Adopt-ation: A feminist take on the state of the adoption industry
Do a quick search on the Internet and you'll see that there are lots more people waiting to adopt a healthy newborn these days than there are babies out there ready to be adopted. Gone are the (ahem) “good old days” when a pregnant woman finding herself in less than optimal circumstances could be shamed, coerced or forced to give up her baby as a matter of socially accepted course (for more on THAT history, check out Ann Fessler's The Girls Who Went Away). Access to safe, legal abortion (while awesome when it occurs) has done a real number on the adoption industry.
So what's a pro-adoption organization to do? Well, start hard-selling adoption as an option to vulnerable women and bring back the days of shame under the guise of empowerment, of course. Enter the National Council for Adoption.
The NCFA is so all about adoption that they commonly speak out against the rights of adopted people to make their point. Their fight against the open records movement, (which argues that adult adopted persons have a right to their original, pre-adoption birth certificates) is based on the belief that it causes people to abort otherwise adoptable children.
Obviously, some number of women with unplanned pregnancies, who would otherwise choose adoption, would choose abortion if they could not choose adoption with the assurance of privacy. What that number would be is impossible to tell, but what does it need to be? The loss of human potential from even one abortion that would have been an adoption is unknowable. And the ratio of adoptions to abortions in New Hampshire is already extremely low. In 1996, New Hampshire had only 43 domestic infant adoptions placements for every 1,000 abortions.
The NCFA pushes their pro-adoption agenda (what they call Adoption First) in several ways. They lobby politically for things like a continuation of the adoption tax credit (a credit that makes adoption more affordable for hopeful adoptive parents), for Safe Havens despite the controversy that surrounds them and by creating a full-blown adoption awareness campaign to convince women that "sometimes choosing adoption is being a good mother."
In the interest of talking more women into placing their babies, the NCFA spearheaded the Infant Adoption Training Initiative (IATI). The IATI came about as an effort to bring down abortion rates and not coincidentally, bring up the number of babies available for adoption by raising adoption awareness in people who work with women facing crisis pregnancies (people like school nurses, migrant health service workers, Title X Clinics, health care staff from youth and adult correctional facilities, residential treatment centers, military health services, rape and domestic violence shelters, college campus health services etc.).
Given the biases inherent in the NCFA, it's no surprise that a study by the Guttmacher Institute points to some serious concerns for the feminist among us:
Kelly McBride of Planned Parenthood of Indiana noted the exclusive and "constant focus on 'child-centered' counseling" and "how to inform clients that adoption is a 'good choice for the child.'" She said she was given "tips and techniques...about how to work against [women's] resistance, make them proud of their decision and convince them that adoption is a good choice." One family planning provider from Planned Parenthood of Collier Country, Florida, said she was told to repeatedly bring up adoption as an option, even if a woman says she is not interested. These examples border on coercion and clearly violate both Title X guidelines and principles of medical ethics.
from Out of Compliance? Implementing the Infant Adoption Awareness Act.
Adam Pertman of the Evan B. Donaldson Institute (an adoption think tank) phrases some of his concerns this way:
Here's an example of how the way in which adoption is presented is so important: The curriculum presents the best interests of the "child" as paramount; that sounds just right and, in the adoption world, it's accepted as a given. But it invariably refers to children who need homes, not ones who are not yet born. No professional standards of practice advise physicians and counselors to recommend to pregnant women that they weigh the best interests of their fetuses and as yet unidentified adoptive parents on a par with their own. This perspective implicitly furthers an agenda aimed at minimizing the option of abortion and perhaps even the option of parenting by the biological mother. [emphasis mine]
As the Evan B. Donaldson Institute shared in their landmark 2006report Safeguarding the Rights and Well-Being of Birthparents in the Adoption Process
, women need better advocacy and better post-adoption support far more than they need more pressure to place their babies:
Research on birthparents in the era of confidential (closed) adoptions suggests a significant proportion struggled - and sometimes continue to struggle - with chronic, unresolved grief.
Hear that, Juno? Maybe you won't have such a happy ending after all.
Despite the empowered slogan, I don't see full disclosure in the I Choose Adoption rhetoric. In the Infant Adoption Awareness training, grief is acknowledged but not addressed as the lifelong issue that it is for most birth moms -- sure, it hurts but you're so happy to get back to your life, so happy to know that you did the "right" thing that it's all worth it.
Watch the young woman in this training video: Note that she laughs every time she discusses something heart wrenching. Note that she insists that she’s dealt with her grief through her counseling and to prove it she says, “And you deal with [grief]. You don’t hide it; you don’t try to deny it. You accept it and work through it and in the end you come to healing and, ummm, a lot of happiness and joy for the whole situation.”
Adoption can be an appropriate option for some women but it must be a decision made freely and with full information at hand. But a truly woman-centric model wouldn't focus on the empty arms and privileged homes of waiting adoptive parents. Instead women considering adoption need to know that they are not the expendable pieces of other people's adoption stories. They are not conduits to someone else's family building. And they also need to know that once those papers are signed, they lose all the rights no matter how many promises the hopeful adoptive parents made about visits, phone calls or pictures.
Fauxclaud, an activist and first mother (aka "birth mother") in a closed adoption who has since reunited with her son, writes this in her blog Musings of the Lame:
It is claimed that Women facing abortion choices need special safeguards to protect them from misunderstanding the nature and consequences of their decision and from the regret that might come from having an abortion without understanding important facts about the intervention. … There are no laws governing what an adoption agency can say and cannot say.
- There are no consequences if they outright lie on their websites about open adoption, affects on adopted children or the long term risks of relinquishment.
- There are no government sponsored watch dog groups or official forms to sign.
There isn't even a real good guidebook for birthmothers so we know that to look for and expect the rest of our happy birthmother lives.
Nada, nothing, Zip. We are on our own with only the professionals at the agencies to guide us and as we all well know, once you sign the papers and the power transfer is complete, they don't really care much for us anymore. We become the blind leading the blind, thinking we alone are "wrong" somehow in this journey until we miraculously find others who can validate our experiences as normal.
Adoption is a feminist issue because it is a reproductive rights issue. It is an issue about the value of women as mothers and who has "earned" the right to be one. It's about how the states supports or does not support women who fall outside of the "good mother" rhetoric. It's about privilege. It's about class.
Right now the dominant voices in our cultural discussion of adoption are those like the NCFA who perpetuate stereotypes about the women who place their children and the women who receive them. It's a conversation that tries to erase the presence of the women who give birth to those children by pushing t-shirts that equate adoption with pregnancy thereby obliterating the origins of adopted people. The way we look at adoption – especially domestic infant adoption – is a manifestation of our Madonna/whore complex where birth mothers are saintly sinners – angelic enough to give away the babies they aren't good enough to keep.
We feminists need to start looking at adoption in new ways. We need to let the first mothers among us speak about their experiences past and present because their voices have been missing from our discussion. In the blogosphere we have feminist thinkers like FauxClaud, like Suz, like Jenna. They can tell us how Juno will likely feel five years from placement, ten, twenty or more.
(*November is National Adoption Month, a month dedicated to helping find homes for the thousands of children waiting to be adopted from foster care -- although some industry players have hijacked the month to promote international adoption or domestic infant adoption.)
Dawn Friedman is a long-time feminist and adoptive mom who blogs at this woman's work. She's also a published writer whose article "Tales of the Reluctant Groupie" appeared in Bitch's Fame & Obscurity issue.
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Nothing but agreement from
Nothing but agreement from this adoptive parent. Thanks to Dawn and Bitch for putting this important issue out there.
Coercion & Relinquishment a women's issue
I was coerced to surrender in 1966 and was reunited with my son by the agency in 1986.
The social worker who reunited me was a feminist unlike the nasty one who coerced me.
I was manipulated like most women and didn't even know it until I spoke with an attorney in 1985.If you love this baby you'll do what's best for it, no longer think of this child as yours, go home and forget about this, all a manipulation .But times were different and we were easy to manipulate and get us to suppress our grief.
It's not only the NCFA who say we were given a right to privacy but some legislators actually believe them or they come up with this lie from some where. While lobbying in Albany for adoptee rights legislation we have to contend with this big lie. Birth mothers signed contracts of confidentiality or we made a deal with the agency for our privacy. Most legislators understand when they look at the surrender paper which is all we signed. We were not empowered to make a deal with an agency. No options were presented to us and a parent's presence was required for those of us under the age of 18 when we signed the surrender-It says nothing of confidentiality or privacy for us. On a small number of them the surrendering mother has to agree to swear she will not interfere with the custody of the child and family.There is nothing in any state statute sealing birth certificates of privacy for surrendering mothers because it was all about signing away the baby. --Confidential but not confidentiality.
The NCFA appealed open records legislation in Oregon and Tennessee- they were unable to present even one written proof of privacy- they were unsuccessful. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit based its decision to uphold laws on the fact surrendering to adoption is not a right a person has. According to the Journal of Social History pregnancy out of wedlock was not a traumatic event until the Victorian Era.
Why today should anybody especially women give a hard sale on adoption to someone who just isn't interested in surrendering? Where does feminism come into this picture?
Issues of birth/natural mothers have been swept under the carpet and need to get out. Adoptees birth certificates should be unsealed for them at age 18! They are the rightful owners.
http://www.unsealedinitiative.org http://www.firstmotherforum.com
http://www.adopteerights.net
Learn before you preach
"In the Infant Adoption Awareness training, grief is acknowledged but not addressed as the lifelong issue that it is for most birth moms."
Really? Are you sure that grief is a "lifelong issue" for "most" birth mothers? Or are you replacing one agenda-driven viewpoint for another? Your casual dismissal of adoptive parents as "privileged" (read: upper class, condescending bitches) is almost as bad as your assumption that birth mothers are universally victimized by the adoption process. Undoubtedly, there are crackpot anti-choice organizations out there who will stop at nothing to eradicate or reduce abortions. They should be identified and run out of business. But to suggest that birth mothers are not protected by the legal machinery of adoption reveals your total ignorance of the system. The birth mother is the most protected party in the entire process. Her rights come before the child's and certainly before the adoptive parents'. Birth mothers decide whether or not to make an adoption plan, whether they want it open or not, and who gets to adopt their child. Their medical, housing, food, utilities, and other expenses are covered for the duration of their pregnancy and 6-8 weeks afterward by the adoptive parents. And if they change their minds at any time before the legal transfer of custody--regardless of how much time, money, and blind hope the adoptive parents have invested in the adoption--the adoption is canceled. No questions asked. No refunds. Nothing. This is exactly as it should be.
Is there sometimes grief, regret, mixed emotions? Undoubtedly. But no rejiggering of the rules of adoption can change that. The transfer of custody of a baby from birth parents to adoptive parents is always going to be fraught with emotions. There may be instances where one party is treated unkindly or unfairly by the other (talk to a would-be adoptive mother who just had a birth mother change her mind after she took a baby home from the hospital if you want the other side of this story). I can tell you, however, having just gone through the process, that the American adoption system works. It's complicated, expensive, and full of emotional pit falls. But I can't imagine a better, fairer, kinder way of finding homes for babies who need them. Remember, that's what we're talking about here. Nobody forces a woman to make an adoption plan. And nobody should expect an emotion-free experience.
grief, victimized, making an adoption plan
For 12 years I led a Manhattan support birth/natural parents and from my experience those who search and are rejected suffer more grief as well as those who find death at the end of the search. Also those in open adoptions who are abandoned by the adoptive parents who move out of town with no notice. --the pain is horrendous!
Most of us have found the reunification does help heal our grief. Generally it lasts about 2 years and comes back to haunt us from time to time but doesn't stay so long. Some are found by the adoptee and the nightmare begins. Women have asked me why they were not informed about this? Of course they should be and it should be a major women's issue. It seems women who did not suppress their grief when they signed the paper would not have as much grief as we did but I can't say for certain. We were chewed up and spit out.
For those who choose adoption today including fathers I don't believe they are all victimized but I don't believe they are all making an informed choice. Some have told me they were not presented with options and became suspicious of the agency when they were told they would be. And I have heard of social workers becoming very angry when a mother changes her mind right after giving birth. There will always be some who are talked into adoption by someone else or their confidence is undermined.
The television media focused a lot on reunions but not on issues. When Margaret Moorman's book "Waiting to Forget" was published in 1996 her publicist contacted Oprah about a program for Mother's Day with birth and adoptive mothers and Oprah declined. Women in adoption have not come such a long way.
I can't tell you how disgusted I am with the words"Making an Adoption Plan". A lay away plan for clothing, financial planning but not a plan when it involves giving your child to
someone else. This phrase was concocted by adoption agencies who should know better and be more sensitive I was with Margaret Moorman when we first heard this phrase and we were mortified. I can go with "choose adoption" but I don't think the adoption plan is in the best interest of women or men. I find it disrespectful.
huh?
Lauren, I am really sad that you were able to read all that and not consider that there are still some issues to work out. Are you aware that the NCFA literally targets expectant mothers to influence them to place? They use a well researched strategy to include largely negative statements about how parenting affects children, along with positive language to describe how adoption affects children. I am an adopted person, and I can tell you that my mother experienced horrible coercion 27 years ago and that I experienced it myself 9 years ago.
The agencies still use biased language, pick up on an expectant parents fears about parenting and encourage them to feel powerless about parenting and powerful about an adoption plan. If you have EVER held a woman while she sobs and screams the loss of her child, night after night, if you had ANY idea how much pain these women go through, you would not think coercing anyone into that amount of pain is something to be taken lightly.
Many women have to be hospitalized within the first few years of placing due to emotional breakdowns, or suicide attempts. No one will do real research on the physical and psychological realities of how losing a child to adoption affects women because there's no money in that kind of research. Adoptive parents don't want to see that and the NCFA supports ADOPTION AGENCIES, that is where their interest lies, not in adoptees or biological parents.
I do think there are situations where a child will not be safe with a biological parent. And I do believe adoption is a much needed option for children in this situation. However what's happening now is NOT that.
How many biological mothers do you really know? How many have you seen break down and melt into indescribably horrific pain YEARS after the loss of their infant? Have you gone to biological parent support groups? Do you ASK them how they feel? Do you watch how fiercely the tears still come?
Do you REALLY believe that you are in any way educated enough to make the kind of smug comment belittling how deeply women are affected by losing their children?
Yes, Laura, I am...
"sure that grief is a "lifelong issue" for "most" birth mothers?"
Not only have I lived the expiernce of being a bithmother for the last 22 years, not only have I talked to and corresponded with literally hundreds of other birthmothers representing the opast 50 years of relinquishment experince, but I have collected a massive library of published scientific reseach studies that actually report the same thing:
1: the experinces of birthmothers and their greif is horribly not researched and studied enough; further research is needed
2: The grief experinced by birthmothers post relinquishment is very similair to prenateal death. but without the socially supplied support and actual closure
3: adoption casued grief is continous; IE it keeps adding on. So while the initial grieving process post birth is immiedate and based on the loss of a abay, as years go by more ads on top of it: the loss of the 2 year old, the lost of first days of school, the loss of a lifetime. This is further exasberated by the focus on open adoption as not, the relinquishing mother must live though the loss and seperation after each contact and visit. ( somethin they normally have NO control over as NOW, post signing, the adoptiove parent now hold all the poweer)
4: PDST, long term phyisolocical changes, depression.. all found in higher numbers post relinquishment in mothers based on the studies
Whats more, while the facts of these studies have been around for over 30 years and the body of them keeps growing, this information is NOT routinely given to mothers while they make their "informed choices" by the agencies and priofessionals, but rather the facts that would give us true "informed choice" are denied until it is too late.
Believe what you want about being "forced" into an adoption plan.. maybe the system served you well as an adoptive parent.. but adoption relinquishment stories like these are more common than people want to think and coersion in adoption counseling is a common and expected practice in the US>.
Keep reading, Laura.. keep reading and learning.
Claudia Corrigan D'Arcy
aka FauxClaud
I've been through the process, too
Lauren, I'm an adoptive mom (my daughter is five and a half). Adoptive parents are privileged -- we are privileged to have the resources to adopt. I'm not an upper class, condescending bitch but because I had the resources (emotional, financial) to adopt, I'd say unequivocally that I came to the adoption table with more privilege than my daughter's birth mom did.
Not all expectant mothers have their medical, housing, food, utilities and other expenses covered during pregnancy and certainly not after and one wonders if such support is even appropriate or amounts to legally approved baby buying? (And we did NOT enter into this kind of adoption with our daughter's mom besides which some of this is illegal in Ohio.). And if an expectant mom changes her mind, she might be bullied or threatened into changing it BACK. I've got horror stories for days about that.
Further, a birth mom -- once she's signed the surrenders -- has no legal recourse in most states if adoptive parents renege on their agreements. Most agencies offer few if any post-adoption support services including counseling, mediation with adoptive parents, etc. Even in states where open adoptions are theoretically enforceable by law, most birth parents demanding visits that were promised to them will find the door absolutely shut. I don't call that any sort of legal protection. And of course some agencies will ferret expectant mothers to "adoption-friendly" states like Utah where birth parent rights can be got around for faster, easier adoptions for hungry adoptive parents.
Finally you say, "I can't imagine a better, fairer, kinder way of finding homes for babies who need them" is exactly what I'm talking about in this article. In many (most?) domestic infant adoptions there is no baby yet! A woman steps into the adoption machinery while she's still pregnant and the further she gets into the process, the harder it is to step off that treadmill. The NCFA wants to get her hooked up as soon as the test turns blue because if they can start getting women thinking of themselves as unworthy mothers and good "birth" mothers, they can get more babies to the market. (Reread Adam Pertman's quote to understand what I'm talking about here.)
Of course no woman expects an emotion-free experience when she places her child but neither are most women prepared for the ongoing grief, post-traumatic stress disorder, etc. Most women don't know that adoption will have long-term impact not just on their lives but on the lives of their children, their extended families and their partners. Five years into this I can tell you that none of us -- not me, not my husband and not my daughter's first mom -- knew what a complicated, difficult, gut-wrenching journey it would be -- and we have a great open adoption! But great is not easy and I would not want my children treated like the way we treat birth parents today and because I have unearned privilege -- because I have a daughter thanks to a broken system -- it's my obligation to speak out where I see lies.
http://www.thiswomanswork.com
I've been through the process, too
thisiswomanswork I'm a birthmom. I placed my son in 1985. I just wanted to say thank you!
There were so many coercive, economical, social, and logistical factors at the time of my birthson's birth/placement-the perfect storm. Anything short of a married two-parent family in 1985 implied he would be compromised. Told repeatedly I was inadequate, I wanted him to have everything I could not give him at that time. Come to think of it what I wanted didn’t matter. They said he would be better off placed for adoption-a closed adoption. Nothing else existed at that time. I would/should be as if dead to him. I was counseled to suppress my feelings, act as if his birth/placement never happened, and just get on with my life. Only that would be impossible. I compartmentalized until I just couldn’t any more.
11 years ago I contacted his aparents with the help of the adoption agency. They sent a letter back with a picture, a lot of inaccurate information about when a child's sense of identity begins, said how my sudden contact would "freak him out" if they shared my letter to him about his heritage right then. The letter ended with an air of entitlement and lots of we will pray for you coldness. I never heard from them again.
I think it is a real buzz-kill for some aparents that the "transaction" isn't "cleaner" and less emotional for all involved. As if it could be emotionless. I contacted my bson via facebook this year. He replied back twice but I’ve received nothing for months. He asked if his heritage included Italian. I had clearly stated his bio heritage in the letter-no Italian at all. I don’t think he ever got the letter. I also don't think his aparents are supportive of any contact between me and my bson. He is 24. There's so much to work through for me too.
Broken is just how I would describe my adoption experience.
"Her rights come before the
"Her rights come before the child's"--what rights would those be, Lauren?
I'm a first mother ("birth mother" sounds like "brood mare"). In my case my son was adopted at the age of four. My husband and I had had a horrible breakup involving him becoming a felon and me turning him in for it. My in-laws and I had had a good relationship up until that point and aside from a few outbursts that I chalked up to anger over Mike's arrest and court-martial, they were generally supportive of me getting back on my feet. Well, I was having trouble supporting myself and my son in those first few months and, I guess after all the fracas over welfare deform which happened about three years before all of this, I was really leery of going on TANF. My family wasn't stepping up to the plate at all, so I turned to my in-laws for help with my son. It backfired. They lived in another state and could sue for custody and later guilt-trip me into relinquishing with impunity because I couldn't afford a lawyer to fight them and Legal Aid in Tennessee didn't cover things like that.
But that's not really what I want to talk about here other than to establish why I'm interested in adoption at all. What I want to talk about is what happened after my daughter was born.
They did the usual taking her from me to clean her up and then whisking her off to the nursery to be assessed. She had been very calm and happy when they took her from me (it was a c-section), other than complaining when they stuck her heel. Then, after I was in my room, I heard a baby's crying coming down the hall. I immediately recognized her voice. As the nurse brought her into the room I called my baby's name and SHE STOPPED CRYING, sight unseen, hadn't even been handed to me yet--she was still coming through the door.
What "right" are you talking about, Lauren? A child's right to her own heritage? To know where she comes from? To experience biological mirroring when she looks around at her family members throughout her childhood? To be handed to the woman whose voice she's been hearing for most of the previous nine months from the time she developed ears and they began working?
Or maybe you're talking about annual trips to Disney World. Or having your own bathroom and backyard swimming pool. Or going to posh private schools. Give me a break--most of the world's kids don't have those things and I don't notice most of them are worse off for it. They get to stay with their parents for the most part, too.
So... which one, Lauren? Are you really telling me a first mother changing her mind about adoption is violating ANY of a child's rights?
Or are you really just talking about adopters? Come on now. You're shopping for a pet baby. What stake do you really have in this? I've heard too many horror stories about adoptees not being treated like their adopters' biological kids , and about adopters freaking out and relinquishing (or wanting to) when an adopted child has health problems, to really believe it's the same thing as having your own child. Chances are pretty good, then, that the emotional responses involved in a first mother changing her mind are NOTHING like the ones involved in relinquishing.
If you don't believe me, go have a baby and give it up and get back to me. Remember, I lost mine when he was much older. I know from pain.
I'm "shopping for a pet baby?"
Actually, my baby is not a pet. She's my baby. And incidentally I just spoke with her birth mother today who told me how happy she was that my husband and I are able to give her the things she could not. I understand that there is a lot of hurt around this issue. But the repeated suggestions that adoptive parents have "unearned" privilege and that we are somehow oppressing birth mothers is both paternalistic and just plain inaccurate. Nobody can legally take a woman's baby away. Yes, a woman can be pressured into doing things that she later regrets. And agencies who do this should be stopped. But let's be clear on something as this is after all a feminist website. The language I'm hearing here about birth mothers being pressured into relinquishing their babies is the same language anti-choice forces use when talking about women being "pressured" into abortion via its legality. Choice equals responsibility.
You are not hearing that language from me
If abortion clinics operated the way adoption agencies did, I'd be arguing against them, too (and I am unequivocally pro-choice). Can you imagine if Planned Parenthood used the kind of rhetoric that the adoption agencies use when a pregnant woman walks through their doors? There are social workers at agencies who get paid by commission -- they get bonuses if a woman places. Can you imagine if the nurses who counsel women at abortion clinics got a bonus for every abortion?
This is another blog post I wrote at my blog about the training and another more feminist look at adoption-decision making from an agency that struggles to be ethical:
http://www.thiswomanswork.com/2009/08/05/prebirth-decision-making/
As adoptive parents, it's our money that pushes the adoption economy and it is a *serious* money bags economy and so we have a responsibility to question what's going on, demand more justice and to do the best we can in our own adoption stories.
Another link, there was a great article in The Nation this past August that I encourage you to read:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090914/joyce
I'm glad that your daughter's first mom is so happy with her decision -- that's great. There are women out there who are satisfied with their experiences as birth moms and I honor that truth. But I also honor the truth of the many women who are NOT satisfied and who feel lied to and coerced. I want a world where every woman who places does so from a place where she is fully informed and fully cognizant of her choices. That's not happening right now.
http://www.thiswomanswork.com
One more thing...
My daughter's first mom is also happy that we can give so much she couldn't to her daughter but it doesn't negate her grief, not one bit. It doesn't even begin to make up for it. And five years into this adoption, her feelings about it are much more complicated. As we've grown closer and talked about what happened between her and the agency, she also feels more critical about how things went down.
That is to say, don't hem your daughter's first mom into a corner where she can only be happy and grateful about the adoption because she needs/deserves room to have a lot of other feelings about it, too, regardless of the circumstances around your daughter's placement. I've talked to enough birth moms in open adoptions to know that there is tremendous pressure to put on a good show *for us* for fear that we will shut things down.
Lauren, I wanted to say, too, that when I started reading the adoption reform web sites at about the time Madison came home, it was pretty freaking overwhelming. It is really hard to read about people who feel like adoption ruined their lives when you're a newly adoptive parent and I totally get your defensiveness. But I will tell you that looking critically at adoption -- all sides -- has made me a better mom in our adoption and it has strengthened my relationship with Pennie (Madison's first mom) because ... well, because it gave me the information I needed to get us to a deeper level of honesty.
I don't think that we adoptive parents ought to walk around feeling guilty (unless we deliberately participated in unethical adoptions) but we do need to feel responsible because it's our want to parent through adoption that creates the industry. Why is it free to adopt an older child through the state? Because there's no market. Why did it cost so much to adopt our kids? Because we wanted them and we create the market. It's our want that turned our kids into commodities and so we have a moral obligation to look at adoption critically even when it's hard. You take us (adoptive parents) out of the equation and I'm telling you, the NCFA wouldn't be all hepped up about telling women that sometimes being a good mother means giving your kids to strangers.
http://www.thiswomanswork.com
All good points, Dawn
And I support any effort to make sure first mothers are truly informed about their options. Furthermore, it's important for all would-be adoptive parents to make sure their first mother is informed and willing. I would have that goes without saying. But what I'm seeing here on this forum (not from you, specifically) is a lot of very specific pain and regret that is being churned into a reformist effort that may not be warranted. Yes, we should eliminate predatory agencies, without question. But we should not encourage or tolerate grand stereotypes of first mothers as hapless victims and adoptive mothers as predators. Among other things, it's totally sexist.
Natural mothers vs. adoptive mothers
You claim it is sexist to assume that adoptive mothers are predators and natural mothers are hapless victims in the adoption system. Yet that is exactly the way the system is designed - it tells a mother that we will help her by encouraging her to give away her baby. How is that help?
The system places the adoptive mother on a pedastal, the only mother who can provide a good life for the baby. Pre-birth matching puts the focus on the supposed superiority of the adopters and plays up the insecurities of the mother. Many agencies have an expectant mother make a list of what she can give her child and compare it to what the adopters can give - all being material things, of course. Do you consider that coercive? Let's be honest, no one can guarantee a better life. Adoptive parents can die, get divorved, go bankrupt, get sick, just as sure as anyone else. Their list of material things guarantees nothing.
And where do you stand on the falsification of birth certificates? Do you think it is moral to erase the name of the natural mother and replace it with the adoptive mother? Further, do you think adoptees and natural mothers should have right to receive the original, unmended birth certificate?(which they can't get in most states) Do you think it is moral to ask a woman to give birth only to banished from her child's life?
The system pits mother against mother.
Of course the system works for adoptive parents, Lauren
Lauren - As a recent adopter of someone elses child, I urge you to educate yourself a bit more on the reality of the US adoption system (and not just the pretty parts that "work" for you or for baby brokers). The system is indeed flawed.
I am one of those "birthmothers" that was not protected and was forced. However, I dont expect you to acknowledge that or any other flaw in the system for if you were to do so, you would also admit you were culpable. You would have to look at the dark side of your own self and admit that you built your family by destroying someone elses.
Yes, the trauma of surrendering your child to adoption is indeed a lifelong issues for most mothers. I am one of them and i have helped hundreds of them find their children. I have moderated and owned support groups for mothers and I have spoken at adoption conferences nationwide. I have also been in therapy for the treatment of PTSD caused by a five month stay in a maternity home in 1986, coercion and intimidation by a baby brokering service known as Easter House, and the resulting disenfranchised grief. The loss of my first born to adoption effected every aspect of my life from my marriaiges to my subsequent children to the homes I have purchased to the friends I have selected. Before you pull out the crackwhore, too young, birthmother explanation, let me tell you that I was an honor student, good Catholic girl, that had been accepted to college. I am now a professional parenting two sons. I was fully capable of caring for my child yet the powers that be decided I was not. These powers include my parents, an unethical agency, maternity home workers, coercive tactics, promissory notes, promises of open adoption and more.
Educate yourself to the reality of the American Adoption Industry Lauren. If not for yourself, certainly for the child you obtained and now call your own.
Your adopted child had a family before you and that will never change no matter how good an adoptive parent you are.
You say it clearly "finding
You say it clearly "finding homes for babies who need them" ...that's the point. They don't need them ...they have perfectly good parents if society would help those parents with a parenting plan and STOP using adoption as a "plan for baby".
The point is....that the problems of infertile couples, although sad, have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with young vulnerable, pregnant unmarried women, and until we completely stop this madness which was based on a simplistic premise, we will continue to have problems.
The presence of adopters during pregnancy, delivery and post partum can cause extreme stress to a pregnant and post partum mother. The predatory and exploitive nature of the Adoption Agenda, their coercive tactics, savvy marketing, influence and/or financial help causes undue stress, coercion and pressure on a vulnerable young pregnant youth/woman which is unacceptable, and against the UN charter of keeping mother and baby together.
Sorry you can't have a baby...it is sad...but that does not make you a "deserving infertile couple" that some girl should "give her baby as a gift" to. Sorry, it is all wrong...all wrong.
Thanks for presenting the
Thanks for presenting the other side.
Yes, greif is a life-long
Yes, greif is a life-long issue for all mopthers. What did you think we just walk away? Your statement " But I can't imagine a better, fairer, kinder way of finding homes for babies who need them. (fairer? kinder?) Remember, that's what we're talking about here. Nobody forces a woman to make an adoption plan. And nobody should expect an emotion-free experience." is so sadly misinformed: what babies need homes? You created the demand by your own need! There would be no babies for adoption of there were no market for them in the first place! And please, of course people do "force" women to make an adoption plan! It is in fact enforced by people who then prevent the mother from ever seeing the child again -- do YOU have a plan for your child (whom you adopted frorm another woman) to see her mother again? That woudl be an honest adoption plan!
" I can tell you, however,
" I can tell you, however, having just gone through the process, that the American adoption system works."
Well now, of course you can. Can we hear from you again in say 10-20 years? Perhaps then you will have learned something truthful about adoption, like the fact that your child may have very different feelings about the whole "process" than you currently do. You might eventually understand that moms really are not all that interchangable in the mind of that malleable little lump of clay you want to shape and mold... oh I mean the person you adopted.
I think you would do well to listen to Dawn, and the mothers (Claud, Suz, Jenna) who know the truth about what the adoption industry does to mothers and their children. Trust me, they learned it the hard way. Oh, and if you think that traumatic impact of adoption doesn't apply to you I would love to share with you all the ways my life has been impacted by the pain and loss of my adopted children and their first moms. I once thought the bill of goods I was sold about adoption was "ok" to believe too, but I can't continue to be led by the nose through the grief of those children and mothers. Maybe you can?
It is one thing to disagree
It is one thing to disagree with a person's POV on adoption, yet it is another to attack them personally, their desire to parent, and them as a human being.
Being uninformed doesn't make them a monster. Watch YOUR privilege and your silencing, harassing ways.
More good stuff: The
More good stuff:
The National Council for Adoption: MOTHERS, MONEY, MARKETING, & MADNESS
http://www.musingsofthelame.com/2007/11/national-council-for-adoption.ht...
Why adoption is not a reproductive rights issue by Maryanne Cohen
http://bastardnation.blogspot.com/2006/02/adoption-is-not-reproductive-r...
Are Laws Tilted Towards Adopting Parents? Well, yes, even in Oregon by Jane Edwards
http://www.firstmotherforum.com/2009/11/are-laws-tilted-towards-adopting...
A woman-centric model would get behind single moms too
A lot of scare tactics are used to explain to young expectant mothers how much it's going to cost to raise the child. One tactic is to add up the total average amount spent on a child until he or she reaches 18 and wave that figure around like a pirate flag while shouting, "How are you going to do that alone?" Another is to focus on the advantages of the two-parent heterosexual family as a model of parenthood. We know that all this stuff is bs and politically driven. And there is not a drop of feminism in it. A feminist approach to adoption would walk a woman through her choices and opportunities. Heck, I've seen women in grad school waver over their readiness to be moms, but once they realize they HAVE a future (even if the first couple of years are tough), their preferred option is to parent. Also, there is a sense on the part of some people that many single moms who have elected to parent should have relinquished. That is definitely a class and money thing too and not remedied by adoption. You are not entitled to somebody else's child because you believe you'd do a better job raising him or her. It's a false choice.
Complicated subject
Honestly I'm amazed when parenting - biological/trad, adopting out, adopting, fostering, being a guardian and so forth - works at all. And I say that loving kids and wanting to be a mom myself. I just think we're under so much pressure, especially as women, to be perfect. The perfect 'first' mother, the perfect biological mother, the perfect adoptive mother, and eventually the perfect grandmother. It makes something so grey area and individual seem so cookie-cutter.
To clarify, I have wanted to adopt since I was a small child myself. A combo of valuing adoption and wanting to be a mom in general, and growing up with almost being a street/foster system teen...well, there but for the grace of god, go I. But I'm also pro-choice (and had an abortion when younger), and that includes an informed and wanted choice if a woman chooses to place her child for care elsewhere. Myself I struggle feeling like I'll never ever ever have the 'perfect enough' situation to be okayed for adoption, and to be a 'good enough mom' to be good enough for the kids I'd want to adopt. (Plus asshat comments like "But what if you meet a man? What if he only wants kids of his own?" and so forth. Ironic because I grew up raised by a single mom and all my friends had the same...not that I don't think dads are important.)
Sorry this is so rambly, it's just there are SO many important things that branch out of this conversation. And like I said, so much pressure to take a side or form a judgement.
I've saved for years towards my own choice, goal etc: Adopting from a country that places from orphanages/is overrun with kids to adopt out. Which also for selfish reasons would mean the adoption would be completely finalized before I would get my kids, because I just could not handle someone taking my kids away, I'm sorry, I'd feel like jumping off a bridge at that point...and that's easier to have happen domestically. (And I'm not demeaning anyone going through their *own* grief from placing a child for adoption.) I've done so much research and put myself through the ringer in examining what I've decided to do and all the possible ways it can go wrong or be unfair to others. Because that's a distinct possibility. And yet, that is the biggest goal in my life. Not being '50s era mommy, but being a mom to kids who do not have a parent and are going to be stuck in the system unless they get one.
That's why I'm glad you mentioned November as National Adoption Month for children who are left in the system. I want to adopt siblings, at least one an older child, and am very open to special needs adoption. I just hate to think that kids are 'compared' like items in a store - everyone wants this healthy (usually white) 'perfect' baby and there are so many kids who suffer from not meeting that expectation.
As an '80s child I grew up addicted to Punky Brewster (and her Punky Power, but I digress). I always loved that the show advocated for adopting older children and being foster parents. I think when I'm older and my kids would be out of the home, I would love to domestically adopt a teen or pre-teen. That's the other group of kids that don't get a fair shake in our system. And there are so many waiting for a home of their own. (A lot have been seperated from younger siblings adopted out when still "young enough", which just kills me to think about.)
I want to adopt siblings because I was lucky enough to grow up with a brother (same mom, different dads, raised together) and there's no way I would have been okay with being seperated from him, even though he would bodyslam me and steal my markers. ;)
Okay, sorry for the rambling. It's just such an interesting post and such a personal issue for me.
p.s.
I forgot to add that one of the reasons I do child & community sponsorships (secular ones) is that I still think it's important to enourage a family working out and staying together when it's an issue of money or stigma *only*. I realize that can be at odds with being able to adopt myself, and that there's a lot of overlap in reasons why people hand over or adopt kids, but it's my best solution being one individual. That and donating to orgs like Planned Parenthood that offer BC, abortions, and pre-natal care all at sliding scales, for whatever is someone's choice.
It can be difficult to know what the right thing to do is, whatever side of this equation you're on. Which is why I hate taking sides about it at all.
I used to think
I used to think international adoptions were fine, especially ones from China because I assumed they had a girl surplus and were just throwing their daughters away. I guess I was suckered by the adoption industry, if indirectly, because come to find out that is not the case all the time, and may not even be the case most of the time.
There have been kids in the former Soviet bloc who were in orphanages not because they were orphans, but because their parents needed help caring for them. The parents did not relinquish, yet the kids were adopted out to Americans.
Someone in Mother Jones wrote a piece about their adopted "daughter" who, they were disturbed to learn, might have been kidnapped from her family. Were they going to give the child back? Bite your tongue.
Ditto for the kids caught in that adoption scandal in Fiji. The Fijian government isn't even going to try to get those kids back. It's a done deal.
And in China, local authorities take children with impunity if their parents violate the one-child law. I don't get this. The child exists. Fine the parents and move on with things. But no, they take the children away. Wanted children. Who are then sold to Americans and taken away forever.
I came to realize that I can't trust ANY international adoption. I have no idea what the child's circumstances are, and as I would have to pay several different people throughout the process to adopt a child in that way, too many players in the adoption would have incentive to steal a child and then lie to me about it.
It's bad enough in domestic (U.S.) adoptions that in non-abuse-related scenarios, neither adopters nor judges look closely, 90+ percent of the time, at a first mother's situation before opting to take away her child or children. They make a lot of assumptions but don't actually LOOK. In my case it would have helped me tremendously had a judge in Florida refused to process my son's adoption for my in-laws until he'd talked with me. Of course he didn't. All he cared about was whether there was a signature on the relinquishment papers. He couldn't even prove the signature was mine.
Adoption sucks. Be a foster parent instead, and continue sponsoring children overseas through poverty relief programs. You'll be better off and so will the kids. I do think the foster care system needs a serious overhaul, but simply doing a better job screening applicants and allowing children to stay with foster parents if the relationship is working out would go a long way toward helping.
See this is what I meant
I get tired of no matter choice you make and good/bad odds you research, someone is going to tell you to do something else with your life. Of course there's horrible possibilities like that, there are also children who relaly need a home. And I would want to do domestic as well - see my later paragraph about that.
And fostering can also suck, because the kid can be taken away a helluva lot easier from you, how our system works. And besides, what's wrong with wanting to officially be a parent and having the legal and emotional benefits that can bring to you and to the child involved? Why should I be made to feel like abad person for that? That's what you get with a biological child, and trust me biology alone does not a parent make. If it did, I wouldn't have had to take my father to court at age 14.
The main point of my post is that we spend so much time assuming we know how another mother or would-be mother should 'choose her choice' that we nullify choice. And I do contribute to anti-child trafficking programs, by the way.
I hear you
We went into domestic infant adoption in part because we felt like it would give us some measure of control to only enter into a situation where we felt that the woman making the decision to place was doing so of her own volition and was making an informed choice. But as time has gone on, I feel less sure about that. I feel both that our daughter's mom's choice to place her daughter with us is absolutely valid but I also feel that in the climate in which she was operating, it was not as free as it should have been. None of us makes decisions in a vacuum and as feminists, we are obligated to do what we can to level the playing field so that women are able to make empowered decisions.
In a perfect world, there would be no adoption. However in an imperfect world where adoption is a reality, how do we structure it in a way that it best serves women and children? Right now with the emphasis on meeting the needs of wannabe adoptive parents (and funding an industry that exists to move children from one set of people to another), there IS no level playing field. And adoption itself is so emotionally loaded (orphans! needy babies!) that it's hard to untangle it all.
http://www.thiswomanswork.com
You can't let the handful of
You can't let the handful of articles tell you that adoption, especially international adoption, is ABSOLUTELY wrong!
Good God.
Go ahead and keep yourself ignorant.
Adoption Nation
Dawn, thanks for the thoughtful essay about the grief relinquishing a child...I always knew it was going to be incredibly horrendous, and it far exceeded anything I could have imagined. In the end, both my daughter and I ended up damaged.
Forever.
The grief never ended for either of us. And that is perfectly normal. At least the training video for adoption counselors focused on that. Grief. Sorrow. Pain. It's the payback for giving a child up. What I noticed watching the video was how many times the word "grief" was stated. And it is not over-stated.
As for anyone who thinks that the laws are all tilted towards the relinquishing mother, they should take a look at the post we did at firstmotherforum.com about the laws in one state, Oregon. It's also cited below.
Reproductive Choice
Good article bringing awareness to the work of the NCFA to discriminate against adoptees. I agree that adoption is a feminist issue, but also a class issue with one class of women preying on another.
I do agree with the criticism that I as an adoptee am a reproductive choice. Do I look like a reproductive choice to you?
oooops left out the not
Do not agree that I am a reproductive choice not not not not. I am a real girl and don't you forget it.
Absolutely -- you're correct
I told Marley that I winced when I typed that. I needed to be more clear that I meant that when the anti-choicers start shouting about adoption as a way to bring down abortion rates, feminists need to get into the discussion. Feminists have ignored adoption as an important human rights issue for way too long and we need to get involved.
http://www.thiswomanswork.com
Speaking from a Radical Feminist Bastard Perspective
I blogged a response, as much of what I had to say was simply too extensive for a comment field.
Adoption as a modern Feminist institutional blindspot
http://www.babylovechild.org/2009/11/19/adoption-as-a-modern-feminist-in...
The mere willingness to approach the material from a critical perspective is absolutely to Ms. Friedman's (and Bitch's) credit.
Thanks, Dawn for an
Thanks, Dawn for an excellent article. To commenter "lauren", who gave you special knowledge of how surrendering mothers feel and how long their grief lasts? How many do you know, 20, 30, 40, 50 years and more after surrendering? I have known quite a few in the last 30 some years in adoption reform groups, and i can assure you that the grief does not go away for most of us, even those who hid it and tried to suppress it for many years. There is a potential for serious life-long emotional problems for mothers who surrender, especially if they are lied to, told to keep such a momentous event secret, and not given all the facts on which to base their decision.
I am not anti-adoption, nor do I demonize adoptive parents. There is a place for adoption when there is real informed choice for the mother, and real alternatives are explored, not dismissed as the "wrong" choice with adoption always the "right" one. Some adoptions are necessary, and in some cases surrender is the better alternative. The problem is that in the past and today, many women are pushed towards surrenders that are not necessary by means that are venal and dishonest. There is corruption and coercion in adoption practice and that is not acceptable.
No, Lauren, women in crisis pregnancies do not have "the most rights". No, not all surrenders are a free, informed choice today, given the predatory and commercial nature of many adoption providers. We also have the problem of religious fundamentalists using adoption to "save souls" by adopting as many children as possible into their narrow faith, and "punish sinners" by making sure unmarried mothers lose their babies.
For some, adoption works and is a good thing, especially where honesty and openess prevail. It does not good to stick one's head in the sand and ignore what is wrong with adoption today, nor to dismiss the voices of those of us who were hurt by shoddy adoption practice in the past.
Well Said
The vast majority of natural mothers I have met whether they were searching, had found, were found, or met at or outside of A.L.M.A and C.U.B. had been hounded, lied to coerced. In one case a natural mother had approached to sign a relinquishment while still under the effects of anesthetic having just given birth. They are repeatedly told they won't be able to care for their child. People who were not adopted or a natural mother just can't seem to understand what it's like to walk down the street looking at every woman you see and the need to know whether she is your mother or if she is still alive. Or what it feels like for a mother to need to find. the child who was taken from her. For me, the feeling was similar to being lost, have a part of me missing, or having been kidnapped. How could the pain of losing a mother or a child and not knowing if they are dead or alive or well ever go away? Additionally, most hereditary diseases don't show up until long after the adoption has occurred. Any competent geneticist will tell you that there are just too many things to screen for with no up to date family history to go by. The adoption agency had me believing I should watch for heart disease, but both of my natural grandfathers died of lung cancer after the adoption and after the agency lost touch. I was adopted by heavy smokers. Adoption is a big business. The agencies get money for each child in foster care. Adoptive parents, when they realize the situation, want to know the current genetic-related medical background of their adopted children. Once those adoptees are adults, there is no longer any legitimate excuse for hiding the records. Adults should not be bound by contracts they were not signatories of. That is like slavery. My natural mother, like 95 percent of natural mothers, wanted to be found. The agency had promised her that I would be able to find her, but when I went looking they claimed she wanted confidentiality. It was a bald faced lie. The main reason agencies push for confidentiality is because it is they who have dirty deeds to hide. The claim of mothers wanting confidentiality is a promotion of the stigma of illegitimacy. Both the stigma of illegitimacy and the discrimination against "bastards" continues. Technically I am a "bastard". I can't help but wonder how society deny our rights and then be surprised if we go ahead and act the roll they cast us in. Maryanne's comment is a good one. I agree. Thank you, Dawn.
The Problem here seems to be
The Problem here seems to be the BROAD blanket statements that are being made and assumed about those who adopt and those who choose to give up their children for adoption - yes SOME women suffer from life long grief, were taken advantage of and manipulated into making choices that they might not have wanted .. BUT TO ASSUME that ALL women who give children up for adoption suffer from these issues is EGOCENTRIC
I have given up 2 children .. it was not a financial choice, it wasn't a forced choice - my parents, grandparents, and 2 of my cousins all offered to "adopt" the child until I was ready to be a mother, they offered financial assistance- free living arrangements - basically I had no crisis situation to "force" me into anything - I just had absolutely no interest in rasing a squaling brat and had no interest in having it around as a constant reminder if it was raised by my family - so adoption was a perfect solution - it went to a family that actually wanted a child and I could get on with my life .. .and no I didn't suffer any guilt or regret - it's life would have been hell it i had keep it ... a vengeful, pissed off parent is way worse than being adopted and I do like to have my life inconvenienced
2nd time around - it wasn't even a consideration , it was adoption or abortion and knowing that white babies are so popular and desired, and my own belief that a child shouldn't be punished for my errors in birth control I once again choose adoption..
My name is not on either of their birth certificates and I wanted it that way ... As far as I'm concerned, those children have NO RIGHT to my identity, and if they would somehow manage to find me - they would not find a "warm cozy reunion" - I walked away from that committment ages ago and I would not welcome their intrusion into my life or my world ...
My perspective is not unique we just don't feel any need to express ourselves - it's funny how many women protest at abortion clinics and yet still take advantage of that opportunity when it's them - same with all the whinners about "I was forced to give up my baby" blah, blah, blah - you always have a choice, you choose not to go on welfare, you choose to have unprotected sex, you choose - and whinning about social circumstances will not change the status quo - there are always going to be poor people, always going to be teen-age pregnant mothers w/out support systems .. usually those who are whinning about this have been driven to it because they are unable to find joy in their lives and so they just focus on how things would have been SO MUCH better if they had just keep their child - bullshit .. that is a fantasy in and of itself and you only do yourself harm when you live in that fantasy
"My perspective is not unique..."
Actually, according to studies of natural mothers and birth psychology, your perspective is very unique. Mothers and infancts bond during the gestation process and hormones are released at birth to further seal this mother/child bond. Disruption of this natural biological bonding process creates much emotional stress for both mother and infant. Doesn't matter if the disruption is due to adoption or the baby being placed in neo-natal intensive care - they have the same effect of creating a huge amount of anxiety and stress that can result in lifelong emotional consequences.
Studies also show that an overwhelming majority of natural mothers wish to reunite with their child and spend their lives hoping they are okay. If that is not you, fine, but it has been shown to be true for the majority of mothers.
Very Unique Indeed
I agree, "maybe". Sara's perspective is not only unique, it is not believable. I don't believe she is a natural mother. Your point about the hormonal bond is true, and so are the studies which show that 95 percent of all reunions are amicable.
LOL... July 3, 1984 9lb 8oz
LOL... July 3, 1984 9lb 8oz 21" baby boy was born - five years later his brother was born - and not all women want or desire children even after carrying them for 9 months - I have never liked children, never wanted them - consider them an inconvenience to my personal interests and pursuits but I was not willing to have an abortion as the child did nothing wrong - so adoption was the perfect solution ... and I am not unique - 1/2 of my high school graduation class was pregnant senior year .. 1/2 of those girls got abortions, the other 1/2 gave their babies up for adoption - we all had plans that did not include children ... I went to school with girls who by the time they had graduated had more then 5 abortions - which is worse ?? who's to say ?? I still talk to most of my high school friends, none of us have children now nor do we want them - we have all gone on to higher education and career sucess, some of us are married, some are not - but we are all pursuing our dreams without what we consider an anchor around our necks
LOL, Dude what high school did you got to?
I mean srsly---
Highschool...
Wow, that highschool is an outlier for every major socio-demographic statistic in America! I can't imagine how any one school would fall so far outside the norm.
Would love to know which school it is, would make for a great sociological study!
it's already been part of
it's already been part of numerous sociological studies as it is located in what once was called "the teen pregnancy capital of the U.S" (based on per capita) - I think it lost that distinction to a county in California
you evaded the question,
you evaded the question, what high school?
as to the 95% that are
as to the 95% that are amicable - what are the actual numbers ?? is that 95% of 100, 200, 5000 - and what does amicable mean - as in they met, or did they develop a long-term meaningful relationship incorporating into the family ?? once again - it's very easy to take data and make it say whatever you want it to say - and if you want to really make the numbers rock, just leave out those numbers that don't say what you want them to say - and what about the reunions that went well at first (probably counted in the 95% sucess rate) and then fell apart due to unresolved anger for being "abandoned" by the child, or some other issue (not mentioned at that point because it would mess up their fabulous report that supports their agenda)... until they can provide decades of information on all women involved then their numbers are always going to be supect to validity and challenge
As a daughter of a clinical
As a daughter of a clinical psychologist I could find data to argue that point - as someone who also has a degree in the social sciences, I know how easy it is to make any study say whatever I want it to say to achieve my "goals" - studies, statistics are all a numbers game and are rarely if ever "undisputable" .. once again.. you can't use words like MAJORITY ... really - did they talk to every woman in the U.S. who gave a child up for adoption ?? I doubt it .. .this is how it works - they talk to a "SAMPLE" it may be 1000, 2000, hell if they are really good maybe they got 10,000 mothers to talk to them and then they take all that data and extrapalate it - making ASSUMPTIONS and grand pronouncements about how things ARE - that's the funny thing about the "soft sciences" it's mostly a subjective field rather than an objective one - when you add emotions and personalities into any study you affect the outcome as you color the results with your own perspectives - that is how life works - and though I am willing to conceed that there are many women who regret their choices... I would like to ask how many of those women who participated in those studies were paid for their participation, we they "polluted" by telling them what the study was about, it's goal - all this factors in to the validity of the results but they never tell you that do they - it's easy to get people to say what you want them to say when you play on their emotional unstability - I could convince an unhappy person who gave a child up for adoption that it was that one act that has lead to their total despondancy - when it may be a mental disorder, it may be a bad relationship, a lack of connection to their community - it's easy to give people something to focus on , and the "forced adoption" of a child is an easy one - ANYONE who has an agenda to push on others knows exactly how to manipulate others to increase the sound of their message -that is what makes them effective advocates - NOT that they are right
It wasn't a "Study"
It wasn't some study. I was there! I was there at the Adoptees Liberty Movement Association workshops rubbing elbows with real adoptees and real natural mothers during the course of there searches. I learned what happened when and if they found and knew the people who weren't able to. I knew the natural mothers at Concerned United Birthparents who searched and who found. I would suggest that either you are not who you claim and are an adoption agency shill, or else you should find a good therapist other than the one you allege you are a daughter of to find out how you wound up being so snide, callous, and lacking in maternal feelings (if you are really even female).
I can assure you I am
I can assure you I am female, I love my family dearly but that does not mean that just because I am female I am required or automatically going to have maternal feelings - No one in my family considered my choice to adopt wrong or callous - they trusted me to know what was best for MY mental/emotional/physical being and that was always the primary issue - as for therapist, due to the type of work I do and have done most of my career, I have seen professionals over the year to have my "mental state" evaluated and to date the consensus has always been " most well adjusted individual they have had the pleasure of visiting with" - I've always found that highly amusing ... but regardless, not everyone is going to follow down the yellow brick road of "transgenerational trauma" that is being put out there by claiming that this one act has lead to all the tragedies of one's life - talk about victim mentality - and no I have no interest in adoption agencies, I usually tell people either get an abortion or arrange for a private adoption to avoid all the red tape ... personally I wouldn't object to agencies being shut down but
Great, Sara. I'm glad that
Great, Sara. I'm glad that your children's adoptions were just what you wanted and that you've had no fall-out. (Although I hope you make room for the kids you placed to feel differently.)
Listen, I don't want to outlaw adoption -- I just want to work to get to a place where it's available to people like you who truly choose it from a place of confidence, informed decision making and empowerment and where women who are less sure have the room and support to make their decision without anyone trying to make a buck off of getting them away from their kids.
I will tell you that in my experience you are unusual. I have heard from other first moms who feel exactly the way you do (although not very often). Wouldn't it be grand if they were the only people placing instead of the women who feel bullied into it? Reform wouldn't stop YOU from placing kids; it would just make it easier for other women to get off the treadmill one the process starts.
http://www.thiswomanswork.com
Thank you Dawn
Dawn,
Thanks for the piece, I think it's a great view of something so often swept under the rug and forgotten. I wonder if this is often discounted as a feminist issue because the women who place (willing or unwilling) are often seen as meak and powerless - a view not often embrassed by the feminist community.
I've always wondered why people like NCFA are so scared of giving women (and men, let's not forget the birth fathers here) the tools they need the make a fully informed decision about their unplanned pregnancy. Outside of the obvious reason, of course, which would be that the more women (and men) know about the process and the pain, the less likely they are to place a child for adoption.
I would like to point out that I am one of the few who felt I made an informed decision and I still stand behind the decision I made as being the best one for not only me, but for my child, based on the information I had at the time. Of course, there is the benefit of hindsight, but honestly, who knows what my life would be like if my decision had been anything other than it was...
I digress.
I hate that my opinion that those involved in a legal process should be given all the information they need to make a fully informed decision often lumps into the adoption abolitionists group. On one hand, I think we do need to abolish adoption as we know it today and advocate for a more transparent process with strong ethical guidelines that protect all of those involved, not just the adoptive parents, which when you get down to brass tacks, is exactly what the NCFA propaganda machine is doing. They are throwing dollar bills at people in an attempt to rewrite history and erase the 'ugly truth'.
It is easy for adoptive parents with their cute cuddly infants to sit back and talk about how happy every one is - for many birth parents, the pain, grief and guilt over placement doesn't manifest for years - and more often than now, this isn't something they openly and willingly share with the adoptive parents of their child - honestly, what invites a slammed door faster than sharing regret, pain and discomfort with the decision that made these people parents? It's even more complicated for those who are adopted - I can't even tell you the number of times I've read an adopted person write about how scared they are to 'hurt' their adoptive parents by sharing something painful about their feelings. Instead, these adoptees live with the hurt themselves. How in the hell is that fair?
It really seems like the only ones who are allowed to vocalize their discontent with adoption are the ones that are adopting - which is why, Dawn, your voice is so important. The other sides often have far to much to lose to be vocal...and when they are, even if what their message is has nothing to do with halting adoptions all together, they are often labeled as bitter, angry, unhappy, adoption abolitionists.
It's sad that it's seen this way - this 'black' or 'white' view of things. You're either pro-adoption and shit rainbows and glitter or you're anti-adoption. Why can't people just be pro-adoption reform. What is so wrong with acting ethically?
Let's start by making adoption a social welfare matter and not a billion dollar industry. That right there would go a long way to weeding out the unethical practices.
No, we CAN'T track ALL the mothers...
Because.. SURPRISE! No seemed to care enough about what happened to us after we reliquished our children...
So while we know there are over 6 million adoptees in the counrty denied their birthcertificates and those are only the adults, there is an assumed 10 million mothers who relinquished in the US. The closest numbers found recently are from the Donaldson report on Mothers..and if you want to check out their data, then go read the report. They explain it in detail.
The only adoption study that I know of where mothers were paid was actucally for the national COuncil for Adfoption..and they used that info gained form the mothers to help create the Infant Adoption Awaness training.
Here, look at all these moms and adoptees: http://www.exiledmothers.com/guestbook/guestbook1.html
Ah.. sorry... you do fit into a small minority of relinquishng mothers... historically only 1 to 4% internationally actyually refuse their children.. For the rest if us.. adoption was only the beginning of our problems.
thanks Dawn and Claud and Suz
I thought I was doing the right thing relinquishing my child but sadly the emotional toll has been huge - 20 years later I'm still grieving her loss to adoption.
"Studies show..." Just
"Studies show..."
Just because it's written down, doesn't make it true.
Children Are Not Chattel
We who were placed for adoption are not chattel. We have the same right to know the truth of our origins, the diseases that run in our families, our ancestry and our relatives as anyone else does. No piece of paper you sign can bind a third party who is not a signatory to it. Adult adoptees are treated as slaves in that regard. That's not just me talking. On March 19 0f 1979 Cyril C. Means, Jr., Professor of Law at NYU and the reference attorney for the original class action lawsuit to open New York's adoption records in a case entitled ALMA Society, Inc. V. Mellon argued that. I was one of the plaintiffs, and John Franklin Filippone is the name that is my birthright. I had searched for and found both of my natural parents. They were both very happy to see me and find out what happened to me as was my grandmother. My adoptive parents came to understand and gave me cash to make sure I had enough money to spend while visiting my natural mother. Since my natural parents weren't married my father's name wasn't on my original birth certificate which I was lucky enough to get (not from New York, but the Adoption was in New York). Even with my adoptive parents consent (which I shouldn't need as an adult) and the consent of both natural parent, the agencies fought tooth and nail to prevent the opening of New York's adoption records. Let me give you an example, Sara, of WHY YOU ARE AN IDIOT! Adopted people could wind up marrying a sister or a brother or even a parent due to sealed records and no knowing who they are related to. That is not a hypothetical. It has already happened. Your children could wind up marrying each other or another relative. And by what authority do you think you have to tell your natural children that they can't know their relatives? You are a selfish, and either ignorant or unethical. It is true that people didn't stop keeping native americans as slaves when the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. The Emancipation Proclamation and even the Fourteenth Amendment have not yet brought equality under the law for women or for adoptees, but it is time we started getting equal rights. The time has come for people like you to stop treating adoptees as chattel. You know who your relatives are. Don't try denying that to us.
People WHO ARE NOT adopted
People WHO ARE NOT adopted have also married a sister or brother due to infidelity, or families where each child has a different father, etc..so don't go down that road as the main reason I as a "natural mother" am required to give up any info other than medical history - a medical history can provide you with your genetic makeup, your cultural heritage, as for relatives, in today's nuclear families that have spread out across the nation, most rarely even know their immediate cousins, let alone extended family. If you are worried about marrying your sister, then get a DNA test - that would answer that question without causing grief to people you don't know - for people WHO WANT to connect there are organizations that they can list with to search for their parents/children - but I should not be forced into it because a child I gave birth to wants to "find themself" - You have every right to know about yourself right up to the point where it bumps up against my right to privacy. The moment the law "forces" adoptee information to be released is the moment that more children are abandoned at hospitals or left in boxes with no name, no medical info, possibly not being discovered - in case you've missed the latest news - the "safe harbor" program that allows women to leave an infant, no questions asked is becoming permanent law in more and more states - there are consequences to the laws we force on people, more and more women are choosing to just leave their babies, where they are put into the system with no way to "discover" anything at all about themselves - but at least they are alive, they can build "family", community and they have an opportunity, or we could we push abortion as the better choice and then just not worry about...
Honesty, I am very glad both my adoptions were private, my name is not on either birth certificate, in fact the hospital allowed the adoptive parents to fill out the official birth certificate, the birth father's name was not on any document even though he fathered both children, as neither of us wanted children, we decided it was better this way - the only place my name appears is on the court papers that were processed/filed privately and sealed - and will not be unsealed without my consent which will never happen
My only thought for the boys I gave up for adoption is an "age check" to make sure I am not dating men that are within their age range
Quite a burden
"My only thought for the boys I gave up for adoption is an "age check" to make sure I am not dating men that are within their age range. "
How admirably responsible. Please accept my sympathies. I hope it doesn't cramp your style too often.
Though I'm not sure why it would bother you.
Nothing much else seems to to do so.
Perhaps Sara
Sara - Your lack of desire for children, but ability to produce them with no feeling, makes you a very good breeder for infertile woman. Perhaps you could continue to producing your product for other women so they stop harvesting the children from expectant mothers with love but no viable options? Your story is very Handmades Tale'ish.
Uh - this is the kind of ILLEGAL and UNETHICAL Stuff ...
...everyone is talking about.
Adoption isn't just about you and your fully functional hyperactive uterus Sara - it's about the lives you created and what you feel is your fundamental right to continue to make decisions for the offspring you don't seem to give a rats ass about.
In case you haven't been made aware already - this is not legal. It is fraud. It's a crime. Falsifying legal documents, like a birth certificate, is something you CAN be charged with, have to go to court for and defend yourself against.
Although, I find it highly unlikely that any hospital would have put their licenses/certifications on the line simply so you and the adoptive parents could wave a magic wand and make it seem like the adoption never took place...but, that's just me.
Not just you
Not just you, Another Mother.
Sara's story gets progressively more dubious with each successive post. It has more holes than a piece of Swiss cheese.
Sara whines that anyone with an agenda knows how to manipulate others, but that is what she herself is trying, unconvincingly, to do.
She could use a few lessons in persuasive tecnniques from The Right Brain People http://www.rightbrainpeople.com/?p=home who were hired by the NCFA to produce, in co-operation with the FRC (the research branch of Focus on the Family) this lovely document http://www.adoptioncouncil.org/BirthmotherGoodmother.html which targets "potential birthmothers":
NCFA Home : Birthmother, Good Mother: Her Story of Heroic Redemption
BIRTHMOTHER, GOOD MOTHER: Her Story of Heroic Redemption
By Charles T. Kenny, Ph.D.
After working through their fears and conflicts, birthmothers choose adoption because they believe that it is best for their children. They realize that adoption is not abandonment; it is a loving, responsible act. By choosing what is best for their children, birthmothers see themselves as good mothers.Instead of feeling like bad mothers for abandoning children or “giving them away,” they now begin to see that placing their children with loving couples is what it means for them to be good mothers. They redeem themselves, transforming their mistakes into positive outcomes. Adoption allows them to recover their self-esteem, restore their identity, and renew their dreams and goals.
For for further confirmation of what Dawn has said, anyone hasn't yet read Kathryn Joyce's article http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090914/joyce/single really,
really should.
I'm not trying to manipulate
I'm not trying to manipulate or change anyone's mind - just putting a different view of things out there - and it's funny how I'm not attacking anyone directly and yet the moment anyone here feels like my views don't "conform" they don't challenge my view - they attack me personally
I have not said - "your study is absolutely wrong" "your view is absolutely wrong" - I've said give me more info, what numbers were the studies based on, what definitions are they using - I have not attacked any individual on this site though at times I'm sure I've come close - it's not about the individual , it's about the argument which is why there is never positive or forward moving discourse - the moment you attack the individual the discourse ends because you have taken an external argument, internalized it and made it "personal" which is not how you actively engage in discourse for change
but that's just my obviously misled, completely wrong, incorrect, couldn't possibly be valid opinion
"the hospital allowed the
"the hospital allowed the adoptive parents to fill out the official birth certificate"
Which hospital allowed this? - it's illegal.
Oh, I would imagine it was
Oh, I would imagine it was the hospital at her high school.
Thanks for the Lols Sara, I think you are absolutely precious. I just age check to make sure I am not dating them. Right.
Keep up the good work, can't wait for the next installment.
Actually I did inquire at
Actually I did inquire at both hospitals - one was a small country hospital, the other a large metro hospital - I was told at both that it was not necessary for me to fill out a birth certificate as the child was being put up for adoption so I never filled out anything - I was not paying the bill so though I was listed as a patient how my bill got paid was not tagged to my records (and yes I do have copies of those) - when I went before the court to finalize the paperwork, the birth certificate entered was listed as "unnamed baby boy" with no other information besides birth date/location - it would seem if that were illegal at the time 1980's then the lawyers and the judge involved would have done something about it - I'm not a lawyer, I just signed the papers and walked away ...
As for my over active uterus ..lol..I've had exactly 2 children and given them both up for adoption - I don't feel any need to provide baby's for anyone, unless it becomes legal to engage in a financial exchange for the damage and risk I go through to produce a child - otherwise there is no incentive - not that altruistic
And honestly, if you think "illegality" doesn't occur everyday across this county , you really do have a much rosier view of the world than I do - it's not about what's fair, just, or moral - it's about who you know and how much money you have..
So Sara, when you are age
So Sara, when you are age checking those boys a good 20 plus years younger than you, do you just have them wear condoms if they are your sons? Just curious does that wipe out the incest factor for you?
Oh and I am sure all these sweet young thangs thing you are super hot too, and that you are.
the "age check" means above
the "age check" means above the age of my son born in 1984 - everyone above his age is "fair game" and you would be amazed how many young men appreciate the skills and interest of an older woman - it's not about commitment, relationships, being super hot or any other type of "bond" - it's about randy monkey sex... and I've always practiced safe sex - even condoms aren't 100% effective - and in case you missed the above post :
funny how everyone keeps attacking the person instead of arguing the "view" but isn't that how it always is when someone who has a different view point on adoption or even abortion is responded to? that way you don't have to actually have a positive discourse recognizing that your "polarized view" might not be the "end all, be all" of the issue - I have not insulted any one person, I've pushed the envelope and have come close, but my challenge has always been about the data, about the broad sweeping statements of the majority.. I have never accused anyone of being wrong or misled in their perception of this topic and yet the moment I say something that doesn't fit inside the current "worldview" presented of what I should be, feel, or think - well then I must be a bad person ,I must be lying, I must be an adoption shrill ....LOL... that is actually the tragedy here
While I was at school, and yes I'm still in academia, a lovely place to met those randy young men - I asked the question about "adoption and it's legacy" to other students, other professionals, friends who work in recovery centers - and all of them found this viewpoint ridiculous in the sense of it's broad presumption of "injury" - a great many of those people offered stories of those they knew who had given children up, and were amazed this was considered the "majority" response to adoption - so I really am not the only person who views this topic from an entirely different perspective, but as I'm sure that doesn't "fit" inside the agenda it will also be attacked and belittled as irrelevant by someone
I will say it again, I am sure there are those who suffer greatly for the choice they made - but I really doubt the data is accurate enough to say 95%, majority, or another other type of adjective that is so inclusive as to be an impossibility - there are too many
"natural mothers" who feel no need to participate in these types of survey situations to really consider the data more than 50% at any point and at NO POINT can it be extrapolated to the greater social demographic - it can only be applied and addressed to those there are part of the study - one of the major problems with these types of studies in any field, it's all a numbers game and a good statition can make the numbers say whatever they want - any statition worth their salt will admit that caveat in regards to the data
If SO many natural mothers were interested in reconnecting with their children / or the children with them - the FREE connection sites would be overwhelmed by the millions of people trying to find one another .. of course you can argue due to economic pressures most of those people won't have access to computers, socio-economic hardship, education, blah, blah, blah - then again any time any offers any alternative to the "perfect situation of the emotional horrors of adoption" it will be shot down so have it
Lets see what new personal attacks occur from the "enlightened, we're right, you're obviously wrong" crowd occurs - every personal attack just decreases the validity and sincerity of your arguments
Not attacking you Sara, just
Not attacking you Sara, just wondering why your sons wouldn't be fair game. It seems inconsistent with your other statements. I mean who cares about them? Or do you just not want them to enjoy your aged skills and attention. Not fair Sara, really not fair.
Oy wey, yet more discrimination for those squalling brats you shat out. Such a shame.
That would have something to
That would have something to do with my "awareness" that the possibility exists and so to avoid any issues I avoid dating those that fall into the range where I could commit incest - how hard is that to figure out??
As for the "brats" strangely enough I'm sure they will do fine, survival of the fitness don't ya know
No, sara, those disgusting
No, sara, those disgusting brats that you shat out of your jay-jay, they must be just like you. Who cares about them?
No, sara, those disgusting
No, sara, those disgusting brats that you shat out of your jay-jay, they must be just like you. Who cares about them?
Oh pls. post your picture
Oh pls. post your picture you sexy lady, my son may be interested. He is younger than your sons, but he has friends..
you know, your mature,
you know, your mature, menapausal hands mmmmm, v. sexy
Sara is careless gal
Sara screws up her birth control - twice - then says her children don't have the right to know their parents? What an idiot. Don't ever jump in my feminist corner to advocate for my rights as a woman. It's because of stupid girls like you that oppressive laws exist.
2 accidents in over 29 yrs
2 accidents in over 29 yrs seems pretty responsible when you consider the numbers - if I were totally irresponsible I would use abortion as a form of birth control instead of actually accessing the fabulous options available to me - and they were both accidents, birth control and condoms - but back then things didn't have quite the same success rate of preventation
as for advocating - I support a woman's right to choose, I support actions to address the inequalities of pay, education, opportunties - I just don't support activities that focus on a "victim mentality" or "poor me" I've been traumatized by this one act my entire life and because of it my entire life has been ruined - there are consequences to one's choices, good and bad - be a grown up, accept them and move - if you want to reconnect or try to find your "long lost child" more power to you but leave the rest of the world out it and don't force your agenda on those who don't want it or need
Sara dear, you should have
Sara dear, you should have aborted your unwanted spawn, they are like you, sociopathic.
Up with abortion
Up with abortion
Not my kind of feminism
Sara's brand of feminism makes me embarrassed to be a feminist. Hatred of children, random fucking, thanks but no thanks.
Environment, Heredity, Concerned United Birthparents
There is much I left out of an earlier comment that concentrated on the rights of adult adoptees to have the same rights as everyone else. If you look up the word mother in most dictionaries you will find that Natural Mothers and Adoptive Mothers both fall under the definitions given. People are affected by both environment and heredity, and both are important. I started my search after reading the book "The Search for Anna Fisher by Florence Fisher, who founded ALMA. My own adoptive parents stopped feeling threatened by my search for my natural parents when they realized that the years I had spent being raised by them were not suddenly going to go away. After I found my natural parents, on a visit to an Adoptive Parents Committee meeting in NYC, I found most adoptive parents very receptive to wanting to know the heredity and medical background of their children. In the many Meetings of the Adoptees Liberty Movement Association I attended I can tell you that most adoptees found it infuriating when to refer to their NEED to know as "curiosity". I was one of the lucky ones. While I was there I knew a woman who had been a foundling and had been searching for 25 years. She had found a newspaper article from when she had been left and had tracked down over half of the people that had lived in that building so long ago. I also attended meetings of one of the organizations referenced in an earlier comment by An Adoptee, Concerned United Birthparents , which has an informative pdf booklet on the web you can read entitled What you should KNOW if you're considering adoption for your baby Although their "focus is on birthparents, long forgotten people of the adoption community", Concerned United Birthparents welcomes adoptees, adoptive parents and professionals. Try getting to know some REAL natural mothers like Maryanne Cohen or Lorraine Dusky, the author of "Birthmark", or others like the many members of CUB I knew who are REAL (unlike "Sara"). Try reading a book like "Pregnant by Mistake, The Stories of 17 Women" by Katrina Maxtone-Graham. Get the support of other birthmothers before you make your decision. And no, I am not anti-choice.
Don't Feed It!
I strongly suggest people stop baiting the troll. She's obviously getting a sick pleasure out of horrifying others.
There are a small number of first mothers who either already are or else become so unhinged that they can sound like Sara. This is a sad fact. Let's not revel in the psychological suffering that is so evident. She has convinced herself that she is something other than a human being. She's wrong, but she can't hear anyone else through her pain.
well of course I must be
well of course I must be unhinged or suffering from psychological trauma - because there is no possible way that a human being could be so callus, so uncaring ... ;-) sure why not ? ... the fact that I enjoy younger men, that I enjoy living an uncomplicated life with no ties, and consider adoption a "freeing" rather than a "traumatic" experience obviously makes me unhinged - unlike most instead of addressing me directly with your attacks, you speak "about me" ..lol .. that is soooo much better
Sometimes we forget
Having a uterus and having a personality disorder are not mutually exclusive. I wouldn't label Sara as crazy or a psychopath. I'm sure she does come across as very charming in person. Some people have personality disorders that make it very challenging for them to form bonds with others. This might explain the lack of bonding with a child and or partners, leading what Sara claims to be a large amount of sexual relationships. This might also explain some of her hyperbole and why she is treating the feelings of others with contempt.
Her story isn't really one of adoption, nor about making a feminist choice not to raise children. It leaves me wondering why she didn't choose a more permanent form of birth control if she knew she never wanted to have children? She is clearly competent to make such a decision and yet chose not to do so.
Very intelligent, rational people can make very irrational choices and statements when it comes to their personal actions and beliefs. I hope this is helpul for some of you who feel angered and/or wounded by some of these posts.
Because one day I will have
Because one day I will have a child, possibly two because it's part of the "power picture" .. that can't happen if you permanently fix the problem and if I should wait until I biologically can't conceive I will buy eggs and go with invitro - gotta love the fact that babies can be created on demand with egg/sperm banks - you can even buy a womb if you are too busy to be "pregnant" -
bwaaahahahahahahahahahaha!
bwaaahahahahahahahahahaha!
Question
So here's a totally "bland" question - what exactly do expect will happen to all those natural mothers who keep their babies in a society that does not want to provide services that would allow those families to exist about poverty level ? who's going to fork over the $ to fund those programs? not the the public, people are getting poorer, the middle class is shrinking and those who have, don't like to share - then consider that the new health care bill just took a major hit, in order to get the numbers to get it to the floor - abortions have been removed from all the options - so there goes one alternative for the poor, leaving adoption, illegal abortions or a life of extreme poverty with all the social/emotional/mental/physical ills that go along with it - absolutely that is so empowering, it is more important to keep the "family" together regardless of the reasoning - honestly how many women who have given up children, regardless of the whether they were pressured or not, were in a position to realistically raise a child ?? but whatever, if it's more important then sure why not - I give it a generation, then let's talk
Question
So here's a totally "bland" question - what exactly do expect will happen to all those natural mothers who keep their babies in a society that does not want to provide services that would allow those families to exist about poverty level ? who's going to fork over the $ to fund those programs? not the the public, people are getting poorer, the middle class is shrinking and those who have, don't like to share - then consider that the new health care bill just took a major hit, in order to get the numbers to get it to the floor - abortions have been removed from all the options - so there goes one alternative for the poor, leaving adoption, illegal abortions or a life of extreme poverty with all the social/emotional/mental/physical ills that go along with it - absolutely that is so empowering, it is more important to keep the "family" together regardless of the reasoning - honestly how many women who have given up children, regardless of the whether they were pressured or not, were in a position to realistically raise a child ?? but whatever, if it's more important then sure why not - I give it a generation, then let's talk
Sara wrote: "well of course
Sara wrote: "well of course I must be unhinged or suffering from psychological trauma - because there is no possible way that a human being could be so callus, so uncaring ... ;-) sure why not ? ... the fact that I enjoy younger men, that I enjoy living an uncomplicated life with no ties, and consider adoption a "freeing" rather than a "traumatic" experience obviously makes me unhinged - unlike most instead of addressing me directly with your attacks, you speak "about me" ..lol .. that is soooo much better"
Oh, wow...nobody cares that you don't like kids or parenting isn't your thing. Even worse you shared with us that you enjoy younger men....how 1980s. I bet you're all excited about the return of Melrose Place, huh? Honey, get with the new generation of bitches, will ya?
"honestly how many women who
"honestly how many women who have given up children, regardless of the whether they were pressured or not, were in a position to realistically raise a child ??"
Oh, wow....how many people since humans have existed have survived being raised in poverty and lived successful lives? Come on, your question is ridiculous. My parents struggled for years with three children and barely enough money for groceries - how on earth did they manage? People work hard to overcome their barriers. Maybe you should ask Oprah how she became successful, you know, coming from poverty and abuse etc.
Sara wrote: "as for
Sara wrote: "as for advocating - I support a woman's right to choose, I support actions to address the inequalities of pay, education, opportunties - I just don't support activities that focus on a "victim mentality"
I don't believe you do support a woman's right to choose. You would support women having access to their birth certificates and women to know who and where their children are - same as all other women, if that were true. Instead you advocate for women to be discriminated against - you deny women their civil rights. You are not a feminist - you do not advocate for women - you fight against them, No way do you believe in equal rights and opportunity for all women.
Is it a choice...
...to resort to giving up a child to avoid poverty? Doesn't seem to be a choice at all. Any society that promotes this is fundamentally ill.
Don't we criticize third world countries for that very thing? Lack of support for mothers and children is seen as a great injustice - unless you live in the U.S., that is. Here it's called welfare reform a.k.a. pick youself up by your bootstraps and don't expect any help. Quite a double standard.
That's an interesting question
There are a lot of assumptions in it and they are assumptions that come naturally when we consider adoption from our current framework, which is fraught with stereotypes. The truth is that birth parents are a whole lot of different people. Some are poor, some are temporarily poor, some are not poor at all. Some are young, some are not. Some are already parenting children. Some are struggling with other challenges like domestic violence, addiction or homelessness and some simply feel unsure about their readiness to parent at that time. Further some are single but some are partnered or married. Which is to say that not every child whose mother changes her mind about placing him is going to end up in "extreme poverty with all the social/emotional/mental/physical ills" that go along with it." But it's difficult to say with certainty who the women are who are placing because no one keeps good statistics especially not on those kids placed privately (not through an agency). It's all very underground.
But we do know that less than one percent of pregnant women place their babies for adoption, (which is why the NCFA is pushing it so hard -- there just aren't enough babies to meet demand). So this means that most poor women ARE parenting their children. Should we push adoption to these women as a matter of course? Is every poor woman suspect if she chooses to parent? Should our feminist response to the anti-choice coalition be to stand aside when conservative organizations demonize parenthood and push the "good mother, birth mother" rhetoric?
Let me again state that the goal is NOT to force more women to parent against their will, it's to create adoption services that truly serve the women who need them because the world being what it is, some women will need to place their children and some women will want to place their children.
http://www.thiswomanswork.com
"Let me again state that the
"Let me again state that the goal is NOT to force more women to parent against their will, it's to create adoption services that truly serve the women who need them because the world being what it is, some women will need to place their children and some women will want to place their children."
Before it's a service for women, it should first have the children's best interest as the primary concern. If a woman doesn't want to parent then she has no right to anonymity from the child/ren she gives away to the adoption industry (no woman should have that right). Adoption "services" currently allow this. I'd imagine there's more married women that have less choice about parenting then the single ones.
Thank you - I never really
Thank you - I never really thought about it that way
What exactly do expect will happen to all those natural mothers?
Well my first thought here is: how much is the federal tax credit now given to adoptive parents? I believe it just went over $12,000? How sad is it that our own governement will help pay to remove the children from their biologially families, but not help keep them there? I suggest that if people, aka the general public, actually were aware that their tax dollars were supporting adoption in one way.. why would they care if it was going to another area?
And then, you question itself presents a major flaw: The presumoption is made that there are only these options to one facing an unmoplanned pregnancy: "adoption, (illegal) abortions or a life of extreme poverty"
See that's one of the reasons why my son was place at birth.. if I kept him at 19 then that "baby would have ruined my life" as I was told repeatedly and I believed.
Funny thing though: I am smart, hardworking, resourcesful and have goals. Had then beofre I had goten pregnant too. SO maybe "that baby" would have presented some new challanges, but what doesn't in life?
Maybe I would have had to take less classes per semester to keep up my 3.94 GPA while tending to my son; but gee.. 22 years later do you think it would matter much to me that the now useless degree I got took a few years longer?
Would it have matter very much to my son that the first 7 years of his life we would have maybe lived with my mother ( whowould ahve adored him) and my borther ( who was only 6 years older?) .. I am thinking not.
Would it have been very much differnt then when I did parent my second son.. and my husband and I had like no $$, lived in a rickety shack with only a wood stove and then, he left me as a single mother and I had to work? Nope. I am thinking that it might have been pretty much the same. And oddly enough.. that hardworking recourseful ness me kept it all together, went on with life, still never with very much $; but for my klids now. they have had a damn good upbringing. I did it at 23 and I am damn sure I would have done it at 19.
In truth; it wasn't having the baby that "ruined" my life; it was letting him go to adoption.
The mothers like me who DO rerlinquish.. often we are the "smart, selfless, wise, goal oriented, over achievers"..and without the "loving adoption option" we would not sink down to a life of poverty and ruin, but would become similar smart wise hardworking mothers that we really are!
Claudia Corrigan D'Arcy
www.musingsofthelame.com
Adopt-ation: A feminist take on the state of the adoption indust
In any adoption, there is pain, loss and love. As a mother who had no choice but relinquish her son at birth. I can honestly say that the day I found out he was healthy, alive, safe and loved as a child, the weight of the world was lifted off of my shoulders. Nothing can make up for the loss of all those years that I missed of his life, which is understandable And, each circumstance is as different as people can be, the adoptive person, the mother, and the adoptive parents.
I would hope any feminist would acknowledge the pain that we endured as our children were MIA. There has to be a better way for all three parties than as practiced in the past. Adoptive adults, need to know their roots as well as their branches, if they so desire. Adoptive parents should have the fear that they will lose their 'child' removed, as their child's loyaltiy is to them. Mother's (birth-moms, in general, because I can't speak for everyone) should have the right to know their adult children are safe so they can die in peace. At least that is what finding Joel did for me.
I hope all feminists can understand the complexities and support what is best for all. Confirm this by reading the Evan B Doanldson Agency's reports (a research and think tank on adoption).
Thank you,
Jill - just another woman and mother
Perspective of an Adoptee
I've spent the last hour reading all these comments, and except for a few, they are all by mothers who only talk about themselves. How THEY feel, what THEY want. How putting their children up for adoption has ruined their lives. But what about the kids?
I am an adoptee and my adoption was closed. Many of you who have studied adoption will say that that's horrible, damaging, etc. I have also been on the other side of the process when my husband and I tried to adopt several years ago. Additionally I have many friends that are adopted and friends who have adopted - domestically, internationally, and out of the foster system, so I believe that I do know something about it.
To those women who still feel the pain of giving up a child - I am sorry about that. As a mother, I am sure that was excruciating. But as an adopted child, I am here to tell you that I am happy. I love my family (my REAL family = my adoptive family). I have always known that I was adopted (and my brothers were not) and my mother always made sure to tell me how special my birthmom was to love me so much to give me up (she was a teenager). As for money - no, we didn't have a lot. My parents certainly weren't rich - we struggled. Also, as the baby of a teenager (who probably didn't receive much prenatal care) I was premature and had health problems. My parents never complained. They took care of me no matter what the cost. My MOTHER (adoptive) was the one who sat up with me at night when my asthma was so bad I couldn't breathe. She rushed me to the ER when I stopped breathing. My parents got me the surgery I needed so I could hear again (I was born with fluid in both ears, so I couldn't hear anything for the 6 months I was in foster care). My brothers and I are close. My dad coached my soccer team, and my mom and I love the same books. I am adopted, but that doesn't define me. My family doesn't make any distinction - we are family. That's it. I don't want to find my birthparents. They are strangers. I don't want either a camera crew or my birthparents to show up on my doorstep. I wish them well, but this is my life. I am happy. And out of all my friends that are adopted - not one of them has ever found their birthparents, either, and none want to.
For those adoptees that want to find their birthparents - hey, that's your choice and you are entitled to it. I hope it's everything you want it to be. But don't assume that all adoptees need to find their parents to be whole. My mother actually encouraged me to find my birthparents, but I told her I didn't want to. My uncle is adopted and my grandmother always knew who his birthparents were (some distant relation) and he was similarly uninterested in meeting them. I believe families are made - not born.
I hope that my birthmother isn't still mourning me, that she made peace with it and moved on with her life and is happy somewhere. Even if she isn't, I hope she doesn't find me. People criticize closed adoptions, but in my case, we lived an uneventful life. I had two parents and two brothers. Everyone who talks about open adoption talks about how hard it is - how many issues there are. Maybe it's ultimately a good thing, but you won't know, will you? You won't know if it's too confusing for the child, or if it just keeps those wounds open indefinitely on both sides, and if that's a good thing. Those mothers who gave up their children and are now convinced they could have been good parents don't know that, either. Maybe you could have been, but who pays the price if you fail? Obviously you had many factors against you or else you wouldn't have considered adoption in the first place. I am a parent, too, and it's damn hard work. My husband and I have good jobs, but the costs are astronomical - safe car seats, daycare, formula, diapers, clothes, shoes, etc. I work part-time, and even part-time daycare for 3 kids is $25k/year, and I don't even live where it is the most expensive. My best friend has two children and she pays that much.
Seeing it from so many sides - adoption IS flawed. It IS emotional (how could it not be?). But in the case of my friends who are adopted and my other friends who have adopted - in our cases, us adoptees are happy. Even though as mothers you still feel loss, can't you make room for the possibility that your children are happy where they are?
I know that you suffered a loss, but it isn't healthy to dwell on it for so many years and not move on. Many people suffer losses and don't hold on to them as the ruination of their lives. I have friends that have lost children (to death) and although that pain will never go away, and they will always remember that child, they didn't let it ruin everything else good in their lives. I lost a sister-in-law, and a friend to breast cancer. I had five miscarriages and I am sad for each child that I will never know, but I have three healthy children that I am thankful for, and I'm happy about that.
If you want to find your birthchild, and that reunion is happy, that's great for you. But what if you find them and they don't want it? What harm have you done then? A girl I knew in college had her birthmom show up on her doorstep unannounced and she very much did not want that. Same on the other side, what I found my birthmom and she didn't want to be found? What if she were the victim of rape or just uninterested (like Sara)?And what type of relationship am I expected to have with these people, anyway? Am I supposed to bond with them just because we are related by blood? I actually find that unnatural and don't wish to be forced into a relationship with people who are strangers. Whoever said that adoptive parents have to come to terms with the fact that adoptees have a whole other family wasn't quite accurate. We have other blood relatives, but they aren't our family.
I hope all of you can find peace in some way. But remember, it's not always about you. As parents, that's the first thing you learn - your child comes first.