Kicked Out of School for This Blog.

How much of one’s story is too personal to share?  When does it go from being a story about personal triumph over adversity (even if that adversity is sometimes caused by our own bad choices) to inappropriate details about our private lives that should remain private?  This is the question I faced this morning as I was called in to see the head of a private school in which my 5-year-old son had been offered a spot.  He was supposed to start Kindergarten there in twelve days.  We would normally not be in a position to attend such an elite school, but because they needed boys in that particular class, and because we were in the right place at the right time, we were able to work out a deal that would benefit all involved.  I was hesitant because I am not rich.  I don’t run in those types of social circles.  The newest car we have is a 2005 and I’m just not that Lululemon-wearing, Lexus-driving, latte-swigging mom.  I have nothing against it.  Financially, it’s just not our crowd.  But, after some interesting conversations with those who had experience with this school, we decided to put our fears and inadequacies aside, and go for it.

At least, we thought we were going to, until a staff member saw a link to my blog on the bottom of my email.  Less than twenty-four hours later, I was told this school just wouldn’t be a good fit for us.  You might think my blog showed pictures of me hung over at a New Year’s Eve party, or perhaps joking about having smoked weed in my younger days.  Or perhaps it might have used bad language, or racial slurs, or had pictures of me in a string bikini with my arm draped around some guy other than my husband.  But no.  It was this blog, where I write about our adoption experience.

I won’t attempt to include the entire conversation here, as it lasted about 25 minutes.  But I will hit the highlights.  I was told that there was no good that could come of me putting this kind of personal information on the internet.  She asked me several times what good I thought I was doing by airing my “dirty laundry”.  And by “dirty laundry”, she was referring mainly to two things (out of almost 50 blog posts over the last few years).  The first was that I mentioned that my boys had been exposed to drugs in the womb.  The second was that I mentioned my husbandhad been arrested two times before, both of which were thrown out before it even went to a judge because they were so ridiculous.  “Why would you share that with anyone?” she asked several times.  But the part that really got me was that she said that she was concerned that parents at this school might not want to include my son in playgroups or birthday parties or other social gatherings because he had been exposed to drugs.  She told me I should keep that a secret and that there was no reason that even my son should ever know that information.  She said that their school was a positive place and that there wasn’t room for the negativity or the “poor me” attitude I displayed in my writing.  I explained to her that not one of my posts were about “poor me” and that each one, although perhaps sharing some difficult experience, always took a positive spin and left the reader with an understanding of the good things that have come from it.  I could tell by the way she referred to my writing, that she hadn’t even taken the time to read through the blog herself, at least not very much of it.  I have written about everything from drug exposure, to the crazy process you have to go through, to our own experiences with invitro, to our failed adoption—every thing you could possibly want to know about this process is there. Yes, it’s personal, but I don’t think it is so horrible that it should be the reason my son is not allowed to attend this school.  I am not ashamed of one thing I have written.

I tried to explain that the current research on adoption shows that the secrecy of the past adoption culture has proven to be detrimental to children.  Secrets mean shame to a child.  If my son were to find out from someone else that he was born positive for drugs, then he would know I had lied to him, and he would assume I lied because something was so wrong with him that I wouldn’t tell him the truth.  I told her I will continue to share all of his story with him, age appropriately, and that at some point in his life, he would know every detail.  Research has shown this is the better path.  She argued that there are adopted children at this school who know nothing about their past, and that these children are just grateful to have what they have and they don’t think about their adoption story.  I cannot disagree with this more.  Perhaps they don’t ask many questions now, but this school doesn’t take middle school or high school aged children, which is when most of them begin questioning as they are figuring out their own identity.  And my guess is that she has not done much research on the subject, or she wouldn’t have made such a blanket statement.

So much more was said, but the point is that it was clearly stated that my story should be private, and there was absolutely no reason for having these details made public.  I told her that I was in the middle of writing a book about a lot of my difficult experiences and that the adoption story was only a part of that. I told her that I would be willing to leave some things off the blog, but that wasn’t enough for her.  She wanted the whole blog to be removed, and for nobody to ever be able to trace those stories to me.  She requested that work on the book be private, meaning it could not be published as long as any of our children attended school there.  I was not to write publicly about any of it again.  I was floored to hear such censorship in 2014, especially for what I consider such non-controversial material.  I told her that I was sad for him to miss out on the opportunity of going to such a great school, but if parents and teachers were going to ostracize my young son for choices beyond his control, then I didn’t want him going there anyway.

I felt a little selfish for not giving up a blog for this opportunity for a great education.  But I think it’s more than that.  If I am being censored over this kind of information, then what was next?  What else was not going to be acceptable?  I asked her if there were no other parents at that school who blogged about their life, or who had written anything controversial.  She said she wasn’t aware of any.  I find it hard to believe that nobody there has a past that is public in some way.  You’re telling me nobody has ever posted a picture of themselves on Facebook doing something inappropriate?  Or made a public comment that was controversial in any way?  Please.

I would love to hear thoughts/comments, even if you agree with the school.  I’ve been stewing about this conversation all day, trying to see it from their side, and I just can’t.  Read through my blog posts, and tell me if anything is inappropriate or cause for my son to be kept out of a school.  I truly want to know.

Why I Have No Use for Alcohol or Drugs.

I was reminded recently why I have almost no use for alcohol or drugs, beyond the alcohol that is found in a bottle of vanilla or used to disinfect.

We had the opportunity last week to attend San Diego County Adoption’s Fall Fest.  It is an event in which kids that are a little harder to place for adoption are showcased via profiles and pictures to families with approved home studies who are on the list waiting to adopt.  Here’s basically how it adoption preferences go.  An newborn Caucasian girl is the most requested placement.  Next is other newborns, followed by infants under two, followed by children under five.  Then, somewhere in there are sibling groups of two or more along with older kids and special needs children in no particular order.  The bigger the sibling group, the older the child (or children) and/or the greater their special needs, the harder they are to place.  And so it goes.  The Fall Fest showcased all those groups except individual kids under the age of five who had no special needs (meaning some type of handicap, whether physical, mental or some of both—not meaning general development/emotional issues that often come with neglect, abuse or the other myriad of reasons children find their way into the system).  The only time a child under five was showcased was as part of a sibling group.

There were more than fifty kids or sibling groups showcased that night.  They gave us each a packet to take home so that we could think about the kids we were interested in and look at their information again to decide if we wanted to move forward.  The particulars are private to families waiting to adopt, but I wanted to share a few things that stuck with me, and will share in general terms to respect that privacy.

The one thing that stood out to me as I read through these profiles is that, almost without fail, the reason these kids had been removed from their homes was due, in some part, to substance abuse.  I am so tired of hearing people argue that drugs and alcohol are no big deal because they are only harming their own bodies.  While that may be the intent, and it may be the case for some, for many people, there are innocent victims.  The abuses laid down in these profiles would make anyone cringe.  There was neglect, physical, sexual and emotional abuse, kids exposed to drugs and alcohol, and kids exposed to sexually explicit materials and/or things occurring in their own homes.  There were kids whose permanent physical and/or emotional conditions resulted in decisions made by parents under the influence.  There were kids who have had little to no contact with parents since being taken into custody because those parents can’t get it together enough to even make one visit in months.  In almost every case, all of these problems were brought on by drug and/or alcohol abuse.  Did you know that the worst thing that a pregnant mother can do is drink alcohol?  Did you know that with almost every drug, most of the damage caused in utero can be reversed or adjusted to as the child grows, but damage from alcohol, such as Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, is permanent and irreversible?  Cocaine, heroin, meth....none of them hold a candle to the damage caused by alcohol to a fetus.  Don't get me wrong, drugs are damaging, but in comparison to what alcohol can do--the supposedly less harmful substance--it's not even a close race.

I do feel for these parents with substance abuse problems.   Many of them grew up in similar circumstances.  I once heard a mom whose kids had been taken away from her tell how she had been exposed to drugs so early on, that she had done her first line of cocaine at the age of five.  She was pregnant with her first child by thirteen, and the father was in his thirties.  Her second child by the same man came along just a couple of years later.  She eventually pulled her life together and got her boys back and is doing well now.  I do have compassion for these parents, but, our kids need to be protected, whether we have compassion for their abusers or not.  Did you know that seventy percent of prisoners in California were in foster care at some point?  It’s an incredible statistic.

I don’t have all the statistics on alcohol and drug use, but I have enough to know that I have no use for any of it.  I have had struggles in my life and made choices I was not proud of, so know that I am not standing in judgment.  But this was one thing I never desired.  I never understood the draw of being so far gone that you would not have control over what might happen to you.  That never appealed to me.  My religion has a health code that includes abstaining from alcohol and illegal drugs as well as tobacco.  There was a time in my youth when I adhered to this health code mostly because that was what I had been taught.  But, I have had the truth of that health code confirmed to me time and time again through my own experiences and the experiences of those around me.  I believe it now more than ever.  

I know there are many people who drink responsibly out there.  I don’t think there is any responsible use for illegal drugs, and sometimes for legal ones.  That belief has been solidified by seeing the effects of these things on our children.  The misuse of drugs and alcohol have had devastating effects on children all over the world, whether through too early exposure or through abuse and neglect heaped on them because of the substance abuse of their parents or others around them.  I wish everyone could read these profiles and see where that abuse has led these children--the innocent bystanders of those who think they are only damaging their own bodies.  I only hope that people will see past the inherent problems that this abuse may have caused in these children and welcome the opportunity to adopt one.  Having a three-year-old at home has limited what we are willing to take on, as his safety has to be a major priority (this is something I will discuss in another post).  But if you are just starting out and are waiting for your first child, or maybe have grown children and are starting over, I hope you will research the option of adopting an older child or sibling group or a special needs child.  You might be surprised at how the reward may far outweigh the work.


***If you are considering adoption an older child, please read my post "How Long Are We Parents?"