Recently in the thead - It is so wrong to adopt someone else’s child because you can’t have one of your own.…. A comment was left by Christine ( read the comment here ) and there is so much I”d like to reply to, i’m giving it, its own post.
I have read views similar to yours so many times.
I won’t ever be able to experience the feelings you have felt, so I won’t pretend to understand entirely where you’re coming from.
I would like to gain a better understanding though, but in my curiosity I truly hope I don’t offend you or come across the wrong way.
Hi. Nice to meet you.
( Psst… Adoptees, do opening paragraphics make you truly look like
<<<<. They do me! lmfao. They really do. Whenever they start out like this, and usually with the best of intentions, I know we're about to encounter some huge differences in opinion.
There are some infertile women I know that have adopted and end up praising the path that was laid before them, because it brought them to the child they now have. Is that different than the women who “settle” for adoption?
Well i’m sure in some cases, YES, it is. And others, NO its not. Nothing is concrete, especially in adoption.
As a woman, I understand the overwhelming desire to nurture a child, a child to call my own. (I know that not all women feel this, but I’m assuming the majority does)
Me too!
And then there are children placed up for adoption. In my mind, these two things add up to a match. But if it’s wrong, then what alternatives would be better?
If only the world was so easy. Woman w/ natural urge to mother, meets child with no parents who want to care for it put the two together and POOF! a healthy family
The adoption industry would LOVE for you to think its that easy. 1 + 1 = 2 right?
What I am thinking about are the underlying issues that prevent these things from happening during that process.(Such as the post you came into.)
Its not appearing to be as easy as 1 + 1 = 2. Things like grieving ( infertility, loss of child, loss of mother ), children not being blank slates, mothers and fathers wanting to parent and having their children stolen, poverty, laws, addiction, child trafficking, and more are all getting in the way of the above equation.
There are some situations I believe that would be as simple as 1+1=2 but the handful of them, get lost in the industry among the others that don’t even need to be there.
I can’t even imagine how hurtful it was to have grown up feeling like a replacement child for one they could never have, but could it be the fault of the parent and not the system?
Well, I WAS the replacement child, and I had replacement parents. This is my reality. My truth. Do you prefer they lie to me about it? Should the system have let me be adopted with this mindset? No, should they have encouraged it? No, marketed to it? No. But this is a business, and that is where the money is. This is an industry, its not about helping children. Should my adoptive parents have had more common sense to know this would hurt me? Yes, I believe they should have.
My parents should not have had me, and said/did awful things to me. I still, and will always, have issues because of my childhood. So my thought is that maybe it’s not that you were adopted, but who your parents were. It was your adopted parent’s job to love you, protect you, comfort you, provide for you, and more than anything make you feel secure in this world.
My resistance to the industry of adoption isn’t because i had shitty adoptive parents. All parents have their up and down moments and i don’t think a set of perfect parents exists. It doesn’t mean A) its not wrong to adopt someone else’s child because you can’t have one of your own, or B) Adoption is still good I just had shitty parents C ) I have no reason to resist the adoption industry. D) all of the above
( can and will add anymore along the way should she see fit to do so )
No parent is perfect, and I’m sure they did the best to their abilities. Trust me when I say that’s not easy for me to admit, because it’s hard for me to believe about my parents. But when I really try to understand them and what they did, I see that they tried within their capabilities.
If a rapist tried within his capabilities to resist raping a woman, but couldn’t do it, would the rape then become okay? Or should prevention methods, education, deeper understanding and therapy thereafter be given? Would it all be the fault of the rapist or possibly circumstances that led him to it? If a system was aware of prevention methods to the rapist being a rapist, and didn’t work towards preventing that would they then be at fault too? or what if they encouraged those methods which developed the rapist behaviors to create a greater demand producing a more profitable industry?
Anyways, again, I am only hoping to better understand your views on adoption. I am a sympathetic person but wasn’t even aware that adoption was an issue to be protested. You have definitely enlightened me already
You have no idea.