Media Attention of Haiti Adoption Sheds Light on Raw Adoption Truths It seemed like the minute I heard about the earthquake in Haiti, the story was linked to adoption. My poor husband, such a news junkie, started clicking away from the channels when an adoption related story came on. I had to tell him that I would not start screaming at the TV, rather, I knew and expected that when…
Adoption is particularly hard because it is never something we really learn about before we find it in our lives. I know I never dreamed that one day I would grow up, have a baby, give him to other parents to raise and not see him for 19 years. I believe that is true for many adoptive parents as well. Maybe you always felt that you would eventually adopt a child, maybe you were always intrigued, maybe you thought about it long and hard, or maybe suddenly, you just felt that you were thrust into it, maybe you entered it blindly; I don’t know, but I bet, looking back now, you would say that you had no idea what the experience of adoption a child would really be like. That you think now there was no way to have planned for it all. You could not have known
I think it is that mere ideal of who I am and who I represent that make people think I must be also a threat in body because I pose a threat to ideals, most specifically to adoption related ideals. I am an adoptive parents worse nightmare. I am a rule breaking, regretful, outspoken, demanding “birth” mother.
What’s in a Word: Birthmother I was asked to write a piece about why mothers who relinquished children to adoption might be upset by the use of the word birthmother by Adoption Mosaic. 700 words on a topic I know quite well, so I said no problem. And then I struggled. About 16 revisions later, and with the deadline looming, I sent off what I THOUGHT was my final version…
The Family Research Council claims to have conducted MORE research for the Birthmother, Good Mother: Her Story of Heroic Redemption, but after reading the two of them entirely, I believe that this new publication is still coming off of the original study. Both reports use the same copy for the methodology and both have the same research group, with the same number of participants in the same age ranges. I see Birthmother, Good Mother: Her Story of Heroic Redemption as a modified piece that demonstrates the actual twisting of the mind of a women experiencing an unplanned pregnancy. It’s really like a “How to Create an Kool-Aide Drinking Happy Birthmother” guide. It’s really rather frightening. I’m not sure whether women are really that easily manipulative or we are just really stupid for falling for this. Or maybe it’s just all internal and they have managed to tap into it. All I can tell you is that this feels like reading the inside of my brain during the whole adoption process.
In 1999, the Family Research Council In conjunction with the National Council for Adoption conducted research to understand the factors involved in considering adoption and how best to present adoption as a viable option for women. The Missing Piece: Adoption Counseling in Pregnancy Resource Centers by Curtis J. Young is the result of that study.
Rye is a news junkie and sometimes I just have to be a pain and make him turn it off. As much as I love a good Rachel Maddow snarky fest, sometimes I just cannot take how incredible STUPID our elect politicians in Washington can be. It’s almost harder to watch their antics on TRMS or on Jon Stewart because it’s then so damn obvious how unrealistic and ideological and…
AKA How to Piss Off a Claud I haven’t felt the need to do this in a while. Usually, I don’t let other people’s comments get under my craw. After all, I have been online talking about adoption issues for ten years now and I had a rather thick skin to begin with. Rather than beat a person over the head with my beliefs, I would rather calmly state the…
“In choosing adoption they can now see themselves as good mothers, the highest form of motherhood – the mother who chooses what is best for her child regardless of sacrifice it requires of her. In doing what is best for her child, she fulfills her need to see herself as a good mother and accept the pain of relinquishment. In this way, she transforms agony of the entire story into a redemptive experience where she becomes a heroine in her own eyes and in the eyes of others.”
Current rates of adoption at most pregnancy resource centers are extremely low. Although no formal statistics exist, spot-checking adoption rates at larger centers indicate that it should rates commonly are below 1%. In 1999, the Family Research Council undertook further research to understand complex array of factors involved in considering adoption and how best to present adoption as a viable option for women.The research is designed to identify underlying factors that either inhibit or motivate the consideration of adoption in both single, pregnant women and in pregnancy counselors. The research focused on discovering the most basic impressions that women in counselors have about adoption and on the psychological dynamics of decision making concerning adoption.
The Ugly Mythology of Motherhood Today A few weeks ago, we met up with some friends who have a lovely child who is just about two. The mom and I were talking about the inevitable “terrible twos” and her concerns that her daughter hits. I was in my soothing “older mom been there done that” role and was saying how all kids hit at age two. I do call it…
If you are unsure, then take the time and view the videos.. watch them all.. and then make an opnion. She might have started on koolaid, but it wore off on her too. Part 1: Annette Baran Interview
The Us Census Ask us to Differentiate Last week, I received a very nice message inviting me to read a blog post over on Salon on the Census and Adoption, and so, I did. Then, I saw that Jenna had written another blog post herself on the same subject which was the Census and Adoption. And I read that too. Both of the posts, while one written by an adoptive mother…
I don’t really have much right to talk about Racism and Adoption That’s just the plain honest truth. Give me discrimination. Give me injustice. Give me prejudice, but I’m pretty much at a loss when it come to writing about Racism. What do I know? I mean What DO I Know About Real Racism/ White chick, grew up in a white town, went to a pure bred white school. There…
I am no law professor, but I get inspired in odd places. Rye and I were watching the History Channel the other night about the history of the Ku Klux Klan, and it actually inspired me. How can the Klan Help Adoptees I’m not completely sure, but follow my logic with me for a minute, will you? The show brought up the Civil Rights Act of 1871 and I immediately…