I've been tight lipped about a lot of changes that have been going on in my life of late. One reason is that I needed the chance to tell all the people in my life about what is going on in person. It's rather rude for family members to learn about momentous changes in one's life through a blog entry. The second reason is that it is more comfortable to talk about abstract concepts than the difficult, sometimes brutal, circumstances faced in daily life. Finally, I really hate complaining about my life. I feel it makes me sound whiny and potentially self centered. After all, how bad do I really have it? I have food to eat. That counts as victory.
The truth of the matter is my life has been quite stressful lately and there's a reason I don't like talking about it here. I've fallen prey to self censorship. I don't want to talk about my life stress. It is uncomfortable to face and to admit to others. The real bear of it is the sense I must represent all birthfathers. I must be successful to prove that birthfathers can be successful. I should be emotionally/relationally well balanced to show that birthfathers can be so.
Related to those misplaced feelings of responsibility is my embarrassment. You see, Prof Plum and Ms Scarlet poke through the blog from time to time. I've been doing my best to put on the brave face around them. I really don't want them to think I'm some sort of unstable screw up. Their opinions matter to me, and our relationship is important to me. I have been keeping things under wraps with the classic "things are a little tough but we're okay" explanations. We will be okay, but that isn't why I'm brushing aside others' concern for Athena and me. I don't want to need others' support, and I particularly don't want to lean on Ms Scarlet and Prof Plum for support. I wish I could tell you why. I honestly don't know. Though I do have a couple theories.
I've encountered people who have felt the birth family of their child took advantage of the open adoption relationship. In a very concrete and obvious manner most adoptive families have more resources available than first families do. That holds true in our situation as well. I don't want there to be any question in anyone's mind about our relationship being built on respect. I loath the idea of that respect being tarnished by a one sided need for support. Said out loud this idea sounds a little ridiculous. After all a relationship based on respect doesn't require that everyone be an island with no needs nor expectations. But that doesn't change the traction this idea has in my head.
There's a lot of pressure as an involved birth parent to live a spotless life after the placement of your child. A desire to prove worthy of a relationship with your kid takes hold and is very difficult to shake. It's as though I must prove that I would be a fit parent to my son and be able to provide the stable and respectable life that would make an adoption entirely unnecessary. This pressure is mostly self imposed, but there are some practical realities that reinforce the message.
Since open adoption agreements aren't legally enforceable (anywhere, to the best of my knowledge) the first family has to be sound enough to ensure further contact with the adoptive family. In short, if I'm too needy, my life too unstable, or my presence vicariously too stressful, the relationship can end with no notice. If the difficulties of my daily life are too unpleasant to think about, I may never see my son again. Again this sounds ridiculous when said aloud, especially in the context of my relationship with Festus' parents. But I can't shake the idea, in part because I know it has happened. I've had contact with several first parents who have been denied relationships with their children. The apparent cause was the convenience of the adoptive family. I wasn't there personally. I don't know the totality of those experience and relationships. But in the murky world of private adoption I would be surprised if birth parents weren't pushed aside because their lives made the adoptive family uncomfortable.
It is with all this weighing on my mind that I tell people "I'll be okay". But I am not okay right now. I quit my job at the university because I could no longer keep up physically, and I was tired of my boss throwing me under the bus every chance he got. Bald faced lies at my last performance review were the writing on the wall for me. I don't like day dreaming about meeting people in parking lots with framing hammers, and that's exactly what that job did to me. My "rocky-but-sustainable" transition from that job to freelance work and diversified income has been a rude awakening. With a gross income for the month of September of $0, I must also leave my apartment. Athena and I will not be able to live together for a while. I feel as though I've been free falling for a few months. Watching my savings disappear, closing bank accounts, I've tried selling some possessions to buy groceries. I'll be moving into my parent's home, but I don't know if I can afford the rent they will charge me either. Any rent is steep without a job. But I keep telling people I'll be okay. If I say it enough maybe I will be. It's more a prayer than something I believe.
So there you have it. Prof Plum, Ms Scarlet, I'm sorry I haven't been more honest with you. It's just been a tough couple of months.
Showing posts with label Work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Work. Show all posts
Friday, October 5, 2012
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Silence in the Absence of Conflict
I've been ignoring life in Blog-land for some time as other concerns have taken priority. Those concerns, not surprising to anyone, are my finances. This is bitter-sweet news because it points directly to something very important.
Life as a birth father has become normal life.
Or perhaps I should say this; life after the adoption of a child can feel just as normal as life before the adoption of a child.
In recent months I've been focusing a lot of attention to getting my financial affairs in order, developing plans for some cottage industry style enterprises, strengthening my relationships with my family, and continuing to support Athena as she prepares to re-enter school in yet another step toward her eventual career goals. Athena and I have continued to visit Festus, Prof Plum, and Ms Scarlet. All of those relationships continue to grow. The funny part is that I haven't been thinking about those relationships as much recently as I had the year previous. That's actually very important as it indicates that I'm not working as hard to have those relationships feel successful. At this point they typically feel successful without much effort. It seems stress doesn't enter that sphere unless there are other complicating factors. There have, in fact, been complicating factors but they were handled with compassion, open communication, a bit of mutual confusion, and in the end worked out smoothly. It's really nice to feel like my friendships with Ms Scarlet and Prof Plum are a source of stress relief.
There have been several visits with them that I haven't related here. That has a lot to do with going nuts at work. More than that, however, is a loss of urgency in those visits, conversations, and connections. After more than a year it feels like the foundation for real relationships have been laid and we now get to enjoy some of that hard work. As life continues there also continue to be new complications. I've come to the conclusion that if one waits for life to "calm down" before considering it normal s/he will be waiting until death. That said, I think we've hit as close to "normal" as we're going to get. It feels good. It feels like we've found the light at the end of the tunnel and it wasn't a train after all. All four of us were putting a lot of faith in that faint glimmer. The days when I forget how hard it had been are the days I feel like I'm holding a winning lottery ticket.
It's tempting to say that I've found a good life after adoption but that isn't accurate at all. The growth I had to do getting into adoption in the first place is largely responsible for where I am now. I have found a good life in adoption.
Life as a birth father has become normal life.
Or perhaps I should say this; life after the adoption of a child can feel just as normal as life before the adoption of a child.
In recent months I've been focusing a lot of attention to getting my financial affairs in order, developing plans for some cottage industry style enterprises, strengthening my relationships with my family, and continuing to support Athena as she prepares to re-enter school in yet another step toward her eventual career goals. Athena and I have continued to visit Festus, Prof Plum, and Ms Scarlet. All of those relationships continue to grow. The funny part is that I haven't been thinking about those relationships as much recently as I had the year previous. That's actually very important as it indicates that I'm not working as hard to have those relationships feel successful. At this point they typically feel successful without much effort. It seems stress doesn't enter that sphere unless there are other complicating factors. There have, in fact, been complicating factors but they were handled with compassion, open communication, a bit of mutual confusion, and in the end worked out smoothly. It's really nice to feel like my friendships with Ms Scarlet and Prof Plum are a source of stress relief.
There have been several visits with them that I haven't related here. That has a lot to do with going nuts at work. More than that, however, is a loss of urgency in those visits, conversations, and connections. After more than a year it feels like the foundation for real relationships have been laid and we now get to enjoy some of that hard work. As life continues there also continue to be new complications. I've come to the conclusion that if one waits for life to "calm down" before considering it normal s/he will be waiting until death. That said, I think we've hit as close to "normal" as we're going to get. It feels good. It feels like we've found the light at the end of the tunnel and it wasn't a train after all. All four of us were putting a lot of faith in that faint glimmer. The days when I forget how hard it had been are the days I feel like I'm holding a winning lottery ticket.
It's tempting to say that I've found a good life after adoption but that isn't accurate at all. The growth I had to do getting into adoption in the first place is largely responsible for where I am now. I have found a good life in adoption.
Friday, June 11, 2010
The Boss
I had been avoiding it for at least a week, but time was running out. I waited for the screaming of the sawblade to stop before knocking on the door. "Do you have a minute?" I asked my boss as I stepped into his office. I shut the door behind me.
My coworker "M" was working with one of the workstudy kids and the painters were knocking around their shop. I had told M of Athena's pregnancy just a couple weeks after I got the news myself. No one else at work knew. It had been a secret held firmly under wraps for four months. It was imperative that the paint crew not find out! The lead painter's boundaries were so bad I could easily see her throwing me a department-wide party and subsequently begging me daily for custody of my unborn child. Fortunately my boss wasn't that kind of guy. He started out low on the totem pole in the union long before getting to an administrative position. He knew life in the trenches, respected our privacy, and cut us slack when it was needed. All in all, a really good guy to work for.
I only had a couple weeks of work left before my contract ended and I was on seasonal leave. I had to get the red tape out of the way so Athena and I could solidify the birthing plans. "Do you know the university's policy on paternity leave?" I asked. My boss' immediate response surprised me: high-five and "Congratulations." He waxed on for the next few minutes about how "it doesn't really change anything" and "it's a great ride." When there was finally a break in his train of thought long enough I reasserted my question. "Well, really though, do you know what the university's stance is?" He told me he'd look into it and get back to me as soon as he knew.
Fast forward five months. I've been back at work for two weeks and my boss still hasn't gotten any information to me. I've asked him two or three times. Finally he tells me to go see his boss about it. She is very conscientious in her word choices, only referencing my "family situation," not a pregnancy, and certainly not an adoption. She tells me that the university will allow me to use my sick leave to take care of Athena, but since the baby will be taken care of by someone else I don't qualify for paternity leave. She said she was keeping this under wraps and the higher ups didn't need to know everything about it. Apparently letting me use my sick leave was stretching the rules enough as it stood. Later that week Athena gives me the call.
I told my boss and supervisor that I'd take about a week off to make sure Athena was okay. The birthing plan we'd made had her delivering at a midwife run birthing center near her parents' house. That was a little better than an hour away from our apartment. Needless to say I was nervous. Fortunately when the call came Athena was already at her parents' house for a visit. The recovery period was difficult, but I'll get to that later.
When I returned to work "M" pulled me aside first thing in the morning. "I need to tell you about something that happened while you were away," he said. Alarms of all shapes and sizes were going off in my head. "M" tells me the story of how my boss took the news that Athena was in labor. You see, shortly before Athena gave birth my boss asked me what he should tell people when I suddenly have to leave for a week. "Tell them the truth," I said "if someone asks tell them what happened. I'm not trying to lie to anyone, but I don't want to put it on a billboard either." It seems my boss and I understood that conversation differently. As soon as he got my message (Athena went into labor around 8:30pm so I left a message on the answering machine at the shop) he immediately drove up to the other side of campus where all the other department heads were and announced "'I-am' won't be in for a while. Athena is having a baby, and they're putting it up for adoption." The responses varied from the lead painter's "oh my God what do we do?! Should we throw baby shower? Should we have cake? I don't know what to do with something like this! Why didn't anyone tell me?!" to the props guy's "It's none of our damn business and it was extremely inappropriate of you to say that! If you ask me, we don't talk about. It's his business and if he wanted us to know he'd have told us."
Awkward silences were by and large the rule upon my return. No one talked to me about the pregnancy or birth. What little small talk did happen lasted less than a minute. Glances became furtive. It felt like I was a walking bomb. After a week my boss' superior came to talk to me. She said that she didn't know if it was appropriate for her to say anything or not, but she wanted me to know that a woman in the department was an adoptive parent. She suggested that if I wanted the perspective of "the other side of the equation" I could talk to her about it. "I know it can be haunting" she added before leaving.
Since then I've been able to crack the wall of silence little by little. Talking about Festus has become like a secret handshake. When I can talk about Festus and the pregnancy the other person knows I count them as a friend. If I don't talk about him they aren't. It's taken work. Piece by piece I've been taking down the wall and letting people relax about it. The adoption isn't taboo if you're invited to talk about it. It's part of my normal daily life now. Anyone who gets to be part of that normal life is invited into the whole of it. My colleagues don't need to know how my visit last week went, but my friends are dying to know! That wasn't true seven months ago, when Festus was just two months old.
It's a lot of work to demystify an adoption but it's worth it.
My coworker "M" was working with one of the workstudy kids and the painters were knocking around their shop. I had told M of Athena's pregnancy just a couple weeks after I got the news myself. No one else at work knew. It had been a secret held firmly under wraps for four months. It was imperative that the paint crew not find out! The lead painter's boundaries were so bad I could easily see her throwing me a department-wide party and subsequently begging me daily for custody of my unborn child. Fortunately my boss wasn't that kind of guy. He started out low on the totem pole in the union long before getting to an administrative position. He knew life in the trenches, respected our privacy, and cut us slack when it was needed. All in all, a really good guy to work for.
I only had a couple weeks of work left before my contract ended and I was on seasonal leave. I had to get the red tape out of the way so Athena and I could solidify the birthing plans. "Do you know the university's policy on paternity leave?" I asked. My boss' immediate response surprised me: high-five and "Congratulations." He waxed on for the next few minutes about how "it doesn't really change anything" and "it's a great ride." When there was finally a break in his train of thought long enough I reasserted my question. "Well, really though, do you know what the university's stance is?" He told me he'd look into it and get back to me as soon as he knew.
Fast forward five months. I've been back at work for two weeks and my boss still hasn't gotten any information to me. I've asked him two or three times. Finally he tells me to go see his boss about it. She is very conscientious in her word choices, only referencing my "family situation," not a pregnancy, and certainly not an adoption. She tells me that the university will allow me to use my sick leave to take care of Athena, but since the baby will be taken care of by someone else I don't qualify for paternity leave. She said she was keeping this under wraps and the higher ups didn't need to know everything about it. Apparently letting me use my sick leave was stretching the rules enough as it stood. Later that week Athena gives me the call.
I told my boss and supervisor that I'd take about a week off to make sure Athena was okay. The birthing plan we'd made had her delivering at a midwife run birthing center near her parents' house. That was a little better than an hour away from our apartment. Needless to say I was nervous. Fortunately when the call came Athena was already at her parents' house for a visit. The recovery period was difficult, but I'll get to that later.
When I returned to work "M" pulled me aside first thing in the morning. "I need to tell you about something that happened while you were away," he said. Alarms of all shapes and sizes were going off in my head. "M" tells me the story of how my boss took the news that Athena was in labor. You see, shortly before Athena gave birth my boss asked me what he should tell people when I suddenly have to leave for a week. "Tell them the truth," I said "if someone asks tell them what happened. I'm not trying to lie to anyone, but I don't want to put it on a billboard either." It seems my boss and I understood that conversation differently. As soon as he got my message (Athena went into labor around 8:30pm so I left a message on the answering machine at the shop) he immediately drove up to the other side of campus where all the other department heads were and announced "'I-am' won't be in for a while. Athena is having a baby, and they're putting it up for adoption." The responses varied from the lead painter's "oh my God what do we do?! Should we throw baby shower? Should we have cake? I don't know what to do with something like this! Why didn't anyone tell me?!" to the props guy's "It's none of our damn business and it was extremely inappropriate of you to say that! If you ask me, we don't talk about. It's his business and if he wanted us to know he'd have told us."
Awkward silences were by and large the rule upon my return. No one talked to me about the pregnancy or birth. What little small talk did happen lasted less than a minute. Glances became furtive. It felt like I was a walking bomb. After a week my boss' superior came to talk to me. She said that she didn't know if it was appropriate for her to say anything or not, but she wanted me to know that a woman in the department was an adoptive parent. She suggested that if I wanted the perspective of "the other side of the equation" I could talk to her about it. "I know it can be haunting" she added before leaving.
Since then I've been able to crack the wall of silence little by little. Talking about Festus has become like a secret handshake. When I can talk about Festus and the pregnancy the other person knows I count them as a friend. If I don't talk about him they aren't. It's taken work. Piece by piece I've been taking down the wall and letting people relax about it. The adoption isn't taboo if you're invited to talk about it. It's part of my normal daily life now. Anyone who gets to be part of that normal life is invited into the whole of it. My colleagues don't need to know how my visit last week went, but my friends are dying to know! That wasn't true seven months ago, when Festus was just two months old.
It's a lot of work to demystify an adoption but it's worth it.
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