How to be a Normal Family

By Liz Latty

1.
a small girl wriggles around on the couch under a blanket
rubs the soft corner against her cheek.
the doctor enters the room, closes the door. he tells the mother to lay on top of the small girl. when the small girl screams, her sound is muffled by the weight of the mother’s love.
the mother grunts. i love you so much. don’t you want to love me too?

2.
This results in a lack of ability to attach or to be genuinely affectionate to others.
According to The Center’s treatment protocol, if the child ‘shuts down’ (i.e., refuses to comply), he or she may be threatened with detainment for the day at the clinic or forced placement in a temporary foster home; this is explained to the child as a consequence of not choosing to be a ‘family boy or girl.’

3.
Dad: Do you think that maybe you’re gay because your birth mother couldn’t care for you?
Me: Huh?
Mom: Yes, well I’ve read about this sort of thing as a symptom of Attachment Disorder.
Me: Are you fucking kidding me?
Dad: Well we’re just saying, maybe if you would have been able to breastfeed and bond with her then you wouldn’t…well, you know.
Me: Like pussy?
Mom: Elizabeth!
Dad: Chase girls around.

4.
deep tissue massage, aversive tickling, punishments related to food and water intake, enforced eye contact, requiring children to submit totally to adult control over all their needs, barring normal social relationships outside the primary caretaker, encouraging children to regress to infant status, reparenting, attachment parenting, or techniques designed to provoke cathartic emotional discharge

5.
My therapist has no fucking idea what she’s doing, but I don’t have anyone else so I let her do things. She says she is going to “re-parent” me. I let her cradle my adult body in her thick arms, like a baby against her breast. She smells of lavender and her skin feels mealy on my cheek. I tell her it hurts, but she encourages me to stay with it, stay with her. She coos and talks to me in a baby voice, tells me how much she loves me. I try to remember my mother, pretend to cry. After a few sessions of this she just stops, never suggests it again.

6.
the following sequence of events is described: (1) therapist ‘forces control’ by holding (which produces child ‘rage’); (2) rage leads to child ‘capitulation’ to the therapist, as indicated by the child breaking down emotionally (‘sobbing’); (3) the therapist takes advantage of the child’s capitulation by showing nurturance and warmth; (4) this new trust allows the child to accept ‘control’ by the therapist and eventually the parent

7.
Andrea Swenson, Age 13
Lucas Ciambrone, Age 10
David Polreis, Age 2
Krystal Tibbets, Age 3
Candace Newmaker, Age 10
Logan Marr, Age 5
Cassandra Killpatrick, Age 4

8.
You are so special. You were chosen.
It is perfect, you are perfect and we want you to always know this.
There is an ache you would not understand, dull and insecure.
Can’t you just be grateful you weren’t thrown in a dumpster?
No, my real parents.
You’re such a pretty girl, yes you are! Who’s mama’s pretty girl?!

——-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_therapy

Shit People Say to Adoptees

Wow, your adopted parents must be SO AMAZING!

So what happened to your real parents?

OMG, you and your brother could like totally date since you’re not really related!

You must be really against abortion then, huh?

What was wrong with your real mom?

Did you see Sandra Bullock’s new kid!!?? squeeee!! he’s SO adorable!

Oh, wow, adoption is so beautiful – I love adopted people!

I totally want to adopt some day. I just don’t see the point in having your own kid when there are so many out there I could have.

oh wow, you are SO lucky!!

Yeah, I would totally adopt some day, but like only a baby, not one of those special needs or foster kids – i know this is fucked up, but they’re just so, you know…damaged.

so, do you know your real family?

Ugh, I SO wish i was adopted. My family is so fucking annoying. It’d just be nice to know i didn’t actually come from them.

Wow, you’re like, really angry.

I mean, at least you weren’t thrown in a dumpster.

Oh, you must be so grateful!

Isn’t it great that your parents wanted you SO much?? Oh, sorry, i mean your adopted parents.

You are so special!!

It’s so weird, but you almost actually look like your parents.

You must really love your birthmom for being so selfless and courageous.

I think it’s so great how celebrities these days are adopting all these unwanted kids, don’t you? I really admire them.

Oh…I’m sorry.

So, wait, I’m confused. Your step-parents? Wait, no your real parents? I mean your adopted parents. Wait, fuck. Ok, who are you talking about?

So was she like on drugs and stuff?

Oh really? My __________ is adopted. She’s so well adjusted. Not like you, I mean, sorry, I just mean she’s not all sad and angry and stuff. She really loves her parents.

Oh really? My _________ adopted a kid. He is SOOOOOOO cute and cuddly. They got him after that big disaster in ____________. Thank god they saved him!

But don’t you think you’re totally better off?

I always wished I was adopted.

Your parents are so nice though! You really shouldn’t be sad. If I were you, I’d be so grateful just to have a home.

OMG, you are SO fascinating – your life is just like an Oprah episode!

I know, I totally get it. I always felt like I didn’t belong in my family either.

So do you think you’ll adopt some day?

shit people say to transracially adopted girls

so… what happened to your real parents?

so you’re like, practically an orphan

were you like one of those african babies with flies on your face?

you must be prolife

who’s that white guy you’re always with?

so is he like your step-father or your father father?

wait, was your real father even in the picture when you were born?

was your real mom on drugs?

I just don’t think I could ever give up my baby

you must feel so grateful your didn’t grow up in the ghetto

wait, if  I come over, are there gonna be white people at your house?

so… your family is kinda like the Obamas

wait, if I come over are there gonna be black people at your house?

wow, your family sounds so…interesting

I wish I had two moms

you must get sad sometimes

is that your real name, like from your real mom

i’m confused, did you even know your real parents?

were you like in an orphanage for awhile?

you’re so lucky your mom didn’t have an abortion

are you in love with Brangelina’s family or what!

your family is just like a rainbow, so cute!

so did they like, find you in a dumpster?

I wish I had a black sister

you talk just like a white girl

you’re like the whitest black girl I know

how cute is Sandra Bullock’s son?

so like, do you ever think about finding your real mom?

you should go on Oprah and ask her to help, I’d watch that episode

do you even know your real mom’s name, wait aren’t you named after her?

don’t worry, when I met you I couldn’t even tell you were adopted

your family sounds so …lively

do you like LOVE that you’re family is so unique?

do you  just feel so lucky sometimes, I mean who knows where you could have ended up

I think I want to adopt, you know there are just so many unwanted children out there

i’ll probably adopt a baby of every race, to be fair you know

i really like that you’re not like, stereotypically black

are you afraid of people leaving you?

you’re like, not that fucked up for an adopted kid

in this story

i am also                      the one who leaves

the baby who rolled away

down a long hospital hallway

never to return

 

i did it

just like the women

before me

 

first mama       giving into the emptiness

of her unwilling womb

leaving small parts of herself

buried in the earth like treasure

 

then mother     enduring my kicks in secret

nine months of punishment from the baby

she did not want to keep as her own

 

and me             a woman now

living all the way across the country

kicking lovers out of my bed

refusing to return to anyone

 

a disappearing act         the finale

 

even when i am wanted

i don’t know how to belong

 —

By Mariama Lockington

The Lucky Daughter

by Mariama Lockington

 

this baby will be yours

the adoption paper read

finally, a daughter to call her own

mama cried with relief

cracked her swollen toes

the dead baby

the one before me

hovering over her head

a bundle of bloody moss

—

for the first three months

they were afraid to put me down

coddled like henry viii’s only heir

i slept on a throne

made of my parent’s pale flesh

shit in cloth diapers

rode around town

in a sheep-skin lined buggy

—

what if he had stayed

my birth father

gotten down on one knee

asked my mother to marry him

what if there had been

a square cut diamond

a house just outside atlanta

with a porch swing

i think about that house

a red brick, two bedroom

with sunflowers in the kitchen

what if i had grown up there

a southern girl

a georgia peach

—

then there is the woman

who comes up to me

after a reading and says

you must be so grateful

your mother decided not to have an abortion

and even though i believe

in a woman’s right to choose

i start to think about what if

i had been an empty inside of a woman

what if i had been her hunger

the ache that would keep her up at night

—

and then i think about

musclebonefluidchance

what if his sperm had missed her egg

i go back further and further

until i am entangled

in all the wonderings

no emergency exit

no one to say

stop baby, it ain’t worth it

so i think about holes

what’s broken what’s undone

i think about trees

about limbs

what if there were no mothers

no women

what if i had been born a planet

with hips of gas and rock

what if i inherited the dark orbit

of galaxy with no name

—

of course there is always the dead baby

the one before me

cradled in mama’s arms

she alone brings me back

how she would have had my name

but a different complexion

how mama would have thrown her

gypsy birthday parties every year

taken photos of her

watering eggplants in the garden

how she would have tried to fight off

the spell of mama’s violin

lulling her to sleep each night

how they would have loved her

with the love that was then leftover for me

how to be grateful for a story

that began with everyone

losing

someone they loved

“Adoption Loss is the only trauma in the world where the victims are expected by the whole of society to be grateful” – The Reverend Keith C. Griffith, MBE

Gestation

By Liz Latty

an excerpt from Mirror Box, a book in progress

The birthplace. But before that. The uncomplicated life. And then the months we had together. You talked to me, told me stories. You ignored me, wore baggy clothes to school. I talked back: proteins and enzymes. Were you ever happy with me? When you dreamed of our life together, were you happy?

This is only my dream: You are seventeen, we are growing. Together, we go to band practice after school. You play the sax and I can hear its vibrations, its cool tone, resting there on your belly. I guess it must have wore off. I’m playing piano by the age of three and I have this ear. I can just play everything by ear. That’s you, but I don’t know it. The only thing I know is that you’re gone.

You cry a lot when we are alone together. We are thirsty – dehydrated and deserted land – wanting. We want to stay together, but we’re not allowed.

Your father, my grandfather, has decided.

This is not our body.
This is not your body.
This is not even a body.

So instead you will get to keep the memory of me and the shame of a body. You will bury it somewhere deep and dark – your cervix, the recesses of your mind, or a shoebox out in the backyard by the banks of a great river. A river that divides nations and could carry you away.

This is a river.
This is a borderland.
This is a forgotten legacy.

The first time I visited your parents’ house, your father couldn’t look at me. He held shame in his eyes and shook my hand like a business associate, but then changed his mind and hugged me like an awkward teenager unsure of his own body or mine.

I didn’t know it then: his choice or decision, his secret. I didn’t know he was the one that made you give me away, that his family never forgave him.

Grandfather: How can I write this in a way that’s not sentimental?
How about: You’re a piece of shit.
How about: You made a girl into a monster, a hateful woman body with a scarred and hollow womb where there used to be anticipation and mystery: a fairytale.

Once upon a time, long before time ever even began, there was a girl.

The first time I visited your parents’ house, your father took me out behind the house. He walked me down a small hill to the banks of the Detroit River, an arm around my shoulder. I felt like a son. There we staged a dress rehearsal for a real thing: grandfather and grandchild share a moment, a history passed down through generations that will eventually make future generations and continuing the passing.

He told me how the River – this River I’d known my whole life, this River that separated us from another country that didn’t ever feel like another country, but just a place to go on the weekends, this River whose legs reached for miles and miles and ran from this very house I began in, all the way past the very house I actually grew up in, and how before it had grown toxic from the oil and smoke and blood that poured out of the factories that built this city and then destroyed it, before it became a River that killed men who accidentally fell in and swallowed a mouthful or maybe just touched their lips to it, before I fished toxic fish from its belly and ran along its shore to find my brother covered in bees screaming for his life, and even before I snuck out my window late into the night to meet boys where wooden bridges crossed its surging putrid lifeforce and held us while we dangled feet and smoked cigarettes and touched limbs, before this – it had always been a great River.

Its name means The River of the Strait, he said. Because it connects these great bodies of water, he said. And it has carried settlers and fur traders and car bodies and rum-runners and drug smugglers and immigrants for centuries through this land, this stolen land, this ravaged land that now we live on, here next to this yacht club.

Your father told me all this and I felt like a boy child as the riverbank mushed beneath our boots. Then we went inside and when we couldn’t find you, I became your daughter again, searching. A legacy I can never escape.

This secret is yours to keep.
This secret is mine to wear.
This secret is a worn and tattered curtain.
This secret, my name.

—–
Liz is one of the co-founders of BYLM, read more from her @ http://lizlatty.com