“Quit being so damn arrogant”

 

NO  Sunday, that does NOT give you a valid point of view. You were hurt and abandoned as a child, YOU were able to cope with YOUR child. Others have experienced pain/trama/abuse in their lives as well. Others have worked their asses off and given everything, literally, for their adopted child and it's just not working... Your point of view is not valid because it is warped and tainted by YOUR past negative experiences.
You refuse to see anything positive about adoption because from the get go you see a birth mom giving up their child as a negative thing.

Storing Up Treasures: It's not your fault.#comment-230438413#comment-

Shockingly, I managed to ruffle some feathers over at Storing Up Treasures with the suggestion that a parents job is to love their children unconditionally no matter their challenges whether they gave birth to them or not. I had no idea that I was making such a radical statement.

Of course I was informed that adoptive parents “disrupt” adoptions or rather re-adopt out their adopted children (I call it dumping) for the same reason that birth mothers make an adoption plan for their children in the first place…they do it out of LOVE for their child. I am obviously an idiot because I do not get it. After all it is so clear.

In what other circumstances does that logic make sense?

I LOVE my husband so much, I always want what’s best for him and goodness knows I want him to happy. I think I should send him over to my much younger prettier friend who is a much better house keeper than I am. I know he loves me, but I am sure eventually he would adjust. And I would just go on with my life. Maybe someday, I would find a less great guy. Right?

I also find it amusing that I was accused of not being able to see anything positive about adoption. WHAT?

For the record I am not anti-adoption. I am not anti-trans-racial adoption. I am all in favor of people who are capable, qualified and (as) prepared (as anyone can be) adopting abused and neglected children from foster care. I wouldn’t even have a problem with international adoption, if all the children in foster care in this country were finding suitable homes within reasonable amounts of time; If mothers in foreign countries were not faced with the choice of selling one child to feed another; if corruption and so-called irregularities weren’t rampant; if when people were referring to “orphans” they actually meant orphans, you know children whose parent were actually no longer living. If charities that concerned with “orphan” care were spending as much on providing family planning and birth control as they were on recruiting surrenders and perspective adoptive parents.

When I started this blog, even being aware of the pain of adoption, I felt that just about every child in foster care would be better off with an adoptive family, any adoptive family as long as it was their own. That view has changed quite a bit in the past year. “Oh, those gods dammed angry adoptee spewing their ungrateful venom all over the sainted act of adoption.” Nope! It is the very own words of segments of adoptive parents (similar to the ones quoted here) that has made me rethink whether that is really true or not. There some great adoptive mommas out there, who speak up, support each other, and attempt to educate, whether about ethics, race, special needs or parenting hurt kids. I love them and I am glad they are there, for their kids and for other parents who are trying to figure it out.  It is complicated and there is a steep learning curve.

I happen to believe that most people who decide to adopt think that they are doing so for the “right reasons” and they believe that they are doing a good thing. And (I believe) adoption can be a good thing. Adoption can give a child a family and a chance of a stable life.

However when perspective parents are not given accurate information, are not prepared for the long road of healing and the hard work and selflessness that entails, when they believe that all a child needs is new clothes, food and love, when they don’t have the practical experience to sort out what is normal trauma response, typical kid stuff and what is serious mental illness they run the very real risk of further damaging an already hurt, vulnerable innocent child. Those children would have been better off waiting for a more appropriate family.  And those families would have been better off doing their good deeds some other way.