For those who have adopted a child...?

almost human

I haven't adopted BUT I would like to point out the difference between choices and options.

There are always many paths we can choose.

HOWEVER

We don't always have the option to choose what we want.

Exercising ones options means being empowered to make choices.

How does it feel to see so many choices but feel powerless and without options?

THIS is the imbalance of the privileged over the underprivileged, the empowered over the disenfranchised, the feminist over the culturally oppressed female.

Who is accountable for the outcomes of adoption, when all the cards are held by those who already have everything???

It is, to my mind, repulsive for those who have everything to blame those who have lost everything for their own losses. Not only that, but to benefit from their losses yet still blame them!

In these kinds of scenarios, all too common, adoption is barbaric. And civil society is anything but.

myst1998

Exactly Mei-Ling... there is no choice, at least not for the mother and her child. There is a choice for those around her to either support her or take advantage of the situation and take her baby KNOWING she has no alternative right then in front of her.

Sometimes it isn't about the choice of the mother but those around her and more often than not, those around choose to exploit rather than educate and nurture.

We live in a sad, sick world.

ETA: Sorry Mei-Ling... didn't read the title properly... I haven't adopted a child. Wasn't trying to be disrespectful.

kitta

Myst is correct. well said. choice is not just a function of the individual who is the "primary chooser." That individual's ability to choose can be nullified by others around her, who have more power, or who have the ability to deny her what she needs.

No one has the ability to control everything they need to raise a child, if others are working diligently against them.In this kind of situation, the parent is going to have a hard time succeeding....and may even lose custody.

whatif

myst 1998
she is SO correct on EVERYTHING she said in her answer to you.WOW i couldnt of said it better.

Erin L

I certainly wouldn't say that my daughter's first mother wanted to loose her child to adoption, but I also wouldn't say that she had no other choice. She didn't want her daughter to be born with a birth defect. But she decided not to abort when she found out she would be. She decided she would not raise her when she found out she would be. There are/were cultural pressures involved that I acknowledge make it EXTREMELY difficult and for some probably to the point that raising the child wouldn't be realistically called a choice, but in the country of my daughter's birth people do raise children with the birth defect my daughter was born with (although most abort if known in eutero), and there is universal heatthcare there so she would have had the medical care she needed. I consider it quite complicated, but basically, I think my daughter's first mother relinguished of free will. It she truly had no alternatives, I wouldn't consider it choice, but I think she did. Nevertheless, I know it was a choice that caused much heartache.

IDK!!

Even if there were truely no choices, there would still be a need for my son to have a home. I struggle more with the fact that there were thousands of choices, like drug treatment, but they were never considered.

If there were no other choices, then relinquishment is not a choice. In cases where children are removed because of abuse/neglect in a country with social programs, the choice started when the abusive/neglectful behavior started.

HappyMomAnna

The mother of my children didn't WANT to surrender.

Every service under the sun was offered. Mom had alternatives she had supports offered she had help but she didn't want it. Nothing was important enough to make her want it.

I was raised by teenage parents who Had to Get married. I was a mother of two babies before I was 22 and I spent years as a single mother later. Once I gave birth there wasn't anything I wouldn't do to give them the best I knew how. It wasn't always perfect. There were times when I accessed services as a young parent starting out during the last recession. I know that when there is a will a parent finds the way.

For me the Alternative came from my own desire. No one knocked on my door and dragged me to the right place to have what I needed. I knew how to stand in line for the Free Cheese for low income people and how to stay up to late with all the paperwork to keep my Medi-Cal in place. How to find another job in order to pay for the things that made life safe and secure.

I won't forget the time when I had two little babies under the age of 3 and the reality of the fact that our marriage was cycling to violence was clear. I called my parents to see if they could help with the $49.00 electric bill that was past due---help for the Babies... They said, "No."

It was right that moment when It all became crystal-clear to me. It was My Responsibility. I had a choice of do or die. No one held my hand or threw money at me. No one came and fixed my problems. No one was responsible for the Choices I had made which resulted in where I was and what I needed to do in order to do what it took for my kids.

Every decision I made after that moment was about doing the best I could for the children who had Nothing to do with the mess I made for them to grow up in. Tough luck for me I didn't get the gold ticket! Life isn't always fair and dang-it I should have been a heck of a lot smarter. I really did know better then to get myself into the mess I had.

It took a long time to steer myself out of that track. Everyone screws up at some point. I did. But, I also had two little ones who looked at me for everything.

I wanted to do my best. So, I didn't let anything stop me from it. I was the one who woke up early, worked my butt off, did whatever I had to. Found what I needed and used every trick I knew how to use in order to provide for my kids. I got education, I accessed therapy... I got support from Other Battered Wives.

I did and found what it took. I paid the electric bill by selling a part of a collection given to me as a child by a close and important family member. My lights were not shut off. Years later I was able to buy the item back for the same price I had sold it. I never lost the Laurie Doll to my Madame Alexander Little Woman Dolls--made the year I was born. It came back to me 12 years later. After I had really gotten myself together. After I had finally taken the right steps.

I didn't wait for anyone to tell me the alternatives. I had to find them and I had to want to find them first. For me it wasn't ever a Choice it was a given. I knew it was not a real great idea when I found out number 2 baby was on the way and would be 14 months younger then my first. I knew it wasn't the Fairy Tale life I thought I should have by getting married and being a mother. The only thing I had ever wanted to do in my life was get married and be a mom.

I believed that Love would always make things work. I grew up with my mommy and daddy who proved it. They proved that even as very young teenagers who made a mistake they could pull off magic. At about the same time I realized I was having baby number 2 my mother and father's marriage fell apart. They got married because of me.

Life is a lot of mistakes no matter who you are. There is always a wheel barrow filled with something that stinks. We all have our own form of stink to wheel around. No one really has a perfect life but finding alternative to Any thing comes from inside.

It is okay to do what has to be done it's normal to have regrets in life. Childhood is traumatic and everyone can say they are who and how they are based on the hills they have hiked and the crap they push in their wheel barrows.

Of course, alternatives should be suggested. Of course, we should be sure that a mother knows there are options there are ways to manage any situation she chooses as being the one that will make things surrviable. I don't think anyone believes this shouldn't be a given fact.

I just believe it should also be okay for a mother who feel she will harm an innocent baby or who is unable to find the alternatives and make them work for herself should have the right to make that choice rather then having to have the government decide that what's best for her children is to be placed into foster care and then adopted by complete strangers when her baby is five years old.

Enter Your Message or Comment

User Name:
User Email:
Post a comment: