I’ve been thinking about naming and how it seems to be done today in DIA (Domestic Infant Adoption), and why one aspect bothers me, both personally and ethically. That is what has been bouncing around in my thoughts lately, so I thought I’d try to make sense in a post.
From what I’ve heard from both first parents and adoptive parents the subject of naming comes up before birth and sometimes the babe gets a name that they both contributed to and agreed on, that is on the amended birth certificate. I’ve also read agency and non-agency posts about that practice. That’s not the part I’m pondering on though in regards to ethics because that name change happens months after the mother has signed away her parental rights.
What I’m pondering on is the original birth certificate; and how words said by the adoption service provider (ASP), or the person or couple the expectant mother is matched with, which could add one more layer to follow through with the adoption plan. It’s often a series of events and suggestions that slowly add up to taking away her agency to make her own decision on adoption after saying hello to her babe.
Just like the hospital plan and the ASP bringing up questions such as: will the adopting parents be at the hospital, during the labor and delivery, who will cut the cord, who will be the first to hold, care for the babe, all while *helping her* make her plan for an open adoption that is contingent on the adoptive parents to keep open, rather than, close it. If I was the expectant mother I’d be hard pressed to say no to any of the *hospital plan questions* seeing as once those papers are signed, they hold all the power.
Coming up with a name together for the amended birth certificate is just one more way to keep the adoption plan on course, that’s the bottom line. First you get them to ask the adopting parents to be part of the birth, then you ask them to talk about naming the baby for the amended birth certificate, then you ask if that is the name she will put on the original birth certificate too.
Putting the agreed on name on the original birth certificate in the hospital creates one more hook to make sure she follows through and signs away her parental rights, and that’s not how an adoption should happen.
Not to mention how the one adopted may feel about not being named by their mother, and how that could make them feel that their mother didn’t think they were even worthy enough to be named; a feeling that is real when you think about the fact we weren’t kept or named. It’s complicated being adopted, it’s even more complicated when you are growing up trying to process and reconcile that what happened to you is the opposite of everything a mother is held out to be but couldn’t even bother giving you a name she chose just for you.
Today’s practice of naming is definitely a no from this old adoptee; the post below from 2017 may help you understand why, do read the comments by others too. Dear Expectant Moms considering adoption (aka Birthmothers)
The adopted ones blog 
Dannie
September 2, 2020 at 4:03 pm
I have no clue with naming in DÍA….and my daughters case from foster care had such little info that we didn’t know if the name was given by the mother or if it was assigned by the social worker due to social services being involved at the hospital already so I didn’t want to leave it off if the mother had named but if she didn’t, wasn’t sure where to put it so currently it’s her middle name but she goes by both and goes through phases of wanting to be one or the other. I have a couple of friends/acquaintances that adopted from foster care (I guess SLP’s and teachers aren’t afraid of the system lol) but they have always kept the child’s name because it’s so obvious as to everything a child has lost.
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TAO
September 2, 2020 at 4:07 pm
Middle name works regardless of who named her.
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maryleesdream
September 2, 2020 at 4:38 pm
This comment is not about naming, but more about coercion. I commented on an adoptive parents Instagram account. One of the ones trying to be famous by posting her little adoptlings on the internet. I asked why she didn’t think it better to help mother and child stay together, and she reminded me that giving up your baby was a CHOICE. These women simply did not want to parent.
I commented, if it were truly a choice, wouldn’t the well to do relinquish with the same frequency as the poor? If it’s such a great, true CHOICE, I’m sure the rich would want to benefit from it too. There was no answer.
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TAO
September 2, 2020 at 5:24 pm
Good for you Marylee. Choice is always dependent on circumstances as to whether they really had a choice at all.
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BOOKS: Sexual Assault, Loss
September 2, 2020 at 5:30 pm
I have never seen the word “adoptlings.” Clever choice of a word in the context of what you wrote. Thanks for your post.
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beth62
September 3, 2020 at 1:55 pm
Maybe she was just too wimpy to be a super b and say, what I hear all to often from spoiled and clueless comfortable people…
Being poor is also a choice.
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legitimatebastard
September 3, 2020 at 2:41 pm
Being poor is not a choice. When a person’s life circumstances are out of control, the cycle trap of poverty locks people inside. Jobs don’t pay well, mothers often lose their appartment, go into homeless shelters, then lose their children due to being homeless, or, a minimum wage job won’t pay for child care. And now, due to Covid, no child care is safe, if any child care centers are open. Mnay people are unemployed.
I worked in a few homeless shelters as a social worker. I’ve seen women lose their children. I was not the one to remove the children, but I was the one who helped a woman regain an apartment, and train for a job, and visit her children in foster care, and re-gain custody of her children.
Most women in my four year college training in social work were single mothers on welfare. Including me. Divorce left me destitute.
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BOOKS: Sexual Assault, Loss
September 3, 2020 at 5:28 pm
beth62, I believe what you hear all too often from the “haves” is that the “have-nots” choose to be poor. That is a blanket statement condemning poor people. Some people work very hard and are still struggling. Those who condemn poor people maybe need to walk a mile in poor people’s shoes.
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legitimatebastard
September 3, 2020 at 6:28 pm
Beth62, Here is another way to look at the poor. A few years ago, I hired a professional painter to paint the upstairs hallway that I could not do by myself. He told me that he not only makes money as a painter, but he owns several two-family homes and collects rents. He said that’s good money. Well, now that Covid has eliminated many jobs, people who rent apartments cannot pay rent and face eviction. The government stepped in to stop evictions, but that leaves landlords with mortgages that they cannnot pay, they also cannot pay school and propterty taxes, and the landlords face foreclosures on the houses that they own. Not to mention their own house. If a landlord cannot escape foreclosure from the bank or taxes, the tenants will have to leave, not by eviction from their landlord, but from foreclosure from the bank or from taxes. This sets up a spiralling down for a great many people, single people and married with children. When a famly losses their residence, their possessions are lost, some can afford to pay storage fees, most can’t. Finding another apartment when you are evicted, or tossed out by the city marshal, labels you as a financial risk to the new landlord and you may end up in a homeless shelter. Do you see the cycle of financial stress now?
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beth62
September 3, 2020 at 7:25 pm
Oh I know all about being poor, dirt poor, southern dirt poor, thankful for dirt poor! Hot dog water and radish soup poor, if we were lucky.
I hear ya Legit!! I hope everybody does.
It’s shocking to me when I hear people say it’s a choice that everyone who is poor makes. It usually comes from people who think they work hard and have no responsibilities to their neighbors. Or that it has to do with luck, you know, “down on my luck” and the response… “the harder I work, the luckier I get”
It simply doesn’t always work that way. Shit happens.
I’m a proud slum lord AKA affordable housing provider, no matter what the fancy neighbors have to say about it. And our farm team provides the majority of our local food bank’s produce.
I could have a beach and lake house for myself instead, would be a whole lot easier!
It’s all about internet access now. I have to ask people, every time I hear, just Google it, or go to that Facebook page, live stream …anything! Watch a video, the news, facetime, order from amazon….. Buahahaha.
I have to ask everybody,
How many gigabytes of data do you use in a day, a month? Do you know?
How many gigabytes of data can you buy each month?
Does your service work when it’s cloudy or snowing?
Do you have access to dsl, cable, mobile hotspot, land line phone service even?
Do you even know where your “Wi-Fi” comes from? 🙂
The lack of access is breaking people now. How much it costs is a whole different issue.
From what I hear, I’m beginning to believe most people don’t have a clue how really bad it is for so very many. Maybe because they only get an hour a month to use facebook! If they can get the page to load at all LOL
Different worlds is what it is. Far too many people can’t work from the safety of their homes now, or get an education. It’s just not an option for millions.
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BOOKS: Sexual Assault, Loss
September 3, 2020 at 7:54 pm
beth62, thank you for all you do. Your post is educational. Growing up, our meal often consisted of radish sandwiches during radish season in our garden. My mom baked all our bread. I’m not complaining…I love radish sandwiches — my stomach just can’t handle raw radishes too well, nowadays. Radish soup? Never had it but I like to try new things. Now I must look up radish soup! (And obviously, I do have internet, though slow.) I’m sure my soup will contain more than radishes…but I do get that radish soup is something you make if you are poor.
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beth62
September 3, 2020 at 9:28 pm
There might be a recipe, I’m sure there is, but I don’t know it. Radishes come up in the dirt first. You can plant them early in the season and eat in 30 days or so. Sometimes the water thats left after you boil hotdogs is the only leftover for tomorrow. And if all you got to add to it is radishes, well, so be it.
I wouldn’t suggest it unless there’s nothing else LOL
Yeah, I’ve done all I could to be food secure since then. Absolutely no need for anyone to go hungry in 2020. That’s absurd.
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beth62
September 3, 2020 at 9:34 pm
Poor, or you just have a lot of radishes to do something with 🙂
I think I might die a painful death if I ate a bunch of radishes now, cooked or not LOL
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legitimatebastard
September 3, 2020 at 10:42 pm
Ahhhh, I understand your original comment now! A bit of sarcasm on what is said to of the poor by others! Yes.
I’m a northerner, but very poor. The back apartment where my parents lived when Mom was pregnant with me was the 3rd appartment in the back. It was a very long house, with the owners living up front, one family renting the middle, and our family renting the back. They shared one bathroom with the people in the middle apartment. We were whites. We were so poor that our landlords were black – in the 1950s, inner city, Buffalo, New York.
We did not have a car. When Mom vomited constantly in her 7th month of pregnancy with me, and my five year old brother got sick with the flu at the same time, our father sent his son with a neighbor by bus to one hosptial and he took Mom by bus to another hospital. Two weeks later, I was born.
Mom died three months later. Dad had to work. He had no one to help with me, the newborn. The first two months were Ok, before Mom died, because I was in an incubator. And grandparents picked up my four siblings from school. But when I was released from the hospital, my godparents took care of me. At my Mom’s funeral, a priest said to Dad, “the baby needs two parents.” Twenty minutes later, a woman approached my father and said, “I know someone who will take your baby.” She arranged for her brother and his wife to adopt me.
No one offered to help with child care. No one offered food, clothes or diapers. My Dad was backed into a corner. I never blamed him for his decision to relinquish me to adoption. He was in an impossible situation at age 31.
I blame the adoption myths and the selfishness of people who want the babies of others.
And so, the adopted person who criticizes adoption is questioned, “You don’t love your aadoptive parents?” Well, yes, I do. They loved me and I loved them. But adoption is based on lies. For me, the lies began when my adoptive parents decided to remove me from my father and my siblings. Then the revocation and sealing of my birth certificate when they changed my name. Then came my falsified birth certificate. Then came the possessiveness, the warnings not to talk about adoption, ever. Then came a phone call from my sister in 1974 that blew the secret out of the darkness. Then came the anger and rage from my adoptive mother because she didn’t want me to know my blood kin. Then came the hatred from the majority of my adoptive family – aunts, uncles, cousins – who treated me harshley because I became an anti-adoption activist.
My adoptive father died 38 years ago. I took care of my natural father and my adoptive mother at the same time about 15 years ago, for several years. They both died in 2011.
If only adoptive parents would realize that they do not have to own an adoptee. They can love freely and honestly by offering to be guardians for the child or children of parents who needs help. The way most adopters behave now, you’d think the poor owe them children.
Handmaids Tale???!!!
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beth62
September 4, 2020 at 1:39 am
I blame the same things, plus the eugenics root that provides it’s power over the vulnerable.
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legitimatebastard
September 2, 2020 at 6:20 pm
I am heartbroken and angry about the idea that people in the process of adopting someone else’s newborn would even consider not allowing the mother name her own child. Furthermore, why do we even allow adopters to change the adopted person’s name and birth certificate in this day and age?
So, we adoptees have won our rights to access (when adults) to our revoked and sealed birth certificates in a few states, both with restrictions and without, but when are we going to be angry enough to actually put a stop to this practice in every single State in the United States and all over the world?
Adopters need to be put in their place!!! Adopters do not own the adopted people in their care. You can love someone else’s child deeply, and that adoptee can love you deeply, but you must stop pretending that you gave birth to someone else’s child! You were not there at conception. You were not there during gestation. Now, only in recent years, you deem yourself so important that you invade the private, and sacred, birthing space of the mother and her baby. And then you want to “work” with the mother to come up with a name for the child in a joint effort? Knowing that you will have the legal right to change the child’s name once the mother, and the baby’s father, are legally out of the picture? Knowing also, that when you change the child’s name you will have the legal right to lie on your legal child’s birth certificate to claim that you conceived and gestated and birthed the re-named child?
This legal practice must stop!
Revoking, sealing and falsifying adoptees’ birth certificates creates mental illness in adopters who see themselves as superior to the child’s natural parents. When people live in a world of magical thinking – in this case, believing that you have the right to lie on a child’s birth certificate to prove you are the child’s “real” parents – this is delusional and a clear indication of mental illness.
The facts are: Birth is birth. Adoption is a legal transaction.
Stop pretending that adoption IS birth. Tell the truth to your adoptee and to yourself! Insist that these laws are changed in every State now!
Adoptive parents are presented with the Final Court Order of Adoption when the judge signs and approves of the adoption. You are then given the privilege to carry out the legal responsibilities of parenting someone else’s child. Use the legal document – The Final Court Order of Adoption – as proof of the adoption and restore to all adopted people the dignity of self in the record of their birth.
You should not be in the birthing room! How dare you! For you to insist that you “cut the cord” and hold the baby immediately upon birth indicates your narcissism, self-absorption, and a sense of entitlement.
And no, I’m NOT nice about this topic!
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Heather
September 3, 2020 at 10:21 am
I was so naive. I had no idea I was allowed to name my child and they never said I could. It was just one of the many ways in which I was made to feel like he wasn’t ever mine.
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legitimatebastard
September 3, 2020 at 1:32 pm
That’s so sad. I am so very sorry they treated you like this, and your child. Adoption is cruel. It is unneccessary.
Mothers and adoptees are victims of a class-based discrimination. Think about it. The Women’s Movement of the 70s was about equal rights for women. In reality, rich women take advantage of poor and niave and vulnerable women. The product is the baby. Economics. Poverty. Wealth. Education. Religion. Religion is used against women and children.
Fight back. Now that you know what happened to you, make sure this doesn’t happen to other women and their babies. Join Save Our Sisters – look on Facebook. Join Concerned United Birthparents.
Organize. Talk to your local legislators to write a bill that will outlaw revoking, sealing and replacing a child’s birth certificate upon adoption. Make sure that even women who say they don’t want their infants at birth have the right to name their child, get a copy of that child’s birth certificate, apply for legal custodial guardianship over adoption as this will protect the child’s rights to the natural parents and their rights to the child. This will give parents needed time to arrange their lives to parent their own child in the long run. And avoid the finality of adoption. Guardianship also protects the child’s rights to name of birth, birth certificate, relationships with both parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, their own culture, their own religion, and their own identity. Adoption destorys all of that.
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BOOKS: Sexual Assault, Loss
September 3, 2020 at 4:49 pm
I understand what you’re saying, Heather, about naivete. Most of us were naïve about what should have been our rights. I am so sorry no one said that you could name your child. I have read that many adopted people are delighted to find out they had a name pre-adoption. What many first mothers don’t realize is that, as a mother, you should have the right to give a name to your child. And it is sad that adoptive parents always change the name, most likely to remove any reminder of the child’s real mother. A name is a powerful connection. Through the years after surrender, when first mother grieves and cries, she connects with her child through the name she gave him (or her), while also using the words “my baby.” Again, I am sorry you were robbed of this right.
That last sentence you wrote was powerful: “It was one of the many ways in which I was made to feel like he wasn’t ever mine.” So sad.
No one cared about the woman who nurtured her child for ten lunar months and labored to bring him or her into the world — only to lose the child. We were treated as nothing more than “baby machines.” Our anger stems from the reality that no one cared about our needs! While suffering from “birthmother” trauma syndrome, we were met with silence if we attempted to share our feelings. What we are seeking now is validation of our loss, validation of injustice, validation of our grief. What holds people back from this validation? Why is it so hard for people to say “I’m sorry!”????
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legitimatebastard
September 3, 2020 at 6:14 pm
I’ve been struggling with this for a few months now. While I’m not a mother-of-adoption-loss, I have empathy for moms. I tried to explain this need for validation to a small group meeting at my now-ex church in July. Validation for mothers’ loss? Validation for adoptees’ loss? I had a trauma response/reaction when a retired nurse said she delivered babies and was ever-so-happy-and-delighted to see the joy on the adoptive mother’s face when she handed the newborn to her to hold on her bare chest. I nearly barfed. When I angrily stated that this action violated the child’s rights to her or his mother and the mother’s rights to her newly-born infant, and that having adopters in the room violated the sacred and private event of birth, this retired nurse stood up, walked to tthe back of the room, went into a yoga pose, moved her arms and hands in a prayer pose and waved air in my direction to direct my anger back to me. No one in that small group of liberal church goers understood, nor validated, my points. Instead, they defended the nurse. That was the last time I attended that liberal, non-Christian, supposedly progressive church.
I sent an email of complaint and told those people that the proper response is to validate what an adotpee says or what a mother-of-adoption-loss says, and feels, and that to say, “I’m sorry for your loss” is more than appropirate.
Two people responded. One said: “Im sorry that you feel mistreated by what happened at church…” The other said, “I didn’t think I was mistreating you.”
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BOOKS: Sexual Assault, Loss
September 3, 2020 at 7:37 pm
Legitimatebastard, Thank you, thank you, thank you. The people’s responses indicate that no one truly validated your feelings. A valid response would have been: “I’m sorry that you WERE mistreated. I’m sorry that no one tried to understand what you feel.”
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beth62
September 4, 2020 at 7:10 am
I figured you’d figure it out 🙂
I read a book a long time ago. It’s old now, wasn’t “perfect”, maybe it’s aged well, I still suggest it to the curious.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1869.Nickel_and_Dimed
Minimum wage hasn’t changed much since, rent, groceries and most everything else sure has. Looks like $7.25 is still popular. That’s about $15,ooo/year. I think $12,000 will qualify for Medicaid federally. Good luck with that, good luck if ya double it too!
https://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/state-minimum-wage-chart.aspx#:~:text=State%20Minimum%20Wage%20Future%20Enacted%20Increases%20Alabama%20none,Arizona%20%2411.00%20%2412.00%20eff.%201-1-20%2052%20more%20rows
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TAO
September 4, 2020 at 12:46 pm
No idea why you went to moderation.
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legitimatebastard
September 4, 2020 at 6:31 pm
Add to this low-wages and minimum wages, when then-President Clinton signed into law a new welfare law: “Five years and your off” really had the effect of sending more children into the adoption pipeline. I was a social work student at the time, age 41, divorced, with two children. I spent mandatory hours per week in the first homeless shelter I worked in. Mothers were told that they had to get a full time tiime while living in the homeles shelter. MacDonalds pay was not enough to cover child care for school age children. The rules of the homeless shelter were families could stay for three months and then they were out on the street again, or sent to another shelter. Children were at risk living this way so Social Services came and took the children and fast tracked them to adoption. Why? Because the mother was blamed for her poverty. Sickening. And, we took a class called “Poverty Class”. Did you know that America’s poor laws are modeled after the English Poor Laws of the 1600s. Hasn’t changed much. Blame the poor for being poor. Give them just enough to kinda get by, but remove safety nets so they dont’ too comfortable. Pull yourself by your boot straps… and bla bla bla. Right. If men had the job of taking care of children, this would change in a heartbeat.
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TAO
September 5, 2020 at 3:31 am
“Adoption and Parenting” – why are you here? why do you keep showing up? What do you hope to accomplish?
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maryleesdream
September 5, 2020 at 2:30 pm
They started following me too.
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TAO
September 5, 2020 at 2:50 pm
It’s creepy isn’t it. I’m sorry you got followed too.
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beth62
September 5, 2020 at 9:52 pm
Baby sellers need to find marketing ideas for their websites, in english. I’ve seen it at the surrogates house
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legitimatebastard
September 6, 2020 at 3:15 pm
When I clicked on “Adoption and Parenting” to view their Gravatar, it lead to what seem to be fake websites advertising articles on adoption and website building. The articles on adoption seem to be web-based research with sentences strung together randomly. Go see for yourself. Fake research with sentences that make no sense. Very strange.
A few months ago, I clicked on “Adoption and Parenting” to her website, which, at that time, gave the impression she was a new adoptive parent. Now I think this is a bot. Purpose is unclear.
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TAO
September 6, 2020 at 3:51 pm
Why I felt so creeped out and went dark.
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