Both adoptees, the Little House on the Prairie alums bonded over their similar experiences...
You know her as Laura Ingalls from “Little House on the Prairie,” but Melissa Gilbert is so much more! Patrick and Melissa talk about growing up on the prairie, Michael Landon, acting, adoption, SAG and Melissa tells the most amazing Hollywood story you will ever hear!
BRUSSELS
Greenland's Minister for Children, Youth and Families Mads Pedersen has called on the Danish government to reverse its rejection of compensation claims filed by four Greenlanders who were adopted by Danish families between the 1950s and 1970s.
In an open letter addressed to Denmark’s Minister of Social Affairs Sophie Hæstorp Andersen, Pedersen criticized the recent decision by the Ministry of Social Affairs to deny the adoptees' demand for one million kroner in compensation, the Greenlandic media KNR reported on Thursday. The claim alleged violations of their human rights during the adoption process.
Citing the outdated nature of the cases and a lack of sufficient documentation proving that adoption rules at the time were violated, the Ministry of Social Affairs rejected the claims. However, Pedersen contested this reasoning, stating that it is "well documented that the adoptions took place without valid consent from the biological parents," many of whom believed their children were being placed in temporary care.
"This is a violation of the rights of both the parents and the children," Pedersen wrote. He emphasized that the adoption practices of the time were marked by "opacity and inadequate consent."
"You cannot hide behind the legislation of the past when the consequences are so serious and long-lasting," he said.
Calling for the case to be reopened, Pedersen said, "It is necessary for the Danish state to provide them with redress, not only financially, but also morally, by collectively acknowledging the failure that both they and their families have been subjected to."
ADOPTION REALITY: UK
Report calls for ‘sea change’ to make face-to-face contact with birth families the norm to help all involved with issues such as identity
Adopted children should have face-to-face contact with their birth parents, a major report has recommended.
The report, commissioned by Britain’s most senior family court judge, said the system where face-to-face contact was the exception rather than the rule was outdated.
Its author, Mrs Justice Judd, said there needed to be a “sea change” in the approach to enable children under 18 to regularly see their birth families provided it was safe to do so.
Most adopted children have little or no contact with their birth parents but, under current laws, they have a right to see their birth records and reach out to them. An adoption contact register allows the birth parents to indicate whether they want to be contacted, if it should be limited or none at all.
Until the 1970s, mothers would give up their babies for adoption with no expectation of future contact.
The report said: “The stigma attached to illegitimacy and infertility meant that the decision not to promote contact was considered to be a protective factor for the adopter, the adopted child and the birth family.”
KEEP READING: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/07/adopted-children-should-meet-birth-parents-says-top-judge/
SOURCE: https://headtopics.com/ca/my-adoptive-parents-tried-to-erase-my-indigenous-identity-55825652
Kim Wheeler, born Ruby Linda Bruyere, was adopted by a white family as part of the Sixties Scoop. She was one of tens of thousands of Indigenous children who were taken from their families and placed in the homes of mostly white families in Canada.
Kim Wheeler was adopted into a white family during the Sixties Scoop. After years of abuse, she lived to tell the tale of finding her way back to her culture. My name is Kim Wheeler but some know me as Kim Ziervogel. Others will remember me as Kim Bell, and to a small group of people I will always be Ruby Linda Bruyere. But the name game doesn't stop there.
Growing up, I was always reminded I was adopted. My mother and sisters would tell strangers, "She's adopted." It didn't really bother me, I suppose, because I was used to hearing it. My adoptive mother was a different case. She was psychologically abusive. She wore me down until all I could be was a "yes" person to everyone I met. It wasn't until I was in my 30s that I started to stand up for myself and began to say "no" to people. To this day, I still struggle with saying no, although some people wouldn't believe that. It's an internal process that unfolds in milliseconds.
Of course those same people were struggling with their own trauma of the Indian Residential School experience, but back in the 1970s and 1980s, no one knew this. Our parents would simply tell us if we didn't stay in school, if we didn't smarten up, if, if, if — we would end up "just like the Indians on Main Street.
LINK: https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6441534
By Trace Hentz, blog editor
Opening an adoption is just like opening Pandora’s Box. You just never know who - or what – will fly out at you.
I think back to my inner battles years ago. There were many stages I went through:
Back then it was like I was wedged between helpless and hopeless. I was doing this search for me and my own sanity. Plus it was impossible to search without names. And what was I being saved from? I should be grateful that I lost my natural parents?
I moved past all that and found my natural mother, and then my father.
Having a reunion with my dad was the hardest thing I ever did and the best thing I ever did. It was not what I expected, that's for sure.
Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine how meeting him (and his kids) would change me as a person. I was almost 40 when we met. There was no one to advise me on what to do, or what to say, or what to expect having a reunion.
First things first. My birthdad Earl Bland wanted a DNA test to be sure I was his. I wanted to know that, too. This all happened back in 1996 and I traveled from Oregon to meet him in Illinois. (I paid for my plane ticket and $500 for the DNA lab with help from my ex-husband).
My dad and I got the results (by mail) a little over a month later. Earl was indeed my dad but I never saw him again.
I write about my reunion with Earl and our time together in my memoir "One Small Sacrifice." I looked for him for years and only met him once. How does the adoption industry justify keeping us apart for years with secrecy and laws, then my dad dies shortly after we meet.
All I can say is I wish everyone who is adopted gets the chance to meet their natural parents. Even if it is only once. Even if it is only one parent. It is a spiritual awakening.
Since I read so much about the adoption industry, I was wondering when an adoptee's emotional well being and health would be mentioned and considered?
Apparently, this is not an issue, and not a concern of the adoption industry. It's about protecting the adoptive parents. Secrecy and sealed records is part of their sales pitch. It's not about the adoptee but the adopter. The mood, anxiety, thrill and angst of our adopters is what we hear growing up adopted - and we learn to be appreciative, silent and grateful. We mourn in silence.
Every adoptee I know wraps their mind around this. It's simply ridiculous to be denied the chance to know and meet our natural parents. There should be people and laws helping us, the natural parents and the adult adoptee. We all need to understand the family dynamics to have meaningful reunions, and know what to expect.
Sadly, this is not happening. Not yet.
((1-22-2011))
Marshal Galvan Jr.
Credit: Marshal Galvan Jr.
When I was a child, I remember going to powwows. I remember seeing Native people. I remember being happy in these spaces with my family, and in my eyes and in my sisters’ eyes, my parents could do no wrong. But for whatever reason, the child welfare system decided that my parents weren’t good parents, and they decided to take that right of parenthood away from them.
When my sisters and I were placed in the child welfare system, we were initially placed together, but we got split up and placed into different homes over the years. They said we were bad kids and no one would take all of us on because we were a handful to deal with. Looking back now, we were just kids who were traumatized. We were kids that just wanted to go back to the safety of our parents.
My first placement was in a foster home with a white family. I didn’t learn about Catholicism or Christianity until I entered foster care. As I went through the system, I started landing in different homes with different cultures and languages being spoken, in different cities, schools, and neighborhoods. Everything constantly changed, and it constantly reinforced an identity crisis in my life.
By the time I was a teenager, I was gravitating towards anything and everything that I felt was going to connect me to something — whether it was the gang, drugs, or alcohol. It gave me a false sense of pride, ego, and meaning to life. I was putting myself in risky situations so that I could feel a part of my community. In my young adult life, things started shifting for me. I started getting incarcerated. I turned 18 and became homeless immediately. My addiction took a turn for the worse. Suicidal ideation and hopelessness started setting in. All along, I was grappling with my identity and just really seeking to know my roots.
Marshal Galvan Jr. as a child.
Credit: Marshal Galvan Jr.
In 1997, when my parents lost their rights, there was no support and there certainly wasn’t any communication between our tribe and our family or the courts. At the time, the social workers and courts weren’t making active efforts to help our family bridge those gaps. My family’s tribe, Little Shell, wasn’t federally recognized until 2019. Because of that lack of federal recognition, my family was glossed over and wasn’t protected under ICWA.
My tribe allowed me enrollment membership into the tribe on August 23, 2022, but I’ve never lived in Montana and I don’t know the practices of my tribe. I acknowledge that. But through my enrollment, I am learning and rediscovering things about my tribe, and it has given me the ability to share that with my family. I started to reconnect with my family, and my enrollment is helping 16 other family members reconnect with the tribe, including my dad who wants to relearn his roots. I think it’s a beautiful thing.
It’s been a journey to unlearn, decolonize myself, and decolonize my mind. It’s an ongoing process, and I still have to do a lot of healing. To this day, as a tribal person, I still am facing an identity crisis. But no one should ever feel like they’re not Native enough, or enough, period.
It’s been a journey to unlearn, decolonize myself, and decolonize my mind.
Now, my passion is helping people that have similar stories to mine. Currently, I’m a counselor and work with youth in the Berkeley area. I would like social workers that are working in the child welfare system to continue to educate themselves on their own biases, because we’re hurting families. We’re keeping kids away from their parents and families when they don’t need to be.
The Indian Child Welfare Act is important because it keeps people like myself connected to our cultural roots, our family lineage, and our birthright. Not only does it respect tribal sovereignty, it also gives Native kids an opportunity to choose whether or not they want to embark on a journey that’s a birthright. To have the opportunity to have community, to be able to have folks that I can look around at and say, these are my people. That’s the most important thing — family, community, and cultural roots.
Mondae Vanderwalker
Credit: Mondae Vanderwalker
It took me three and a half years of jumping through hoops and dealing with wrongdoings from the Department of Social Services (DSS) and the court system to adopt my two nephews.
My oldest nephew was taken away from my brother when he was around 3 years old. He was put in the system, and I called the local DSS office and told them that I wanted to get custody and adopt my nephew. The DSS representative told me “No, we’re not going any further or moving forward with this case,” just because they heard some hearsay about me. But they never looked into the allegations. I asked DSS, “Well, how come you won’t do a background investigation or whatever you have to do so that I can get my nephew? He’s an important part of my life.” And they just kept saying, no, we’re done here.
I had no money to fight this, and didn’t know what to do. A few years later, my younger nephew was born, and he was also taken away from my brother when he was just a few months old. After he was taken, a woman from a different DSS office contacted me and asked, “Would you be interested in taking him?” and I said, “Yes,” in a heartbeat. I was waiting for that phone call for many years.
DSS had me and my husband go through a program to get a foster parent certificate to start the process of adopting our nephews. Once we were finalized for the adoption process, DSS finally let us go see my nephews at their foster family’s home. We had to drive from Sioux Falls two and a half hours away each weekend to go see them. But on our third visit, the foster family tried to keep us from visiting. I thought the agreement was that we were working on getting these children placed back with us, but the foster family kept trying to block our visits. DSS representatives warned me: “You’re going to have a battle on your hands — the foster family wants to adopt these children.”
I kept thinking, “I need to do something about this, because I’m going to lose my nephews.” I talked to someone I knew on our tribal council and then to our tribal president and told them what was going on. I told them I was afraid I was going to lose my nephews, because we were coming down to the wire, and the foster family got a lawyer to try to keep our nephews from us. They even tried to argue that my oldest nephew was not an enrolled tribal member, which would have made him ineligible for protection under ICWA. If that had happened, the foster family would have been able to adopt him right away. But thankfully, my brother did fill out tribal enrollment papers for my older nephew years ago — it turned out that DSS just had never turned them into the court.
Our tribal president ended up hiring a lawyer to help me fight for my nephews and we went to court. ICWA ended up saving us. If one of my nephews was not a Native American child, a non-Native person would have been able to adopt them without any question, and I would have lost them. But after a three and a half year battle, I was finally able to legally adopt my nephews under ICWA.
My two nephews are now 8 and 4 years old. Once we were reunited, I felt relieved, like a lot of pressure was taken off my shoulders. I was happy that the fight was finally over and that we could finally just live our lives. I want to help more people to understand ICWA and to tell them to not give up. If I didn’t talk to somebody and try to get help, they would have been gone. But I fought and fought and never gave up. It makes you think — how many more people, how many children who are sacred to Native American people, do you think we lost like that, in this system?
My nephews love me for what I’ve done because now they know a lot about powwows, everything to do with the tribe, and our ancestors. Before, they didn’t know any of that. They didn’t know what a powwow was. They didn’t know what fry bread was, or what Indian tacos were. But they do now. Now, they can have a better understanding of their culture and where they came from.
If ICWA was not put in place, I would have lost my nephews. The ICWA guidelines are important, but the state has to follow them. When my nephews were first placed in the system, my tribe was supposed to be involved from the get go, but they weren’t. Under ICWA, it was the responsibility of a DSS worker to call our family and tribe to let them know that these children were placed in a foster home with non-Native American families, but that didn’t happen. Our tribe needs to know that these children are in this system. And they should have known about it a long time ago.
If ICWA was not put in place, I would have lost my nephews.
When government workers don’t follow the ICWA guidelines, it hurts our people by allowing our children to be adopted out to other families and away from their tribe. ICWA is there to protect us, and DSS needs to do more to help these Native American children be placed back with their families.
ICWA helps us keep our children with their families like they should be. Our children need to stay with us, and we need to keep our families together.
Research with human fetal tissue research has led to the development of a number of important research and medical advances, such as the development of polio vaccine. Fetal tissue has also been used to study the mechanism of viral infections and to diagnose viral infections and inherited diseases, as well as to develop transplant therapies for a variety of conditions, for example, parkinsonism.
However, the use of fetal tissue for research purposes also raises a number of ethical considerations, including the degree to which a woman’s decision to have an abortion might be influenced by the opportunity to donate fetal tissue. Concerns have also been raised about potential conflict of interest when there is possible financial benefit to those who are involved in the retrieval, storage, testing, preparation, and delivery of fetal tissues.
To protect the interests of pregnant women as well as the integrity of science, physicians who are involved in research that uses human fetal tissues should:
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| Good Read: https://www.dailybastardette.com/my-nam-basket-was-poked-sorry-adoption-is-not-normal-and-adoptees-dont-have-normal-lives/ |
Highway 43 in Alberta. 7310 flags to represent the missing children that have been found. 🧡#EveryChildMatters pic.twitter.com/disUeDioAu
— Wambli Ska Wicasa 🦅🪶 (@LakotaWambli) November 13, 2021
Sealing birth certificates is a human right’s violation. #AdopteeVoices
— Victoria Holmes (@spyturtle96) November 13, 2021
I found out I was adopted 22 years ago when I was 36. To this day, I’m still not ok with the secrecy. I’m not ok with the lost years with my first family. I’m not ok with everyone thinking our “family” is great. I’m just not. It hurts. #adoptee #LDA #LateDiscoveryAdoptee
— That_LDA_Guy (@ThatLda) November 14, 2021
By Trace Hentz (blog editor)
The internet is full of adoptees writing (some yelling) about their loss. Like on twitter: Being Adopted Means @Being_Adopted
We know the loss is real. Our ability to grieve is difficult and different for an adoptee. It shapes us but perhaps biggest is the loss of mother.
The loss and grief are a constant, a background noise in your spirit. You don't wake up one day and say the loss is gone. It changes you in many ways, and makes you question "can I make this internal anguish stop?" Being an adoptee becomes your theme song. It never goes away.
This month is Nati onal Adoption Awareness Month (NAAM2021) and if you read twitter or other social media, you may find yourself triggered at all the loss and pain adoptees are sharing. It happens to me. It happens every year in the month of November especially. When I started writing about adoption, I had never heard of being triggered. It means you have a bad sad hurt feeling. The pain seems bigger whenever I read ADOPTEE VOICES.
Something and someone is missing in your life. That affects you. That triggers you. Reaching out to other adoptees and reading what they say can make you feel less alone. That is also the reason this blog exists. You are not alone. There are hundreds (millions) of us. We needed to find each other and it worked. (Social media helped.)
There is no doubt that American Indian and First Nation and Aborigines in Australia were the target of cultural genocide. Children were stolen, children were sent to strangers, our identity was erased. To deny this now is absurd. It happened. Even if the people who write history didn't tell us.
This blog or website is for you to find others. And learn what happened. It may be triggering, of course.
For me, finding out why my mother Helen gave me away to strangers, this did not magically end the trauma and loss I feel and felt.
Every relationship an adoptee has will be affected. I asked other adoptees. The overwhelming sense of loss lies under the skin, in the brain, in the heart. That loss can't be grieved in a way like when you lose a relative to death.
I can only say I try to be kind and remind myself I am OK now, I am safe now. I go minute by minute...
Adoption is trauma - from pre verbal to the grave, annual, seasonal, festivities, life events, daily, second by second, never going away, one big fucked up trauma to satisfy Adopters needs to play at parenting. #AdoptionIsTrauma #NAAM #YouCanAdopt #AdopteeVoices
— cactus_mother 🌵 #adoptee (@cactus__mother) November 11, 2021
In 1919, Cornell pioneered the first degree-granting program in the country for women called “Domestic Economics.” Its aim was to apply scientific principles to domestic tasks deemed “Mothercraft” — such as making meals, cleaning and ironing, household budgeting, and raising children. Female coeds — five or six at a time — lived together in on-campus “Homemaking Apartments” and collectively mothered the practice babies.
Ranging in age from three weeks to a few months old, babies were loaned to the college for a year. The contracts between the orphanages and Cornell stated the babies “could be returned at any time if there was dissatisfaction on the part of the college.”
Their birth names and identities were erased, and they were fatted and raised by a rotating lineup of up to six practice mothers at a time. The co-eds’ work was divided into six parts, including the job of mother and assistant mother.
Domecon babies were highly sought-after for adoption. Adoptive parents were convinced that because the babies were being raised in ideal conditions and by scientific methods it would ensure a smooth family transition. A 1923 newspaper article titled “Coeds at Cornell Mother Real, Live Practice Babies” referred to the babies as “super children.”
The program ran through 1954. In all, 119 children were raised in this manner and adopted, and Dickie Domecon was the first. Most grew up with no knowledge of having been abandoned or surrendered, or having been a Domecon baby.
All identifying records were destroyed.
**
This essay is excerpted from Megan Culhane Galbraith’s The Guild of the Infant Saviour: An Adopted Child’s Memory Book, published by Mad Creek Books, an imprint of the Ohio State University Press.
Hancock was 42 when he went to apply for a passport and realized he did not have a required birth certificate.“When I first found out I was adopted, I felt like a guest at my own funeral,” he said. “The person I had known my whole life was dead. I felt like my whole life isn’t valid to this point, because I wasn’t who I always thought I was.”
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| photos from book |
During National Adoption Awareness Week, SBS speaks to three Ethiopian Australians who were adopted under the recently closed Ethiopia-Australia Intercountry Adoption Program.
T. Laurel Sulfate, Snarkurchin says: | TO: | Representative Tina Orwall |
| FROM: | Ms. Trace A DeMeyer |
| BILL: | 2211 (For Adoptee Rights) |
| Dear Rep Tina Orwall I did live and work in WA state for many years but currently live in MA. I am an adoptee and an author. My struggle to find my identity, my medical history, my ancestry, my family and my tribe is detailed in my memoir ONE SMALL SACRIFICE: Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects. My book is on Amazon. My blog (www.splitfeathers.blogspot.com) has research and history and many articles by and about adoptees who are also struggling with archaic laws. Not all have American Indian ancestry. Do you know who you are? Do you know what it is like not to know? Or date someone who could be your relative? Or get sick and not have medical history? Or have a fake birth certificate and now with the REAL ID ACT you may not be able to get a new drivers license or passport. My friends Wanda and Tom are WA state adoptees and cannot find their parents. Is that right? They are adults, not children. It's possible their parents are dead but they remember their siblings before they were taken to CT to be adopted. That was a part of the Indian Adoption Project. Excerpt from my second book SPLIT FEATHERS: TWO WORLDS Administered by the Child Welfare League of America and funded by a federal contract from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the U.S. Children’s Bureau, the Indian Adoption Project lasted from 1958 through 1967. During an era when matching dominated adoption practice, it placed 395 Native American children from 16 western states with white families in Illinois, Indiana, New York, Massachusetts, Missouri, and other states in the East and Midwest. (Only 14 children were adopted by Southern families and one child was adopted in Puerto Rico.) Approximately fifty public and private adoption agencies cooperated with the project, but the largest number of children were placed by agencies that were leaders in African-American adoptions and services to children of color: Louise Wise Services and Spence-Chapin Adoption Services (both of New York) and the Children’s Bureau of Delaware. Because tribes are legally considered sovereign nations, the incorporation of Indian children into non-Indian families constituted a kind of international as well as transracial adoption...The Indian Adoption Project was perhaps the single most important exception to race-matching... It aspired to systematically place an entire child population across lines of nation, culture, and race. (85% of Indian children in 16 states were placed in CLOSED ADOPTIONS)(Each state had its own program after IAP using the ARENA projects which moved thousands of Indian children from Canada and the US to non-Indian adoptive families. I have more proof in book 2.) In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Native Americans challenged the idea that the Indian Adoption Project was a triumph and denounced the project as the most recent in a long line of genocidal policies toward native communities and cultures. In June 2001, Child Welfare League Executive Director Shay Bilchik legitimated Native concerns, formally apologizing for the Indian Adoption Project at a meeting of the National Indian Child Welfare Association. He put the Child Welfare League of America on record in support of the Indian Child Welfare Act. “No matter how well intentioned and how squarely in the mainstream this was at the time,” he said, “it was wrong; it was hurtful; and it reflected a kind of bias that surfaces feelings of shame.” Source: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~adoption/topics/IAP.html When you consider all the lies and secrecy and harm that surrounds adoption, how does that make you feel? Trace A. DeMeyer | |
| RESPONSE: | Ms. DeMeyer has requested a response to this message. |
Your History Class Was a F*cking Lie by Sean Sherman (Or: How the American Educational System Has Always Been a Racist Propaganda Program...
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