a rant...

I'm calling it a rant in hopes that everyone can see I am writing from a completely emotional perspective and won't judge me too harshly on any logical or factual gaps they may find (feel free to mention them to me though! I can always go back and edit). For those of you looking for something specific I will tell you right here that this rant has NOTHING to do with multiplicity at all! It is just about me and what I am feeling.

What DOES this rant have to do with? Adoption.

This body was adopted at the age of six weeks old (where were we for the first six weeks?? good question! we have a number of different stories on that one!). Since the physical age of 18 I have been searching on and off for my birth mother (and/or father) with little result.

The RANT part starts here... where I live almost all adoptions are considered CLOSED... that means that the records are sealed and there is no real way to get any useful information on your birth or history. With changes in the law an adoptee can now hire a licensed search agent (at an expense of between $350 and $1000) who can access the information for you and who then has the power to decide what (if anything) to tell you about your own life.

This angers me on a whole bunch of levels! The first being the sheer hypocrisy of the government forcing me to pay for information that is totally free to anyone not adopted... and of saying it is OK for an outsider to see private details of MY life before I can!

The major part that angers me is that *I* was the only non-consenting party to this 'legal' contract! I am the one who had rights taken away and decisions made 'in my best interest' with absolutely no say in the matter! Well, now I am old enough to say what is best for me... and the government is denying me that right! It is still treating me as if I were a child.

"But the birth mother has rights too!" Nope, sorry! I don't think she does! I think she CHOSE to bring a life into this world and she has some OBLIGATIONS to fill! She has the *right* not to have a relationship with me and even not to care about me... but she does not have the *right* to keep information about my past and my heritage (not to mention whatever medical or genetic information I am missing) from me! SHE owes ME that! She had other choices if she did not want to bring a child into this world... she chose to do it and she should have to live up to her basic responsibilities!

It hurts the most that these decisions are being made by a bunch of bureaucrats and politicians who have NO idea at all what it feels like to go from day to day not knowing who your real family is... who you may look like... what diseases you should be on the lookout for... what (if any) genetic testing you should have done... what race you really are... what wonderful (or terrible) things your aunts and uncles and cousins and great-great-great grandparents have done!

I am tired of not KNOWING who I am... and I am angry that the information I need is being held hostage by people who are more interested in protecting the past than ensuring a positive future!