I get asked a lot if I ever think adoption can be a good thing.
Do I Ever Support a Mother Making an Adoption Plan?
Since I just answered this same question more or less in an email the other day, I’m copying and pasting my answer:
Does it ever happen? Yes. I would be ignorant to say that there are NEVER cases where the mother truly just does not want to parent the child. It does happen, but just so much less often than the adoption agencies want you to believe.
The way I see it.. about 1 to 4 % of the regular population are some versions of sociopaths. I have to say that yes, I think a mother that does not have any real desire to bond with her child and cannot for whatever reason is a sociopath.
DISCLAIMER: Obviously I need to add a disclaimer here because people are fixating on calling some mothers sociopaths; I do not mean that all women who relinquishes are a sociopaths. I do not mean that a woman who thinks she wants to relinquish is a sociopath. I do not mean that a woman who has whatever valid or invalid reasons to relinquish including income levels, medical issues, family values, education, even the “not ready to parent” etc,. is a sociopath . I do not mean that a women who relinquishes due to any kind of pressure, perceive or otherwise form said agency, family, society, partner is a sociopath. I do not mean the women who thinks she is doing the right thing to relinquish because of her affection and care for the baby is a sociopath.
I am referring to this hypothetical women who DOES NOT HAVE TO RELINQUISH for ANY OTHER REASON EXCEPT that she really, 110%, even bonding after birth, DOES NOT WANT HER CHILD. Period. A woman who sees her baby as a thing, as an object, with no natural bonding, no empathy, no love, no connection, nada, zip. She is somehow damaged for whatever reason and I am calling HER a sociopath. It is also completely possible that there is another diagnosis for the kind of damage that I am describing. I’m not a psychiatrist and she is hypothetical.
So out of the approximately 15K annual domestic infant voluntary relinquishments maybe 600 ( at 4%) will really NOT have a desire to parent. In all my years of doing this work (almost 12), I know of ONE mother who actually really didn’t WANT to parent. She relinquished one boy and then a few years later, gave the sister to the same family to be raised together in a very open adoption. I don’t know THIS mother personally, but I do know the adoptive mom well and I have to say that based on what I know… in this case, it was a good thing for all.
Of course, when I say that I know ONE mother, I am not counting all the blogging Birthmothers that DO post all the time about how adoption is love and all that. I could have been one of them, so I just really don’t think that the great majority of them have really come to terms with what the loss means. And when I read them.. they all miss their children and could have parented.. they did just need support and NOT to relinquish.
But the agencies do make promises and want Birthmothers to believe that if we do everything right, that we are strong enough for it to be OK. Even if a mom really really thinks she knows what she wants….until it happens, you just can’t imagine the loss that comes with it.. and then, we think it will only be for a “while”.. but by time we figure out that this is it for the rest of our lives.. then it’s too late and there is nothing we can do anyway.
So true clarity .. I don’t think that actually happens until after the baby is born.. and lost.. and time goes by.
In the end, I think unless you are getting a child who really reallly is in a bad situation.. mothers with past history of abuse, serious addiction issues, or serious diminished mental capacity, then these babies really do NOT NEED to be separated from their mothers.I don’t know of another way to safeguard against the subtle coercion that the industry is just so good with.
None of us can really trust the industry professionals
And that’s REALLY the crux of this post.
Once again, just in time for National Adoption Awareness Month RealOptions and Bethany Christian Services created three new 30 second commercials to create awareness for the option of adoption for women and men dealing with an unexpected pregnancy. What do they call this new pro-adoption campaign?
Turn the Unplanned into a Loving Plan
The videos themselves are really not a big deal. They are fairly innocuous.
I will embed them here as I would actually LIKE a punch of views to show from coming from this blog if they bother to look at their YouTube stats!
This one, “More Common”¸ is designed for churches and organizations to help educate parents, young men and women about the “amazing option of open adoption.”
“We are Loved” and “Johnny Moses” are geared towards expectant mothers. I will be fair and give Kudos here for the choice of wording: “Expectant mothers” in the Press Release.
Now I am sure that many people would object to me finding fault with these videos. They are, as I said, in the scheme of things, really bland. I can hear the questions, “What’s wrong with letting other women know that there is another option?” I know that lots of people, even many feminists, still believe that adoption is a “choice” that intelligent, mature women might actually chose and letting them know about such things, especially in the guise of these heartwarming videos full of smiling faces cannot possible be as horrible as I might play it out. They would be wrong.
Follow Me Down The Rabbit Hole of Adoption Truth Bait and Switch
So first off, I do have an issue with a Crisis Pregnancy Center hooking up with an adoption agency. It’s just too close to providing an innocent front for an adoption agency to recruit expectant mothers having a crisis pregnancy and funnel them into the adoption machine. As I always say, once you get in touch with an adoption agency, many can be very aggressive and they exploit a mother’s doubt to make adoption the “best” good choice. As we can see from the “Real Options” website, they look like an up ad up overall Pregnancy Center providing all sorts of services:
- Pregnancy Testing
- Ultrasound Imaging
- Information on Options
- Prenatal Care
- Post-Abortion Help
Let’s take just a quick look here at the KIND of information that they offer. They have four pages on Abortion information including a detailed list of possible side effects and risks of an abortion on the Abortion FAQ page:
- excessive bleeding
- Infection of the uterus
- Infection of the fallopian tubes which can cause scarring and infertility
- Puncture or perforation of the uterus
- Scarring of the uterine lining (suction tubing, curettes, and other abortion instruments may cause permanent scarring of the uterine lining)
- Damage to the cervix creating complications with future pregnancies
- Death, in rare circumstances
- Hemorrhaging requiring treatment with an operation
- Incomplete removal of the fetus, placenta or contents of the uterus
In direct comparison, on the Adoption FAQ page, it’s all sunshine and roses. 
Open Adoption allows you to:
- Pursue your life goals and plans
- Live independently
- Parent when you are ready
- Avoid the financial responsibility of parenting
- Freedom to choose if you want a long-term relationship with the baby’s father
- Develop an ongoing relationship with your child
There is NOT ONE WORD about birthmother grief or sadness at all. Just how “it is a courageous and beautiful choice” which is just beyond any scope of editing. Now granted we KNOW that adoption agencies never list the real risks of adoption relinquishment such as:
- No legal enforcement of open adoption agreements
- Increased risk of secondary infertility amount birthmothers
- Risk of PTSD
- Adoptee populations higher chance of being represented in both mental health and prison
- Loss of Adoptees original identity
- Long term physiological effects to the relinquishing mother and her extended family
But wouldn’t we think that a third party neutral crisis pregnancy support center would at least try to talk about the real options and present the facts?
The Problem is; This Pregnancy Center is NOT Neutral
First we can go to the link that they offer for contact to someone who has chosen adoption which brings us to Unplanned Good ” a noble choice”. It’s is clear now that we have entered and adoption promotion zone; “Unplanned Good is a California-based 501 (c) (3) non-profit, non-political, non-religious corporation devoted to promoting adoption as an alternative path for unplanned pregnancies.” Once again, we have stories from other moms who have relinquished that say how wonderful relinquishing was. They say they are “collecting stories“. I think I might test them and see if they would take one of mine. I’ll be nice, though, I will consider defending Real Options just a second more. After all, IF they are in the business of just providing pregnancy options for women and work with third party vendors for information, then they cannot be held responsible for what the other places intentions are. Like people always say, you want adoption information, then you go to an adoption agency and they give you their view. Somewhere, we all trust the professionals, right? Is it the job of this crisis pregnancy center to vet the sources? Maybe they did vet them and their intentions are the same. What if I told you that RealOptions who claims that their “Pregnancy Medical Clinics desires to equip our clients with the information necessary to make positive choices for their lives” and funnels women in crisis to a “non-profit, non-political, non-religious corporation” all comes back to….
THE TRUTH- Finding Babies for Adoption
RealOptions Pregnancy Medical Clinics are a pro life front that does not offer real options, but is there to propel women facing unplanned pregnancies to adoption.
We commit to empowering and equipping women and men to choose life for their unborn children through the love of Jesus Christ in accordance with His Word regarding the sanctity of human life. The primary role of RealOptions is to be an alternative to abortion clinics by offering life giving options with support to those who feel abortion is their only answer. We will act as an advocate for the birth mother and promote life-saving alternatives to abortion. RealOptions recognizes the validity of adoption as one alternative to abortion.
And just happen to be working with the second largest adoption agency in the country Bethany Christian Services and who conveniently happen to be featured as a recourse on the Unplanned Good website.
The Adoption Industry’s Web of Tricksters
What the adoption industry counts on is that we won’t bother digging in and finding how they are all connected. It’s really easy to make a nonprofit host one website that links to another controlled website that links to another and make them all look independent. What they are doing is breaking up the whole message into little bits that then get fed to women over and over again, It looks like the message comes from all these different sources that have only her best interests at heart, but all roads lead to Bethany and Adoption and a lifetime of grief. Tell me where there is the true informed choice here?
I am sorry but the first thing you said was you didn’t know the mother (who gave up a son and daughter) I know too many aparents that claim the mother is a bad person when the reality is not so. I think too, being in a situation where you are questioning, is trauma, and add to that all the billboards, crazy advertizements to procure children, this mom probably believes that her children will have a better life, and that pretending they are different than they really are is what is expected. I think any woman if allowed to say what she truly felt and not she is forced, or coerced to say would say they wanted their child.
@Nadese,
You can make blanket statements like that but it does make them factual.
The birthmother of our older adopted child (via Foster Care) burned our child with a cigar for speaking too loudly….too many times to name.
This was just one ‘punishment’ doled out over the years. Are all BirthMothers bad….absolutely NOT! But some have no business parenting and comments like yours does a disservice to the real abuse creating parentless children, especially in the Foster Care system. Equally true is that some adoptive parents should not be parenting.
Dialogue is better placed when we don’t make blanket statements and accept someone’s experience for what and how it is shared.
I saw no threat to BM’s in sharing the statistic, based on her own personal experience, this blog author stated. Her experience, her retelling. How are you more capable of judging this woman’s (the First Mother’s) intentions than anyone else?
One mother in 12 years? Sobering indeed.
It highlights the need to continue support & counseling for vulnerable expectant mothers and to continue to recognize that not all Birth Mothers ( or mothers in general) fit neatly into one package.
The author is talking about the procurement of infants for adoption. She is not talking about children that end up in foster care, because of poor parenting, or in the case you described child abuse.
I am a first mother and I would not hurt my child. I deserved to raise my child.
It was only because I was without financial means or family support that I had to place.
Please don’t compare the two! They are not even close to being the same!
“BM’s”?? Please, anon, get with the program. A first Mother is not a piece of shit. So sad that people use that acronym, especially an adoptive parents.
Claud is talking about womb wet adoptions and the lengths the industry goes to to get their hands on newborns. This post is NOT foster care adoption or children who were abused.
Claud, many many many moons ago, I volunteered at a “crisis pregnancy center”. It was also funded by a faith based baby broker. They routinely lied and told women they were NOT pregnant, in order to buy more time. As in more time to make sure she could not have a safe early abortion, and more time to coerce the woman into the adoption machine. It’s a common tactic of these anti-choice establishments.
I’d be more worried about the sociopaths who think their kid is their property and cling to them to abuse them. Ditto any mother with a serious mental illness who inflicts herself on her child. Some women do not want to parent and choose not to get close to the baby during the pregnancy or immediately after. That is not sociopathic. It may be self-protective. It may be a choice you disapprove of thoroughly and their thinking may never be acceptable to you. Still doesn’t meet the test of sociopathy or psychopathology.
“I’d be more worried about the sociopaths who think their kid is their property and cling to them to abuse them. Ditto any mother with a serious mental illness who inflicts herself on her child.”
You mean the sociopath adopters who think someone else’s child is their property and are so possessive and threatened by the natural family they sabotage any chance at a relationship for the mother and child who lost each other? A child is no one’s ‘property’l; however a child simply IS the child of the mother who gave them life. A coerced signature on a piece a paper will never change that fact. There are plenty of ‘mentally ill’ adopters who have no business adopting a child; especially the one’s who are so mental they are convinced their god allowed a woman to become pregnant just for them…
The question that comes to mind after reading this post is… should it be acceptable for people to give their children away? Despite all of the sunshine and roses rhetoric, giving away one’s child is a very cruel thing to do. I don’t know if everyone who wants to give their child to a stranger is a sociopath but despite their protests they are certainly not showing any compassion or concern for what this rejection/abandonment may do to the child.
Disclaimer: Of course, I am not addressing this to the mothers and fathers who were forced or coerced into relinquishment.
Make revocation periods longer. Weeks in fact…not days. Make it so that a mother can revoke her consent to adoption for any reason and without having to go to court to prove that she is more worthy than the adopters. That would be a start!
“Disclaimer: Of course, I am not addressing this to the mothers and fathers who were forced or coerced into relinquishment”
Or those who believed at the time that what they were doing was right, but have since ‘seen the light’, and who now insist that they were duped, and see themselves solely as victims. Whether they were willing dupes or not is another question entirely.
When adults deny moral agency, they are, in effect, infantalizing themselves. It is an implicit acknowledgment that they do not have to compete morally with others; that they do not have to be held to the same ethical standards.
@Samantha,
Thank you for that excellent and constructive suggestion. I totally agree.
Samantha, when I “relinquished” with the help of my stepmother and a social worker – when my child was 3 years old (complicated story), the revocation period in my state was a year. However, the adopters took my daughter out of the country, the social worker lied to the courts to allow them to do so and to shorten the revocation period, and the courts did not notify me for almost 4 months after the adoption was finalized – even though everyone knew where I was and that I wanted to keep my child. The courts routinely make the decision “in the best interests of the child” when a mother wants her child back.
Adoption should only be for the child that has NO OTHER OPTION – no family to step up and no mother that can or will care for them. PERIOD.
No agency should ever be able to talk to a woman prior to her signing the relinquishment – in any way.
No clinic should ever be connected to an agency.
Anonymous – I am sorry you feel that way. I did NOT choose to sign the relinquishment. I knew then I was getting screwed. I also knew that the social worker was telling me that she was going to allow my daughter to continue to be abused by a foster parent – they almost killed her at least twice – in an effort to supply a “friend” with the perfect child – a potty trained, biracial girl.
To Robin. Really? Have you ever given birth? Or rather had a traumatic birth and no support? You reach out for help and instead of help you get adoption. Forget your disclaimer. You don’t know what you are talking about. Only the most vulnerable which means a mother who is desperate and needs help understands why she would reach out for someone to help her keep her baby safe. When I read drivel like this (despite I am sure your protest that you are not infertile)I know it is from someone who has no idea what it is like to give birth to a baby and want to ensure it’s survival. Sociopaths? Yes I think there are plenty in adoption but very few are the women who give birth.
My natural mother thinks that giving a child up for adoption is a crummy thing to do even more than I do. I think she had no choice. Of course, there will always be circumstances where for the child’s safety and health and well-being adoption is the best course of action.
If giving away one’s child was less acceptable then perhaps more children would be able to remain in their original families and less mothers would have to wake up months, years, even decades later to the awful realization that they made a horrible mistake giving their child up. I think the focus should be more on how the child will be affected by being giving up rather than on how the mother can move on with her life and fulfill her ‘dreams’. I think a change in attitude about adoption would go a long way towards averting a second Baby Scoop Era which I believe is a real possibility in the United States. All of my comments are from the POV of the child given up and my fertility has nothing to do with it.
The comments about mothers who actually chose to surrender for whatever reason all being sociopaths and cruel derails the important truth in this post, that most crisis pregnancy centers lie and push adoption as the best choice for all. There has to be a gray area between heartless sociopath and total victim who had no say at all in surrendering. Some mothers did give up children they loved to save them from the kind of abusive upbringing they lived with, and in many cases were still living with in terribly dysfunctional families. Some were overwhelmed by long-term addiction or severe mental illness that made them truly unable to care for a child for a long time after the birth. These women did make the choice to surrender, not because of coercion but because they genuinely believed they were doing the best they could under dire circumstances. Others who had ambitions of a better life both for themselves and their children did make adoption their own choice. Whether it actually turned out that way is another issue, but they did act in good faith at the time.
It is cruel to dismiss them as a small minority of sociopaths. Just as cruel as the stereotypes some adoptive parents have of surrendering mothers in general. It just is not that black and white.
I disagree.. I am talking about the mothers who really WANT to place their children. Not the ones facing any sort of any kind of “reasoning” as you described. Like I “willingly placed”, but I don’t consider myself a sociopath. I am talking about a women who COULD parent, should parent and just has NO connection at all, no emotional attachments to her child and places.
Does such a woman actually exist? Do some women go into it thinking “I’ve always wanted to have a child and give it away”? Do they reach such a decision with no outside influences but their own sociopathic minds?
Why would such a person go through with the pregnancy, and if she did,for religious or other reasons, I doubt anyone decides to surrender for no reason, there are always circumstances that make it difficult or impossible to parent, at least in the mother’s mind and often in the real world she lives in. Being detached from a pregnancy or child one feels one cannot keep for whatever reason does not make the person a sociopath. It is a coping strategy.
It is a given that way too many mothers who want to parent and who are capable are still being coerced and lied to in order to get them to surrender and crisis pregnancy centers are big offenders. Labeling those who think they made a free choice as sociopaths does not help this situation, but stigmatizes some women who do not deserve this.
Another thing to consider is that psychos and sociopaths don’t just walk away. They feed off the suffering of others and enjoy keeping husbands, wives, children, and employees around to manipulate and ultimately destroy. A sociopath can’t be a sociopath by letting people go. All the personality disorders depend on sick interation with people for their fuel. I agree that your (Claud’s) characterization of women who relinquish willingly is a mischaracterization.
Sociopaths are not necessarily stalkers as you seem to be suggesting. The cling to and use the things that they are personally are getting something from. Inability to let go is not a trait of all sociopaths. If they have no use for a baby, yes they will walk away. Here is the definition of “sociopath” :A person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience. I think it can align with what you are saying AND with what Robin said.
Labeling those who do not express sadness or regret as sociopaths also stigmatizes their relinquished children, as there are increasingly strong indications that true sociopathy is highly heritable.
OK.. I give up.. then lets just call her bat shit crazy, Our ypothetical non exisitant mother, .. Now HOW about those adoption agencies and crisis pregnancy tactics???
i just wanted to address what you said in your e-mail, about the whole “not wanting to parent” thing. i never ever wanted to be a parent before i had him. if i’d never gotten pregnant, i’m sure i would’ve lived my whole life continuing to not want to. some of my reasons for this were valid, some were based on ignorance and fear, but even so, there’s nothing wrong with not wanting to. you can have a wonderful, fulfilling life without having kids. but the fact is that i had a baby and i am a parent whether i wanted to be or not, and i would give anything to *actually* be his parent.
everything changed for me once he was born. if you’ve never had a baby before, how are you supposed to know that they will be the most precious thing to you? i pretty much had no idea. i reassured myself often that it wouldn’t be so bad for me, as it was for women who did want to be mothers but couldn’t.
this was something that i could only understand with time. if i had been given more than 24 hours before signing, even just 10 more hours, or if i had gotten some privacy and could have reflected on and reassessed my decision, i wouldn’t have done it.
also, i’d like to point out that while not wanting to parent was probably a smaller reason for the adoption, it was definitely not a very big one. not having the father be there and being poor and in school were the big reasons and i did feel like i had no other choice. no one encouraged me to raise him, or told me that i’d suffer forever.
not wanting to parent shouldn’t be a reason for choosing adoption. that should be determined after the baby is born. in my case, i felt like i should not make the decision after he was born, as if making a decision based on emotions like love was a bad thing. but sometimes, emotions are RIGHT.
not having the desire to be a parent does not mean you’re a sociopath, and it also does not mean that adoption will be the right choice. i agree that it can be the right choice, but i disagree that those mothers, even the ones who relinquished twice, are necessarily sociopaths.
“not having the desire to be a parent does not mean you’re a sociopath, and it also does not mean that adoption will be the right choice. i agree that it can be the right choice, but i disagree that those mothers, even the ones who relinquished twice, are necessarily sociopaths.”
I couldn’t agree more. It is a judgment that protests too much. There may be reasons why a woman avoids bonding. Anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy tells us that although maternal responses are biologically based, they are by no means the whole picture. They aren’t just part of a single aspect of behavior and don’t insure that children will be loved or cared for by their biological mothers.
According to Blaffer Hrdy, although women are influenced by certain physical factors to have families and love and nurture their children, the decision to raise is also shaped by ambition and ambivalence, as well as subject to evolved traits. While babies are genetically programmed to form an attachment to a loving caretaker, a bond essential to their emotional development, mothers have to weigh the demands of motherhood against such needs as work, status in their communities and general dependence on others. They assess their “economic” situation, the politics of the times, their community stature and the probability of raising offspring to maturity before deciding whether to “invest” in raising a child.
She references a village in Bolivia, where researchers found that nearly every woman had killed a newborn of her own during a period of war and economic stress in the 1930s, when the prospects of raising a child with a suitable father were extremely poor. Nearly 38 percent of the babies born in that village during a three-year period were killed by their mothers. Many of those women went on to become devoted mothers. It is very possible that they did not bond because they knew they could not afford to, either emotionally or practically.
The heritability factor for sociopathy has been estimated at somewhere between 35 and 50%. Casually attaching the label of “sociopath” to mothers who do not bond with their children is irresponsible for obvious reasons.
ok, i think i should also add to my story that i found out i was pregnant at 6 months, so abortion wasn’t an option, and that’s the option i would have chosen if i’d found out earlier. i hope my story makes more sense with that information.
choosing abortion doesn’t make anyone a sociopath either.
Sadly, as always, the focus was on a descriptive, rather than the realities of the publication.
I guess you can’t say anything if you are a person truly touched by adoption – only the ignorant outsider can.
If this blog alone is anything to go by, you guess wrong. And that’s a good thing.
thank you, Robin, for your comment that giving up your child is a cruel thing to do. I read what you wrote over and over and it finally hit me that I agree. My nmom never held me. She never fought for me. She allowed her own mother to talk her into not raising me (being a college graduate and age 23). So thank you for posting that.
Claude – i get what you mean. Maybe sociopath is not the correct term. Highly self-centered and lacking in empathy for the child is what I think about when I think of women who refuse to parent. Just plain selfish. My daughters nmom is exactly the way you describe (I wouldn’t count out she is a sociopath either). Lies, promises and ultimately the permanent disappearing act.
Illinois adoptee: Would you have preferred being raised by a cruel sociopathic mother who did not want you had she been forced to keep you? Not that adoption guarantees anyone a better life, just a different one, but if mothers who surrender are cruel, do they become not cruel if they keep the child? Evidently you are also an adoptive mother who has a very low opinion of your child’s natural mother, interesting.
It is sad that people still stigmatize adoption. Adoption is a mature choice. A crisis pregnancy is a difficult situation with no easy fix. CPC don’t lie to their clients. They make points that the liberal doesn’t acknowledge.
By not offering all the information available, CPC’s ARE lying through selective mis-representation.
It’s the same argument that any good Right to Life advocate makes: A woman considering abortion should “know what she is doing” so they make her look at the ultrasounds… She needs to make a true decision, correct?
The adoption agencies do the same thing about the risks of adoption, they hold back facts. If it’s not good to withhold information for abortion, then why is it OK for adoption?
CPC’s also do it by not offering all the available information especially when a woman goes to them expecting them to offer facts NOT based on an unknown agenda. And if their motives are so pure, why are they hiding their blatant affiliations?
What is good for the goose is good for the gander, liberal, conservative or whatever.
Maybe I misunderstood the article, but I think it is pretty harsh to call women who want to adopt out “sociopaths”. Some women don’t want kids. Some women don’t like kids. Just because something grows inside you doesn’t mean you fall in love with it and want to snuggle it forever. Some people get pregnant unwillingly, and may not choose abortion or be thwarted in their attempts to procure an abortion. But they simply don’t want a kid, regardless of their financial or work situation. I don’t think that a woman not wanting a kid she gives birth to is a sociopath though, the same way a biological father not wanting his children isn’t sociopathic.
This article seemed full of blanket statements backed up with only a couple of testimonies and no scientific studies. Again, maybe I’m totally missing the point of the article… I agree that agencies and CPCs collaborate to funnel women down their shoots to get more babies for the adoptive families that don’t adopt pre-existing kids for whatever reason… But to call women who voluntarily adopt out whether its for financial, family, career related stuff or simply because she has no interest in parenting “sociopaths” is just outrageous and mean. If anyone is a sociopath, it’s the CPCs and agencies.
I guess all I can do is repeat the HUGE disclaimer to be read at the very beginning:
“I am referring to this hypothetical women who DOES NOT HAVE TO RELINQUISH for ANY OTHER REASON EXCEPT that she really, 110%, even bonding after birth, DOES NOT WANT HER CHILD. Period. A woman who sees her baby as a thing, as an object, with no natural bonding, no empathy, no love, no connection, nada, zip. She is somehow damaged for whatever reason and I am calling HER a sociopath. It is also completely possible that there is another diagnosis for the kind of damage that I am describing. I’m not a psychiatrist and she is hypothetical.”
And it might be mean… but I personally feel that a woman who has no desire to have a child, who does have a child, and then has NO attachment at all to said child and relinquishes the child does have something “broken” insider her. I don’t know what that is.. and I say that. See, I don’t believe that women the “voluntarily adopt out whether its for financial, family, career related stuff”… are a) really doing what they WANT, but rather what they feel they HAVE to do ( and have been exploited by the CPCs and Adoption Agencies).. and they HURT. hence.. NOT DAMAGED!
Now take the woman who does not think she wants kids or is ready for kids and yet, has a baby. I can use my SIL as an example.. wasn’t planning, was not thrilled to find out she was PG, had a tough pregnancy.. and LOVES her child fiercely. Couldn’t imagine him not being her son, not her life. She bonded despite her “not wanting a kid”.. hence NOT DAMAGED! Now what if an agency had gotten to her and she was convinced that she would be a lousy mother? Maybe, in her fear and discomfort, she agrees and “voluntarily” relinquished? She STILL would have bonded and been hurting.. NOT DAMAGED.
AS far as I see it.. it IS biology.. we are institutionally hardwired to bond and love our children. It’s not a conscious decision.. but a result of hormones post birth. Hence a woman who really truly HAS NOT CONNECTION.. is somehow damaged. She is broken. Call her what you want in more kinder terms, but she’s messed up and yes, the relinquishment of her child will be painful to that child anyway even if not to her.. though I will concede that the child would be hurt by her no matter what because again, she is broken.
If that doesn’t clear it up, then all I can say is read the disclaimer again. It’s pretty clear.. or so I though.