I miss the days of bastardy.
I found Bastard Nation in 1992. I had just found Usenet. I'm not sure whether I'm surprised that the first search word I typed into the Usenet Newsgroups search box was "adoption." That fateful, desperate reaching out toward the cloudy mystery of my birth led me to alt.adoption. When I say I cut my internet teeth on alt.adoption, I'm not shittin' you. Alt.adoption was a crazy landscape littered with the corpses of the weak, the teary adoptees, the oh-so-sensitive adoptive mothers and the fragile birthmothers. You either grew a full-set of flame-proof underwear or you got sizzled. From the cacophony of alt.adoption rose the strong and vibrant voice of Bastard Nation. Well, along with a crazy few others.
I'd never attended an adoption support group, never done much beyond reach out to the agency which handled my adoption at six weeks of age to get yet more useless non-identifying information about my birthmother. But tangled in the mess of wires and connections that hold my brain and body together, adoption was always there. I just wanted to KNOW. I concocted endless fantasy Mothers, waited breathlessly for them to come and rescue me -- from what, I have no idea, its not as if my life has ever been that horrible or difficult. But it was always there.
And alt.adoption...not for the weak. Sifted through the tear-stained kleenex boxes of those who would have been better off seeking real-life therapy rather than seeking help for their adoption angst on the internet, a few voices rose loud and clear. They didn't talk about wounds and pain, struggle and abandonment except in the most passing of terms. What they did talk about was empowering and uplifting. They talked about the rights of adoptees to have the most basic information about themselves. They identified the enemy, the people who would perpetually infantilize us, who give lip service to "protecting" the selfsame birthmothers from whom they used any pretext to obtain children, the people who were reaping endless profits on the backs of babies, birthmoms and barren couples. They outlined a plan to take back what was rightfully ours. We claimed our bastardy as our own and made it the platform on which we stood, made it IN YOUR FACE.
Those were heady days, of activism, of gut-wrenching conviction, of in-your-face rabble rousing. The Bastards organized pickets and protests. We changed laws in Oregon, in Alabama, in New Hampshire. We educated the public and lawmakers. We founded an organization to help the dying find their birthfamily before it was too late. We argued, we debated, we hammered out a strategy and we implemented. It was one of the best times of my life.
In the years between I found and lost my birthmother, found my siblings, met the father of my children, move cross-country and became a mother. A lot of big moments - and yet some of the biggest of all were Bastard Moments.
Somewhere along the way, we petered out, we lost momentum. Some of us moved on, some of us had life crises, I had babies and 'retired' from being a day-to-day activist. I couldn't have kids, work full time, organize conferences, hold support groups and run a nonprofit all at the same time. God, I miss it, though. Those were some damn fine times. Best of my life.
Check 'em out, though: Bastard Nation
That's what I used to do before I became a respectable citizen.
