Dear pro-life would be adopter…from 2015

(Lots of online discussion on adopting due to the recent SC nominee so it seems timely to re-up this post and hopefully make some think)

Readers know I don’t use the term ‘adopter’ lightly, and it applies only to a few out there. I read a very disturbing post today by someone with infertility, who is pro-life and also wants to adopt. I was ready to rebut her post, it felt good writing thoughts down, but it wouldn’t have done any good.  Instead, I decided to write this post, perhaps she’ll read it, or someone just like her. Perhaps it will trigger reflection, perhaps not, but I’ve tried in the kindest way I know…

She’s not ready to adopt…

 

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.

 

What adoption shouldn’t be.

Long-time adoption agencies and lawyers have been dealing with adoption for decades, nothing new there, except they now compete, co-exist with an ever expanding list of *new and improved* so-called adoption service providers who call themselves consultants, whose goal is to get you (a hopeful adoptive parent) a baby, and fast.

 

Are you a HAP hoping to adopt?

If yes, this post is for you. If you see yourself reflected below, do better, be better, because that’s not the moral standards an adoptive parent needs to have.

 

Making Choices

We make choices every day, but the values that drives those choices is what is important. I shopped at the same grocery chain for decades, even after their ownership changed, I resisted trying their competitor for more than a year. During that year I noticed older employees disappearing, new employees so young I wondered if they’d ever shopped for groceries before. Name brands disappearing, replaced with no-name products I’d never heard of before, or knew what company produced.

 

Quick thought

I think sometimes prospective and adoptive parents don’t realize that how they say something – tells the reader the person’s feelings of privilege and entitlement to adopt someone else’s baby. The quote below is in response to a comment about how birthparents should be allowed to spend time in hospital without the adopting parents there:

 

You need to respect the gravity of all that adoption is

You know what? This isn’t cute. This isn’t funny. 

 

Sisters separated

I’ve posted this story elsewhere of sisters who were separated and adopted into different homes; the response was typical, shallow best describes the reaction and that’s the problem I see within the adoption community when it comes to the adoptee. Whatever the back story is for the one adopted, even if egregious, people in the adoption world typically only offer how lucky they were to find each other.

 

How will your adoption choices be viewed?

I know I’m always talking about how you adopt matters, I’m hoping that today’s post offers you a chance to consider how the long-term impact your choices in adopting can play out and even be generational. Choosing the way to get that baby fastest, easiest, the shortest time post birth to relinquishment, or no revocation period, shouldn’t be what guides the choices you make, your ethics and morals should.

 

You must have options to choose from to be a choice

We make choices everyday throughout our lives, big or small, knowingly or not.  There are also times a conscious choice is made because you believe it is the right choice to make, a moral choice.  Sometimes there isn’t a choice to be made though it’s just something we wouldn’t ever consider doing.  Other times we don’t have any other option and then it really isn’t a choice.

 

Words and adoption

Platitudes, knee-jerk reactions followed by gas-lighting were topics on my Twitter-feed this morning, the latter two were words from MerriamWebster (follow them, they’re great).  All three happen to be part of the landscape of adoption-land that each person faces happening to them at some point.

 

Further reflections

Since my last post I’ve spent time reading other voices from all sides of the aisle on what happened in Charlottesville, as well as the larger picture of race relations.  I’ve tried hard to hear the underlying and competing views, but like must of us, our lived experiences feed into how we see anything, what side we find ourselves firmly planted on.