I am not taking down my blog

I am not going to hide my blog. Recently, several moms have had charges filed against them with Child Protective Services and their blogs came up as an issue. No, but the problems are serious, profound. One blogger had children removed from her home. Another blogger has had severe legal problems linked to her blog. Several other bloggers have abruptly stopped writing.

I will not.

Corey does her usual great job of explaining the issues while also providing ideas and solutions so folks can help right here. 

I started this blog with the idea that I would talk about the many unexpected issues brought into my family with the adoption of an older child with special needs. We have had success beyond the highest expectations of anyone. We have resolved a massive, fatal medical condition because of my own research and problem solving. We have uncovered several new root problems in the process, that we tackle every day.

Our daily shit is hard people, it is really fucking hard. But it can be done and by bloody jingo I am going to write about it and post it. What I desperately want to accomplish with my blog is to be a link, a lifeline, a bad example, a good example, dare I hope an inspiration. My goal is for a mom, any mom, to read my blog and say to herself, oh thank heaven I am not alone in this.

When I started reading other people's blog, three stood out as life rafts to me. Lisa at Life at the Grateful House, Stephanie at Parenting the Hoovers and Kids Special Needs, I don't know her first name! Being able to read the words of these women surviving similar chaotic daily lives made all the difference in the world. I would link, but none of the three is currently blogging.

This is a first amendment issue. I'm trying to avoid a "Donna Martin graduates" mentality and I don't want to play into some Journalism 101 thing either. But it is a fact that I have to ability to speak freely as a citizen of this country.

I can tell you that without the cognizance of other people in similar situations, we might not have made it. We would have returned to being a family of three about six months into the placement, before the finalization. There was a time, a long stretch of time, where I was convinced there could be no worse parent for Genea than myself. None. I have said once or twice that I would imagine going down to the prison out-yard and throwing a rock. Whoever that rock hit would be a better parent for Genea than me. I used to make a sick game out of it in my mind. I could throw a rock at the line outside the illegal shelter for people rejected from the usual homeless shelters in town and find Genea a better parent. I could stand outside the only methadone clinic, 45 minutes away, and throw my rock. Until I found out about the different manifestations of Reactive Attachment Disorders from a book another parent recommended, and I read that book and for the love of shit there was Genea on every page of "her" section. And I realized, Dear God I did not cause this.

People who have shut down their blogs are doing what they have to do to save their families. They'll get no judgment from me. I see it in a way as shooting a big fat middle finger to the powers that be. (Blog? What blog? Yes, that IS a coincidence)! It's not enough that these are people who have taken on some of the most difficult, traumatized, hurt children in the country. We have had no one to talk to, no one who understands the truth and now the outlet, the community of blogging is being knocked down? Bullshit, that's what it is. Bull. Shit.


Is there any consideration, and I have no facts, just an instinct, to the idea that with public blogging suddenly the freewheeling policy "interpretations" in various social services are coming to light? I wonder if someone, high in authority somewhere, has not issued one big memo with the subject line "Cover Your Ass".

So I am not going to hide. I will be right here, where I have always been blogging about the same shit (literally!). I will not tone it down. I might even take it up a notch to try to help cover the void.