Why would anybody who was raised in a loving home be unhappy about being adopted, or opposed to the very nature of adoption?
This was asked to me today in the comments on the “About Me” page I have here. Its a genuine question that I think a lot of people who aren’t effected or maybe even are effected by adoption ask themselves once they come across someone who’s views towards adoption, are similar to mine.
I do not support it. I don’t condone it, nor do I believe in adoption. I have many reasons and I think it will do me some good after this long break to put it into a post and get it into the concrete form of some kind for others to read when wondering why the hell i feel the way I do.
As I have said, i had and still have good parents, adoptive and natural. I wasn’t physically abused, sure my aparents made some mistakes just like all parents do, but nothing to be held by a noose and hung for and not much to blame or hate adoption for.
The little bit being the uneducated state of mind they were encouraged to have and left with after taking me into their care. I don’t support encouraging people experiencing infertility and desperate for a child to adopt. Adoption is not a band-aid for infertility and it never should be. It doesn’t heal someones infertility and putting that responsibility onto a child grieving the loss of their mother is dismissive and not honoring the emotional well being of the child.
When a child is born she/he is attached emotionally and physically to the mother. Everything that child wants, loves and needs is provided for from the mother whom he/she has grown with in utero for 9 months until birth.
Everything should be done to keep these beings together, and poverty although one of the leading factors to surrender, should never be a leading factor to surrender because money never makes someone a good parent.
I don’t believe in adoption because it has become an industry that provides babies to couples willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars for a child. With no care of the child’s well being they have price tags put onto their heads that differ according to race and age. Priority has been put on getting the commodity to make billions annually off of the couples willing to pay, instead of helping the children stuck in foster care get homes. Foster youth are rotting away because they have become least valuable and marketable and so they have been swept under the rug.
All the while the rights being given to the adoptees are the least of any and all other parties involved in adoption. We do not have our birth certificates although not one single document promising anyone a right to privacy has yet to be found. Study after study fails to find them ( because they don’t exist ) and yet millions of us are being discriminated against daily by the denial of our birth certificates.
Our names are changed without our consent all to help fill the dream of the adoptive parents of having and naming their “own” child.
Too many mothers have been coerced and forced to surrender their children via pressure of society from the social stigma of illegitimate born children, forced into unwed mothers homes and raped of their motherhood and children. Now even today mothers are still being pressured to surrender in different ways through threats of not being able to pursue their dreams or college or never finding someone who would want to care for a woman and her child born to a diff. man. Marketing in every parenting magazine, in dr’s offices, gyno offices, highschools, counseling centers and yet the real issues, the complexity of adoption is rarely shown. How is it an informed decision if all angles are not being shown?
Not to mention giving surrendering parents rights to veto and keep our records sealed which is unconstitutional by witholding our vital information from us at their beck and call even though their documents did not say anything about privacy rights is discrimination and a slap in the face from the very industry that makes billions annually from us.
There are many ways to care for children, but i do not support in the ownership of them and that is what adoption is to me. It is buying, selling, renaming and falsifying their documents to make the sale legal. It is exploiting and profiting off of the adoptee with no intention of helping them in any way shape or form.
Adoption isn’t doing anything for humanity. It isn’t helping end third world poverty, it isn’t helping children with AID’s it isn’t reducing the number of children in orphanages, it isn’t reducing the number of children who are being surrendered, it is only helping the adoptive parents get the child they wanted. It is a consumer driven industry that has been built off of the trauma separation and loss of mother and child and father. It is creating unnecessary loss and separation in thousands of families. It is raping people of their ancestry, culture, history and self. It is violating the sense of family too many are advocating for the preservation of in my state of California right now for diff. reasons, but i’m bitter about that too so I’ll throw in my disgust of proposition 8 in as well.
Non profit adoption agencies are making MILLIONS annually and if you don’t believe me, look at their 990 forms online that are public access. I realize that some mothers can’t, for whatever reasons raise their children, but that is not even close to the level of mothers and fathers losing their children each year around our world to be adopted into the families of american and european and australians. ( Yes i realize others adopt, but i see these families and countries adopting more than others.)
Adoption should be about the child. Where the childs rights and feelings are first, are foremost and as the original asker of the question that triggered this post said, should be paramount. But in adoption, of today, it isn’t. The child’s rights and feelings are last. As an adoptee I lost everything and it was never even thought about. I was told to be grateful for it and happy i wasn’t aborted. My loss has been dismissed by society more times than I’d like to remember. The mindset of adoption in this country is unhealthy and frightening, where the leading profit makers in adoption are running the adoption awareness campaigns painting in this beautiful light full of fake love, fake flowers and artificial kindness that is all coming from greed for more money, even if it sacrifices the child’s soul.
It is possible to care for a child without having to rename them, buy them, take away their history, ancestry, records and connection to their family. The “politics” and “industry” of adoption has ruined the very core of why it SHOULD be beautiful. If adoption was for the child, would foster children even be in the system? or would they already have a home? Would they have to be legally adopted and have their rights stripped and taken from them? or would they be allowed to be who they are and honored for exactly that and raised with love and respect for being just them. Is it possible to give a child shelter, safety, love, nourishment, care, food and a home without having to exploit them through the industry of adoption? It should be possible and is possible but rarely happens. It definitely doesn’t happen in adoption. Adoption stopped being about the child long ago.
63 responses so far ↓
Theresa // November 7, 2008 at 5:43 am |
You know what’s beautiful about a period of withdrawal? The way one tends to emerge with a passion and intensity afterward.
This is epic and needs to be seen. May I please repost this?
suz // November 7, 2008 at 8:23 am |
Agree with Theresa. I will not repost but I will direct people here. Good stuff. Hugs to you dear Gersh.
miassavinggrace // November 7, 2008 at 10:22 am |
I love your new site Gershom! I loved this post too, it’s brilliant!
thisonewoman // November 7, 2008 at 10:25 am |
I think this is a really important post BUT I’m really wary of the “but I grew up with a good family! i love my adoptive parents!” thing because it king of sidelines and disenfreanches those of us who had abusive adoptive parents almost as if out anti adoption stances arnt as well thought out or as worth listening to (I know you are not saying this but I think people who arnt adoptees will read it like this.)I’ve had too many non adoptees tell me that I dont know how good adoption can be and I’m just anti it because I had abusive adoptive parents
Jade // November 7, 2008 at 10:31 am |
Finally someone is speaking the whole truth. Adoption is wrapped up in myths and outright lies. The brokers and social workers can try to spin it anyway they want – first families and adoptees are not breeders and products.Our basic human rights should not be up for sale!
holly // November 7, 2008 at 12:26 pm |
Lots of food for thought. Thank you.
Gershom // November 7, 2008 at 2:56 pm |
oh wow, thanks for your support you guys, it brought some strength to my soul. Repost away T
Trish // November 8, 2008 at 2:27 am |
Great post but i think the bit about Americans, Europeans and Australians is a bit mis-informed. The situation with regards to adoption is VERY different in Australia to what it is in America…very few adoptions actually take place here and those that do take YEARS as adoptive parents go through much training and preparation….as well as enormous amounts for effort going into ensuring the children are legitamately adopted.
I am certainly not pro-adoption in the American/European profit-driven, market-run sense, but I do believe that unfortunately there is a place and a need for it and that care and due diligence in these situations is needed to ensure it is carried out in the best interests of the child.
Trish // November 8, 2008 at 2:28 am |
Oops, that should have said ‘enormous amounts OF effort going into ensuring the children are legitamately adopted’
Laurel // November 8, 2008 at 4:51 am |
Nice one, Gersh. You covered all the bases in one short post.
Why be unhappy about it? Because I have to spend my life never quite knowing who I am, expected by people who do know they are to disguise my loss as a beautiful act of love. That’s not to mention what I think it did to my first mother.
Why don’t people get this? They don’t want to. The pretty lie is preferable to the truth.
Lindsay // November 8, 2008 at 8:13 am |
Absolutely right on Gershom!! It’s crazy really, I’m currently in the middle of this book “Family Matters: Secrecy and Disclosure in the History of Adoption”, and seeing how from the early 70s (and even today) with the onset of the ARM how quickly adult adoptees were brushed off, discounted, and treated like dirt by a society that sees the industry as good and altruistic — it’s exactly the situation that us donor conceived adults are in today. Thanks for posting this, it’s so completely validating!!
Unsigned Masterpiece // November 8, 2008 at 11:15 am |
Great post.
Some many myths to be disspelled.
A Beautiful Thing? « Shadow Between Two Worlds // November 8, 2008 at 7:14 pm |
[...] elaborate more on this issue, but Gershom pretty much nailed it all in one [...]
rixgal // November 8, 2008 at 7:20 pm |
“(Adoption)is exploiting and profiting off of the adoptee with no intention of helping them in any way shape or form.”
This quote assumes SOOOO much. How can you say that in adoption there is no intention of helping the child in any way shape or form? Should we leave abandoned children in orphanages to be turned out on the street when they’re 18? Should they never know the love of a family? Should they never have full bellies or watch TV or play in the park with a loving parent? Why do AP learn foreign languages? Why do they sacrifice many comforts of life … saving for YEARS.. just to have the privilege of being hugged by a child??? YES!
I’m confused about your purpose here. Why slam AP? Can’t you see any good from the millions of adoptees?
joy21 // November 9, 2008 at 1:38 am |
I am so lucky to know you, you are so fabulous. It makes me feel all fancy to be your fiend.
Jane // November 9, 2008 at 2:56 am |
I agree with the person speaking about Australia.
We have less than 500 adoptions a year here now…
Quoted from here http://www.childrenbychoice.org.au/nwww/adoptionfactsheet.htm
“Adoption is no longer a common occurrence in Australian society. There has been a substantial decline in the number of adoptions since the early 1970’s. In 1971-72 there were 9798 adoptions, which declined to 1052 in 1991-92. In 2005-06 there were 576 adoptions in Australia. Of these adoptions:
* 73% of adoptions were ‘intercountry’ adoptions (children from overseas countries, which is generally arranged by the relevant state government agency),
* 16% were ‘known’ child adoptions i.e. children adopted by step-parents, carers or other relatives,
* 10% were local placement adoptions i.e. adoption of children of Australian birth or permanent residency where there was no previous contact or relationship with the adoptive parents.
”
Australia is about Family preservation hence our low rate of adoptions. The USA is about the $$$ involved in Adoption and not preserving families – thats why the number is in the hundreds of thousands in the USA.
And the UK is just as bad…
Australia is as I said about Preserving Families and go to extraordinary lengths to do so
Laurel // November 9, 2008 at 3:27 am |
rixgal, I can see where that quote, taken out of context like that, might seem alarming, but I don’t see how you could have read the entire piece and feel the questions you’ve asked were not answered in it.
Also, you started out to tell us the good adoption does for children and eneded up talking about the feelings of a’parents. Funny how that works.
The Improper Adoptee // November 9, 2008 at 8:36 am |
rixgal-why do you equate “helping children” and “being Loved” with closed Adoption records, Adoptees not having the feeling of knowing who they are, Adoptees being lied too about what time they were born, what day they were born, Adoptees being told they can’t know their own Mother’s name, Adoptees not knowing who they look like, who they are related too now and in the past, Adoptees being made to feel they are unimportant, which almost all of us do, because we have to play the role of another’s woman’s daughter and get some fake ABC that is nothing but lies(that a barren woman conceived & gave birth to us, and that lie DOES make us feel unimportant) and being treated again as second class citizens as Adults, being humilated by the Adoption Agencies because of some birth Mother privacy lie, that makes them call our Real Mommies to get permission from them if we can see their faces, and refuses us OUR degree of birth, that belongs not to strangers but to US and our Real Parents? So many of you AP’s over look ALL of this, and think, tv, walks in the park and a trip to Disneyland are more important. There not. And I agree with Laurel, it always comes back to what the AP’s want and need, not us. That isn’t love either…
Gershom // November 9, 2008 at 12:02 pm |
Thanks Laurel you said what i was feeling a lot better than I have been able to put into words. I don’t feel like Rixgal read the whole post or she wouldn’t have asked the questions she did. Alas we can’t make everyone happy and i can’t make everyone get it. So hopefully she keeps reading and poking around and learning for herself. I think when you’re an AP its hard not to personalize an antiadoption point of view because AP’s benefit from adoption. But if she would have read my post for what it was, she would have seen that I said how possible it is to care for children without the exploitation of adoption. I also put most of the blame onto the industry and NOT AP’s but to each their own. People will read it however they want to.
I thought i had clarified too that I realize Australias system of adoption is much different now than it was, and many less DOMESTIC adoptions happen there per year than the US or europe. However,i also see people advocating for the increase of aussie adoptions, i’ve seeeen them in the headlines for the Corrupted Indian child trafficking adoptions ( to no fault of the AP’s ) just lately, and the history of australian adoptions and the exploitation of their women and children and fathers certainly isn’t something to overlook, just like our BSE in the US. History is a great part of why I don’t believe in adoption because what happened in a few of our histories is happening in other countries right now. They are not something to be forgotten, they are something to be remembered and something to learn from so that the process and cycles do NOT continue.
rixgal // November 9, 2008 at 12:36 pm |
Imp Adt – I do not equate “helping children” and “being loved” will all that you wrote. You assumed a lot there. I’m very supportive of adoptees and their rights. I don’t agree with closed records. I wish children could stay with their birth mothers… BUT there will always be those who cannot. Those who will not have all the answers. I believe we can help still them and love them by adopting them. I also believe in a cup-half full positive outlook. I’m’ not glossing over the horrors of some adoptees, I’m saying not all adoptees focus on the horrors.
Gershom // November 9, 2008 at 1:52 pm |
Jane, you know, that I know how different austrailias system is. But for everyone else who doesn’t get it, thanks for your stats.
Gershom // November 9, 2008 at 2:08 pm |
And i wanted to thank everyone again for the support in this thread.
I also wanted to comment on RixGals last comment.
Rixgal – There is no cup-half full positive outlook on forcing women to surrender their children to adoption, falsifying documents, and selling the children to people willing to pay for them. We ALL know that not “all” adoptees focus on the “reality” of many adoptions, because if they did, the industry would be a hell of a lot different. Its about time more people START focusing on the corruption instead of turning a blind eye to it. Turning a blind eye to corruption and trying to justify it at the same time, only makes you look horribly dismissive and unstable from where I stand on my own two feet.
This isn’t an attack on adoptive parents, but there must come a point in time when those taking part in the adopting, take responsibility for the part they are playing in it.
Please visit the adoptive parent blogs I list here, they could do you some good I believe. As well as http://informedadoptions.com There are some enlightened people out there who have adopted, and they will be a leading factor in changing the “ignorance is bliss” attitude I come across too often and have little tolerance for anymore.
The Improper Adoptee // November 9, 2008 at 2:56 pm |
Well rixgal, then there should be no Adoption-only Gaurdinship. No child of another woman should ever call a woman who did not bore her Mother either. Mother means the one who one came from, not the one who makes a grilled cheese sandwich. It is a sacred positition that can never be replaced by any other woman. Adoptees should call their Gaurdians Mr & Mrs.. whatever, and NOT Mom and Dad. If a child can not stay with their real parents, then the why’s should be disscussed and the child should get support in understanding the situtation-the whole idea of their Real Parents, should not be chucked out the window. Adoptive children call AP’s Mom and Dad FOR the AP’s sake, for the AP’s ego, not for the best interest of the child, or for the child’s sake. Calling another man and woman Mom and Dad, keeps the child out of reality, and that is NEVER healthy for any child. If couples here who can conceive really cared about poor children in another nation, they would give money to help that family-and help that family stay togeher. They would also wake up and realize that most foreign children are not orphans and have been stolen from their Real Mothers so someone can make a profit off of them. Infertiles should be Gaurdians to Foster kids here too, and not clamor for babies of other women, because they can’t have their own. If infertiles REALLy cared about kids, they would help America’s Foster children. Infertiles Adopt and want infants, for themselves, not because being Adopted is the best thing for an infant. I hope these are points you will remember.
Carol // November 9, 2008 at 2:58 pm |
Wonderful post Gershom!
Do Rixgal’s last words, “I’m saying not all adoptees focus on the horrors,” mean that she acknowledges that adoptees do feel horror? I know as a woman who lost her only child to adoption that I cannot focus on the horror of it all of the time, it would completely undo me, but the horror of separation and the consequences are with me on a daily basis.
The Improper Adoptee // November 9, 2008 at 2:59 pm |
typo-
If couples here who *can conceive really cared about poor children
*can’t
The Improper Adoptee // November 9, 2008 at 3:06 pm |
Also, too for you too say not all Adoptees focus on the horrors-well, how do you know? How do you know that just because an Adoptee may not say anything means they aren’t thinking or feeling it? It is very hard for alot of us to speak up, because we grew up rarely talking about it, because we were looked down upon because we were born out of wedlock-but now that we are talking about it, most of you AP’s are all shocked and and want to keep us in your birth is a shame mode-ditto for social workers and Adoption Agencies. Well, too bad-we have been oppressed, treated like dirt, and we are not going away or going to shut up about any of this. All any of you can do that fight us, is grow up and step gracefully off your high tower. Until we can get laws to throw you off.
The Improper Adoptee // November 9, 2008 at 3:26 pm |
if you refuse.
Mei-Ling // November 9, 2008 at 3:27 pm |
rixgal: “Why do AP learn foreign languages?”
If circumstances absolutely must indicate that the ONLY solution is taking a child from their motherland, then it would be productive to learn the language and keep whatever amount of links to the heritage and culture alive, no?
“Why do they sacrifice many comforts of life … saving for YEARS.. just to have the privilege of being hugged by a child??? YES!”
Because they signed up for it. They WANTED to do it. They WANTED a child. That is the difference between adopting to “save” a child and adopting because you want to “raise” a child. There is a world of difference there and it is made on choice.
Gershom // November 9, 2008 at 3:46 pm |
You know, a leading factor in my resistance to “grateful for being adopted” syndrome, that I forgot to include in this post was….
WHO IS GRATEFUL FOR LOSING THEIR FAMILY? Who on earth would be happy about that? And why is loss in adoption, one of the only losses in the world people are told to be grateful for?
Yes yes before the shouts scream out, i understand those in abusive homes would be grateful to be removed, HOWEVER in order to be adopted, tremendous loss has taken place in every one of our lives as adoptees. No matter how you look at it, no matter what side of the glass you’re sipping from, loss has happened, and NOBODY should be expected to be grateful for that..EVER.
Lindsay // November 9, 2008 at 5:23 pm |
Improper Adoptee, you said that adoptees should not call their a-parents mom and dad, but Mr. and Mrs. – while I understand your rationale completely, I’d like to add that in the DC community, most offspring differentiate between father and dad….our fathers gave their genes and created us, but our dads raised us. Our fathers will probably never be our dads (even if we ever meet them), and our dads can never be our fathers. I completely agree that it is most likely for their own egotistical benefits, but at the same time…and don’t accuse me of saying “love” is more important….but at the same time they are the ones who are, as you say making us those grilled cheese sandwiches, and at least trying to love us.
Gershom, don’t even get me started on being “grateful”…….check out my post DI is wrong and I’m not an ungrateful little brat!! (http://cryokidconfessions.blogspot.com/2008/03/di-is-wrong-and-im-not-ungrateful.html)
The Improper Adoptee // November 10, 2008 at 7:34 am |
Lindsay-I don’t know what DC means-also, I have no idea what it feels like to be loved by a Mother-my AMother hated me and wanted to give me back as a baby because I cried too much, but didn’t because she was scared she wouldn’t get another kid-My Asister was over a year when she got her so, she liked her better (no infant crying). AP’s can say they love their Akids as much as they want, but to me, love is equated with freedom,(“if you love something set it free” etc..) and AP’s deny us freedom so they can be free to play house. AP’s can only love so much-alot of them had our real parents names and would not tell us even though they knew it would give us peace-alot of AP’s play mind games, and manipulate our emotions if we have found or want to find our Real parents-that isn’t love to me-it is using us-the bottom line is, AP’s want to own Adoptees-in weird unatural ways, that Real parents don’t-and in that emotional bondage, I wouldn’t still exactly equate making grilled cheese with “loving us”. Just how I feel.
The Improper Adoptee // November 10, 2008 at 7:46 am |
Also too, forcing someone to be what you want them to be-ie: your child, isn’t love to me either-if you love someone, you accept them as they are-even as someone else’s child-if not, then the person/child is an object. And used accordingly. Again, just how I feel, not critizing your feelings.
Lindsay // November 10, 2008 at 8:14 am |
Improper Adoptee – DC = donor conceived. As for having a l”oving” mother, I got a manipulative and neurotic one who constantly plays mind games with me and has denied me information on my biological father and threatens me b/c of my views – I’m opposed to the current practices of sperm donation and adoption. And my step/adoptive/social father is distant and doesn’t care for anyone in the family (my mom, my half-sisters – his biological children, or me).
I didn’t mean that if someone makes you a grilled cheese sandwich they love you – but they did raise you. My point was, in our world – of donor conceived adults – most of us use language to define these roles, which could be something that adoptees could use as well, regardless if our “dads” loved us at all, they’re still our dads – they raised us, for whatever that means…regardless if we ever find our biological father (aka sperm donor), they’re still our biological father. I never see myself as my dad’s child, even though he legally adopted me when I was 10 (which actually caused more harm than good with the name change, etc — so yeah, I’m an adoptee as well……), and it angers me when he tries to pretend I am.
I agree with you 100% that loving should be accepting them as someone else’s child, and that otherwise we’re objects. We feel like commodities just as much as you. Our biological fathers were tricked into believing that they were “helping people” and jacked off into a cup giving us away under a cloak of anonymity. Our social fathers and our mothers hide the truth from us, b/c they want to be this perfect little nuclear family, and then are furious when we find our and want to know our other half.
Sorry, I got carried away there, I just had to clarify.
Cassi // November 10, 2008 at 3:01 pm |
All I can really say to this is “BRAVO.” You said this in such great clairty that I find it hard for anyone to question your thoughts or motives behind it.
And I think you brought up a very important factor in the debate about adoption. Nobody wants a child to live with abuse or neglect. Nobody wants to see them suffer. But so many relate adoption to “saving” children from this fate when it is hard to justify such actions as saving when a child is taken from one world and made into someone else to exist in another. I agree children need someone to love and care for them but they shouldn’t have to pay for this love and care by sacrificing who and what they are. What message are you giving to our children when we practice acts that show they are accepted and loved only by changing their names, forging their birth certificates, and leaving behind who they were before.
The practice of adoption does need to change. Not for the adoptive or first/natural moms, but for the children who are all too often forgotten and yet the ones who are the most affected by the practice of it.
Thank you for reminding me of this most of all as I do forget this at times as I speak out about adoption reform!
rixgal // November 10, 2008 at 5:43 pm |
This has been quite eye opening for me. I haven’t adopted and have 3 bio kids. I guess I was just so surprised by all the anger coming through these posts. (I’m sure quite justified in most cases.) I have 4 really close friends who were adopted and I have talked with them extensively about their feelings. None have mentioned the ideas brought up here.
I came to ask questions. And I didn’t expect to be jumped on about things I never said and don’t believe. I’m concerned for infertile couples, for birth mothers, and especially for the children who didn’t ask for any of this.
Mei-Ling, good point about the difference between “raising” and “saving” a child. My question would be (to any of you ladies) how can an adoptive parent find an international agency to trust? How will you ever really know if the child was abandoned or taken? Just my heart felt questions.
David Archuletta // November 10, 2008 at 7:47 pm |
To rixal, athough I am not one of the ladies, the answer to your question is nil and next to none. Adoption today has become so commercialized, that we have grown complacent with the fasad which hides all the evils it allows. Therein, it is hard to placate those who have issue with the industry, and know better.
Perhaps your freinds could give this site a good look over. It does not spew out hate, just anger. Who knows it might open a few eyes. If one just reads the papers, and or internet, I think think all A.P’s know something is not right. For the most part they don’t care.
Laurel // November 11, 2008 at 3:35 am |
“How will you ever really know if the child was abandoned or taken?”
Maybe you don’t ever know. Maybe, therefore, you “settle” for an American foster child you KNOW needs you, even though it’s probably not as cute or “exotic” or young or cuddly or “perfect.” The days of using adoption to punish girls and women who shamed the families by giving birth out of wedlock are long gone. Most American women keep their infants these days. If adoption were really about the needs of the child, the natural AP response would be to gladly take in these foster kids, not turn to China or Guatemala or Vietnam to get the “fresh” infant they desire.
Lindsay // November 11, 2008 at 8:43 am |
Very true Laurel, there are thousands of kids in foster care here in the US that desperately need loving families and the majority of them will be thrown around the foster system until they’re 18 and then dumped. THESE are the kids that NEED to be adopted, so any a-parents-to-be who want to “save” a child should take one of these kids rather than dividing an infant from his or her family for eternity for their own selfish wants and needs. The people who adopt foster children are the true “heros”, not the greedy wanna-be mommies who spend their life savings to steal a baby from some unwed mother or foreign woman.
Sunny // November 11, 2008 at 6:58 pm |
I heart you, K. Love this post.
Joan Wheeler // November 16, 2008 at 6:45 pm |
Gershsom,
This is an incredible piece. Thank you for posting this. Now I see your face, after “meeting” on others posts!
And to Jane, I’ve come to know you on other posts as well. Congrats to Australia for just about eliminatiing adoption. Terrible thing whites did to aboriginal children — stealing them from their homes, raising them as whites without legal adoption, and then turning them to the streets at age 18. Then, in an abrupt turnaround, the Australian government stopped the kidnapping, appologized to aboriginies and set up registries for millions to locate their families. When did this happen – in the 70s or 80s? — A national appology and rectifying the wrong! WOW! Imagine that in America, America the Land of the Free!
Why do I not feel free?
What is said here is so very true.
Please send me an email. I’d like to talk about the legislative day that you organize.
Thank you
Mei-Ling // November 17, 2008 at 11:28 am |
“My question would be (to any of you ladies) how can an adoptive parent find an international agency to trust? How will you ever really know if the child was abandoned or taken? Just my heart felt questions.”
They won’t. That’s the issue.
Possum // November 18, 2008 at 6:11 am |
How come I only just found this??
Awesome K – as always.
Great great post.
Thankyou for being here.
Hugz from AUS.
Poss. xxx
julie j // November 18, 2008 at 8:40 am |
Thank you for articulating precisely what is wrong with adoption in this excellent post, Gersh.
I hope it causes people to pause and question any preconceived ideas they may have about adoption being good for children. Adoption as it’s practiced is a disgraceful atrocity. Adult adoptees should know, we have lived it out entire lives.
Keep speaking up & exposing the truth about the adoption industry. Other people are starting to listen and to understand. Children deserve so much better.
Love the site here. You always have my respect & admiration
Juls // November 20, 2008 at 12:46 am |
I also found this post interesting. Mainly showing the negative side of international adoption…it sounds like you have some informative friends and some with really sad situations.
From my other comments you may have picked up that what I’m most curious about is how to start to fix the American foster care system, which was put into place because of research that showed that a family setting and “regular” home were a better place to place children than an orphanage, for their developement and state of being. Unfortunately what happened from there wasn’t good. Monthly money enticed the jobless and lazy and those that actually wanted to be there for these kids have a harder and harder time stepping forward only to grow to love a child that will end up loosing to the system and sometimes to a horrible situation.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with wanting to give a child a home. Everyday people make the choice to have babies and then sometime those people can’t…. sure wanting a baby is a momentary selfish act; followed by a long term selfless commitment. I have kids “both ways” and know the difference in the process, but also know that they are all my children, “for some are born from the body and others from the heart”.
The cards we are dealt aren’t always fair and for that reason I can’t begin to relate to your friends with abusive AP’s. My husband had abusive BP’s and therefore thinks being adopted was what saved his life. He’s proud to carry his Afather’s name and pass that name onto his kids, and to introduce his Amother to his friends and say “She was there for me.” He knows his AP’s and has a limited relationship with them. He has forgiven them and moved on. I think that comes with age and being able to move forward in your own life.
I still want to say as I have before that what I think is important here is fixing the system. It won’t be easy, but I love to see those that want to make a difference come forward. The louder the voice, the better the results.
Juls // November 20, 2008 at 12:59 am |
Correction in the next to last paragraph…. “He knows his BP’s and has a limited relationship” not AP’s sorry if I confused anyone
Rani // November 25, 2008 at 7:51 pm |
Hi, I am international adopted. I am very happy that I am adopted because if I was not adopted I would not be here now!!!. As a girl I have here much better future where I live because in my birth country the girls are very expensive when they are born because of the arranged marriages!!!. In India there are lots of Indian women they abort their pregnancy because it is going to be a girl!!. In India the abortion are all illegal… Indian families they all prefer boys than girls!!!. This is a discrimination. Because of the arrange marriages tradition in India now at the present India has now much more males than females!! I have seen a documentary about the problem about this issue. I was very stuned when I heard that India has a shortage of more than 5 million females!!! The balance between boys and girls in India is not right!!… So as a girl I am very happy that I am international adopted. I have been back to my birth country. I had mixed feelings: one side I saw my birth country and the other side I was happy that I was back in Europe where I live. I have no feelings for my birth country!!. International adoption is very positive in my case!.
The Truth of the “Loving Home” « Empty Cereal Box // November 27, 2008 at 2:27 pm |
[...] being adopted and felt lucky to have had such wonderful parents, should read Anti-Adoption’s Why Would Anybody Who Was Raised in a Loving Home Be Unhappy About Being Adopted? She takes it all out of the box and sets it on the table to reveal the glaring truth of it all. [...]
Lisa // December 3, 2008 at 8:54 am |
Okay. I’m going to be the unpopular one here I feel it already. You have made some very important points here and I think every infertile couple who is thinking of adoption needs to read your blog. Here goes, I am an adoptive mom of four, I am also an adoption professional. I am very proud of the work I do. I am an RN who spent 10 yrs of my career working in a county hospital labor and delivery unit, I am a woman and child’s advocate and I work in the child welfare system. I think whenever possible you are right moms and children need and should be kept together, BUT it is not always possible. We would all like to believe that every time a child is conceived a woman will bond and instantly feel that maternal instinct. It just doesn’t happen for some women, sometimes through no fault of their own. So is the child still better off with that mom, a mom who doesn’t want to be a mom? A mom who may not emotionally be capable of being a mom? I see day after day these families. Children neglected, unable to attach to anyone, even after 18 mths of services, families caught in the cycles of addiction, unable even with assistance to get out. I am not adopted, I am not going to ever stand here and say I know how it feels. Three of my children are teens now and we are working through identity issues, or oldest sons birth mom contacted him this summer without contacting us first, he is 16. We have been looking for her for yrs, we asked to have open continued contact when he was born and she chose not too. We are now working in therapy to resolve issues that this unplanned reunion brought. His BM does not understand why there should be any issues. She is bi-polar.She had relinquished one daughter before our son and that family will not allow her any contact. Our twins (born at 27 weeks)do not want to meet their BM They both have fetal alcohol syndrome and at 15 are mad about the disabilities they face daily because of the drinking. We continue to explain that she did not do it on purpose. She is not parenting the daughter she had before them. Our 4th child born prematurely 27 weeks and addicted to Meth is 1 of 7 children, there were two more after her, conceived during CPS involvement. Her birth father is on Megan’s List for violating one of his older daughters and birth mom refused to acknowledge this. I work everyday to educate adoptive parents. Adoptive parenting is not like biological parenting. We need to have special tools. Yes there are many abusive adopted parents. Do I wish there was some way to erase the pain for every adopted child that feels it? Yes. But sometimes it has to happen and we have to hope that the right family is there waiting and that the child will receive the nuturing and love he/she needs so that when the time comes the tools for working through the adoption issues are available to lead a healthy life. I know a little “pollyannaish” but I’m allowed. PS I welcome any advice or constructive input to help understand and help others understand adoption issues, so that we can better prepare our children for life. Lisa
The Improper Adoptee // December 9, 2008 at 4:02 pm |
You know stories like yours are told over and over again all over the interent, especially on Adoption Agency webistes. But I in all my years have never, ever met anyone like the Real Mothers you describe and that so many others do…and I know alot of single Real Mothers. Some are teenagers or just 18 too. I think readers need to be aware that the drug addict and drinking problem Real Moms are a true minority and very few and far in between….
The Improper Adoptee // December 9, 2008 at 4:39 pm |
Just a note: The above comment from me was to Lisa.
Mot // December 12, 2008 at 6:52 pm |
Dear Immproper-
i love your name.
so, I think that lisa’s experience, while uncomfortable, may be valid. she works in the trenches, so to speak, and the trenches are rarely pretty. my BIL is in law-inforcement, so he meets lots of felons. they are a fragment of the population, but he sees them all the time. i work at a bookstore so I meet lots of readers. so, the fact that lisa meets less-than-shining real parents is very possible.
Real parents, like everyone else in the world, are on a continuum of quality, most are good, some are great, and some aren’t good at all. its been a good thing, for me, to think about that.
peace.
Mara // January 13, 2009 at 8:08 pm |
Hi,
I’ve listed our civil rights violation as adoptees having our original birth certificates sealed on President Obama’s website at Change.gov
Please go to:
http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/Home
type in “adoptee” and vote for my post. If it gets enough votes, it will be in President Obama’s briefing book!!!!
Please vote and pass on to as many bastards as possible.
Thanks and keep up the good fight. WE’LL WIN.
AnhuiMama // January 13, 2009 at 9:05 pm |
If adoptees should call their parents Mr and Mrs, than should adoptive parents always refer to their kids by how they entered their family?
Hi, I’m mrs. so and so, and these are my biokids jane and sam, and my adopted kids mary and sue.
At school conferences, hi new teacher, this is my adopted kid Mary.
That sort of labelling is incredibly destructive.
AnhuiMama // January 13, 2009 at 9:11 pm |
as to foster care, we looked into that first. We were told to expect to either get a sibling group of 3 of more, or to expect to foster multiple children and then to lose them back to the parents that had abused them.
God bless those that can willingly sign up for that kind of pain.
Mondaline Nesro // January 15, 2009 at 6:01 am |
Well, with respect, I’d like to point out that nobody is going to love, cherish, feed, care for, educate another’s person’s child without adopting it (or very few). I’m sorry, Gershom, and everyone else, but no one would have done that for you without adopting you. If you really think it’s true we shouldn’t shield adopted children – I’m sorry to tell you, that IS reality. We’ve tried it with the foster care system. I think it would happen with most other systems you might dream up.
You’re saying that people, whether they are infertile or not, should do these things for you and other children or that somehow society should arrange for it to happen for you. There is an old saying: Tragedies happen when ideological stances clash with reality. G did away with adoption tomorrow with some sort of system that has the kind of changes you advocate, it would nto work out the way you rosily hope and the misery you’d unleash on children would amaze you. Whethr it’s selfish or not, why should someone else raise you or spend the time/energy/love/money to see that you are raised if they are not going to get something back?
Frankly, parents wouldn’t have their own children if they didn’t think they were going to get something back – that is, all the that they receive – or think they will receive – by bearing and raising children. Think about it: do we OWE it to anyone else’s child to make sure we do “everything we can to keep that family together?” If so, why?
If so, why?
Mara // January 15, 2009 at 2:19 pm |
Hi!
I’m looking for some back up. The link below is a response to a letter to the editor that I wrote. It’s from a self-absorbed adoptive parent who thinks adoptive children need to accept that they are “grafted” onto family trees and that they don’t need to know their real family trees or heritage.
http://www.humboldtbeacon.com/opinion/ci_11460940
Thanks,
Mara Rigge
Renee // January 22, 2009 at 3:48 am |
Read the post.
It amazes me how self-serving adoptive parents paint themselves with no regards to the needs of the children that are in their care, calling adoption a ‘miracle’. In the past always thought it was nice we an adoptive parents said ‘I treat my adoptive children no differently then my biological children’, but as parents you can’t. Adoptive children really do have different considerations, and it’s a parents DUTY to address them, rather these adoptive parents actually place a burden on them that if they question their true identity that their adoptive parents will reject them.
On my husband’s side, he has two older relatives that was adopted over 60 years ago. I was asking family members if one of them ever looked for her parents and if she waited until her mother passed, father still living. Since the family growing up was blended (I hope that term isn’t offensive) with one biological child and two children from adoption, it was no secret. This adoptee not only search for her birth parents some time ago but did it when her parents where alive and with the help of other family members.
No luck though.
I guess my point is that it is the duty of the adoptive parents to allow an adoptive child to safely find her roots without fear or lost of not being loved by his/her adoptive family. But when when you burden them with YOUR lie, that is not an act of sacrificial love, never mind it being a miracle.
I can only assume from mere observations as an in-law entering much later on into the family, that these older adoptees were loved by their immediate and extended adoptive family, but truly caring and loving an adoptee doesn’t mean lying to them when they need answers.
I’m all new on this subject matter, so forgive me.
Mara // January 26, 2009 at 6:57 pm |
This is my response to Paul Rodrigues. It was printed today in the Humboldt Beacon. It’s a MUST READ:
http://www.humboldtbeacon.com/opinion/ci_11527918
David Archuletta // January 28, 2009 at 3:08 am |
It was in the innocent spring of life, in which, never they shared
While in the summer of youth, each gazed out or simply stared
Now autumn winds bring whispers of twice cried tears
Of two tales told, each with the worst of fears
Maybe forever their winter’s discontent
Yet,
Purveyors of souls, take seasons of which, always had meant
David Archuletta, an “Unknown Father”
A Birth Mother // July 23, 2009 at 12:46 am |
All of these posts are REDICULOUS!
Adoption is NOT “evil” as this article makes it sound…
Some situations (being placed in an abusive home, never knowing biological parents…ect.) may be terrible for the adopted child.
But seriously?
My mother is schizoprenic and my father was never in the picture…I was raised by my grandparents and I NEVER in my life thought twice about what it would be like to be raised by my mother (who i have absolutely no contact with) I have 3 siblings – all of whom have been adopted, and all of whom I still have ongoing contact with. They are ALL happy, young, but one day will hopefully realize, like me, that they’re life is better being raised by adoptive parents rather than a schizophrenic mother.
I myself became pregnant at the age of 15.
My sons father was abusive to me and i have no doubt in my mind he would have been abusive to our baby. I was living with my grandfather at the time…who was raising me and living off a petty retirement pension – no way in HELL was I about to raise a child and expect to him to support me financially, as well as my child. At 16 years old I couldnt get a job to support my son myself.
I gave my son up for an open adoption…I see him ALL of the time WHENEVER I want.
His adoptive parents are so empathetic to my situation its unbelievable. They are wonderful people who WANT me in Cass’s life. Straight up, the first day I met them before I gave birth – they told me that they wanted me to be in his life.
Cass’s family is just twice the size it would have been if I didnt give him up. He calls my Grandpa great-grandpa, my grandma great-grandma, my siblings Auntie Hannah and Uncle Stephan – and Cass’s adoptive parents WILL raise Cass knowing who I am – they wont drop the bomb one day – he’ll always know. And I always be in his life until the day he’s old enough to understand and then HE can choose to be in my life or not. My entire family goes to all of his family events.
HOW DARE anyone commit to being ANTI-Adoption to all situations? Its absurd. You people are selfish and need to look at EVERY adoption situation.
Good Greif.
Gershom // July 25, 2009 at 10:47 pm |
well “b****mother” my only advice to you is to read around the blog before you make sweeping statements. I am the *only* author of this blog and i’ve made it very clear that being opposed to adoption doesn’t mean children who can’t be raised by their natural parents shouldn’t be given replacement parents.
good grief yaself!
Mei-Ling // August 6, 2009 at 7:51 pm |
“HOW DARE anyone commit to being ANTI-Adoption to all situations?”
Careful with what you say. Some of us believe adoption is necessary is some cases. Others don’t. Don’t paint such a broad picture with only one brush.
Liz // August 14, 2009 at 1:29 am |
I would have to say that what I am seeing here is far more intelligent than what I have seen on some other anti adoption websites, most of which seem to have been written by birthmothers who appear to be owning zero responsibility for the fact that their own actions landed them in the dilemma.
I think you are right on about the selfishness. I am an observer of parenting, having grown up in a fairly dysfunctional home myself. Most parents who give birth have very selfish reasons for reproducing and then they wonder why those children don’t rise up and thank them for all that control when they are adults. The parents who disown their kid for this that or the other or shame their kid into a particular line of work or out of a relationship that they disapprove of for some reason other than the bad character of the boyfriend/girlfriend. A lot of bio parents act as if they “own” their kids and believe me their kids know it and respond negatively to it. Which is why so many of them act out.
Why should those same people, if infertile be approaching adoption with any different of a mindset???
Not honoring the child for who they are and even worse lying to the kid and going thru this charade is very damaging . The same thing happens, with variations, with parents who wanted an athlete and got stuck with a computer nerd instead. With similar results. As for the lying you are only as sick as your secrets and I have seen time and time again keeping secrets from kids blow up in people’s faces. Adoption being only one of those secrets. Denial has some very ugly fruit.
That said, I also think there is a reality of young girls who make some bad choices and expect that taxpayers will pick up the tab to an endless degree. Not just once, but many, many times over for the same person. Most people are compassionate that we all make mistakes but no one wants to finance thousands of thousands of single moms who repeatedly have more kids with a different baby daddy each time.
My take on it is that when you conceive a child out of wedlock, all of the options are gonna suck in some fashion or another, so it’s time to put on the big girl panties and behave in a manner that will be best for others.
I am sure some will see me as nasty because of my take on out of wedlock births.
Perhaps if pro life people were less focused on simply preventing abortion and more on getting at the heart of the matter, there would be less pain all around whether its adoptees or kids of single moms who hurt because their fathers just don’t want to stick around. Perhaps if adoption was not celebrated as such a “miracle”, more young girls would sober up and realize that if they get pregnant before they are ready to be moms they will have three (four if you count marrying the baby daddy) options, all of them unattractive for some reason or another and that it would be easier to just save themselves that pain and keep their legs closed. Or go buy a vibrator or something. Yes, I said that. Sex is not sinful but out of its proper place it causes a lot of hurt and pain in the world. These stories of adoptees and birth moms and their collective pain are vivid proof of that.