Its so weird how adoption is….everywhere.
It seems like no matter where I am, i can’t escape it. Yesterday I was in the parking lot and there is this white woman, white child, and chinese daughter. I looked, …no I stared….is that little girl adopted? Sure she could be a friends daughter, the womans husband could be chinese and older white daughter from a previous relationship, there are so many what ifs, but given my relation to adoption, and its impact on my life, it is the first thing to cross my mind.
I stare at little adoptees. They seem to trigger so much in me. Such a delicate time in their life, when they know so much, have been so suppressed to feel so differently and yet…keep trucking on. They’re alive…and so beautiful. Such a profound example of strength, they are warriors, having survived so much.
I was at work today and these two women were in there, both friends for a lifetime, both got pregnant at the same time, both there getting massages to celebrate all they had gone through in the last 7 months. ( I’m a massage therapist. ) So i sat, outside giving another woman a treatment listening to these two talk for .. 30-40 minutes.
They were so appreciative that all they had planned had worked for them so easily and I knew, i just knew it was coming when one of them said…of course, had she not been able to get pregnant, they would have just…ADOPTED.
There it is that sour taste of vomit that comes up my throat each time I hear a sentence like that. You know because we’re always the 2nd option for those who don’t get it as easy as the women above. The replacement child for the american dream of having that perfect family. Now i’m not saying that all adoptions come to for this reason, but I don’t think anyone could argue that some do, and those are the ones I am addressing now.
It is so wrong, to adopt someone else’s child because you cannot have children of your own. Adoptees are not a bandaid for your loss of a pregnancy. We don’t heal those losses, we come with issues of our own and need the attention and focus on our losses, not yours.
We are not here to fill any voids for others. We don’t want to hear the stories of how many years you tried to have kids of your own, and couldn’t so…you settled for adoption. Adoption should be about the child. Adoption should not be about the adopters and what they need.
I know this is such old news to so many people, but but but for these two women at my work sitting there speaking as if ….adoption would have just been the same. When in reality there is nothing simliar to adopting, and getting pregnant and having your own child. Throw the pregnant on paper dreams out the window because you’re being sold a car with no engine. It may appear really pretty and cute on the outside, but nothings working on the inside and the inside is where it all counts.
I just wish, for one day, those women could feel the way I feel. It would change their entire outlook on adoption. They would be alot more careful on how easily they throw that term around, and alot less likely to think its a solution to infertility.
I don’t know… just some thoughts I needed to get off my chest. 
)
I hope your week is fabulous. )
12 responses so far ↓
Myst1998 // November 9, 2009 at 12:41 am |
I completely agree.
I hate that people think if they can’t have their own adopting is just the next step.
When I was part of my mother’s group with my second daughter, we had a girls dinner out and the conversation of not being able to have kids came up. Of course half of them had decided to adopt id they found out they could’t have children naturally. They went on to discuss whether or not they wanted to go through international adoption or local. A couple of the women decided they would do local as they would want a child that looked similar to them in skin colour so they didn’t have to deal with the adoption thing all the time. They discussed the sex of the children they would have asked for. And this they discussed in front of me knowing how I felt adoption.
I got up and left and left that group shortly thereafter.
There is no thought given to the children they want to adopt, it is merely about them having what they can’t have naturally. If nature doesn’t give them what they want, oh well, someone else can… and they expect it without thinking of what that actually means to the child or mother.
Sick.
Great post Gershom
jimm // November 9, 2009 at 7:11 am |
My AP’s made no secret of the fact that infertility led to our adoptions. It does wonders for the child’s self-esteem to know they were the second choice.
maybe // November 9, 2009 at 2:28 pm |
Ha, someone actually told me I could adopt! (I never had another child after my first was lost to adoption). I had the same vomit-in-throat reaction to that one! Like I would really go looking for another woman’s baby and pretend it’s “mine?” Not happening.
BTW, I had a group of Asian girls trick-or-treating at my house – with an obviously white, American mama. Can’t say I ever recall seeing them around the neighborhood but now I’m intrigued about who they are and how they ended up in my neck of the woods. The youngest one was about 4 or 5 years old and was dressed in some type of “Asian” outfit with the sticks coming out of the bun on her head and a geisha type robe. (I’m sure I’m using all the wrong words to describe her costume). Anyway, it seemed odd, like an obvious nod to her homeland albeit a bit tacky and sterotypical.
Gershom // November 9, 2009 at 4:52 pm |
@ myst… yeah well we actually had an adoptive parent couple in my birthing class who wanted to join it because they were expecting an adoptee soon. Thank GOD the teacher told them no.
@jim… my amom was famous for telling everyone and their brother the story of how they tried and tried for YEARS to have a child of their own and couldn’t, so they had to settle for adoption. But it was really neat because she got to check the boxes of what kind of child she would accept and that part was fun. If she hadn’t checked the bi-racial box she never would have gotten me blah blah blah
@maybe… oh man that reminds me of when i was a little girl i had this ukileli and this little fake grass skirt ( i’m part hawaiian ) and it was all i had to connect me to my ancestors. ugh. that was it. ugh. damn.
YoonSeon // November 9, 2009 at 5:34 pm |
Wow, very well said.
rox // November 11, 2009 at 4:18 pm |
Blech.
Christine // November 14, 2009 at 2:31 pm |
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.
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?
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)
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
Gershom // November 15, 2009 at 11:05 pm |
i hope you don’t mind, but i have so much to reply to your comment, i’m turning it into a post O.o
Reply to Christine from – post 861 « Anti-Adoption // November 16, 2009 at 12:06 am |
[...] 16, 2009 · Leave a Comment 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 [...]
Kay // November 16, 2009 at 12:56 pm |
This discussion is powerful and insightful. I stummbled upon it while doing a search about adoption issues. I feel the need to chime in.
For those of you who were adopted and had to grow up coping with the insensitivity of parents, family, the media and our culture at large, you have my empathy and compassion!
As an adoptive mother, I’m very supportive of adotption but I agree that those who wish to adopt need to search their souls and do it for the “right” reasons. Adoptive children are not commodities to be sold to fill the voids that parents have because they can’t have biological children.
I have several people in my family who were adopted. For me, this was a reality and I love and accept my family members regardless of the non biological link. Our society has much adoption prejudice. We grow up with beliefs that the “best” or only “real” families are those that are bound by “blood”.
When I got married, I told my husband that I wished to adopt a child or two. Like most women, I also wanted to experience a pregnancy too, not because I feel it’s superior to adoption but I wanted the experience. I wanted children and it didn’t matter to me how God put them in my life. We tried to decide if we should adopt first or try to get pregnant. Let’s face it, adoption is expensive (and a business, unfortunately). At the start of our marriage, we could not afford to go through the process. Anyway, I had two miscarriages. At that point, we decided to move forward with our adoption plans. We could afford it at that point. We knew we could get pregnant but chose not to. We worked with an agency that required us to get counseling so we could explore our reasons for adopting.
Adopted children do not heal infertility. Many adoptive parents do enter the journey only thinking of their own needs and they “settle” and they view their children as the consolation prize. I do public speaking about adoption and I try educate prospective parents about the many sides of adoption. I also encourage them to remember that if they do adopt to remember that this is a child with a history. They need to place the child’s feelings and well being ahead of their own as the child grows up. My son is not a consolation prize. I would love to adopt more children but we are older now and cost is an issue, unfortunately.
I am truly grateful for my son and his birthparents. I know his birth mother. We have no contact with her right now (her choice) but I fully will support and encourage their renunion when they are both ready to have one.
Christine- I appreciate your comments too. It takes courage to respond. I’ve often found many online forums to be hostile environments. We all have our pain and it exists on all sides of the issue. We should encourage the open dialogue.
joy21 // November 17, 2009 at 11:10 pm |
I can’t imagine having to dress up as my own culture on Halloween.
Deb // November 20, 2009 at 7:07 pm |
“It is so wrong to adopt someone else’s child because you cannot have one of your own”
Ummm. . . Yes! Yes, it is wrong to adopt BECAUSE you can’t have “one of your own”. I say that as an adoptive mother myself. I remember being in one of the classes we took for our homestudy, and the group was asked how we would resp0nd when our hypothetical child asked “if you could have had children, would you have adopted me?” I personally think that if the answer isn’t yes, you have no business adopting. And I do appreciate the “someone else’s child” in your statement. It is so important to always remember that this child already HAS a mother!