I read posts on forums from pregnant women who are exploring adoption as an option. It bothers me to my very core although I do know realistically not everyone can raise their child. I also see very wise adoptive parents cautioning these women to really take the time to look at all their options. Of course there are also the obvious comments like, adoption is a beautiful solution and what a saint you are, etc.
What bothers me the most about these posts is quite frequently the woman doesn’t want to tell the father and wants to know if she has to tell. She is then told that some agencies, states etc don’t require it or a combination of that with advice to tell. Mixed messages and possibly the father will never be told.
The adoptee in me wants to cry for this child. The mother wishes to place the child and not give the father and his family the chance to raise their child. Why would anyone not want to give the child the chance to be raised in their own family? Why subject this child to be given up and then raised in a non-biological family? How can anyone be this cruel?
Fathers are being denied the right to their children. Children are being denied the right to their father. Some states laws make it easy to do this. Didn’t register as the father on the registry? Too bad. Mother moved to a different state and gave birth and the father did not register in that state? Too bad. Fathers who try to fight the adoption of their child through courts face a big uphill battle. The longer the battle the less chance they have as courts can find that ‘In the best interests of the child’ they should stay in the adoptive home as they have bonded. I am not a professional so cannot speak to that with authority, but I can speak from my adoptee view. NO PAP should accept a child where the father wants to parent.
Prospective adoptive parents want a child, they want that badly. Some are willing to go to any lengths to get a child. But fighting a court battle to adopt a child whose father wants to parent is not someone who should be raising a child. Ethically speaking what are they teaching their child? Do whatever it takes to achieve your goal regardless if it is the ethical or moral thing to do? I see comments posted about how do we know the father is fit to parent? Excuse me, how does wanting to take a child from a father make you fit to parent that child? The fathers rights should not be trampled.
What do the PAPS think the child will say when they find out the truth? Do they think they will be thanked for robbing the child’s father out of his rightful role? Really? Remember children grow up and become adults and believe me, if an adoptee finds out they did not need to be adopted there will be fall out and one I would not wish to watch. Secrets and Lies destroy.
Fathers are just as important to us as mothers. We may focus on the mother initially but we do want to know our father as well. Primarily we would have preferred not to have been in the position to be adopted in the first place.
And as a final note: If the father is not named and the agency or state does not mandate that you are missing 50% of the childs family medical history. How can anyone want a child so badly they will accept this knowing it could take the life or severely compromise that childs medical care for a lifetime? Reality sucks sometimes but it is what it is and ethics and morals matter more than being a parent.
