Musing on Adoption and More

When did it become okay to treat Adoptive Parents as the enemy? Yes, they benefit from how adoption is currently practiced and many of the practices are wrong anyway you look at it, but the question remains – when did it become okay to be nasty for the sake of being nasty?

Maybe I’m just too old to understand.

Maybe the other Adoptees are right and I’m wrong.

Maybe I’m right and they are the ones who can’t see that being nasty doesn’t work.

Maybe the world changed; people changed and shaming is the only way to change anything. If that is true then we are all in a heap of trouble with no way to move into a kinder, gentler world. I hope not.

And if it’s okay to treat Adoptive Parents as the enemy, are we to treat First Mom’s as saints? Or are First Mom’s the enemy too?

This labelling as good or bad to an entire segment(s) in adoption doesn’t make any sense for the simple fact that both adoptive parents and first mom’s all have the ability to go online and a) learn the laws, b) listen to those who have been there done that already, do their due diligence. Some will, some won’t.

While first mom’s may be coached that they need to decide now, whether it’s to choose adoption and make a plan, or when they’ve given birth that it’s time to sign away their parental rights as soon as that state law allows. The reality is that they aren’t under a timeframe, which, if they knew the law they’d know. They’d know they do not have to surrender their parental rights within hours of birth or even start the adoption process before the babe is born.

The adoptive parents would also know all of that if they’d done their due diligence and would be bold in stating that to support a very vulnerable mother. Both parties would know all that if they even spent just a couple of hours digging into what adoption is, what can happen and does.

Adoptive Parents need to own that they will be held to account for their choices and actions.

That they must also do their due diligence, read the actual law in the state (or states), know what current adoption practices do not pass the smell test if they were a first mom and refuse to be party to it. How you adopt matters, if you don’t think it does, ask any group of adoptive parents what they regret about how their adoption worked, what mistakes they made. If they are honest, and I truly hope they are, they’ll tell you all the different ways they failed and wish they could have done differently. Learn from them, don’t learn from those who claim they made no mistakes or have any regrets – they wouldn’t know an ethical fail if it slapped them in the face.

Both Expectant Mom’s and Hopeful Adoptive Parents are adults.

You have to own your actions because you are an adult. I have to, despite wishing I didn’t and some of my mistakes regularly haunt me, which is also a good reminder that I am fallible and need to research and know as best I can, so if I fail, at least I know I did the best I could.

I also give no pass to Adoption Agencies.

As both non-profits and working in a child welfare category – there are no excuses, none. If they are truly acting in the best interests of the child, they’d be counselling an expectant mother to not panic, find her the resources to truly help her have the time both pre and post birth to reassess; to think deeply and try to figure out if she can parent and provide a safe haven for it to happen.

As a non-profit business I’m sure many, if not all adoption agencies chose to sign up for the government loans available due to the pandemic, loans you probably don’t have to pay back (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong). Do your duty and more because you know the pandemic is playing a larger role for many expectant mother’s, and it’s your mandate as both a non-profit and child welfare category to provide a safe place and with your expertise in everything available to help her, first see whether she can parent. If you don’t do that for her, do it for the child, because you know that children first belong within their family when possible, you also know that not parenting is probably not her first choice. Be there, prove you truly are there for expectant mother’s and babes to stay together, walk the walk, just don’t talk the walk.

Challenge to Adoption Agencies – respond to this post and tell us how you are walking the walk, tell us how many expectant mother’s chose to parent partly because of your help. Show you truly are in this for the right reasons. Show me. Show us.