment.  I think Putin saw a political opportunity, and used it to his advantage, but it was America’s plague of abuse, and lack of child justice that made it easy for him to do so.

Some statistics from the National children’s Alliance:

• Nearly five children die every day in America from abuse and neglect.
• In 2010, an estimated 1,560 children died from abuse and neglect in the United States.
  
• In the same year, Children’s Advocacy Centers around the country served over 266,000 child victims of abuse, providing victim advocacy and support to these children and their families. In 2011, this number was over 279,000.

Blessings for a safe, just and honorable new year,
Vicki-lynn
UPDATE 1/11/13: Washinton Post reports that Putin’s ban on American adoption will not go into effect for one year. This could mean that adoptions already approved by Russian courts will be completed. It would be interesting to follow the adoptions that do go through to see how many are healthy and successful for the children.