Adoption-Ed 101: Conclusion

I hope you all enjoyed my first round of Adoption-Ed.  I really enjoyed writing these blog entries and I tried to keep them as simple as possible.  I had fun looking for good links to show that I don't just pull stuff out of thin air and I enjoyed future educating myself about the issues.  I hope that I've provided you with some food for thought and possibly given you some information that you didn't have before.

I have several topics already lined up for the next go around.  I want to write more about some of the history of adoption (an area that I'm going to have to read up on) and maybe even a few summaries of adoption related literature that I've read.  If you have any suggestions for me or things that you would like to learn more about, feel free to add them to the comments.  I'm looking at running my second "class" in a few months.  I need some time to digest and there's really only so much of this a person can handle without going crazy.

All in all, my take away message about adoption is this: adoption is a complicated subject and the only way to attempt to understand it is to educated yourself about it.  I believe that there are a lot of adoptees out there who do not know anything about adoption as an institution.  I used to be one of them.  It takes time and it can be pretty triggering.  I also think that there are a lot of other people out there who need to educate themselves.  I believe that all natural parents should have some sort of idea as to what they are getting their child into.  Adoptive parents I think have a pretty good idea about the institution of adoption because they have to go through it.  They are the ones with the power, and I've learned the in order to get that power, you usually have to have some sort of information.

I also think that the general public needs to know.  While it's estimated that 60% of people in the US are connected to adoption, we need more people to know about the issues in order to have better laws in our country.  Adoptees are a minority that needs the help of the majority in order to get our rights.  We need help and the only way we are going to get it is if society starts to see the problems with adoption rather than all the rainbows and flowers.

I hope that I was able to teach somebody something.  If not, well there's always next time...