Tina’s Story

by JeanWidner | Jul 12, 2022 | Adoptee Stories

My father was black. My biological mother was white. My adoptive family is all white. So, it wasn’t like they could pretend I had been born from them.

My earliest memories of being adopted are my parents talking about it and explaining that they went someplace, and they picked me out and brought me home, and now I was their daughter, and I lived with them. I don’t have any memories before that. And then we adopted my brother when I was about five, and he’s also transracially adopted. So that cemented things for me – you can go get the baby, and the baby doesn’t have to look like you.

It was something other people commented on a lot, as it was 1971. My mom would have to explain, “is she with you?” Or people would be confused because my sister would be with us. My sister’s just 13 months younger than me, and she’s my parent’s biological daughter. So, people would be confused. “Why is this brown girl with all these white people? What’s happening?” My parents would often have to explain this is our daughter too.

My parents had tried to conceive many times. After they adopted me, my mom got pregnant almost immediately. And then they kept trying and trying and trying, and they couldn’t conceive again. That’s why they adopted my brother. They wanted a boy. So, this is one way to ensure we get one, and they just did it that way.

I grew up first in Phoenix, although I’d been born in Michigan. Growing up bi-racially in the 1970s was very awkward. I had some bad situations happen to me when I was younger because my parents, I think, really didn’t understand how the world would view that situation. My parents had on rose-colored glasses. We’ve adopted this baby – things are great. And her life’s going to be great. And she’s not going to experience any of these things because we never experienced these things growing up. We never dealt with discrimination, racial slurs, or stuff like that. We’re white. We didn’t have any of that. And so, they didn’t prepare me for any of that.

I remember vividly the first time I was called the N-word, and I had no idea what it meant. I was only five, but I knew it was something terrible because of the way people reacted. And I had a friend with me, and my friend yelled at the kid. But I remember being frozen and stunned. I didn’t know what to say. And it’s only been in the last maybe ten years that I’ve even been able to tell my parents about that situation.

There weren’t a lot of black kids at my school, and it was kind of weird. You’re an outsider, but not. I don’t know how to explain it. You feel like you want to fit in, but you know that you don’t fit in. You always wonder are they being nice to me because they want to be, or are they making fun of me behind my back? There’s some insecurity there.

Things got a little bit better when my brother joined the family and shared some of the same experiences. Then they were able to see, oh, well, I guess things are different for brown people.

I remember one time we went to Disneyland and ate breakfast at a McDonald’s before we went there, and it was in Compton. It was mostly black people in the restaurant. My parents and my sister were the only white people, and my brother and I, of course, noticed that. My parents didn’t put two and two together, but when we left McDonald’s, I remember my brother saying, “That’s the first time I’ve ever been someplace where it was all black people, and you guys were the ones that were different.”

He was probably six at the time or seven. And my parents were like, Hmm, interesting. Because that was, for us, we were always in white spaces. And even when you try not to feel like you’re standing out, you’re standing out.

I think once he joined the family, my parents were a little more cognizant of these issues, and I felt like I could talk to them a little bit more about them and explain some of the things that I was feeling or struggling with, but I’m not sure that they completely understood. They tried, but I don’t think they completely understood how the world is different for people.

One of the weird things I felt – I was always concerned that if you could get a baby, you could also maybe take a baby back. If something didn’t work out, I needed to be on my best behavior because I didn’t want to be “Return to Sender.” You’re irrational when you’re a kid. I think about all the Disney movies I saw with the orphan kid and the evil stepmother, trying to get the kid out of the picture, and all these things revolve around in your head, and you start thinking, maybe that could happen to me. If I’m not good enough, then they won’t want me anymore.

For the most part, I felt loved like my sister, especially by my dad. I was a daddy’s girl until my brother came along, and he took over—my dad gravitated towards him because of sports and all that stuff. But up until then, I was a daddy’s girl.

My mom and I had a problematic relationship throughout my childhood. I never didn’t feel loved by her, but she was closer to my sister. They’re both middle children. My mom understood the whole having a big sister who kind of outshined you or out does you type of thing. And she was sympathetic towards my sister. So there were things she would allow my sister to do that I couldn’t do or something of that nature that I felt was unfair.

Now, of course, you always have that sibling rivalry. And I think it didn’t help that my sister and I were so close in age that my parents treated us as though we were the same age. So, if I got my ears pierced, then my sister got her ears pierced, and I had to wait until I was 12—stupid things like that.

But I did feel loved. It was hard for me, and it still is, to maybe reciprocate that. I am very guarded about things like that. I don’t like being vulnerable. I love my parents. They know that I love them. I tell them that I love them. I mean it when I say it. But it’s tough for me to get close to people and be able to tell them that. That’s not something I do. People can walk out of your life. They do it all the time, and I don’t want to have that, or I don’t want to be able to react to that.

Then, when I was in junior high, we moved to San Diego in the early ’80s. We kids were excited because you immediately thought of California; we’ll be at Disneyland every weekend or the beach! And that doesn’t happen. But we were excited about moving there.

It was hard, but I am glad we moved there only because it diversified the types of people we were around. California is very multicultural. So that was a benefit. There were more black people at my school. I had actual black teachers sometimes. That made a difference to me, looking back now. While it was hard on our family because we were comfortable in Phoenix, I think the move was good. We needed to go to a new place.

At this time, I started this very rebellious stage of my life. I must have been in seventh grade, I think. Every year they have you fill out these little forms with your name and your sex and your race and your date of birth and stuff like that. Well, you can only check one box for race, and that just irritated the hell out of me. Every year – I don’t want to check one box because I’m not one box.

So, I would be checking multiple boxes, and then they would have a fit. And sure enough, this lady in the office called me up there. She said, “Okay. You have white and black hair. What are you?” I said, “I’m white and black.” She says, “No, you have to be one or the other.” I say, “How’s that? Because I’m not one or the other. I’m both.” And she says, “Well, because this is how we do things here. You have to choose one.” And I said, “Well, I’m not choosing because I’m not just one thing.” And she eventually chose for me. She decided I was black. I was okay with that. But I was annoyed that I couldn’t represent my true self. I had to be one or the other. And I know she picked black because at the time, they got more money or whatever for students of color, and so it helped the school if I was black. Whatever.

So that’s when I decided, you know what? I feel like a black person now. I don’t want to say I don’t identify with white people. I do. They raised me. My mom’s white. My biological mom’s white. But my lived experience has been that of a woman of color, a child of color.

For the next several years, I don’t want to say I was militant, but I was, “I am not going to be pigeonholed. I am not going to be forced into what your perception is of me. You look at me, and I look brown. So, you assume things about me, but you know nothing about my situation, my family, how I was brought up, or anything like that.” I don’t appreciate people trying to decide what I am. I will decide what I am. I started doing a lot of soul-searching on my part, which created a lot of angst in my family. At that point, I wanted to search for my biological family.

And my adoptive family was not cool with that. They thought I was too young. They also felt I was probably not in the right mental mindset to search. I think they were concerned about what would happen if I did find my biological family. Would I want to go live with them? I think there was some concern there. They didn’t know anything about my birth family other than what they had been told. So, they didn’t know, like was my mom stable? She wasn’t. Was my dad still in the picture? He was, but he had his own family. I don’t want to say they sabotaged it. They didn’t do that, but they didn’t encourage me to seek out my birth family. I did everything I could at that age of being a minor.

You could file some paperwork saying if your biological family comes looking, here’s how to contact me. I did all those things you could do, but there was no internet back then, so it was much more limited.

Then I got pregnant at 17, which created a whole other set of problems. I didn’t get pregnant intentionally. But once I realized I was pregnant, almost instantly, I thought, “This will be the first biological relative I will know.” And my family was very much, “You’re putting this child up for adoption, and you’re not keeping it,” and blah, blah, blah. And I said, “Yeah, that’s not happening.” I don’t care if I have to live in a tunnel; I will do that. But I am not giving my child up for adoption.

I stayed in California, and my dad, who had another job opportunity in Nevada, moved there with the rest of the family. But I think almost in the back of my mind, I believed, “This is going to be good, and I’m going to make it work.” My biological mother couldn’t make it work. I’m going to show her that it can be done. I didn’t dislike my birth mother, but at the same time, as a woman – how do you have a baby and then just walk away. I don’t understand. She never communicated with the adoption agency or anything. She never followed up.

I found out later that she did try to make some attempts, but the agency doesn’t tell you that when you inquire because they don’t want problems. I just remember at the time that I was having my son. I was thinking, “This is just super cool. I’m going to be looking at this baby’s face, and it will be a face that’s connected to me.”

Those junior high and high school years were tough in dealing with my adoption. I felt very different from my peers because I only knew a few other adopted people, and most of them were not transracial. So that is just like another added, I don’t want to say it’s a burden, but it’s just an added layer that makes it difficult. I mean, it’s hard enough to be an adopted person and know that you aren’t really part of the family. You are part of the family, but you know in your mind that you’re not related to them biologically, but it’s another layer when you don’t look like anybody either. My junior high and high school years were a mess.

My mom never learned how to do my hair because Black hair is different. And while my hair isn’t wholly Black because it is mixed, she never learned. She never learned how to do my brother’s hair. My brother always had the little afro going on – when it wasn’t cool to have an afro. My mom thought it was great. I’d say, “No, it’s not. It’s not great at all.”

Nowadays, I know that they have more training for trans-racial adoptive parents. You take them to this kind of barber shop, not that kind of barbershop. You braid their hair because their hair is fragile, and it breaks easily. And you wrap it at night or do these kinds of things. When I was young, teaching me or learning about how to care for black hair wasn’t important.

Thank goodness there was a friend of my mom’s finally when I was in junior high, who took me aside and showed me these were the products that I needed to get. She taught me I should be putting this stuff on my hair and not that stuff, and I shouldn’t be washing it every day because it dries it out, and I shouldn’t be just sleeping on it with no wrap around it or anything.

And I was so grateful somebody did something because I didn’t know what to do either. I went to school every day looking awful and feeling even worse. I looked like buckwheat.

My mom never took me to the Black section of the haircare products. These are all things you learn as you go. But my hair was already so broken and damaged and falling out because she tried to treat it like my sister’s white hair. It took years before it was healthy the way black hair should be.

That experience made my son’s life different because I was more conscious of that. I took them to the Black barbershops so that they get the right haircut and don’t get the little poof afro thing going. I made sure that they felt comfortable in the clothes that they were wearing. That represents them better than maybe some little polo shirt and Dockers or whatever. For me, I was more culturally conscious because my parents weren’t.

When you have trans-racial adoptions, there’s just an extra layer of sensitivity that gets lost in the mix. People assume you will assimilate into the group that is adopting you.

What’s funny is my dad has never given that up talking about those years in high school when I rebelled. I’m fifty now, and he still brings it up. He’s like, “I don’t know what happened to you there in high school, but you went sideways.” I say, “Okay. But my son’s thirty-two now, so we can move on.” But he likes to bring it up and always asks, “What made you do that? Or what made you act like this?” And I’ll say, “Dad, I was a teenager who was confused, who was hurt, who was crying out.” Who knows what I was thinking at that age? I mean, you’re a mess. And I was even more of a mess because I was adopted, and even more, because I was checking one box.

The Things You Learn

by JeanWidner | Jun 20, 2022 | Adoptee Stories

The Salvation Army had made two attempts to reach my birth mother. They sent two letters, three months apart, one in April, not long after we had located my mother Barbara, and then another one in July. They, like myself, had also left two voice mails at the phone number we found for her online.

Nothing. No one had received any response. It was time for me to take matters into my own hands. Now in late October, we had waited long enough. To not draw attention, the letters were sent without any tracking – so there was no way to guarantee their delivery, and no way to be sure they hadn’t just been dumped, assuming they were junk mail or solicitations from the Salvation Army itself.

Rolling through my head were the endless unknowns – she was married, her husband also alive and presumably living with her. Had she told him what had happened all those years ago? Is she still of sound mind? She could have dementia. Her husband might be a jerk and she is afraid to tell him. Maybe he opened the letters and hid them from her. She could be dealing with another sick family member or friend and hasn’t been home in several months. Maybe they have a vacation home we didn’t find and they haven’t been at their home in Colorado? The options are endless.

The only public records we have located on my mother after my original birth certificate, was her marriage certificate to Larry C. when she wed him in 1985 when she was thirty-nine. A big gap of twenty years between me and him. But not only that, by then I was a junior in college and marry my husband in 1989. It’s ironic to me that my mother and I were only four years apart on the calendar at the time we each first married.

She gave me up in 1965, and then tragically only two years later is the death of her mother Marie, in 1967. Whatever their relationship was like that had to have been unbearable – first she has the unacknowledged loss of surrendering me. Unable to grieve that in public she would have tried to cope no doubt the best she could. But then to pile on the loss of her own mother seems cosmically cruel.

It’s also one of the reasons that I want to give my mother so much space in this process. While feeling at times now almost desperate for a connection, I know that this is a very big ask. Not only is she likely to revisit the emotional trauma surrounding my relinquishment, close to that must also be her mother’s death.

I had decided to write my own letter. As I spoke to my case manager, Diana at the Salvation Army she says something unexpected. She was reading through my case file and then almost mumbling to herself says, “Oh dear, and I see here it looks like after your mother had signed the papers, there is a letter received from her mother saying she should keep you.” WHAT!?! My heart lurches and I immediately ask what she means by this.

Diana says that Annette, one of her colleagues who for a while was the key handler of my case, and who sent both of the first two letters to my mother, had sent me additional information from the Salvation Army back in April.

Seated in our family room overlooking our sunny backyard I feel completely adrift. I explain to Diana in a shaky voice that no – no other information has come my way. WE found my mother, remember? Provided YOU at the Salvation Army her information and then you reached out to her.

I can hear Diana’s now hesitant voice ask me that she sees a letter sent by Annette to me on April 9^th, but I’ve never received that? “No, no letter has come from you. Was this by email, snail mail – how was it sent?”. “Regular mail”, she says. Now this makes me doubt everything. Were the letters they say they sent, actually sent? Wobbly of mind and spirit I feel deflated by all of this. Even the people who I believe are trying to help me still don’t seem to understand the emotional triggers involved in this process.

My mind awhirl I ask if I can see this information NOW. RIGHT NOW. Sheepishly the case worker agrees she will absolutely send over the letter to me by email. “Give me a few minutes please and I’ll have it to you within the half-hour. I want to be sure what is sent is accurate and complete.”, but of course reminds me that it will not contain any identifying information, most especially about my father, as he is still un-named to us as of now. Without my mother’s permission they cannot release it, and without her returning contact, they and me, are stuck.

It’s a Friday afternoon, now nearly three o’clock. I wander back into my office grateful for the thousandth time in my life of my self-employed, work from home status. I can make appointments for personal calls such as these and control my own daily flow. I wait. Unable to concentrate on anything else I look through the last of my work-related emails, send a few replies, summarize and shut down my current open projects, and nervously await what comes.

Having no expectations or ideas of what I will see or learn I try to just remain calm. I think about the fact that Kyle isn’t home – he’s been away for the past three weeks taking a course in Los Angeles, about two hours away, which means 3-plus hours with traffic from our home-base in Temecula. I’ll have to face what comes with only the two dogs and two cats for comfort.

Sure enough, the letter attached is formally written and correctly addressed to me, dated April 9^th, on Salvation Army letterhead. As I read, I see some of what is known to me, some of which I already also know to be potentially untrue. Pain, relief and a staggering sadness as to my mother’s life circumstances is revealed.

I knew she was the youngest by far of three older siblings and that by the time she was in high school they were all gone and out of the home. I knew her father had died when she was very young (or maybe before she was born…) and that her mother Marie had remarried.

Taken from my mother’s original application in 1965 I read: I can confirm that your birth mother gave birth to you at The Salvation Army Booth Memorial Hospital in Spokane, Washington. Per the record, she had applied for admission on January 20, 1965 and was later admitted to the Maternity Home on March 5^th….

The record indicates her mother [Marie] had remarried five (5) years prior. Her stepfather was a chief of police and she [Barbara] did not get along with him because he had a violent temper. At first, he was not informed of the pregnancy because your birth mother thought he would take his fury out on her mother. She stated he had beat her and her mother at various times.

Regarding your biological father, the record states he was from West Virginia, and was 21 years old. His nationality was Sweden/German, and his religious affiliation was Methodist. He was a high school graduate and was an airman second class stationed in North Dakota. He was an only child and his parents were separated.

Per the record, your birth mother and birth father had met at a dance about two years prior and went together for about a year, but he was a Methodist and your birth mother was a Catholic.  They loved each other very much but could not come to an agreement about religion so they stopped seeing each other. A few months later, they started seeing each other again and your birth mother became pregnant. They wanted to get married, but still felt their religious affiliations were a barrier. Months later, he was transferred to Alaska, yet he continued calling and writing. She hoped he would become a Catholic and marry her. At some point she had said she “would not mind being a Lutheran (which seemed a good compromise between Catholicism and Methodism),” however, her siblings kept telling her that “once a Catholic, one should never be anything else.”

My parents loved each other, wanted to be with each other. I was conceived in love. The relief in that showers over me and through me like salve for my soul. In all these months of staring at her photo I’d worried – what might have happened to you? She had an innocence and brightness to her high school senior photo. In her yearbook beneath each of the senior photos were the students’ favorite sayings – the sorts of things you think are cool way back when, but now strike you for the youthful ego-driven idiocy they are. Next to her photo are these nice looking young boys with the phrases, ‘I sat back and let it happen’, ‘Devil in Disguise’ and ‘Shake a Tail Feather’. Hers says, ‘That’s O.K.’. But was it?

Now I know that in fact she was dating a young man out of high school a few years older than her, by then an Airman at Minot AFB. As a ‘steady’ to an older guy she would have been somewhat above those boys and treated differently by them. My concerns for her on that front alleviated, there were instead new ones.

Her stepfather was violent – and not only that as the local Chief of Police in a small rural town in the 1960’s, he was also untouchable. She and her mother were trapped by that tragic choice Marie had made in marrying a bad man. Had she known before she married him? Was he good at hiding his violent craft as most predators are? It is crystal clear now why Barbara had to be far away to have me – beyond the family shame of her circumstance, it wasn’t safe.

Organized religion kept them apart. To my modern eyes this seems baffling – a Catholic and a Methodist. They are both Christian – really? But reflecting that the time in 1964, these differences mattered. I wonder now if also this becomes a reason for her reluctance to reply to our attempts to contact her. Does she feel foolish for those reasons now – fear that I won’t understand? A religious difference most people would barely register as a conflict – does that make her choices seem more shameful when viewed through this modern lens? I wonder, does she still pray to her God? Believe in Him after all of these losses?

I read on:

Since your mother was living in an apartment, her mother helped pay for rent and food, and your birth father helped pay for medical bills. She began coming to the Booth Home around February to attend pre-natal classes, and it was in one of these visits the doctor discovered she was malnourished and anemic. She admitted she had been living off milk and cereal as she had very little money left for food. She was told she didn’t have to struggle that she could be admitted into the Home for inpatient care. Once admitted, she adjusted well to the group living situation and was assigned kitchen duty. On Sundays she would attend chapel and then go to Catholic services.

Per the record, you were born on April 21, 1965 at 11:30 a.m. You weighed 6 lbs. 13 oz. and were 20 inches long at birth. After your birth, the record indicates she received word from her mother that she had told her stepfather, he had gone into a rage, but had asked that your mother keep you and force your birth father to marry her. After discussion, your birth mother finally agreed to release you because your birth father had stated he could not marry her until their religious differences were resolved and until he could be discharged from the Air Force and had a steady job. You were relinquished to the State Department of Public Assistance on April 30^th and your birth mother went back to North Dakota. 

Malnourished and living on cereal. My heart breaks open and I weep and cannot stop. That poor girl – she was trying so hard to make this work. She was strong, a survivor and just trying to fulfill what she wanted so badly, but the world just kept stacking up against her. The unfairness of it all overwhelms me. She wanted me. She wanted my father. To make a family of us. Finally, without resources, safety, or an able and willing husband to support her she relinquishes me and drags herself back to the only home she has ever known, returning to what awaited her there. I pray she stayed well.

I close my office door and head for the couch. Breaking all our house rules I allow both dogs up on the seat with me and give myself over to the vast sea of emotion.

“I’m Abopted!”

by JeanWidner | Jun 12, 2022 | Adoptee Stories

That’s what I just might have said to you when I was about the age of three or four and just been introduced to you, “Hi, I’m abopted!”. With my smile on my skinny little frame and pixie-cut brown hair I proudly announced what I believed to be a badge of honor. And it was! My new friends if they were fellow children would look somewhat confused, or if an adult, would appear surprised at what at the time was an admission of something kept private rather than a public declaration, because of course we know back in the late 60’s we American’s didn’t talk about – well – anything deeply personal, even within our own families. And we certainly didn’t admit any ‘abnormalities’ like being adopted.

But I didn’t know those norms and didn’t care. My parents raised me with that healthy and loving indoctrination that I was special, was wanted by them, and that being adopted was something to feel good about. I don’t remember being ‘told’ I was adopted, I only remember ‘knowing’ I was. But that’s actually a funny story I’ll get to in a minute. Let me first introduce myself.

My name then was Jean Elizabeth Kelly, and I’m writing this story to share my own and encourage others to do the same. Adoption has many facets and those who are part of this experience share both similarities and differences in their emotional, physical and formative experiences with their adoptive families. The institution of adoption is hardly perfect – there are flaws – because we ourselves are all flawed. But for the most part, I believe in the goodness of its intent, and the practice of adoption when ethically done can be an amazing experience. In no way am I going to gloss over the hard stuff – my family wasn’t perfect (as if there is such a thing, which I think is a fallacy our collective cultural psyche should give up), but I think there is at least the attempt to do right by all of the parties involved: the adopted children, the parents who raise them, and the birth mothers (and fathers) who give them up.

Going back to my story now…apparently there was a day when my mother had me curled in her lap reading to me, and the book mentioned how babies are born and that they come from their mother’s tummies. I was very young here and have no memory of this at all. But apparently when I asked the very natural question of, (you all know what’s coming now…), “Mommy, did I come from your tummy?”, and my mother said in that moment of heartache, “Yes.”.

That night when my father got home from work, my mother completely fell apart in his arms crying and admitting what she had said to me, completely hysterical from the guilt of it. This was the moment my parents sat down and told me that I was in fact adopted. They gave me the full info in a simple way, and the story goes I said ‘OK’ and moved on like nothing of any consequence had occurred. Never mind my mother’s practically having PTSD on the incident, I really wasn’t concerned. After this point apparently my parents spoke often and openly about my status, reinforcing to me how much they loved and wanted me, and that was all I remembered.

I guess the lesson here for all of us is that things brought out into the open are easier to deal with than things left in the dark. Even bad news, while sometimes awful and tragic, is better when shared. Which means talking about it, whatever it is, and is frankly talking, and actually listening, is something our American culture is really not good at.

Sadly, I know of several adoptees whose parents were not open about their status, and that can be devastating when the full truth comes out. Back in 1965 when I was born, adoption was often a secretive thing, and even a source of shame among grown married adults who could not conceive. This was still considered to be deeply personal and at the time, adoption agencies were even matching hair and eye color and other heritage where they could so that the adoption would not be obvious. That seems strange to our modern-era eyes when international adoptions are in fact more common than adoptions between families in the US.

Biases were also strong in our culture at that time for many other reasons. I remember vividly in the early 2000’s an aunt on my husband’s extended family who knew I was adopted, stated clearly she would never consider adopting any child from the US or anywhere else because, “you would never know what you’re going to get.” Mind, I adore this woman and she is incredibly sweet, but this was her view and she was completely unapologetic for it. She was roughly my parents age and in her seventy’s at the time, and I simply stated that I was glad my parents didn’t share her biases. She didn’t apologize or acknowledge her comment in any way, and we moved on. So much indeed, has changed.

I’m a product of the times I was born in and thus do share many physical similarities to my parents, and most people would never know I was not biologically their offspring on a glance. However, I’m so grateful to have been adopted by good people who did their best to love me, teach me, care for me and raise me with a positive identity for who I am and where I came from. I know that others were not so lucky, and you’ll see these stories told as well. However, from my chair, I’m also still proud to be, ‘abopted’.