It’s not often that something I hear or read renders me speechless, but you did it the other day with your crass assessment of what it takes to be Willow’s “real” mother in your column found in the New York Times. My guess is that intention was to either amuse or enlighten, or both. However, I found your words neither humorous nor enlightening.

Of course, you have the right to say whatever you want to say. That is true. We have freedom of speech in this country and I strongly believe in that freedom. However, along with that freedom goes a great responsibility. Most parents would take into account the tremendous weight that their words have, particularly on their children. As your daughter grows from a child into a young woman, of course any of yours or your husband’s words may have a great impact on her.

Do you remember what it was like to be 12-years-old, Ms. Janowitz, to be a tween, not quite a child, but not yet a teenager? To be desperate for your parents’ words of affirmation yet typically not able to show them how much you needed their love and acceptance? How utterly horrifying it might be, then, to read the words of your famous literary mother, words where she denigrates the homeland where you were born, words where she “humorously” pokes fun at what kind of life she may have “saved” you from and how you could possibly show more gratitude towards her and your father? Words that, once again, change an adoptee from a true family member into a “saved” relation, one who always has to remember the people, the saviors who brought her up out of the detritus of the life she would have lived had she stayed behind? What a recipe for lifelong therapy that could be, I think to myself! I can only imagine how it might feel to be Willow right now; Theresa of Ungrateful Little Bastard, however, has painted quite a portrait from her own experiences as an adoptee.

Am I being overly dramatic, Ms. Janowitz? I really don’t think so. Some girls in Willow’s age group do start delving into those life questions, pondering with each other questions of love, of life, things about their relations, their parents. Willow, if she doesn’t feel comfortable coming to her parents, is going to find someone or someones to help her through the labyrinth that is moving-into-teenagerhood AND her questions about adoption, about her origins, all at the same time. Are you wondering now if it wasn’t a good idea to throw in yet another issue on top of what she already has to face? I know I would if I were in your shoes.

In the end, however, your words are that: Your.Words. You write them, you live with them. Maybe they’re “Just Words” to you. As I said, you have every right to say whatever it is that you want to say, whatever you are moved to say. I believe in that right, I will defend people’s ability to use that right. Yet, even though I know that I myself have that right, I do not knowingly use that privilege in order to cause harm to those whom I most love.

Freedom of speech. It is a right in the United States. It is, indeed, a privilege that many across the world do not receive. John F. Kennedy is to have said:

privilege is here, and with privilege comes responsibility

That quote can work for so many situations. And it can work for the words you put into writing for how you choose to recognize your child’s feelings about her adoption, about her separation from her first mother, about her separation from her country of origin. Or you can be dismissive about all of that, as you were when you wrote your New York Times piece.

It’s your call, of course. Well, you already made your call. “A bad choice,” as I would say to my 6-year-old son.

There are other calls you can make though, even now, even after the fact. I wonder what choice you’ll decide to make at this point. Will pride rule your household, or will a sensitivity to your daughter’s loss soften your subsequent words and possibly even offer up words of apology for opening up such a wound to the world?

Of course, it’s nothing that I or the rest of the world needs to know.

But Willow does.
______________

Note: I had removed this letter, as I stated before, but I resurrected it (thanks to the miracles of technology) due to a reader’s request.

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