Square Pegs & The Circle of Moms

For those of you who voted for To Tell The Truth ~ Please Stand Up, in the Circle Of Moms top 25 adoption blogs by moms contest, I would like to sincerely thank you! I never expected to see a foster care alumnus blog hang up in the top 25. What happened this week in the adoption/foster care blogging community was truly amazing, and something I think we can all be very proud of.

For those of you who are unaware of the controversy surrounding the Circle Of Moms top 25 contest, I would suggest you read Amanda’s and Production not Production’s posts on the subject, they have put it all out there so eloquently, I could not do it justice.

The way I understand it, in a nut shell when COM ran their Top 25 Adoption Blogs by Mothers, neither they nor some of the adoptive parents who were involved in the contest realized that adoptive parents were not the only mom bloggers who had opinions or blogged about adoption. Adult adoptees and mothers whose children had been adopted entered the contest, much to the chagrin of some (many) of the adoptive parent bloggers, who feel that obviously the only valid perspective on adoption is those of adoptive parents, and they were very upset. This year the circle decided to open up and allow the voices of adult adoptees, fostered adults / parents and birth/ first mothers (mothers who had children subsequently adopted) which was all well and good…until Cassi a first mother made it to the second spot.

Now, I don’t know whether someone complained about it directly to COM or not. I do know Linda posted screen shots of some of the things being said on a public FB page by adoptive parents about it and…go look for yourself…and Cassi’s blog Adoption Truth was deleted while she was in the #2 spot.

…and what happened next was amazing.

…and beautiful.

The community rallied. I threw my blog into the mix figuring that they couldn’t delete everyone. (I was wrong.) Many posts were written about it. Top adoptive parent bloggers who were in the top 25 last year along with many others who were not wrote emails to COM saying that they would pull their blogs if Cassi’s voice was not reinstated. Meanwhile many in the community voted to push those traditionally marginalized voices, my own included up to the top of the list. My friends and FAMILY (have you read my blog?) shilled for votes for me and others. Because while not everyone necessarily likes everything that each of us writes, there are a lot of people who support our right to be heard. By the time they deleted everyone and canceled the whole contest Amanda an adult adoptee and Claude a first mother were in the # 1 and #2 spots.

…And that my friends, is a beautiful thing!

…And that is what I am gonna take away from the 2012 Circle of Moms Top 25 Top Adoption Blogs By Moms fiasco…

How about you?