All kinds of wrong: Adoptive mother's declaration of 'regret' should never have been given green light

OPINION

Imagine this: You are a pre-schooler and through no fault of your own you cannot remain with your family.

You are placed into foster care and the carers are restricted from sharing images of you, including on social media or revealing any of your story. This is to protect your privacy, and to give you agency over your own story, including if, when and how you choose to tell it.

But what happens to those restrictions if, instead of remaining in care, you're adopted? They are no longer in place and your own story is now in the hands of your adopters. Can you see why this scenario could go badly?

Why Mamamia has angered adoptees

With this knowledge in mind, when I saw the Mamamia headline: 2 years ago, I adopted my nephew, promising to 'fix him'. He's getting 'worse', I knew I was in for a story full of all types of wrong.

I came across the article via an Instagram post by Colombian-American adoptee and adoption educator Melissa Guida-Richards, posting as @adoptee_thoughts.

The feature image, a family posing in front of Uluru, made me cringe as I realised it had been written and published in Australia.

I'm an adopted person and former foster carer and asked myself: "Why did a parent feel it was okay to publicly pile trauma on their already traumatised adopted child like this?".

As an adoptee, if I were to read this about my younger self, I would feel incredibly angry that my privacy seemingly didn't matter and my story had been exposed to the world without my consent.

I'd also feel terribly hurt that my adopting mother considers me a problem that is getting worse.

Red flags indicate problem to be fixed lies elsewhere

With curiosity I read the article, hoping the headline was the worst part. Unfortunately, it wasn't. The first red flag was that the mother identifies her child by name and image.

She then reveals some of his trauma pain points, admits to feelings of regret and fantasised "What if?" as she joined a Facebook support group where there were "hundreds of parents supporting each other through the process of giving their children back to the authorities".

She commodifies him by calling him a "gift".

And the largest red flag of all is her belief that he won't be affected by the contents of the article because "he will already know all about my feelings and how they are ok".

Well guess what? Now the internet knows how she feels too. And not surprisingly the internet reacted, including adoptees. In response, Mamamia published a second article responding to the backlash.

Listen to adoptee voices

So, I'm certain the online conversations will continue. The other thing I'm certain about is this child is a small being with a big past that needs protection and privacy.

One day they will be a young person or adult who will be able to read the articles and learn that their right to privacy and to control their story were less important than the adopter's need to share hers.

Adoptive parents need to centre their decisions on what is best for the child, not add to their trauma. And if the parents aren't willing to protect the rights of the child, then publishers such as Mamamia must be.