In the U.S, it was National Adoption Awareness month in November, and over the years, I have come to observe this time. As an adoptee myself, this November has been a little harder. Let me chronicle my thoughts as I took the Picadilly line from Russel Square to Picadilly Circus this past Monday.
I have always struggled with sleeping away from home. As a child, I couldn't do sleepovers. I would try to go to sleep like everyone else, but instead, my mind filled with the fear that my parents wouldn't pick me up the next morning. I was pretty sure that this was it and whichever girl's house I was at, well guess I had to move in now. I would end up calling my mom to have her pick me up. I did grow out that becuase I have a phone now and can call home whenever I need to and just being an adult. Also, as I have gotten older, while this fear never really goes away, I can talk myself out of the irrational thoughts that my younger self couldn't imagine. But now, being England and so far away, it is a bit harder. Not to mention, Thanksgiving was last week, and it's weird not having my family there. I am fortunate to have such a fantastic family, and that makes being away all the harder.
I also went to the Foundling Hospital Museum here in London. It was hard for me to walk through becuase it kept asking questions like "Imagine being a woman in the 1700s without a means of income and a child. What would you do?" It made me think about my situation, and I am just now really diving into my thoughts about it. The museum was well done and made me grateful that my orphanage wasn't so bad. I mean, it wasn't great, but I was definitely looked after by actual professionals. As I wandered the gallery room, I wondered how many of the 15 or so people were adoptees or in a similar situation. I genuinely wonder who goes to this museum unless they have some sort of personal connection becuase this museum was not cheap, 9 pounds with a Student ID. Most museums are free or less than five, but I felt I needed to make a pilgrimage, so I thought it was worth it. This museum is fine, absolutely nothing wrong with it — great gallery where the American docent explained how all of the paintings were glorifications of really terrible things. The children look happy to be cast out on the streets at 15 as if they are perfectly prepared and can totally handle the real world. Or the painting where the mother looks relieved to be giving her child away. I got genuinely pissed off at the painters. Perhaps they had to paint a lively scene, or they were complacent in the treachery of 1700s childcare. The exhibits showed clothing the children wore and some of their things. I loved how the focus was on the children and not so much on the bureaucracy. The whole mess often swirls around the children, and I want to hear their story. Yes, these stories came from people long dead, but I felt validated. There were letters from children asking about their families, and I never felt so heard! I did the same thing in my journals growing up and was really glad to see I wasn't a weirdo.
But the thing that really wrenched my heart was the token exhibit. Mothers were told to leave their children with something recognizable, so when they came back, they could find their kid. Of course, they never could go back, or their child went missing, so this was just cruel hope but also the lengths at which the mothers would go to as to find a unique object to give to their children. Mothers would deface currency or use foreign currency as their token, and this got many women convicted on charges of treason. It was a weird system I had not realized was a thing, and I know a crap ton about adoption practices.
Perhaps selfishly, going through the exhibits, I wondered if my biological mother taped a note to me or left me with something. I have no idea and never will, but I left wondering. This whole museum was a reflective time for me.
I am shifting now from this museum, which is a hidden gem, to the broader topic of adoption as a whole. Society, as a whole, has had a dim view of orphans and abandoned children. Most literature paints adopted children as not full children, and therefore, the author thinks sibling incest is acceptable. Traditionally the mindset is "Just becuase a child is adopted doesn't mean they are real siblings." I'm looking at you, Mary Shelley, with that Victor and Elizabeth nonsense! Do you know who surprisingly doesn't pull this insanity? Victor Hugo! Anyone knows me knows I love Les Miserables. Book, musical, every iteration under the sun! Yep, every bit of it, except for the BBC version...but that's a discussion for another time. I mean, why else am I seeing Les Mis twice? I am seeing it once with the concert cast, a really star-studded affair that I couldn't get tickets to see live but thankfully snagged a ticket to a live broadcast at the movie theater. The second time I will see, it will be my very last show here. I am seeing it the day after it moves back into the Sondheim theatre and am excited to see what they did to the theatre and the whole show. Les Mis was the very first piece of media that I resonated with and could see myself in. There is so little positive adoptee representation. Nearly every adoption story until the 21st century contains questionable incest, using the child for some ulterior motive, abuse, or generally never accepted. I have re-read this book five different times, and each time is more special. Yes, even the Waterloo chapters!
Okay, this was the second installment of Tube Thoughts! Hope it made sense, I have a lot of free-thinking time on the Tube and would like to put it down somewhere. Till next time!