When The Monkeys Start Throwing Shit
’m hoping that I can lure my readers/commenters back with tonight’s sordid little tale. I get it. You don’t want to discuss my giant zucchini, serial killer novels or cute YouTube videos. Well today, I’ve got something for you. Zizi is asleep and AdoringHusband is out, so I’m blessed with the peace and quiet to tell this convoluted tale that shall be titled, When The Monkeys Start Throwing Shit, You Don’t Fight With Them. You Just Get The Hell Out The Way.
This story starts way back in the day when I was finding my way through (in)fertility hell and ended up becoming a bit of a message board/web forum junkie. It was cool at the time, connecting to other people who understood what you were going through. Thousands of messages later, you found that you had gone through the fire with some of these women, and they became friends both virtual and IRL.
Yet after becoming a true board veteran, you got a little tired of the umpteenth newbie coming in who could not believe that her doctor suggested IVF when she was only 42. Or the woman upset about the donor egg talk. It was like, yeah, I remember when, but I’m not there right now. So you pulled back from responding to every new person and began just chatting with your peeps and weighing in when something really necessitated it.
Then came adoption. And as those who are on this journey or who have been through it know, things are a little different in adoption world. The boards are different. The issues are different. The lingo is different. And once again, needing people to connect with during the process, I jumped right in.
What I found were web communities both supportive and fractious. Places where all members of the triad intermingled and flare ups were as common as someone asking you to look at their peestick picture on Fertility Friend. Even the most benign topic could degenerate into the most ridiculous arguments: She said that adoptive parents like cheddar cheese! Well I happen to like brie!
After a point even the connections that I had made were not enough to overcome the spikes in my blood pressure that occurred with troubling regularity during these fracases. You see the issue was not that there was disagreement. The issue was that often there was no real listening. The forum “discussion” was not about sharing disparate ideas. It was to show other readers how right the post writer was and defy you to prove otherwise. Ideas and suggestions became more and more Draconian, trampling on the rights and thoughts of others because of their personal beliefs.
I left one board when it was advanced by a genetic righteousness contingent that there should be no anonymous donations of eggs, sperm and embryos despite what this would do to infertile couples everywhere who would have this avenue to parenthood closed to them since the vast majority of donors prefer anonymity. There was a cavalier, “oh well” attitude to those pursuing such ART. But having been in that camp as well, it wasn’t so easy for me to say “oh well” about anyone anywhere. If you decide that all people should know their genetic origins because you feel it is important, isn’t that trampling on the people who don’t believe as you do? And how do you get to be right and they get to be wrong? It was like there was no understanding of ideas and beliefs beyond their own. And moreover my contention that the number of children born from donor ART is infinitesimally small compared to the around 12% of children that are born without any ART who are not actually genetically related to the father listed on the birth certificate (this statistic was given to me by one of my OB colleagues), so I would think that these children’s need to know their accurate genetic parentage would take precedence over the donor ART children. Alas, no one was interested in offending putative fathers by ordering paternity testing on each one to satisfy the genetic police. It was more important to restrict donor ART for those couples who might use it. But I digress.
I left another board when it became clear that members could say all they wanted to about how racist black people were, but if one dared say anything about white racism or white privilege, the moderator moved to ban you. And I left yet another board when I heard the millionth asinine question about whether, as a white parent, one should name his/her black child a black name to honor the child’s heritage. And all the black people would ask, “and what is a black name?” This would then bring on the dance between those of who attribute those class-based crazy-assed (in my opinion, and it is my blog) names like Tequanishema as black names and those who do not believe that names have a color or race.
I got too tired of the crap. So the net of it is that until very recently, I only hung out on one adoption board and that was because of a buddy group that I belonged to. I didn’t even read the general board any more…until I made the mistake of doing so two weeks ago.
The thread title was “Let’s Talk Openness,” and that should have been enough of a clue to stay away. I actually didn’t decide to read the thread until it got to three pages. Even then, I only read page 3 and didn’t go backwards to read any more. But what I read on page 3 was enough…way more than enough.
I can’t write a direct quote because I refuse to open that madness up again, but clearly there had been pages of discussion/argument between the original poster (a person who is working with an agency that requires openness in adoption) and those who are adoptive parents in open adoption relationships with firstparents. To paraphrase what I saw on page 3, the original poster said that those in favor of open adoption could go on and on about how wonderful it is, but the bottom line as far as she is concerned is that birthparents after they sign their surrenders are no different in her mind than are surrogate parents. They have no business in the child’s life and all of us are crazy for continuing relationships with them.
And then my goddamn head exploded.
I then called in AdoringHusband to read what I just read. Then his head exploded.
We both sat there enraged and this selfish, ridiculous woman. Then, though I knew I shouldn’t have done it, I hit the button to create a reply and the fingers began flying. I said that I felt it was reprehensible that she would in any way compare a paid surrogate with a firstparent making an adoption plan. To me it is no wonder that there are so many angry birthmothers in the world if a potential adoptive parent could regard them with so little respect for their decision and action. I strongly suggested that she tell her social worker about this surrogate/birthmother parallel, since I really think she would love to hear her real thoughts on this matter. Lastly I suggested that she find an agency that does closed adoption rather than ending up screwing over a birthfamily later. I posted this firm upbraiding and am happy to say that I never went back to that thread to look at her reply. I said my piece and I refused to get drawn in any further. I mean, come on. How many times does my head have to explode for me to realize that it hurts?!
At this point you are probably wondering where the hell this is going and what this has to do with monkeys and shit. I’m getting there. But as I said, it is kinda convoluted.
So let’s move to last week. My agency has a Yahoogroup listserve that to date has always been for potential and adoptive families from the agency. All of a sudden there is a post sent to the listserve from a birthmother. It is a very heartfelt and moving introduction to her as a birthmother joining our group. Honestly it was a great letter about how much she still misses the daughter she placed and how our happiness does come with the birthmother’s pain. The points were valid and she was welcomed to the listserve by several people. I, however, knew a little more of the back story of this birthmother and knew that she was a bit borderline and had been cyberstalking her daughter’s adoptive mom by joining this group. But again, that didn’t take away from the beauty of her letter.
I decided to excerpt the letter without identifiers and post it on the board where the surrogate/birthparent dialogue was held. By way of introduction, all I said was that I thought this would be a good read for people going through the process of adoption. Until today, the feedback on the letter was positive. Until today.
Today the monkey started throwing shit.
Now there I was sitting at work dealing with my daily drama minding my own business when I got a notification of a posting to the thread. I decide to check it out, not expecting anything because things had died down a bit over the weekend. But there it was, a post from…let’s call her Wanda, a woman I had never interacted with before to my knowledge.
HUH??? You posted this exact letter and post over a year ago.
I happened to read it back then, and just happened to come across this again today.
I believe it was after a very heated discussion of open, semi-open, or closed adoption from a LONG time ago.
Funny you bring this back after all this time.
I remember back then someone here responding that maybe you should not spend so much time on other list groups…because you were really pushing FF members to do open adoptions-for the birthmothers sake.
Looks like you just reposted that same post again. I wish I could remember the screen names who responded back then-but it’s been over a year.
Always remember that some of us have been here a LONG time and do remember things!
Will you be honest and admit that this is a repost from long ago? And while the post does make a point-it is only one of many views.
And then my head exploded again! Why? Because if there is one thing I cannot fucking stand, it’s being called a liar. How in hell could I have re-posted a letter from a year ago when it was just written last week?
I actually tried to explain to her that she was clearly mistaken. I even took a screenshot of the page with the posted letter on the Yahoogroup. But no, she continued to say that I was a liar and need to confess that I a) wrote the letter myself and b) have an agenda that I’m trying to foist on the people in the forum.
By now I’m sending AdoringHusband IMs saying, “there’s a heifer online who’s calling me a liar!” I am totally worked up because of this hatred of being accused of lying thing.
And he’s all, “Remember about the monkeys…”
And I’m like, “What about the damn monkeys?!”
“When you’re at the zoo and the monkeys start throwing shit at you, you don’t go trying to fight or argue with the monkey. You just get out the damn way.”
“Well, can I at least wipe the shit off?”
“Yeah, but no fighting,” he finished.
So I went back and cleaned off the shit:
They taught me in med school that it is pretty useless to argue with people in the grip of a delusion since they are not rational and have no ability to be reasonable or contribute to a logical discussion. Though I know this, I still thought it was worth giving it a shot.
But for those who might believe Wanda’s assertions that I have some open adoption agenda to press here, there is something I want to share. A long time ago, I learned Voltaire’s philosophy of gardez tes onions, or tend to your own affairs. Sure I have had a positive experience with open adoption, and if people want to know about our experience, I’m happy to tell them, but it is not my role or place to presume that open adoption is best for everyone or every situation. And in all honesty, I am just not invested enough in everybody else’s onions to feel like getting into debates/discussions about what’s right or wrong about their choices in their adoptive processes. I don’t have the bandwidth or the interest.
And now I need to get back to work.
Damn those freaking monkeys! I think I’ve been cured of my message board affliction, but good.
I have stopped visiting these infertility boards. There are just so many crazy people out there and some people really seem to enjoy to get into arguments. I don’t understand why as I thought these boards were to support each other in a difficult time. I prefer my blogger community.
I also gave up on the DB’s a long time ago.
Thank god for blogs!
PS The giant zucchini was interesting too!
See, there’s why I don’t generally participate in message boards in general, and IF/adoption boards in particular. It just brings out Teh Crazies. I’ve got enough crazy to deal with out here IRL without bringing in more. You do too…
I would have commented about the giant zucchini, but every time I see other people’s plants, I get depressed over my cherry tomatoes. They’ll be yellow-green until we get our first frost tomorrow (no joke).
Frost already? Would you believe that I got Zara to eat one of my Sweet 100 tomatoes? At first she bit into it and then was going to spit it out. Then she was like, hey, this is good and kept chewing. She then tried to pry the remainder from my fingers.
You crack me up!!! Love this post! Very timely too as there was just a big brouhaha on one of the adoption boards I visit…
It ended with a bunch of people saying, “I’m LEAVING *forever!* And the other contingent posting, “no, I”M leaving!”
LOL!!