It just so happens that I have written at length about this topic before, but for the sake of participating in this blog theme, I figured I may as well copy and paste. Apologies to long-time readers who have seen this before.

I was born in September 1987, and although I don’t think my birthmother’s side of the story is very relevant (and nor is it mine to tell) I will say that she was not married to my biological father and that is part of the reason I was adopted out. Now I am an adult, I sometimes wonder why, considering her circumstances, she carried me to term at all, when an abortion would have been much easier, and more logical. I don’t know whether she had any religious beliefs that influenced this. I do not have any, and nor do my adoptive family, but for obvious reasons I am opposed to abortion, and adoption is an issue very important to me.

I’m not familiar with the way American adoption works, but mine was handled by CYFS (Children, Young Person and Family Services). Between my birth and official adoption I was in foster care while receiving medical treatment. I also believe that in the late 1980s there was a law in NZ that imposed a waiting period of several days/weeks before a bio parent’s rights can be terminated and an adoptive parents rights begin. I do not know whether this is still the case at present.

My adoptive parents were 40 and 41 when I was adopted, and I am an only child. This has never been an “issue” for me, as of course I have never known any different!

Although as an adult I do not have any “special needs”, I was born with a medical condition which was expected to affect me a great deal more than it actually has (Whole other story, has not affected me at all, really). To be honest I don’t actually know whether this classified me as a “disabled child” for the purposes of my adoption or not, but I wouldn’t be surprised either way.

As for being a only child, I actually blogged about this awhile ago, when I wrote about a book I was reading called Only Child: How To Survive Being One. Although when I was younger, I sometimes wondered why I had no siblings, I don’t think ever really suffered from the lack of them. I think being an only child was actually rather beneficial, since it afforded me a lot of opportunities I would not otherwise have had. Although at the moment I am unmarried and not planning a family in the immediate future, I often wonder whether or not I would like to have an only child myself. I seem to go between only wanting one, and wanting LOTS¹ (including to adopt some myself).

I have always known I am adopted, so there was never really a “realisation” on my part when things clicked into place and I realised I was different. I think my parents handled this situation extremely well and I can honestly say there has never been a period in my life where I have felt embarrassed about being adopted, and it’s common knowledge for everyone who knows me. It has never been hidden, although sometimes mum and I do snigger to ourselves when strangers or new acquaintances comment on how alike we look!? I think this attitude is very healthy and is definitely one I would recommend all adoptive parents try to cultivate in their child. Be as open with them as you can about where they come from (as far as is appropriate, obviously!) and their adoption will be seen as a part of who they are as opposed to an obstacle to be overcome.

As for my biological family, New Zealand is an extremely small country, which means that it would theoretically be relatively easy to find her simply by using the telephone book, but as of yet I have not made any serious attempts. Would I like to at some point? Yes. Absolutely. I think my “best case scenario” with regard to contact and a relationship with her would be that we get to know each other and become good friends. I don’t know that I would ever consider her a family member, but I would definitely like to have some form of positive contact with her in the future.

1. All of whom WILL be named Agner, Jenny! :P [↩]

I wasn’t sure how to start this post, so instead of trying any further, I will simply copy and paste a screenshot of my Facebook status from earlier this evening…

Yes. You are reading that correctly. I did indeed see that occurring on my way home this evening, and, needless to say, I was completely appalled by it.

I have to say though, that I am struggling to decide which part of it I find worse. The fact that a group of teenagers decided that was acceptable to even do in the first place, or that an even larger group (realistically, probably close to 100 people!) of adults, other teens and families with children all SAW this happening, and proceeded to do absolutely nothing about it. Right now, I think it might just be the latter.

I don’t know how long it had been going on before I saw it, but I stood about 50 metres away for about 2 minutes before I realised I had had enough of standing watching and thinking “Am I ACTUALLY witnessing what I think I am here? Are these girls REALLY harassing that man while a large crowd of people pretend they don’t notice?!” Sadly, yes, I was.

I’m not usually the kind of person who goes and confronts groups of people I don’t know, but on this occasion, I just HAD to be. I went slightly closer to the group and said “Haven’t you ever seen somebody with down syndrome before?”, and then walked away to go and find one of the “Christchurch City Ambassadors” who are pretty much like security guards in the centre of town, and whose job it is to deal with things like that. They eventually moved the girls along.

These two men were less than 200 metres away, but in their defense they were also around a corner, town was EXTREMELY busy, and the incident wasn’t a noisy fight that drew a lot of attention to itself, so I don’t think it was their fault that they failed to notice this on their own.

I guess the point I am trying to make here is that although this incident was appalling to begin with, the fact that nobody intervened for at least five minutes is even worse. As a future teacher, it especially bothered me to see families walking past with children in tow. Obviously I can understand why a parent might be hesitant to become involved in a direct confrontation while their child was with them, in case it escalated into something dangerous, but really, the security people were pretty close by, and their red jackets aren’t difficult to miss. Surely these people could have gone straight to them if they had wanted to. But they didn’t, and therefore I believe they taught their children the following lesson “Look, little Johnny, this is what we do when we see something like this happening. Sure it’s mean of those girls to treat that man like that, but it’s just a bit TOO uncomfortable for us to intervene, so we’ll just walk on by and pretend we don’t notice.” Awesome. Compare that to what the kids COULD have learned, if mum or dad had spoken up. Really sad, in my opinion.

“The sign of a civilised society is how we treat the most vulnerable.”

.:EDIT:.
I initially wasn’t going to include this, since it involves specific other people who weren’t actually involved, but since one of the people in question has now left a comment bringing this very thing up on her own, I figured it’s ok to say that part of the reason this upset me maybe a little more than it otherwise would have is because the younger bother of one of my best friends has DS. This meant that my immediate thought was ‘What if that was HIM, and nobody did anything to help? Wouldn’t that be shit?”. Yes. Yes it would. Well it may not have been the person I know, chances are that man was someone else’s son, brother or friend, and the people who know him and care about him would find that thought just as awful as I do. Some people just really suck.

…that my cousin is magically skilled at taking photos of me which I actually LIKE, because I don’t end up looking completely insane!? SO wish my hands weren’t in front of my face in the bottom left one though. Boo.