How to be a Good Little Orphan: A Primer and Preface

The Coen Brothers made this great movie, Miller's Crossing. For those of you who don't know it, Miller's Crossing is (on the surface) a hard-boiled story about the Irish mob being usurped by the Italian mob in the early days of prohibition. It is full of snappy dialogue like a Dashiell Hammett mystery. As the story-behind-the-story goes, writing the screenplay for Miller's Crossing was kicking Joel and Ethan's butts. The language of Miller's Crossing was a very specific argot, a very specific jargon; it was laborious writing and they were suffering writers' block. They decided to take a break and vent. They vented by writing more, writing something else. They wrote their way through their "issues" by penning a screenplay about a playwright who writes about "the common man," yet is incapable of empathy. This became their their next film, Barton Fink -- unanimous winner of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1991.

If you have ever seen the Coen Brothers, you may have noticed how much they resemble. They are three years separated in age, but seem as wrapped up in each other as twins in an art-house film. I don't have a twin brother. I don't even have a brother. I have a sister, but we don't resemble and we aren't wrapped up in each other. If you wanted to be shitty, you could say that we aren't even related because she's adopted. Well, she is adopted.

I am adopted.

I have spent the last several days composing my first blog entry about being an adoptee. As I exercised my failing touch-typing skills, everything was going well...until it wasn't. See, the adoption community has some very specific jargon. What's worse, this jargon is hotly contested. I, like the Coen Brothers, need to take a break from my laborious writing to vent -- by writing about what I'm writing about. Confused? Me too.

Unlike Barton Fink, I am capable of empathy. I will try to be fair.

First off, when I say adoption, I am only talking about old-fashioned closed adoption -- where the parents-who-raise-the-kid never know the parents-who-make-the-kid, and all of the records are sealed. My adoption was a closed adoption. Many contemporary adoptions are open adoptions -- there is some level of interplay between both sets of parents. Open adoptions can be much more slippery, but don't really apply to me, so I won't attempt to address them here.

There are three parties to any adoption: the parents-who-make-the-kid, the kid, and he parents-who-raise-the-kid (these are my terms, not terms the adoption community readily uses). These three parties are what's known as the adoption triad. At least we can all agree on that.

The Internet is a great place for people in similar situations to find each other. There are lots of Internet resources for the members of the adoption triad (and their extended families and concerned acquaintances and imaginary friends and pets). Most of these forums are, well, forums -- forums that accept input from anyone involved in adoption in any way. There's not much by way of "Parents-Who-Make-The-Kids United" or "The Adopted Kids Club" or "The Fraternal Order of Parents-Who-Raise-The-Kids." The downside of this inclusiveness is that it creates an environment for bitter philosophical Mexican standoffs among people who could all really use some TLC. We cannot even agree upon what to call each other.

About the time I was born, social workers started using a jargon that is now called Positive Adoption Language, or PAL. I think this was an earnest attempt to be more kid-centered. The parents-who-raise-the-kid (and only the parents-who-raise-the-kid) are called the parents, the mother and father -- the informing logic being that they are the only parents that the adopted kid will know while growing up. The parents-who-make-the-kid are referred to as the birthparents, the birthmother and the birthfather. The changing of custody from the parents-who-make-the-kid to the parents-who-raise-the-kid is called placement.

Those who are offended by Positive Adoption Language are usually mothers-who-make-the-kids, or strongly aligned with mothers-who-make-the-kids. These folks may be proponents of the jargon called Honest Adoption Language, or HAL. Much of the terminology used in HAL has been brought back from the era before social workers began using PAL. In HAL, the mother-who-makes-the-kid is referred to as the first mother or the natural mother. The term adoptive parents is used for the parents-who-raise-the-kid. Surrender or loss is used to describe the changing of custody.

I tend to use PAL in everyday life, such as:

My birthparents went through Children's Home and Aid Society to place me with my Mom and Dad.

When I am writing about adoption issues or when I am talking with other members of the adoption triad, I may say adoptive parents for the sake of clarity. When it comes to which words are appropriate and why, do I have strong opinions and hot rhetoric to back those opinions up? Sure do. I'm going to keep my spittle from flying and my fist from shaking, though. I am not willing to have a Mexican standoff -- that is the stuff of Quentin Tarantino movies, and I have been using a Coen Brothers metaphor. I'll only say that I prefer the PAL jargon because it is, "you know, for kids!"

All this double terminology for double genealogy is taxing. For a more detailed comparison of PAL and HAL, Wikipedia is actually pretty good -- today anyway. Follow this link at your own risk. Now take your flunky and dangle.

Next time: more hi-jinx and the post that was supposed to be this post.