What is the value of adoption?

cantstopLinnyG

."As one poster put it "there is no better life just a different life."

Umm, that would be me, and as usual, you are twisting people's words and generalizing.

MOST adoptees who are adopted as newborns do NOT have a better life. Its definitely different, though. It HAS to be different, as we are being raised and loved by people who are not genetically related to us. It is ONLY better in cases of abuse and neglect. It is always best for a child to be raised with people they are genetically a part of.

Like it or not, when an adopted baby is placed in your arms, YOU ARE A STRANGER. you dont sound like their mother, smell like their mother, feel like their mother, breathe like their mother...because to that baby, you are NOT their mother. Those of us who have had our own biological child give witness to what science has proven long ago. BABIES KNOW THEIR MOTHERS.

Will the baby come to think of you as their mother? Of course. What choice do we have? Human beings need love to survive as babies. My adoptive Mother is my mother. I love her with all my heart. But when we first met...she was a stranger. Why can't people understand that? Because most ap's have never given birth. Its insulting to those of us who have.

I have NEVER seen an adoptee here on this site call their ap's babysitters. It is insulting and degrading to both our parents, and us. PROVE it. Show me a link. You cant, unless it's from a hit and run troll trying to stir up trouble.

There is no doubt you and your husband will love your adopted child. But that love will NEVER dismiss the fact that the child has another set of parents. Those "other" parents may not be raising their child, but that child will be connected to them for all eternity...in your child's HEART and MIND.

The word "real" needs to be aborted from adoption language. ALL four of my parents are REAL, they just have different roles in who I have become and who I will continue to be. If you cant deal with that, you should NOT adopt. It's disrespectful to the child and their first parents. Yes- I said first parents. You and your husband will NEVER be genetically related to your adopted child. Never. That's a fact.

magic pointe shoes

My existence as a firstmother doesn't invalidate my son's parents who are raising him. Just because his adoptive parents are raising him, doesn't invalidate my existence as his origin.

I don't question your good intentions, I question whether you are prepared to meet the needs of this child with regards to validating and acknowledging the loss that comes with relinquishment.

kateiskate

Why is it so all or nothing with people?

I'm able to love all of my parents equally and individually for the people that they are.

If you want to adopt, adopt. But do it for the right reasons. Don't do it because you want to save a child, because you just want a child, or to fill the void within you. Do it with the knowledge that your adopted child will have special emotional needs because of his or her relinquishment. Do it with the open-mindedness to acknoweldge the loss and the pain that your child has experienced. Do it the "right" way.

I agree that with adoption you don't get a better life, you get a different one. But too many of us adoptees are told we can't acknowledge the loss of the life we should have had.

Lori A

It's up to each individual to determine what is real to them. There is nothing you can do to change that. Why try?

realmom lese

All 4 parents are flesh and blood real!

Why would you feel just like a babysitter if your child loves the first parents? It's not a Competition. There's room for your child to love everyone. By the act of adopting, you are accepting that your love, your child's love might be a different kind of love. Just because there is also love for the natural parents does not make this love any less.

You can't take the "real" out of the first parents, because they gave birth to this child. You can not negate their role. You are not the parent that was originally intended, and for whatever reason you are becoming that parent now. Nothing can diminish the child's love for you, unless you are diminishing his/her reality.

If you are adopting expecting the child to recognize you only, have loyalty to you only, and to love only you.....then you are not thinking about the child.

And I don't know why anyone would want to adopt a newborn infant. I can see an older child languishing in foster care, but never an infant. That is delusional right from the get go.

Yes, you will be more to the child than a babysitter, more than you can ever imagine, but you really need to listen and learn to what adoptees are saying to you on this forum. You have a chance to make a difference.

Flying Monkey #073177

I HATE the competitive nature of adoption. It is like a tug of war between adults with a child as the prize and it disgusts me.

I have seven parents. SEVEN! I love them all, some in spite of horrific treatment at their hands, they ALL deserve the title of mother or father. I will not allow them to degrade each other by fighting over who gets to be called what.

My youngest daughter has two mothers, me and her step-mom. I don't give a rats behind what she calls her step-mom, it can't make me any less of a parent. It does not invalidate my role in her life.

Personally I don't use the term real but my amom did. She told me on her deathbed to find my real mom and thank her. Even my adoptive mother understood that a child can love more than one parent, indeed more than one mother or father. I have two real moms, the one who really brought me into the world and the one who really raised me.

Adoptionissadnsick

I went home with my adopters at birth. While time created a type of bond, and they were good to me. The fact that they didn't look like, act or think like me made them feel more like "babysitters" than parents. I'm a mother now and finally get to share a genetic bond, a real parent child bond.

Even as a kid I felt my adoptive parents could have been interchangable with any other adoptive parents and it would matter very little to me.

SJM

My step-daughter told me that I wasn't her real mother when she was about 11-years-old. It didn't make me feel as if I was her babysitter. I simply told her that was too bad. She still really had to do what I told her to do, and there was really no getting out of it, real mother or not. It was the first and last time she said it.

How could it have made me feel as if I was a babysitter? First of all, she was mad, and she wished for me to share the emotion. Second, she was 11 and knew her mother about as well as I did. I'd met her once. No child deserves that.

It's true that there is no better life, just a different life. It's absolutely true. That has nothing to do with with 'real' parents. It is something that should be made clear, however, to young parents who are considering adoption for the sole purpose of giving their child a better life. There are no guarantees in life. Adoption does not alter that fact.

Philippa

Myself and my son's adoptive parents are all real parents and I certainly wouldn't insult them by referring to them as babysitters because they're not.

I am a real parent because I was the one who went through pregnancy and labour. Since we have been in reunion I have done the best I can to give him information, answer his questions, been there for him when he has needed me. He has lived with me and my husband since Dec 2006 as part of the family and we have become very close.

This doesn't take anything away from his adoptive parents and they will also always be his real parents. They raised him, love him, given him everything they can give him to the point of spoiling him rotten.

We all have a role in his life and that's how we want it including my son.

Jennifer L

I think you're looking at the "real" parent issue as an either,or thing. It doesn't have to be. A child's first parents are "real". The adoptive parents are "real". Valuing one doesn't diminish the value of the other.

Vikki Dreams

The woman who adopted me was my "REAL" mother.
My birth mother was also my "REAL" mother but with a much different definition of "REAL".

I personally do not think adoptees necessarily "Love" their birth mother.
But there is a strong connection that cannot be denied.

Brenna

I placed a child for adoption at birth, a son, and my parents ended up adopting a daughter of mine when she was 7 With my daughter because we are all in the same family she calls me by my name and calls my parents Mom and Dad because they are in every sense of the word her parents, but I also do not refer to her as my sister she is my daughter and she tells her friends I am her birth mother she is 23 now and expecting her first child, we have talked and her children will call me Gramma Brenna. we are all fine with the way things are and I really am greateful for the way my parents did things, now on the other hand with the son I placed for adoption at birth I just consider myself his birth Mother, not his real mother his birth mother I would never take away what his parents have done for him. thats my story thanx for listening

luvinlife

Ok, I am not adopted, and i haven't had the joy of adopting. However, I know people who are adopted. I think that the term "real" is very subjective. The AP are the real parents in that they raise the child, the care for the child - just as they would if the child would come from their own bodies. However, they don't have that blood bond, which, unfortunately, has had entirely too much weight put onto it because, when it comes down to it - blood doesn't matter - love does.
On the flip side, the bio parents could go either way in my book. If they gave the child up for adoption because they "didn't want to deal with a baby" or the baby "was a nuisance" then they are not, in any way that child's "real" parent. However, if they were in a bad situation that they couldn't get out of and sincerely felt it would do their child a disservice to raise it in that situation and so, reluctantly, they came to the decision to give their baby a chance at a better life through adoption - then they are a "real" parent.
I guess what it boils down to isn't WHICH set of parents is the "real" parents, but who of them are truly "real."

I hope you are able to instill in your child that it takes all kinds of parents to make all kinds of children and that they don't need to choose one over the other if they decide down the road that they want to find their biological roots.

BonesofaTeacher

ah, don't get so wrapped up in what words mean. also teens go thru stages where they want to hurt their parents sometimes and might say "you're not my real mom/dad" and that is probably a stage. my experience is that most adopted people view their adoptive parents as their parents for their whole lives and have that relationship. however the kids usually want to go find the birth parents. usually that relationship is less important in the child's eventual life. don't get stuck in words like "real" and "babysitter" because they dont' describe the situation. and how someone is when they are going thru teenhood isn't how they will finish their life.

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