I have been putting the last questions off, because they are certainly not likely to make me the most popular, well-liked girl in the class. I am combining to questions and answering them together:
10) I’d like to know your thoughts on the anti-adoption movement.
11) How has some of your thinking about adoptive parenting evolved in the year you have known L?
Adopting L has certainly changed the way I feel about adoption. Or maybe about the business of adoption as it is in the US and globally right now. I guess I would say that in many ways, I agree with the anti-adoption movement.
“What?!?” you might be thinking, “Sure, it is convenient enough for your to change your mind once you got YOUR kid! What about the rest of us?”
But that would be illustrating exactly what my problems with adoption are. Adoption should NOT be about potential adoptive parents. While infertility is an awful, awful thing to suffer through, adoption is not a cure. Adoption should be about finding families for children who need them, not about finding children for parents.
While I knew it in an abstract way before, now that I know L, I can see first hand how adoption has hurt her. The losses she has suffered in her short life dwarf anything I have ever experienced. She lost not only her parents and probably her siblings, she also lost her extended family and her ancestors. She lost the story of who her people are and where they come from. She lost her family’s name and the name they may have given her. She lost her language, her culture and her country.
Imagine for a moment that one day you woke up in another country, not knowing who you were, where you came from or why you had to lose your home and family? It is unfathomable. Sure, maybe you can pick up and start your life all over again, but wouldn’t you be scarred by that experience?
I have also seen the way that L was hurt because she spent her first 11 months in an orphanage. I witnessed the grief and terror she felt when she lost her caregivers and her home. I saw the physical delays that the lack of stimulation and personal attention caused her. And for the record, L wasn’t a worse-case scenario. I would say she is just about average for babies being adopted from China.
It was all completely unnecessary. If it weren’t for draconian, human-rights violating laws, she may have been able to stay with her parents. At the very least, she should have been placed with adoptive or foster parents when she was young, because everyone knows that instituational care sucks for children. She should have been able to stay in her country, because I find it impossible to believe that China couldn’t find 10,000 adoptive families each year in their pool of 1. 4 billion citizens.
I also find the attitude of many potential adoptive parents to be appalling. The recent uproar over the increased orphanage donation from $3,000 to $5,000 is just embarrassing. We live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world and meet income and asset requirements that place families adopting from China solidly in the U.S. middle class.
Why in the WORLD would people complain about an additional $2,000 to provide better care for these children? Soon to be OUR CHILDREN for christ’s sake!!!! If I could go back in time, I would be happy to work a second job just to fund an individual nanny for all those months L was in the care of her orphanage.
Before I adopted L, I probably would have said that my most important jobs as her adoptive mother is to love her, find a community where she could thrive and do my best to honor her birth culture and birth parents. Now, that seems like a lot of fluffy, whipped bullshit.
Of course I love L with every fiber of my being, but right now I think my most important job is to bear witness. I have to acknowledge my role in a system that profits and benefits from her losses, that in some ways CAUSED her losses. I love her enough to speak up and say that no other child should have to suffer the same wounds that L will carry her entire life. All the love that our family showers on L will most likely not tip the great cosmic balance and out-weigh the losses that L has experienced. It is apples and oranges, one has nothing to do with the other.
Domestic adoption is another kettle of fish, but again, I probably fall much closer to the anti-adoption side of the spectrum. Most of the time, I believe that domestic infant adoption is the much quoted “Permanant solution to a temporary problem.”
I say this as the daughter of a poor, teen mother who would likely have been relinquished if I had been born a few years earlier than post-Roe 1976. Even if my parents hadn’t gotten married, hadn’t struggled their way to the middle class, hadn’t provided me with material things and a good education, I still would have wanted to stay with them. Because my mom is my MOM. And my dad is my DAD. Better stuff, a nicer house, a fancier school wouldn’t have changed any of that.
But better stuff is what adoption agencies sell to potential birth mothers. Better lives are what the agencies tell adoptive parents they are providing so we can feel all warm and fuzzy and benevolent about taking someone else’s baby.
Recently, I was reading another blog (not linking because I doubt the writer would appreciate an influx of adoptive parents to that particular post) in which a birth mother communicated the following message to her daughter’s adoptive parents: If her daughter should ever have an unplanned/crisis pregnancy, the birth mother would do everything in her power to help her daughter parent.
I thought about that a lot. While adoption was great for ME, it caused a lot of damage and harm for L. And while I can’t speak to L’s parents’ feelings, adoption causes a lot of pain to birth parents too.
If either of my girl’s had a crisis pregancy, would I encourage them to place their child for adoption? Absolutely 100% NO I WOULD NOT. I would do everything in my power to prevent it.
To agree with what Dawn often says, I believe it is important that adoption exists because I am pro-choice. Women deserve to have a wide range of options available to them.
But adoption? I think it is a crappy choice with a great propaganda machine.
And international adoption? A fancy way for some countries to brush their society’s problems under the rug and for citizens of rich countries to exploit poorer countries and their people.
Yeah, so let the rotten tomatoes fly. You asked, I answered as honestly as I can.
I agree. It may be easier for me, since I didn’t approach adoption from infertility, so I don’t want to trample on anyone. But every time my little girl laughs, it breaks my heart to think how bravely she has navigated all of the losses in her life. And when she loses it and can’t hold it together anymore, jb and I drop everything and wrap our arms around her in a family hug, and cry silent tears with her. There is no excuse for her to have been subjected to this. None. ~lmc
I would like to respectfully disagree with some points in your post. Just for clarification, I am only talking about international adoption. One of the issues I have with the anti-adoption movement is that it places responsibility and control over things, that APs or PAPs have no responsibility or control. I did nothing to contribute to L’s situation being what it was, and nor did you. Nor did either of us contribute the situations of the other 15 million orphans in China. Actually, no one really knows how many orphans are in China. The Chinese government reports that there are 500,000 orphans, while other agencies such as the UN put the estimation closer to 15 million. And just as neither of us forced babies to be abandoned at roadsides and reside in orphanages, neither can we be the entire solution. Adoption is also not the only reason children are abandoned or live in orphanages. Worldwide, there are an estimated 50-200 million orphans. Less than 2% of those children will be adopted into families.
While I understand and appreciate the losses that are inherent with adoption, it is curious that no one speaks of the gains that can come with living with a family. I do not know of the welfare of the orphans who age out of orphanages in China (if you have any data on the subject, I would love to read it) but I do know of some of the outcomes of children in Russia who never become part of permanent family. The average life expectancy is 26. Most are homeless, in jail, or die of drug overdoses. There are gains to be made if a child leaves an orphanage and becomes part of a family. While there are still losses, I think that living with a family, whether they be biological or adoptive, is in the best interest of a child over that of living in an orphanage.
Also, you said that L lost her family. Yes, under unknown circumstances, she lost her family when she was placed in her orphanage, but you did not take her from her family. An orphanage and its caregivers are not family. While it must be difficult to lose what was familiar, it must also be very scarring to grow up in an orphanage to be kicked out at the age of 16 with little education and no resources. But that outcome is so often ignored and dismissed.
My final point that I will disagree with you on, is the notion that you are somehow different from those you criticize when they say “Sure, it is convenient enough for you to change your mind once you got YOUR kid! What about the rest of us?” Your adoption was ultimately about you, exactly what you criticize in others. If it was just about the children who should have not suffered the loss of parents, birth country, language and culture, why not just donate money and other resources to China? It was because at some level you were out for your own interests. You wanted a child and you adopted L.
I’m sorry that this response is so long, and please don’t misunderstand me. I am not criticizing you for adopting. I tried to be respectful to you, and I hope I receive the same from you and other commenters.
Amber,
I think most parents who have adopted a child would agree with you. It aboslutely kills me that my very happy daughter will one day realize what she’s lost and it scares me no end what happens on the other side of it. To that end, I work, read, blog and run a support group to try to deal with it when it comes.
Kelsey honestly came with very little delays other than small physicals ones at first. She seemed to have zero problems attaching and adapting her to her enviornment. However, at 2.8 years old she still cries every single day at daycare and is hysterical if I am not with her to put her down for her nap.
I had to work on Sat and the terror in her voice when she cried on the phone HELP SAVE ME, COME GET ME NOW! MOM PLEASE!!!!! made my hysterical (She was with her father who was trying to put her down for her nap – I was at a trade show in NYC and had to walk out of the room) she cannot sleep without me and needs to touch me several times each night. My husband and I agree that it is adoption related and we do everything we can to allay her fears. She’s also strong willed and stubborn – something I admire in her greatly – also attributed to surviving the abandonment/orphanage.
Adopting Kelsey is the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me. Being placed for adoption is the worst possible thing that could have happened to Kelsey. I can only hope she comes to terms with it without real damage.
If this doesn’t haunt every adoptive parents’ soul…I don’t think you have one.
As for the money…I don’t think it’s the $2000 increase, I think it’s the long process with zero communication…it would feel like adding insult to injury to me. Plus the renewal process that people have to go through to keep their docs current stinks…charge more for the first time and make the renewals free!
I’m sorry, I did want to add, that in agreement with Christine, yes adopting a child was all about me wanting to become a Mom. I would never change a thing about this…because if I didn’t adopt Kelsey someone else would have. Kelsey wasn’t abandoned because Americans want to adopt children…The Chinese Government has real issues to work through and she was a casualty of their internal conflict.
My mind knows she is not my biological child. However, my heart and soul and tears know she is mine. Right now she doesn’t know the difference, but when she does, hopefully she’ll be one of the lucky ones who have little demons. And hopefully if I’ve done my job right…I will have contributed to that…so I consider my job is to raise a child who accepts and understands what’s happened to her and can still rise above it and live a happy life –on her terms.
Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Thank you Amber. Just, thank you.
Not sure what the solutions would be….lets say that we don’t take part in it (not adopt from China) and therefore not take part of a flawed system by giving them our money for their children….not sure that by us not taking part that this would force the Chinese government to retract their laws or make more progressive changes. I suspect the children would just continue to age out of the system w/out “some” being able to go to homes. I’ve acutally thought that is exactly what we should do (ban it all) and then force other countries to find their own way to resolve the problem.
I agree w/ you on how the system really should be about finding parents for children and not children for parents.
Your thoughts parallels a lot of my feelings about transracial adoptions (specifically white parents adopting children of color) and how they have changed by having to parent and witness all my beautiful black daughter has lost because she is being raised by white looking Hispanics. Again though…not sure what the solutions would be…she would have just aged out of this (foster care) system. I think a lot about changes like keeping intact/original birth certificates, guardianship instead of adoptions, changing our approach to get more minorities adopting, etc., but it all seems insuficient. It hurts so much to see how much she has missed out on by not having Black parents/family (and our situation is as ideal as it can get in the sense that we don’t have to go out of our comfort zone to find Black friends or relatives…we already have them so our environment is not one where we have to “procure” more dark faces so she can be comfortable…she has them in our family and friends) which is why I’ve gone from “a home is a home no matter what” type of mentallity to agreeing (in theory…practice still demands we continue placing where we can because there is a need) w/ the National Association of Black Social Workers…I can see now what I couldn’t when I first adopted which is that no matter how much love and comfort I give her she is missing out on something that will shake her sense of identity in the future….something that at least one Black parent could have given her. I “knew” it was going to be difficult (at least there I wasn’t deluded) and that I was going to have to make her strong because she was going to have a big burden upon her little shoulders but now I ache for what she has lost. I don’t feel guilt (it isn’t productive plus she could have easily cotinued going from home to home…we were her 5th) but I do see what they mean by “We affirm the inviolable position of black children in black families where they belong physically, psychologically and culturally in order that they receive the total sense of themselves and develop a sound projection of their future.” Needless to say I think I’ve discouraged some people from adopting….don’t mean to but I don’t think many realize how much the child is losing out on things.
So yes…all of these adoption systems are flawed (international, domestic, foster) and after all I’ve seen and experienced I’m more likely (if I wanted to adopt again) to go w/ foster to adopt (no picnic there either…also very flawed and fraught w/ corruption) as I wouldn’t want the ambiguity that comes along w/ the others but still…not sure what real solutions could there be as I suspect that the machine would still just keep gringing away and there would still be a need. It all (just the fact that adoption is needed at all) makes me sad.
Anyway….glad you wrote what you did and
darn…didn’t mean to hit “submit” – oh well…didn’t have a chance to proofread so pardon all the typos and how much I rambled…hope it made sense and that I didn’t offend!LOL
I agree with you about the $5,000 being a reasonable amount, but I have to admit that it does make me nervous because I think they higher number does increase the potential for corruption. Unfortunately, it is definitely the orphanage donation in some places that is undermining an ethical system in some places in China.
wow, this definitely raises some points i never would have considered (since this isn’t a topic i’m so intimately familiar with)…well written post, amber.
I’ll just add a little to my original comment. Yes, I agree with Chrstine about the uncounted numbers-I’m fairly certain AmFam does too.
I actually almost withdrew my application a couple of years ago, as I understood how complicated the issues are. I considered giving my support instead, but then realized that that was not the solution either, and would not change the future for the child I might adopt (obviously, I didn’t know about the backlog then-she would have been adopted whether I participated or not). So, I moved ahead cautiously.
My daughter was in a VERY good situation in her orphanage. She has no delays. But she has a lot of trauma which I hesitate to define at this point.
What I didn’t know before I went to China, is that there are a lot of people in China who are worried about the problem and have no idea how to approach it. I had many conversations with ordinary people in my daughter’s hometown who were happy for us, but worried about the abandonment problem. As someone who works in social service, I really hope to maintain those contacts and help my daughter’s town build a support system to reduce the problem. These people already have some ideas-I would just help with the fundraising and infrastructure if they would let me. ~lmc
Great post. I agree, as far as my agreement can mean anything when I have not adopted and am not raising an adopted child. We’ve thought about adoption for a few years now, but as we’re not ready for another child yet we have not begun the process other than the generic info packets and such. I have to say that although I have no idea if we will venture into adoption in the future, I am so glad that I found and have been reading blogs like yours and Dawn’s before the issue arose for us. Because I have such a better grasp of all the issues now…issues I probably would not have thought about at all until they smacked us in the face down the road. So thank you, and your well reasoned, thoughtful, and totally honest experiences and opinions are no cause for anyone to flame you…whether they agree or not.
You know, I was a teen mother, and some of the rhetoric I see from adoptive parents speaking from a domestic adoption experience absolutely turns my stomach. I actually never for a moment wondered if I would be a bad mother because of my age. Sure, I have lots of fears about my parenting and lots of “oh my god don’t let me screw this up” moments, but they have nothing AT ALL to do with our economic status or the fact that I became a mother at a young age. It really highlights to me how much adoption in our country is a business, a business that uses the same propaganda tools of any other market trying to sell a product. And that is sad, and I also believe that it is contrary to what most adoptive parents want when they come to adoption.
Will have to respectfully disagree.
I knew there was a reason I liked you, you crazy anti-adoption adoptive parent!
I just wanted to echo Susan’s comment and say thank you, thank you, thank you. This post made me feel something I rarely feel these days: understood.
I think that speaking the truth, especially a truth that is painful and inconvenient for many people to hear, will never make you the popular kid in the class — which is all the more reason why it’s so important to do.
I feel much like you. I feel as though I need to help Vietnam and the women there so they will not have to give up their children in the future. I haven’t figured out the best way to do that, but we are asending things to the orphangae where our daughter is. We are also going to pay for one child to go to school per year, and I am open to other humanitarian things, but I have to find more.
Btw, my question was actually intended to be about raising an adoptive child, i.e. prioritizing experiences, resources, etc. You don’t need to answer it-I only mention it as an example of how we all, to some extent, read things through the filter of what is already on our minds. ~lmc
I wasn’t going to comment, but I felt I should. Everyone else covered my comments coming from a prospective adoptive parent. I’m speaking now as the wife of an adult adoptee.
My sweet husband has issues that I would say relate directly to adoption. He was adopted at 5 days and his earliest nightmares (that he recalls) was that his birth parents would somehow want him back. He was not by any means trained to hate them or fear them, but in his 6 year old mind, he was frightened of leaving the people he loves. The ones he calls mom and dad.
I should note here that D and my MIL told me she once scolded D for talking about his bmom with a sarcastic tone. She said “You can feel anyway you want about her. That is your right, but when you speak of her in front of me you will do so with respect.”
D maintains adoption has been an overwhelmingly positive experience. The issues he has, is pretty standard for an adoptee. But as long as there are children, there will be adoption. What I would like is to make sure it is as fair as possible.
Sorry to get so long-winded.
I think L is silly.
http://www.AnUrbanStory.com
Since I’ve started reading your blog, when you were in the midst of adopting L, I’ve wondered what led you to adopt from China, especially as you’ve stated that you do not have fertility problems that would have prevented you from having a second biological child. I’m not trying to be accusatory, I was just wondering. Sorry if you’ve already written about this and I missed it somewhere–if so, could you just point me to the right place in your archives?
“While I knew it in an abstract way before, now that I know L, I can see first hand how adoption has hurt her. The losses she has suffered in her short life dwarf anything I have ever experienced. She lost not only her parents and probably her siblings, she also lost her extended family and her ancestors. She lost the story of who her people are and where they come from. She lost her family’s name and the name they may have given her. She lost her language, her culture and her country. ”
I believe someone else has already mentioned this, but it was not the adoption that created these losses, but the abandonment. And if you did not adopt L, someone else would have. This is what relieves my guilty conscience (for now).
Of course, this not not address the real issue, which is that in China many families are forced to relinquish their children. It’s too late for those already adopted and in orphanages, but what can we do to keep other families together? I have been searching the internet for charities that work in China to help keep family units together. I haven’t found any yet. Is there a way to collect money for families so that they can pay fines for breaking the one-child policy? Would the government even allow this? How can we work toward better human-rights in China?
Thanks for answering my question. I have just a couple of quick thoughts. Don’t you find it hypocritical to say that you are pro-choice and then state that you would do everything in your power to prevent your daughter from placing her child for adoption? Shouldn’t the decision be entirely hers, without interference or pressure from other people? It seems to me that pressuring a woman to parent when she is not ready to is just as bad as pressuring a woman to place her child for adoption when she doesn’t want to. I think a child raised by someone who is forced into parenthood before they are ready is likely to have just as many or more issues as a child raised by adoptive parents.
Re this quote: “And international adoption? A fancy way for some countries to brush their society’s problems under the rug and for citizens of rich countries to exploit poorer countries and their people.” I agree to a point about countries being able to brush their problems under the rug and not deal with them. It’s something I gave a lot of thought to before we started the adoption process and I have no answers. I finally came to the conclusion that allowing children to languish in orphanages was not going to solve that problem. I’ve begun to wonder, though, if maybe countries like China and Korea getting so much attention for “exporting” so many of their children has actually been the impetus for some change in the way those countries look at adoption. Perhaps the shame of being seen as countries that would prefer to send their children abroad rather than take care of them at home will result in some changes.
As for the second part of that quote, I don’t see how anyone adopting abandoned children is exploiting anyone. I find it hard to believe that the birth parents in China felt pressure to abandon their children by a rich westerner like me.
Interesting discussion!
“If her daughter should ever have an unplanned/crisis pregnancy, the birth mother would do everything in her power to help her daughter parent.”
What you quoted is from one birthmother’s experience. My friend was adopted at 8 years of age, then at 18 placed a child for adoption, and at 43 adopted a 6 y.o and an 11 y.o. from Ukraine. She has been on every side of the triangle. She doesn’t regret placing her child for adoption because she said she wasn’t ready to parent. This was her experience, albeit a different one that the blogger to which you are referring, but I did need to throw in that the pain level is different for all adoptees and birthparents.
One other side note- a woman in our town that owns a small dance studio was adopted from Vietnam, just like her mother was. Then last year she adopted from Vietnam. Three generations of adoptees.
I WAS a potential adoptive parent before I really started getting into the issues of it and decided that it wasn’t for me. I don’t believe that adoption is inherently evil but there are definitely flaws in the system that rubbed me the wrong way.
As far as you comment about being glad that you were able to stay with your bio parents because they were “your” parents I wanted to say this: My siblings and I were abandoned by my mom when I was little and my dad was ill-equipped to be a primary caregiver of three kids. I would have given anything and would have been better for it to have been raised in a stable home by two people who had the capacity to love and care for me whether they were biologically related to me or not. I don’t think biology has a thing to do with good parenting.
I have learned so much about adoption from you and other bloggers…my view of adoption has totally changed in the past five years.
I really think you make a lot of good points here. Yet, I, too am conflicted about whether banning adoption right now is the way to go. Because as it is being banned and governments and agencies are being pressured in all the ways that will hopefully make it possible someday for any mother to keep her child should she wish, there are still kids right now…day in and day out…living in orphanages and that isn’t going to change immediately. Perhaps human rights pressure with a phase out of adoption? Tough stuff.
Also, I did not see the conflict the other readers see with your statement about supporting your daughter should she become pregnant. I saw it as you saying that you would remove any obstacle you could that might keep your daughter from keeping her child. I mean, parents can find out their daughter is pregnant and throw her out on the street, or they can be as supportive as possible. The child whose parents are as supportive as possible actually has the most options. In effect, taking the “temporary problem” away. Then your daughter would really be able to decide for herself whether she wanted to parent a child.
I’ve thought a little more about this post and I have to disagree with you about something else. Adoption is not the cause of L’s pain. Abandonment is. Adoption in these circumstances is L’s best chance to ease some of that pain and hopefully have a full and happy life.
Wasn’t abandonment a problem in China before IA? I really think it would still go on, IA or no IA, and I think it’s misguided to blame adoption for the pain these children suffer.
Oops, I see that Sarah already covered what I wrote. That’s what I get for writing before reading!
Your post has had me thinking all day. I have a Chinese daughter who was adopted from an orphanage at 10 months of age, she is currently 5. The fact that she was abandoned and had to suffer 10 months of institutional care and then basically be kidnapped by people who were completely foreign to her is without doubt horrible. When I look back at the videos from when we got her I’m sick to my stomach looking at the terror and the grief on her face. I can’t go so far though as to say being with us is the worst thing that could have happened to her as I can imagine a far worse outcome. I don’t think that my standing in line to adopt her has in any way contributed to the pre-existing problem in China. Perhaps if we quit adopting the kids, China would find a better solution, but, God, can you imagine if it just stopped and all the children had to stay exactly where they are? I don’t think we provide a better life for our children because of we can give them designer clothes and dance lessons and trips to Disney World, but we can give them love and validation and we can help them grieve and understand their loss and that, in my opinion, is better than languishing in an orphanage.
I don’t consider myself to be at all anti-adoption, I think overall adoption is a good thing, at least I think it comes from a good place. I just think that as adoptive parents we MUST try to understand the tremendous loss our children have suffered and help them process it. I’m with you on helping your daughters keep any unwanted children, but I think for different reasons and that’s a whole ‘nother discussion.
“If either of my girl’s had a crisis pregancy, would I encourage them to place their child for adoption? Absolutely 100% NO I WOULD NOT. I would do everything in my power to prevent it. ”
Amen to that. Just said the same thing, myself (about my adopted daughters) last week.
[...] A few points I wanted to elaborate on a little from the comments on the last post. My apologies because I simply do not have the time to reply to every argument in every one of the very long comments. I am going to use a few quotes to touch on points that stuck out to me in multiple comments. You were all just a little to comment-prolific today.: [...]
Honestly, I have to believe that L is much better off being in a loving family than she would have been growing up in an orphanage. Sure, there are great losses. But she had already lost her family. Adoption did not cause that. Adoption provided her with two wonderful parents and a big sister who love her. She never would have experienced that love in the orphanage – And that would have been a tragic loss.
Wow. So many comments and I am too lazy to read through them. But what I thought reading your post is that it speaks to two issues. The micro issue (child’s need for a loving home) and the macro issue (when we adopt internationally AND domestically, we perpetuate a system that is riddled with injustice.) On the micro level I am fairly confident that my daughter is thriving in a way she probably would not have in an orphanage. On a macro level, I can see that my desire to adopt a child has played a role in perpetuating this system. At this point, it is what it is, meaning she is our daughter, she lives in our home, we love her mightily and will do what we can to guide her through life. But I have to say, that macro issue is never far away for me and I was surprised when I realized that I feel it more intensely the longer our daughter is in our family. Great post.
As you know, I didn’t adopt. To an extent, some of the reasons we didn’t adopt are ones you stated, although in a different way that I won’t bother going into here. However, I am the child of a parent who was very young and poor when she was born. My mother often told my sister and I how a young infertile couple (she was a nurse, he was a doctor) wanted desparately to adopt us when we were born. She agreed, but then my uncle came to the hospital and absolutely forbade her to do it. She told us this story when we were growing up as a way of telling us how lucky we were that we weren’t adopted out, but it’s funny. It had the absolute opposite effect–my sister and I used to imagine our lives with that other couple, who, while we couldn’t articulate it as young children, would have certainly been better parents than our own. And it wasn’t a matter of material things, I can assure you. I’m sure if we had been adopted by that couple or another we would have wondered about our bio parents. I’m sure we would have experienced some loss. But we wouldnt’ have had to live with crazy parents.
In a perfect world, girls who aren’t ready to be parents will get all the support and encouragement they need from their families. That world doesn’t exist. If it did there wouldn’t be abuse and neglect. Not every person is ready to be a parent.
Yet another post that makes me grateful that L has you and that you acknowledge this loss.
I’m about to turn 35 and I’m just now starting to get how deeply my own adoption has impacted my life. If anyone, and I mean just one goddamn person had given even the slightest nod to the inherent loss that started my life, well, I might not be sitting here trying to shrug off the guilt that I’m just more comfortable around my birthmom than my parents.
Well, maybe not, I did grow up Catholic so I’m likely to still feel that guilt. But to have this giant, unspecific pain tucked inside your heart growing up and have nobody you love recognize it for even one second? That sucks.
If nothing else, L doesn’t have to grow up with that particular pain.
[...] And that train of thought has led me to think about other adoptive avenues, even those I have less experience with. American teenage parents encouraged to give up their babies, rampant bribery and corruption, finders’ fees; flawed systems both domestically and internationally. The enormous amounts of money that change hands. I’m linking here to another wonderful post by AmFam, who puts it into words better than I possibly could. I find myself agreeing with pretty much every word of her post. Adoption is not about us, the adoptive parents. Or at least it shouldn’t be. It seems to me now a necessary evil; there will always be children whose parents can’t or won’t take care of them, for whatever reason, and those children will always need homes. But many, many children are adopted whose first parents could have cared for them, with a little support, a little encouragement. Social service programs that work, instead of giving lip service to family support. International programs that condemn human rights violations which lead to the abandonment and “confiscating” of hundred of thousands of children, separated from biological families who might want very much to keep them. [...]