The mentality on display that refers to us as “bitter” does so for cultural as well as political reasons: it is reflective of a culture that tends to victimize those who are down, while maintaining a hypocritical false victim status for itself.
For example, it is the same tactic that claims “reverse racism” as used against those who are for affirmative action, or the current “tea baggers”, who claim oppression by a “king”—the president—when they are of the class who not only profit from others’ misery, but can afford health care in this country. You cannot be of the dominant discourse and claim oppression from those whom you yourself oppress; you cannot be on top and claim to be on bottom.
To reflect on is that this expressed self-righteous indignation is not any more valid than those of adoptees, simply because everything, but everything within the dominant discourse, from the media, to non-profit organizations and the government, etc. all support unequivocally the idea that adoption is valid, that adoption is desired, and that adoption should not be challenged. This reveals what we are up against.
Furthermore, this is not a balanced equation in terms of two sides of a debate. On the one hand, you have a dominant discourse of those who hold, wield, and control legal, social, medical, and financial power, as well as their tools of discourse, such as media, legal decisions, etc. Those of us who go up against this discourse can be termed resistant to it, and there is a long history of those who resist the dominant discourse as concerns their eventual fate: They are slated for silencing, and hopefully, to the majority culture, for eventual disbandment if not destruction. The accusations we are receiving are the first steps in this process, which will only escalate.
The question that naturally comes to mind when I hear this from someone who supports adoption is “where is your empathy now? Where is your great big heart now?” I am that adopted child you pretend to care so much about. I am that adoptee that you claim to have done so much for, who asks only for understanding as to the violence of adoption, and the validity of my side of the story—it isn’t too much to ask, and there are many adoptive parents who in secret understand, but dare not speak out because of the same silencing we receive. I would love to hear from them here.
For why should it be valid for someone of this dominant discourse to parade their angst at not having a child, and carry on about needing to “fill the hole” that they see as missing in their lives? Why is it okay for them to have Internet forums, and episodes on Oprah, and celebrity icons going back to Joan Crawford, and generally the understanding if not outright sympathy of the entirety of this society? They litter the Internet with their repugnant “Dear Birth mother” web sites that are scandalous in their making public something which should not only be private, but should not be happening in a just and egalitarian society. Vultures have more candor and sympathy than this.
On the other hand, those who are adopted, or who are convinced to give up their children and who later feel angst about it (to put it quite mildly), and who also only wish to “fill the hole” that they see as missing in their lives, are then castigated in the harshest terms as ungrateful, and spiteful, and bitter. Why does no one say to infertile couples: “Get over it?” Why does no one say to those without children “THIS is God’s plan for you, not adoption”? Who, may I ask at long last, are truly the bitter individuals?
But not to worry. The accusation takes such a high-handed tone because deep down the injustice of adoption is obvious, as all societal injustices have been before attempts to overcome them. Those who speak out against it are on the right side of history. The truth is on our side, and the truth will out.
