An Adoptee Reflects on National Adoption Month

There is nothing clean, simple, or perfect about adoption, but it can provide a home for a homeless child and be life changing.

An Adoptee Reflects on National Adoption Month

November is National Adoption Month, and although it’s almost over, it’s been a busy and emotional month for me covering adoption issues. As an adoptee, adoptive mother, and a person who knew her birth parent, I come with a unique and rounded perspective.

National Adoption Month was created to focus attention on adoption and the needs of young people in the foster care system awaiting homes. Adoptees are also using the month to raise awareness of the issues adoptees face themselves – the struggle of connecting, confusion about identify, hidden health issues, adults without citizenship, suicide ideation, or today, the joy of finding a new community. Adoptees are no longer alone.

There is nothing clean, simple, or perfect about adoption even though people would like to present the concept of “child needs parent/parent needs child” as a win/win situation. Adoption is complex, difficult and multifaceted. It can be beautiful, it can bring a homeless child a home and a loving family, but often, the child and the birth mother face loss, grief and lasting emotional trauma. These losses must be recognized and supported. The adoptive parent should not pretend these losses don’t exist and don’t impact the child or their relationship with the child.

I spent the month thinking about birth mothers, the safety of adoptive children, the long-term impact of adoption on relationships.

Birth mothers

I used the month to write an essay about my birth mother, examining the impact that having a child out of wedlock in the 1960s had on her, how it changed her entire life, how hard she worked to get me back into her life, but how that in itself, retraumatized for her.

To write my mother’s story, I had to travel back in time as my birth mother is no longer on this earth to tell her story. Today’s world of birth mothers looks so different from half a century ago that it is hard to imagine what young women endured when pregnant during that time.

I used research and a study of history to take me back to that time. The hardest part to learn about the Baby Scoop Era was how millions of girls were coerced into giving up their children, and told lies like, “Your child will be better off,” “You’ll forget this ever happened,” “You can’t raise a child without a father,” and that another mother could parent and love their child better than they could. Even at the time these young girls were told this, the doctors, social workers, nuns, and other adoption experts knew what they were saying was untrue. Yet there was strong public policy and financial incentive to say that it was.

I remember the common knowledge of the 70s – that adoptive children were more well-adjusted than their counter parts and that birth mothers who gave up their children were more successful and happier than those who kept them. I have a lot of friends who would tell you otherwise. Like the victims of Child Sexual Assault, it can take decades for adoptive children to find their voice. And many mothers of Baby Scoop Era have died with their secrets untold.

In the 80s, birth mothers fought for their civil right to raise their children. The number of U.S. adoptions plummeted. Still, today, the child welfare and adoption industry today is valued at almost $24.7 billion. While about two thirds of this valuation relates to foster care and counseling services, much of the remainder covers adoption services. The billions needed for foster care and counseling services speak of the tragic plight of many children in this country. Hence November’s push to adopt children from foster care. It’s all circular.

But today the toll adoption takes is beginning to be acknowledged and adoptees themselves are building support systems.

The Safety of Children

Early in the month, I was asked to write and read a poem to honor an adoptee murdered by his or her adoptive parents at a virtual vigil on Adoptee Remembrance Day. This was both an honor and a challenge because of the subject matter.

Landon Maloberti, a five-year-old boy who died at the hands of his adoptive parents, will haunt me forever. According to the coroner’s report, he was beaten so badly that his brain was obliterated. Even though he was so little, he had already been through so much. It is said that his previous caregivers had abused him. One of the things that made Landon’s new mother so angry was that he told his birth grandmother that he loved her.

No child should have to live or die like Landon, unable to walk, eat or drink because of the brutal beatings he received at the hands of those who were entrusted to care for a little one who had already endured so much.

There are many things that can be said about the adoption and child welfare industry, but one thing that must be said is that once an adoption is finalized, monitoring of that child’s welfare as a must. A child who is out in the world alone needs an independent guardian ad litem, in the same way a foster child does. In addition, the home needs continuing social service visits to check on the welfare of that child. Whether newborn or older, these children can’t be left alone to fend for themselves in a place of strangers. Many such strangers are loving and well-intentioned. However, an adopted child may bring with them special behaviors related to grief and loss layered on top of the life issues children face every day. These behaviors can put adoptive children at greater risk for abuse. Special care must be taken to protect adoptive children while they navigate this additional trauma – a trauma that is often misunderstood by adoptive parents, but which may manifest itself in hyperactivity, stomach upset, anxiety, depression, an inability to bond. To be honest, Landon’s love of his birth grandmother was not a behavior, but to a jealous new parent, his innocent love was unacceptable.

Adoptees and Relationships

Well, this is just who I am. It colors my very being and informs my lived experience. That does not make me a victim, but it does make me see and perceive things differently. The special thing about my life is that I was married to an adoptee, I have a son who is adopted as well as a niece and nephew who are adopted. We are truly a made family.

The latter part of the month brought a dinner date with that nephew. We had a conversation about dating, relationships, and love, and out of that came another poem sparked by two writing prompts he gave me.

So today, here are the two poems I wrote in honor of National Adoption Month.

I would love to know what you think.

---

For Landon, a Little Boy

Perhaps you would
 	have grown up 
 		to be a – 
Truckdriver
  Country singer
      Michelin starred chef
          Drag queen
               War hero

You hadn’t done much yet
to love anything 
but playing with monster
trucks, singing
and eating pickles

	Had you tried them fried or homemade?
Did you know a gherkin from a dill?

Did you ever know the touch
of a loving mother’s hand?

You were
 		only five

Your pain
 	          	Your abuse
 		            Your bashed-in brain

fells me
			to the core

I see your photo
You look at the camera
out of sideways eyes
uncertain smile that says
 	you are afraid 
 	you don’t trust
I cannot breathe 
	 Knowing you 
 			are not

Precious Landon, seedling
 	hacked down 
 		by hands 
 		that should 
 		have nurtured
 			you

You will live
       	forever
Sheltered in our loving hearts   
  						
Janell Strube, 2023

Poet’s note: Landon Maloberti was tortured and beaten to death in July 2023. His adoptive parents are charged with his murder.

---

A Poem in a Poem For M.

We’d had an intense dinner, discussed 
things aunts and nephews talk about,
things never ventured between moms and sons.
Adopted aunties and nephews are an island
       	together. 

I just want to get rid of the hate, you said.
You could not understand 
how your ex-wife could just leave you
and go on with her life as though you 
 		never existed.

Hate is a poison liquid, I said. You can’t 
untangle it from love. 
It will turn all your love bitter. But you
were at a loss. 

Why don’t you write a poem to your hate?
I asked. My poems are too dark,
you said. Then give me some words, I said. 
You gave me 
 	“to give up” and “to forget.”

Dear Nephew, I wish

Oblivion would steal
into your room, turn
the lights down low
close the drapes
against the dark
put on a gentle 
lullaby, lift you
out of your crib
wrap you in
your fuzzy blue
blanket, ease into
the rocking chair
hold you against
her loving breast 
and there
in her beating
heart against 
your tiny body
you could 
relinquish
the cry for the one
who first held you 
in her belly wrapped 
in her arms rocking 
on a journey between
her hips one thousand 
miles to America

And I wish 

Oblivion’s sweet milk 
would take away 
the pain
of abandonment
and you would know 
that the one 
who gave you up
will never forget 
 	     	you.

			Janell Strube 11/11/2023