Why is being called angry so bad adoptees?

Question

I cant figure you out. Is angry a bad word or somethign. You say "adoptees rights! We are mad as h**l" but then when someone says "many adoptees are angry" you all comr UNGLUED! What's up with that? Is it ok to be called angry or not-last i checked angry wasn't a bad word at least not like "buthead" or heyenas. Make up your mind people

Answer 1

Anger is useful. The anger becomes fuel. The anger you can use. And it can be harnessed. Used.

Answer 2

I'm with Phil...& Samone.  There's nothing wrong with being appropriately angry or directing it at a correct (i.e., deserving) target.  Being angry that (as adults) we can't get copies of our own original birth certificates, for example.  

Or, as in my case, I can get a copy...with the written permission of my a. parents.  Doesn't that seem a bit silly? I'm a grandmother, FGS.  Yet I need written permission to get a copy of my birth certificate.  Do you need your parents written permission to get a copy of your birth certificate?  I already know my birth mother's name.  Still....

It's when we're called "angry, bitter, anti-adoption" simply as a means to dismiss our ideas, concerns, thoughts, emotions, experiences.  When we're not actually angry.  When we tell our truth.  When we speak what others don't want to hear.  

When we're called "angry" because we advocate for REFORM in adoption laws & processes. Or because we share the negative side of adoption hoping to bring about positive change & a better understanding of the issues that affect adoptees.  

So, yeah, it's OK to call me an "angry adoptee" when it comes to the laws that deny me access to my own information.  I am a bit peeved about that.  But it's not OK to dismiss me as "just another angry adoptee" because I believe that adoption should be about children FIRST, rather than about the PAP.

I believe that adoption is sadly the better option & sometimes the only option for a child to find loving parents & a home.

And...no...it's not OK to name call...not "anti-adoption trolls", nor "butthead", nor any of the other disrespectful terms people have used.  It doesn't help make a point or bring understanding to this important issue.

Kudos, Sunny!  That's it exactly!

Yes, LaurieDB! "For those who want to make adoption BETTER..."

Answer 3

Nothing is wrong with being angry, and I believe adoptees have a right to be angry.

However when it's tossed off by non-adopted & happy adoptees, the implication is that it's not justified.  We're just whiners, and love to blame our pretend problems on the fact that we're adopted.

Answer 4

I am not adopted, so I cannot speak for adoptees. But this is what bugs me about adoptees being called angry -- and especially about the term "angry adoptees."

It is a stereotype, like "humorless feminists" "drunken Irishman," "dumb blonde," "greedy Jew," "dumb jock." Like the rest of these stereotypes, it is used to lump a whole group of people together based on one aspect of who they are -- and then insult and dismiss them.

And I may have missed it, but I haven't seen anyone react strenuously against someone saying "many adoptees are angry" unless it is followed by by something ridiculous and insulting (and even then I'm not sure I've seen it). As many have said, and as you point out, many adoptees are sometimes angry about various things -- like everybody else.

But when someone talks about "angry adoptees" and their "crappy parents" -- well then it seems reasonable to take offense. After all, offense was actually intended.

Answer 5

When I first began posting on this site, I tried being diplomatic saying that maybe "angry" was too stong a word, that maybe "frustrated" is a better word and I was slammed for that. The respondees assured me that 'ANGRY" was the right word for what they were feeling.  Insults continue to fly daily at APs and PAPs because we are somehow thought to be the cause of much of that anger.  Adoptees don't hold the corner market on getting insulted on this forum.  The water is very muddied in this forum by misdirected anger.  Mad at the system, mad at YOUR adoptive parents, Mad at your bological parents, Mad that you can't get your birth information,  Mad that other adoptees aren't mad, too.  Even strangers to this forum comment on the negativity, anger, and insults that fly on this site.  To modify a phrase from Forest Gump:  Angry is as Angry does.

So, some adoptees say they are angry and some don't.  So when you read those statements, if the shoe fits, wear it. If it doesn't, then take it off.  It was not meant for you.

Answer 6

Do I answer to angry?  Yes I do.  Many times though it is done disrespectfully in this forum. We are ragged on for being angry.  I have recently spoken with an adoption agency, not to adopt but to see the other side of things.  I don't blast adoptive parents for adopting.  All I ask is that it is ethical.  Adoptive parents need to research in order to understand ethics in adoption.  A woman should not coerced into relinquishing her child. We as a group need to put into place methods and best practice to ensure this.  This agency told me point blank that they will  ultimately have to answer to the adoptees that they place.  The agency told me of two stories where there is negatively on their side.  One adoptive father got mad because they yanked his adoption application because he didn't follow through on his side of the paperwork.  They stopped the adoption.  I don't know if this agency is all that.  I am still discovering it and researching it.  I am still in the "its too good to be true phase."  Soon their adoptees will be old enough to come to them and ask questions.  I hope to see that side of things.  

As an adoptee though I can't stop at adoptee access laws.  I wouldn't be doing justice to my own adoptive parents nor my own natural parents if I didn't change things.  I would not being doing right for the adoptees that come after me.

All I ask is that you read.  Ask us good questions. Don't ask us to be grateful for our lives courtesy of our adoptive parents because the adoptive parents who do get it on this forum will become just as unglued as we are.  Don't ask us to be grateful that we weren't aborted.  For some of us, it wasn't an issue and it doesn't correlated to adoption.  I am 65 model adoptee.  Abortion wasn't even a choice for my natural mother.  She may have wished it but it doesn't affect me now.  I am grown.  If I had been aborted, I would have been with God to be sent down to be with another set of parents capable of caring for me.  Abortion isn't the issue in this.  Most natural mothers who VOLUNTARILY place are very capable of raising their own children.   They would not have abused their children. That is another one that is thrown at us too.  How do you know that any of us would have been abused?  We don't know because we didn't go that trip.  I don't like to look at what ifs.  Its a waste of time.  I would rather make things right NOW.

Answer 7

It's not bad.  But when people such as yourself come around asking assinine questions like "Does being adopted interfere with your golf game?" and basically make fun of our experience, THAT'S when it becomes a bad thing.

Why do you insist on making fun of someone else's pain?  Does it make you feel better about yourself?  Perhaps you lost you crutch...here...let me help you find it.

Answer 8

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being angry about laws that treat people unequally or practices that attempt to bypass peoples' rights.  This is the type of anger that fueled various movements, such as the suffragette movement.  Despite opposition from groups of men and even groups of women who did not want women to have the vote, they forged ahead and won the right to vote for all women.  It doesn't matter if not all of the women who now had this right chose to use it.  What mattered is that all women were now treated equally under the law to men with regard to voting.

That said, comments about adopted persons who properly direct anger are what I find offensive.  These comments can be found in the form of various statements that assume that we must have been "adopted by crappy people" (direct quote from an asker two days ago,) must have "had a bad adoption experience, hate all AP's/PAP's, hate our first parents, hate other adoptees, have miserable lives or are "in the pursuit of misery (another direct quote from an answerer 2 days ago,) are anti-adoption, are "trolls," are consumed with nothing but adoption, allow adoption to "interfere with our [lives]," ad nauseaum.  These types of comments dismiss adopted persons who want to make adoption better and completely turn a blind eye to that which we are really saying.

My mind has always been made up about this.

eta:

Oh, Noodles, you'll just never get it, will you?  Displaced anger?  Hardly.  Anytime a person wants to be treated equally under the law, states this is what they want and that they are angry about it,  there's no displacement going on.  I suppose the suffragettes were "displacing their anger, too."  

You have a hard time separating issues, but not much trouble angrily name calling.

Answer 9

I don't think being angry is a bad word or a bad thing. It's a feeling, something that everyone is entitled to.

I had a bad adoption. However I choose to direct my anger directly at the people who caused it, my adoptive parents. Not at adoptive parents in general.

I find directing the blame where the blame lies is the most effective way of dealing with it. By blaming adoptive parents as a whole for my bad experience would be not any better than blaming a particular race or religion because of harm caused by one person.

When it comes to name calling, thats going well beyond what the asker is asking for. It's childish and serves no effective purpose.

Answer 10

I call myself angry often, go ahead and call me angry, I could care less. I am angry at adoption agency workers and agencies in particular. Not to mention the rest of the invested industry.

This person has made up her mind. And I even sign my siggy with angrate. Which means: Angry and ungrateful.

Answer 11

I'm not a adoptee and I'm not in the best of moods. Adoption agencies have more rights than the parents and funny thing is everyone says if you don't like it change the laws. Well good luck guess who backs the senators and governors you got it the adoption agencies.

  A while back some one wrote that laws has changed in Texas. I didn't think so because my son has been fighting a Big adoption agency in Texas for over 2 years. Now I see where you as a father don't really need to be informed. I guess the adoption agencies here started getting scared that there were going to be more lawsuits filed.

  What in the world is adoptions coming to. Laws need to change but until these Judges, senators and government officers  stop taking money we are all out. Mostly the child.

Answer 12

I think it depends on the context the word is used in.  

Now... Why would you blame your adoptive parents?   They adopted you.  Kept you out of the state foster system.  Why is that a bad thing?

I realize there are bad adoptive parents, but there are good ones too.  Why do you denigrate them JUST because they want to give a child a home?

Why insist that ALL a-parents are deserving of anger simply because your b-mother made a choice that put you in their home?

Answer 13

I think there is nothing wrong with being angry, but those who are namecalling those of us PAP's I think are crossing the line.  

Keep in mind forums lend themselves to extreme views on all topics.

Answer 14

it just is maybe it isn't any of your buisness