Adoption Dichotomies

There are perhaps more contradictions in the world of adoption than agreement amongst those whose lives are irrevocably changed by it.

ONE: Fundraising - by private parties and even churches - to help people pay ridiculously high adoption fees to obtain children through private adoption, thus supporting the often coercive and exploitive world of child trafficking...RATHER THAN fundraising to help support mothers in crisis keep their families intact.

This has become so widespread here are websites and articles that lists various to fundraise to support baby brokers:
http://www.thelaboroflove.com/articles/adoption-fundraising-ideas/
http://www.easy-fundraising-ideas.com/programs/adoption-fundraising/
http://adoption.families.com/blog/adoption-fundraising-part-1
http://loans.adoption.com/financing/loans-fundraising.html
www.exploringadoptionblog.com/adoption/2006/12/adoption_fundra.html -

Agencies, of course, encourage this practice - beg and humiliate yourself, use your freidns and acquaintances to support your "need" to obtain a child at any cost: www.achildsdesire.org/fundraising.htm

This one specializes in one fundraising method: http://annabears0.tripod.com/

And there there are the untold number of sites of private individuals and churches holding fundraisers:
http://thesugarbeanscloset.blogspot.com/2007/09/adoption-fundraising.html

Seems like an especially OBVIOUS irony that children are most often placed into adoption because of lack of financial ability on the part of their natural families...and yet these strangers who cannot afford to have one, get help!

TWO: Adoptive parents complaining about news reports that identify adopted chidlren as adopted children. This is very odd inasmuch as politicians, celebs and others who adopt often use the fact as a badge of their nobility and altruism.

I cannot count the number of blogs of people walking those who chose to read through the TRIALS and TRIBULATIONS of their "adoption journeys." Google "adoption journey and you will see THOUSANDS...this is just a very tiny sampling:

http://comeunity.com/adoption/realmoms/3journey.html
http://adopttaiwan.wordpress.com/
http://scottsadoptionjourney.blogspot.com/
http://greysonsjourney.com/
cornishadoptionjourney.blogspot.com/
ajourneytoadopt.blogspot.com/
www.hiestandadoption.org/
www.galatians4.com/
www.homeschoolblogger.com/suemy6/
markandcourtney.blogspot.com/
halbaueradoption.blogspot.com/
adoptionblog.mpdsales.com/
plumleyfamilyadoption.spaces.live.com/
http://www.familyadoptionfundraising.org/home.html

Readers are expected to offer sympathy every step of the way, starting with a long list of failed infertility treatments. TSK TSK what a shame they make you jump through all those hoops! Imagine, a home study to ensure you might actually be fit parents! How UNFAIR these blogs claim, that others can give birth without having to complete all these forms, etc.

If they go overseas, that's another entire adventure and full of tales of unfair delays, etc. etc. Kinda brings me to IRONY NUMBER...

THREE: Adopters can be angry when their adoption falls through, but how dare a natural mother be "an angry, bitter" person about actually and literally losing HER child!

FOUR: The myth that adoption is 'the same as giving birth' and nurture trumps nature. The so-called "forever mothers" who raise a child are the "real" mothers...that is of course until their child turns out to be difficult. They are then the first to cry "bad blood."

Then there other blogs - a smaller number - who also seek sympathy, but in in these it's for the fact that they ordered a and paid for a BMW and wound up with a lemon, or simply a Chevrolet.

Just yesterday I was speaking to someone about one of my books on adoption. A woman within hearing distance, butts in ad says, "Oh, you've written a book about adoption?" "Yes," I reply.

The woman then puffs out her chest ad very proudly announced: "I'm an adoptive mother" and then pointing to an 8-10 year-old red haired tyke next to her, she says: Domestic!" as if describing the type of automobile she had chosen, a domestic model over an import.

It seems clear to me that adoption is often analogous to the olf joke about husbands and wife and their division of responsibility for their children's behavior. "When he's good he's mine; when he's bad he's hers/his."

So it seems with adoption, that adoptive parents are allowed to point out their children's adoption status if it is thought to be to their advantage - a source of status for them...or if they want to separate themselves from a "bad seed." But others should not.

Why? Is adoption like "the N word" in that it's acceptable when a Black person uses it but not at all proper or acceptable for a white person to? If so, that makes the word adoption a dirty word.

In all of this, one can only wonder what sense of self the impressionable children growing up with these dichotomies are learning? What messages are being sent about them? That they are the proud "domestic" model their Mom obtained and is proud to show off? That the word adoption is good or bad? Something to be ashamed of? Something private like masturbation? No, that's a bad analogy because masturbation is natural and on does it to themselves - whereas adoption is unnatural and done TO children and their natural families.

Perhaps it's most like divorce. When an acquaintance announces they are newly divorced, the polite response is often to ask whether that is a good thing or not for them. New divorces are sometimes eager to get back into dating and will make it known immediately that they are in fact divorced. being divorced myself for more than a decade, I prefer to identify myself as a single woman rather than a divorce.

But again, that doesn't quite fit as it is I who get to make that choice. It is beyond my writing abilities to come up with any analogy for the oddity of adoption.

Be sure to see also: Gotcha Day! for the biggest irony of all.