from a friend and fellow blogger, Sume, at Misplaced Baggage.
Her post perfectly resonates with my own struggles lately, at being boxed in by social workers, adoptive parents, and other adopted individuals.
Sume writes,
. . . choosing to embrace one’s ambiguity need not prevent adoptees from
taking strong stands on issues important to them. Support for open
records and adoptee rights, pushing for stronger support for birth
families, exposing corruption and abusive adoption practices and being
critical of ones own adoption or adoption itself should not imply that
one is against adoption as a whole.Ideally it really shouldn’t matter, but functionally it does.
Whether a person is perceived as either pro or anti adoption can
influence who that person speaks to in the media and who speaks to that
person. It can be a factor in who links you if you blog, determine
whether one’s loyalties are questioned and by whom and sadly, determine
who trusts whom and with what.Being too ambiguous or diplomatic can create doubts about one’s
loyalties, foster feelings of suspicion and can make it difficult for
an adoptee to find a place in which they feel they “belong.” From an
“adoptee perspective” that is perhaps the saddest of all outcomes,
because many of us are specifically seeking comradery with our adopted
peers. To end up isolated or falsely labeled is detrimental to adoptees
as a community. Such a split weakens us and could be exploited for any
number of agendas other than our own. If I must be against something,
it is that.
Amen, sister.
Harlow's Monkey 
I wonder if this is because so many people have to feel that people are “on their side” in a all or nothing way. Very Jr. High but seems to carry into all areas of life. I hope I do a decent job of letting my daughter have whatever feelings she likes on the issues without lumping her into one camp or the other. Thank you for the post!
Loyalty is a funny thing. Can you be on the side of someone you disagree with some times? I think you can.
For me real loyalty is handed out to few people. Outside of that, for example in a sphere such as this community, I am interesting in learning. Trying to understand. And actively trying not to choose what is right or wrong or best or worst.
I don’t see myself as pro or anti adoption. It is something that shouldn’t have to happen. And that we need to make the very best of when it does.
My views have changed a lot since becoming an AP. Or should I say developed in the first place. And the stream of thought coming from adoptees is easily the most important source of information that has influenced me.
I understand that it must at least appear to be an antagonistic relationship, but in my case and I would best most others it is meant to be a learning process. Not one where we influence with out opinions per se.