ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joan Wheeler’s opinion pieces have been published in The Erie Daily Times, (Erie, Pennsylvania) 1975-1976, and The Buffalo News, (Buffalo, New York) since 1976. She contributed to the publication of the United States Congressional Record, Foster Care and Adoption Assistance Program, 1985. Her article, “Dual Identity”, appeared in Common Ground: WNY Women’s Newsjournal, Buffalo, New York, 1985. A revised version, “The Secret is Out”, was published in Adoption and Fostering Journal of the British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering, 1990, and a Dutch translation was published in the book, Kind van Andere Ouders (Child of Other Parents), The Netherlands, 1991. Joan contributed to the New South Wales Law Reform Commission for their publication Report 69: Review of the Adoption Information Act 1990, Australia, 1992. Joan presented a paper entitled Adoptees and Children of Reproductive Technologies to The President’s Council on Bioethics, Washington, D.C., 2004. (http://bioethics.gov/transcripts/june04/session7.html).
As a Social Worker, Joan worked in crisis counseling, suicide prevention, support services for the homeless, peer support for single mothers, youth program development and medical social work for head trauma survivors. In recent years, she provided caregiving to both her natural father and adoptive mother. She is currently writing in adoption reform advocacy.
She enjoys reading, folk-rock music and theater.
In 1978, Joan received a Bachelor of Arts with a Minor in History from Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pennsylvania. In 1999, she received a Bachelor of Science in Social Work with a Minor in Creative Studies from State University of New York College at Buffalo, graduating Cum Laude. She resides in Buffalo, New York, USA.
This is her first book.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Adopted vs. Non-Adopted
The only difference between us is that I am adopted and you are not. I am not equal to you. What you think you know of adoption is not real. I, and other adoptees and parents of adoption loss, confront people in power who do not want us to speak out. The realities of adoption MUST be exposed to make the world a safer place for half orphans, full orphans, illegitimate bastards, children adopted by their step parents, and all foreign-born adoptees, and our natural parents. This includes donor-conceived people.
~ ~ ~ ~
FROM MY PERSPECTIVE
I am a legitimate half orphan bastardized by adoption. I have been accused by some as impersonating myself because NON-ADOPTEES cannot understand who I am. This means that I am blamed for other people’s inability to comprehend what I am forced to cope with each moment of my life.
I was adopted as an infant. I have two birth certificates, but only one is accurate. Both are real. My true birth certificate was seized by the State and sealed from me.
I cannot have a certified copy of my true birth certificate because the government claims it would be harmful for me to have it, even though I have been reunited with my natural family since 1974. Why would it be harmful for me to have my birth certificate? Because the government assumes that all adoptees are illegitimate bastards who need protection from the horrible truth of their sinful conceptions and births. The government wants to keep adoptees from ruining the lives of their natural parents. The government also wants to keep adoptive families intact so that natural families cannot barge in.
It does not matter to the government that I was born to married parents. What matters is that I, like the others of “unlucky” birth, are considered to be of lower social class. We are ADOPTEES. As a class, we are segregated from the rest of society. We must never have a certified copy of our true birth certificates because the government says so, and because the government says so, people believe it is true.
Just as all States do for all adoptees, New York State gave me a “new” birth certificate after the finalization of my adoption. This one is false. Yet it is legal. This one indicates that I am the biological daughter of the parents named on it. This birth certificate states that the identified mother gave birth to me at the named hospital, at the time and date, and that I was a single birth. The reality is, however, that this mother and father did not conceive me, nor did this mother give birth to me. The Truth is that there are no hospital records for this birth. This officially certified birth certificate is legalized misrepresentation of material and true facts. This is fraud. It is also identity theft.
In reality, the parents named on my legal birth certificate actually adopted me, but there is no visual indication of that fact, except in my sealed court records of the ten-month process of adoption.
My birth and adoption records were sealed by laws meant to hide illegitimacy. These laws do not apply to me, and even if they did, no individual in a free democracy should be subject to the seizure and falsification of official documentation of her/his actual, verifiable, birth.
Additionally, my natural parents were stripped of the right to be named on my official birth certificate when I became the legal adoptee of another set of parents. As with all parents of adoption loss, my natural father lost the right to own a copy of the piece of paper that recognizes him and my deceased mother as my parents by conception and birth. For mothers who lost their newborns at the moment of birth are not only deprived of their infants, but they are also deprived of a certified document that proves the birth actually happened. Natural parents are not allowed to have a certified copy of their daughter or son’s birth certificate – ever – even after the adoptee reaches adulthood. For the natural parents and any siblings in the natural family, the adoptee simply does not legally exist. For the adoptee, the natural parents and any siblings do not legally exist. This goes against common sense, reason and logic.
Names become a part of us through repetitive language use. We grow as small children hearing our name and we bond with that name. It becomes a part of who we are because of emotional and psychological meaning. Our name links us to our families. My name – my identity – was changed without my consent. Because of selfish lies of my adoptive parents and all of my adoptive family (even the ones who went along for the ride, not knowing what to do), and my deceased mother’s relatives who were also in on the game, I have suffered tremendous emotional stress and confusion. It is from this loss of first identity and family that I have come to realize that the goals of adoption for my parents to have the benefit of raising a child that they called their own meant that they willfully and intentionally kept me away from my own siblings and our father, prevented me from developing healthy relationships with my blood kin, while they professed their love and devotion to me.
The very people who were supposed to love, protect and guide me from childhood through to adulthood were involved in a systematic cover-up with whole family systems in an interdependent web of relatives, all promising to keep the secret of my true identity from me, and, prevent me from knowing my own blood kin while they, themselves, had ongoing relationships with my blood kin, and, conversely, certain members of my blood-kin willfully participated in their own versions of lies. This, combined with the governments’ falsifying my birth record, resulted in my deep and profound sadness, resentment and anger.
This has hardened my steadfast resolve to right the wrongs perpetrated upon me solely because I was half-orphaned in infancy, relinquished under duress by a father in deep grief over the death of his wife, and adopted by a married couple who believed in the apple-pie version of adoption myths. I received all the trimmings of a good adoptive home, minus the honesty and respect that usually exists between parents and their children, and between children and their aunts, uncles and cousins. Very few people within my interdependent web of relatives actually had, and have, any respect for who and what I am: a human who is a legitimate half orphan bastardized by adoption.
I am also a social worker: a Social Change Agent, Adoption Reform Activist, an Advocate for Adoptees and Donor-Conceived Individuals. I am an author, a suicide prevention and crisis counselor, and a feminist. That does not mean I hate men. That means that women are equal to men and should be treated equally.
I am real. I exist. And I know who I am. Even if others do not know who I am, or do not comprehend the complexities of adoption, or do not want me to be an outspoken adoption activist, I know who I am.
Discrimination against adoptees is real. And it starts from being separated needlessly from our families at birth, continues through the adoption process of erasing our birth identities and families, replacing them with new ones. Adoption is not a fantasy. It is real. GUARDIANSHIP would have kept my identity intact and my family relationships intact while giving me a home to live in and parental-figures to love and care for me. I already had a home. I did not need a new one. The parents who adopted me, however, wanted a child to adopt. They did not want ME, any child would have filled their desires. ADOPTION met THEIR wants and desires, not mine.
Adoptees must live with this dual identity that was created for them by others. This causes lifelong identity confusion for the adoptee.
I am not alone in this. Millions of other adoptees are affected by the laws and policies that changed our lives. This is not about a good home or a bad home, nor is it about love or loyalty of adoptees. It is about false pretenses, lies, deception perpetrated upon adoptees who must cope with it all.
LEGITIMATE HALF ORPHAN BASTARDIZED BY ADOPTION
Legitimate by birth – the youngest of five
Bastardized by adoption – because Mom wasn’t alive
Grew up alone – spoiled only child
She must not be told – yet rumors ran wild
Found at age eighteen – by siblings I never knew
Shocked my parents lied – rage was all I could do
Anger turned into action – writing with insight I gave
Both sides attacked me – spoiled child should behave
Our births are sealed – as if a sin
Dirty orphans, scheming bastards – forever children
Fake birth certificates rename – adopted parents pretend
Can one love a lie? When will this mockery end?
Others speak for us – they know what’s best
They’re in control – you know the rest
The records are sealed – you’re not supposed to know
You can’t have more than one – mother and father, no
Reality is quite different – when you live it
Adoptees are unimportant – and irrelevant
Everyone has an opinion – which wins over fact
Always telling us what to do – don’t overreact
The records are sealed and they’ll stay that way
Be good little children and go away
Legitimate by birth – the youngest of five
Bastardized by adoption – because Mom wasn’t alive
Three decades later – we’re still in the fight
My record of birth – still locked up tight
Fifty-two years old – treated as a child
My frustrated bitterness is not mild
At ninty-two, adopted Mom sees the light
All these years – you were right
This is a lie – I did not give birth to you
I missed all of that – this is true
An adoption certificate – indeed would be better
Then to live a lie – and for a lifetime be bitter
by Joan Wheeler (born as) Doris Sippel
copyright June 18, 2008
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I have two mothers, two fathers and a step mother. My natural mother died first, then my adoptive father. My natural father and adoptive mother have passed away in 2011.
My Mother 
My Adoptive Father
Note that my name at birth — Doris Michol — is listed as my mother’s fifth child. Doris Michol Sippel was my legal identity for one year and one week after my birth — until the legal name change and identity change at the Finalization of my adoption.
Note also that my name after adoption — Joan Wheeler — is listed as my adoptive father’s only child.
Though I went to great lengths to publish a book with protected name changes, this was completely unneccessary due to the fact that most of my relatives’ names were published in these death notices.
