Who do YOU think is behind BraveLove.org? My spider senses are tingling. Of course I always mistrust these places that claim to “provide honest, informative and hopeful communication” and then have a clearly pro-adoption agenda. Plus this one is in Texas, home of the mighty Gladney Center for Adoption.
I would undo it, I would change it, but I can’t. Yes, I regret that I let my son be adopted. I know no one held a gun to my head and no one, in my case, forced me to sign those papers. I know that I had my reasons at the time and they are perfectly acceptable reasons and common to adoption practices to this day. In many ways, I know that I was an ideal birthmother and I admit, over and over, that I was visibly a “content, peaceful and happy” birthmother for many years. I am aware that I sent myself away; I plucked the idea of adoption out of thin air, and I presented it as a solution to my friends and family.
We see the messages that mother who keeps the child that she can ill-afford is considered irresponsible. The mother who needs public assistance is considered a freeloader. The mother who gets pregnant again too soon should “know better how babies are made”. The mother who is too young and unwed should have “thought about the consequences before she spread her legs”. The single mother raising her children is “breaking the fabric of the American values”.
This year I will be “celebrating” my 25 year anniversary of being adopted affected. I have been a birthmother for 25 years. Smack dab in the middle of all the pro-adoption hoopla is my “Gotcha” day. I usually say that I would just like to sleep through the whole damn month and frequently, I do end up hiding or at least staying off line and NOT dealing with adoption.
It is only after the true depth of the loss can be accepted that we see that we made a great error in judgment. There is value in the connection between mother and child that cannot be replaced by monetary things and perceived life successes. There is value in being with our own clans and the biological connections that make us who were are. There is great pain and loss in adoption for both the original family and the adoptee no matter how beneficial their placement is. The adoption industry is just that: an industry and it is often corrupt and money driven.
Possession is nine point nine tenths of the law when it comes to child custody and contested adoptions. While dads try to understand this new reality of hell, try to find legal help, funds, and information; stumbling over punitive father’s registries, state paternity filing dates and out of state adoption agencies; they just sit back, and wait for him to get so defeated, so tired, so overwhelmed, that he just goes away, beaten. Just keep fighting.
Huge said: “So you are an anti-religious bigot. What about the millions of women who regret killing their baby for the rest of their lives??? What about all the of women that are maimed and ruined for life by being pushed into killing their own child? Do you really think mass abortion is a sound choice for birth control when so many other methods are available? I think you hate yourself and other women.”
Mary O’Leary Wiley; Independent Practice Amanda L. Baden; Montclair State University This article addresses birth parents in the adoption triad by reviewing and integrating both the clinical and empirical literature from a number of professional disciplines with practice case studies. This review includes literature on the decision to relinquish one’s child for adoption, the early postrelinquishment period, and the effects throughout the lifespan on birth parents. Clinical symptoms for birth…
The Association for Research on Mothering York University Karen Lynn 2001 Good afternoon. This speech is a message from the mothers of the Canadian Council of Birthmothers, mothers who have suffered the trauma of having lost a child or children to adoption and who are learning to understand what happened to us and our children. Much of what I say here is a collection of thoughts shared by the members…
Kari El Hong California Western Law Review, Vol. 40, No. 1, 2003 Abstract: Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, and Utah have laws or regulations prohibiting gay men, lesbian women, same-sex couples, or single parents (heterosexual and homosexual) from serving as adoptive or foster parents. In court filings, Arkansas, Florida, and Utah justify their bans by contending that married couples are the optimal families in which to raise children because families headed by gay…
Julianne M. Walsh: Department of Anthropology University of Hawai`i at Manoa 1999 Abstract: From 1996-1999 over 500 children were adopted from the Marshall Islands by Americans, placing the RMI well within the top twenty source nation for international adoptions. Without government regulation of this sudden and rapidly growing phenomenon, the potential for misunderstanding and exploitation grew alarming to national leaders who supported a moratorium on foreign adoptions late in 1999….
Margaret F. Brinig Professor of Law, George Mason University School of Law 1999 The law and economics of parent and child involves several models. Before the child becomes part of the family, the actions of the parents resemble those of market participants, with the appropriate paradigm contract. Nonetheless, the fact that children are the ‘goods’ over which adults bargain, mandates some government intrusion on contractual freedom. Once parents and child form a family, the social…
Ruth Arlene Howe; Professor, Boston College Law School February 8, 2005 After enactment of the first “modern” state adoption statute in 1851,adoption in the United States evolved as both a state judicial process and a specialized child welfare service to promote the “best interests” of children in need of permanent homes. During the last quarter of the century, however, developments have occurred which force us to ask whether U.S. adoption…
I was thrilled to hear that Mr. Carucci has left his post as the Director of NYS Vital Records and we have a new Director, Mr. Guy Warner in his place. I’m not sure if he gets any of the credit, but today the news was released that New York State has expanded their Registry to include those Born in New York and adopted in other states and those Born in other states and adopted in New York!
I can tell you that many moms are just so worried about saying the wrong things that we are still afraid to open up and be real… the internal censor is on big time because we do not know what to do and are SO afraid of being sent away emotionally. Maybe this isn’t the case with her since you say she really reacts intensely, but that openness and honestly is a hard place to get to. I think it hard to trust the new relationship as permanent and get to that place.