Welcome to my blog.
This is a place where I talk about experiences, mistakes, serious stuff, silly stuff, family, love, food and the many fuck ups that are part of my life.
If you’re looking for a place where you’ll find consistency, marital bliss, an always coherent view, and insight into how you can best live your life, then avoid this blog at all cost.
Readers beware, by coming here you may actually be exposed to the frailty of human nature and to the many contradictions that permeate our existence.
For those of you in the not-entirely-sure-what-we’re-doing-category, the ones who sometimes make mistakes, the ones who try, fall short and even attempt to share in writing their struggles and successes, you’ll find yourself in good company here.
Since my essay was published, many of you have tried to reduce me to a decision, to a failure, and have looked through years of writing, tweets, articles and anything else I’ve ever said or put down on paper or on the internet, to find out that I’m indeed a person with inconsistencies, at times someone who was hypocritical, a bad apple. You said that these awful things just don’t happen to good, righteous people.
I failed at something huge and THAT’S the entire point of the story. No one is claiming I did a good thing. Despite good intentions, I didn’t do a good thing, and ultimately failed at parenting a child.
I understand where the need to judge comes from because I used to be just like that. I tried to box people and situations into neat categories. I criticized someone for disrupting an adoption and then did the same. That’s hypocrisy that I’m not proud of. I talked about being compassionate and showed no patience for people I really didn’t like.
I don’t deserve a pat on the back.
I have many contradictions and I’ve made many mistakes. But I’m trying to learn from them and become a better person. Like all human beings I’m made of good and bad.
If you don’t like this blog, you don’t have to read it. That’s the beauty of it, it’s your choice. If you can’t understand how I can be a good mother and write this essay, that I can be a good wife and fight with my husband, that I can support the military and disagree with some of its policies, then this is definitely not the place for you.
Writing is a way to share our experiences, both the good ones and bad ones and to learn that we all struggle and succeed and to hopefully give each other a hand.
More about Anita >>
English
You’re so strong. Don’t let those assholes get you down. Judge not, lest you be judged.
With you
Liz
Those who can’t understand, haven’t been there. No one, NO ONE, can judge anyone else. Your decisions are yours, and if they don’t like it, tough.
Love, LAW
Hi I wanted to say, dont listen to those who judge so freely.
They most likely havent been anywhere close to your shoes. Ignorance is bliss. everyone will think they can “do it better” then you.
You made the best choice for the child and your family. End of story.
1)Try to remember that there are many people who understood your story in the spirit that it was intended and appreciate the fact that you told it.
2)If even one person in a similar situation was comforted by the fact that they are not alone, your post has served a great purpose.
3)You didn’t fail! It wasn’t a test! Ultimately you made the decision that was in the best interest of the child. That isn’t failure, that’s doing the right thing.
At least one responder criticized you for not thinking of D when you decided to give him up to a second adoption. But, it shines through your story that you were thinking of him and all that you felt he deserved to have, that you felt you weren’t able to give. All that you put into your decision shows an incredible strength of heart and mind. Your ability to admit that your love wasn’t what D most needed let you have the courage to find a better life for him: that is selflessness.
There is not much I can say right now through my emotions except that it is clear that you did what was best for D, which is the very most important thing. I am so emotional because just a few months ago, my sister gave her pre-school age twins up in an open adoption (we will see them once a year and we speak to them on the phone) because it was what was best for them. She knew that she, with her many mental issues, was not able to be a good parent despite her enormous efforts. My husband and I thought we should (and wanted to) adpot them but many monhs of therapy and many a psyciatrist told us, and my sister, that they would be best in an open situation where they KNEW they were with their forever family and where they still had my family, their birth mom and cousins, in their life without the confusion of their birth mom being in the periphery their whole life. They are doing fabulously well. I am sure that D is too. I am sorry to be so long winded – I am just trying to sayI TOTALLY understand how hard the deciision was. Some people have really tried to understand what happened and my sister’s and our decision and others simply cannot believe that our family could do this. Like you, I will struggle forever, but I know they are happy and they tell me they are happy and they understand and cant wait to see my family again next year after the baby is born. Well I guess I spllied a lot – I have not ever written anything about this. Thank you for sharing your story. I don’t know when, if ever, I will have the courage to share mine. It took courage. I will still be reading!
Thank you for your comments. They really do mean an awful lot to me. Brittany, thank you for sharing your story.
Hugs,
Anita
I avoided the comments on that post purposely bc I knew they would be spirited in a way. It’s something I need to try to understand without the opinions of blog readers. A young man, a 7th grader, came to us as a new student at the beginning of the school year last year. By the end of the semester he was gone — his adoption was reversed. I will never forget this kid. It’s none of my business, really. I’ve tried really hard not to judge his parents. Believe me, in our little community, there is enough of that going on. It’s hard. I don’t won’t to judge you either. I do believe that you did what needed to be done. It helps me to believe that his adoptive parents did as well. My heart aches for both of these kids, a lot.
I find your response to criticism very telling. You are responsible for traumatizing an already traumatized child and you call it a “mistake” and “hypocrisy.” You’ve forever changed your son and sent the message that because he was adopted and because he has challenges he is “less than.” Where is your accountability for those actions?
If nothing else, my kids have taught me about the gray areas of life. Not everything is black and white and fits neatly in a preconceived box. It sounds like that’s a lesson we’re learning together.
I cannot believe you just compared giving away your own child with fighting with your husband or being a military spouse who sometimes disagree with policy.
Perhaps the most sad part of this story is that this little boy is still not fully human to you, he’s just someone who got in your way at home and is now getting in your way of how you want to see yourself.
Saying you failed is one thing, truly owning it and learning from it is another and you have miles to go to bridge the gap. I hope that for the sake of your daughters, who surely wonder when/if they will also be sent away, that you decide to get real about this.
You’ve clearly got your amen choir, is there no one in your life who thinks you can actually be a better person?
Anita—-
I am leaving a comment on here because it’s absurd that Sarah will message me on FB and tell me that anonymous comments on blogs can be traced, (duh) I wanted to reply to her but she won’t take my comments, Anita if you have a post on here that is supposedly from me that was anonymous and tracked to MY blog which I always post my blog and email addy so there should be NONE, please let me know ASAP because someone is using my IP addy/ or account if that’s the case. email it to me or send me a link, I want to know exactly what it says, if you’re going to accuse someone of something leave the convo open so they can reply.
other than that any replies I leave on blogs always have my links and addy for the traffic.
Anita,
I read your blog because you are a real person – no one is perfect, most especially those who criticize others. I have found that when someone is willing to opening and loudly criticize someone else for a decision they made it is generally because they see something of themselves there.
Please keep writing as you do – it make me, as another military wife, feel that it is ok to be human, to argue with my husband, to not be a perfect mom and to not always agree with what is going on with the military today.
Thank you for what you do and hang in there!
Traci
I respect your decision and your barvery for opening yourself up for attack about this. But as someone who grew up knowing they were not wanted I think you did the best you could for D. my mother did not want children and I was the first and she made little effort to hide the fact I was a mistake to her. I have it from many older people I have been close to throughout my life that anyone woud be proud to have me as a daughter, and that I have a great temperament etc. But my mother had a hard time seeing past not wanting me and has made it clear time and time again if she could do life over there would be no kids. (kinda of a softer way of saying she wishes I hadn’t been born in my opinion). You gave D a set of good parents who wanted him, love him and are bonding well with him. He is still very young and will forget you in time. furthermore his parents can give him the honest answer should he ask about being given up that you did not feel capable of taking care of him and gave him to htem so that he could have the best for him. that way it is your fault not a failing of his. (Important though I know it hurts you.) there is no doubt in my mind that despite adoption disruption, D will be a happier child and more aware that he is wanted and loved than I was as a child.
S
I’m sorry for your experience. Thank you for sharing your words with me. And yes, D should know that it was our fault not his.
Traci,
thank you
I think it’s the article disconnect that people are puzzled about. When you wrote a previous article that disappeared from another website, that talks about your adopted son M and how despite your problems you would never, never disrupt. Then wrote this latest article about your adopted son D, and how the thought of disruption popped into your head out of a clear blue sky….. how many sons did you adopt anyway?
We humans read the NYT, the blogs, we listen to pundits, we read and mull. We feel deeply. And when we make a massive, life-changing decision — we do so because we know something in our quiet, personal bones. Do I stop chemo? Do I admit to have failed? Do I go to AA? Each is an admission of ‘failure.’ Though each situation is profoundly different, each would give hundreds succor and thousands rage (for a variety of different, and defensible, reasons). The ‘few’ that you will reach are the ones who get it. The others can’t hope to.
And those who judge just don’t know the thing you’re describing. And thank God. Lucky them. That trial wasn’t in their hand of cards.
So forgive those who have judged, they don’t know what you know. I don’t know. And I’ve judged a family in a very similar situation. I have to believe that all of us have done the same in the face of another person’s honest suffering.
I appreciate you for making me understand something complex – about your experience and about everyone’s. Thank God the folks who hate what you wrote haven’t had to face a similar moment of reckoning.
But thank you for giving succor to the few that know.
ps. to those people who said that biological parents don’t just ‘give up.’ That such a moment is a ‘luxury’ of adoptive parents – not true. Happily, most parent-child bonds work. Sometimes, in adoptive families and biological families, some truth makes it impossible.
Laurie,
thank you. I’m speechless. Thank you for articulating what I felt, how I felt and how it was to face my own demons. And really thank you for your compassion.
Your words are encouraging on my road to becoming a better person.
With sincere gratitude,
Anita
Have you given any thought to what your daughters are going to think when they are a little older and learn to use Google and find everything you’ve written about them, D, and whatever else? Do you think they are going to appreciate having all of this posted for the entire world to see? Even if you didn’t use their names or D’s real name, you used your real name.
Anita,
Given that you wrote this essay to help other people who may be in similar situations, I’m curious what have you learned from this experience? I don’t mean your own feelings but rather if you could go back in time to the beginning of your decision to adopt or from the time D was placed with you, what would you do differently? Do you feel that you wouldn’t have been able to truly attach to any child that wasn’t biologically yours? Was your husband and the rest of your family as committed and excited about the adoption as you were? Do you think your pregnancies and newborns impeded attachment to D? Do you feel that you weren’t capable of parenting a high need, traumatized child? Do you feel that you really listened and understood the commitment you were making by adopting? Looking back, do you still believe that the agency you used should have approved you for this adoption? I know you’ve said that you knew 18 months into it that you couldn’t attach to him but I’m curious what warning signs might have been nagging away in the back of your mind as you went through this?
I ask because many people parent adopted children who have far greater issues and behaviors than it seems that D did and don’t question their adoptions or at least work their way through it and I’m wondering what was different about your situation? Not in a “you suck” kind of way but honestly what was different for you? What do you think other prospective adoptive parents should think long and hard about? Were you overwhelmed by other factors aside from your son? I think that addressing these issues and providing any insight you might have instead of simply telling what happened from your perspective might do a lot to help other prospective adoptive parents since avoiding dissolution would be far better for everyone involved, especially the child. Thank you.
Anita,
Thanks again for your candor. You lift me up.
Pat
Patrick,
I went to your blog. Hang in there. I wish I could help you and your family but words can’t do much. You’re brave and my thoughts are with you.
Sincerely,
Anita
I’ve never seen an essay in that aspect and I appreciate your bravery in publishing a very vulnerable side of your life. D. is in a better place “for him”. For you to make sure he recieved what he needed is wonderful. For you to be slammed for your decision is not. Keep being honest.