ADDRESSING THE PEANUT GALLERY

I had another anonymous poster. I have to address it on my blog. It irks me extremely that adoptive parents, not all mind you, seem to view their adopted children from a proprietory view. What many of these parents don't realize is that their children will grow up and become adults that want their information. The laws as they stand now cover up their secrets. Because the below commenter had suffered from infertility, I get the impression that she feels that she has more rights to parent that the mothers of her children. I guess she hasn't heard about Rashad Head, Stephanie Bennett and the many others that have fought back. My adoption was not bad but I always without fail felt different. For years, I could not put words to my own feelings. What feelings that I did have somehow unintentionally got dismissed. As this woman dismisses my feelings towards adoption, she dismisses her own children's feelings. They will get angry just like many other adoptees out there.

Adoption will always and forever be intertwined with abortion. I hate that it has. It is at the fault of many religious leaders. What this adoptive mother and many others don't realize is that my birth mother and the many many others (a total of six million as of last count) are hurt by the choices that they made. What this adoptive mother doesn't realize is that these women do regret their decisions but they don't have protection. A woman looks into adoption and she is hounded all the way to the hospital and beyond. Adoption agencies, adoption attorneys, and even adoptive parents don't want to see, hear or even feel for these women. Let alone want to understand what it feels like to be an adoptee. I am different. I feel different. I feel thrown away. I feel like no matter what choice I make ~ it won't be honored because I am a forever child. I am forced to deal with the sins of my birth mother. Look at the way that society treats and describes those mothers. They are the ones that "gave away their children." They did not have a choice. I can scream that til I am blue in the face but I will be treated like a child having a temper tantrum. This woman must have listen, studied, and memorized the words of the National Council for Adoption. Just as she can say " look at these studies." I can tell her and the others out there. Look at the study done by the Evan B. Donaldson Institute. Look into the two organizations, OriginsUSA and Concerned United Birthparents. Look into the Soul of Adoption. Look at the American Adoption Congress, Bastard Nation, Chosen Babies, and the many many other adoptee organizations out there. If adoption is so perfect, why do these organizations exist? Obviously, us adoptees and our parents are a little upset at the ownership policy that powerful adoptive parents and their agencies have put into place for us. Adoption agencies and attorneys do see us as money. Look again at the Rashad Head case. The adoptive parents in that case were a former football player and his wife. Ricky Watters is also an adoptee. Of course he found. This young man's rights were violated. Would you want your pregant child counseled to runaway from you by her so called high school counselor? Then asked to give the child up to the school superintendent's adoption agency? That is Stephanie Bennett's story out of Ohio. Then there is the Allison Quets drama. Gee Whiz ~ it has improved. I can come with tons and tons of cases where these scenerios have been played on. In fact that is what one of my coworkers suggested to another coworker in front of me. Go to the local high school and find yourself a pregnant teen. Another friend of mine ~ married very married and very happy ~ went to a crisis pregnancy center to get a confirmation pregnancy test for medicaid. She was asked THREE times to give her child up for adoption in FRONT of her husband and two year old son. ALL BECAUSE SHE COULDN'T AFFORD INSURANCE. She had to go through that and watch an anti-abortion flick where the girls in it didn't even seem real. She wanted to know where was the information on parenting. She was exceedingly pissed off after that little incident. Many of these women were also not given the opportunity of being asked what they wanted. This mother also mentions the lower incidents of violent crimes. Yet adoptees do in fact have a higher degree of mental illness than the regular kids. Do you own research. I made it my cause and plan of action to understand the truth of adoption. It ain't pretty. It would do you good to discover some of the truth as I see it because your children WILL deal with it in their own time.

It appears that your adoption may not have been handled with the same care and concern in which my adoptions were handled~ I can only assume that many of your negative comments regarding adoption come from your personal experience. Adoption, however, has changed dramatically in recent years, and for that we are grateful for OUR children’s sake. Adoption can offer these children not just life, but the QUALITY life they deserve. None of the birthparents for our children were in a position to parent, but loved their children enough to choose adoption as a life-affirming option. Society is constantly made aware of what can happen when a mother/father parent a child they are not ready for (whether that means financially, emotionally, physically and even spiritually). Everyone suffers as a result and it does in fact have an adverse consequence to society. Do a little more research and you will find that:Research proves overwhelmingly that adoption is a good choice for children when compared to unmarried mothers who parent their children. Unmarried mothers who parent are more likely to have low educational achievement and suffer from poverty, thus affecting the mother, child and society. Regarding teens alone: Eighty percent of teen moms end up on welfare within three months of giving birth; these young mothers get tangled in the web of welfare and the cycle continues to repeat itself generation after generation as does child maltreatment. On the contrary, unmarried teens who place their children for adoption, are more likely to finish school and obtain a higher level of education and are therefore able to attain better employment and have more financial stability (Bachrach study). More importantly, however is the fact that adoption can be a good choice for children. Despite how the media tends to report adoption as a negative choice for children, once again, research overwhelmingly shows children who are adopted are well adjusted and secure. Specifically, the Search Institute found that when compared to other teens, adopted adolescents scored higher on indicators of well-being such as school performance, friendships, volunteerism, optimism, self-esteem, social competency, feelings of support from others, and a low level of anxiety. In addition, adopted adolescents scored lower on indicators of high risk behaviors such as use of alcohol, depression, vandalism, group fighting, police trouble, theft, weapon use, driving/riding while drinking and school absenteeism. You may not fit into this category of adoption being a good choice for you, but please don’t make a general assumption that adoption is not beneficial to anyone. I do agree that adoption can be mishandled when adoption agencies and attorneys see only the dollar signs, which is why I am glad I chose a non-profit one with a Christian ministry mindset that continues to offer birthmoms, adoptive couples and children the support they need. The agency I used even offers an annual birthmom retreat because birthmoms are not forgotten for the sacrifice they made! That’s right, these women and teen birthmoms choose a better life for their child despite their feelings. No one wants to be a birthmom, but thankfully there are those who ask themselves “If I were the child and not the mother, what would I want my life to be like?” They offer their children a better life through adoption where all of their children’s needs can be met without worry. My children will grow up knowing about their birthparents and knowing the reasons that led to their adoption. Now on to the messing with God’s plan comment: I am thankful I serve a God who believes in adoption~ think how short the life of Moses would have been had his mother not chosen adoption, but more importantly, I am a child of God through adoption. He took me as his adopted child so I’d say firmly that God used examples of adoption in the Bible so we could learn that sometimes we as humans just don’t have all of the answers but we have to have faith in God and trust him that He alone has the master plan for our lives!
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