From Washington Post columnist Carolyn Hax:
My daughter became pregnant at 24 and, at the urging of her friends, made the decision to keep her baby. We are a close, middle-class family who were prepared to be supportive of her choice and to be there for her and her child. She talked herself into it because that’s what others told her she “ought” to do.
Through the years, I have frequently been the primary caregiver, been there financially when things were difficult, and have been the one who has done homework, volunteered at school, and known all my grandchild’s friends. I’ve basically been the parent, and while I adore my grandchild, had adoption been the choice, I know it would have been the best one for this child. Two parents who love this child and wanted this child so much, contact with the bio family if the bio family wants it, no regrets everyday because you know you kept the baby to make others happy, and knowing you’ve done what is really best for your child.
You have to understand, it isn’t because I resent what I have needed to do; it is all about this child’s life.
What no one thinks about in these situations is that women who “aren’t ready to be mothers” aren’t lying about that; they really aren’t, and now, many grandparents are doing the job they had thought that daughter (or son) would step up and do. We’re ready to be grandparents, not the parents.
If I had it to do over again, I would take my daughter out for a long drive and beg her to reconsider the decision to keep her child, not for my sake, but for her child’s sake. – Anonymous
31 comments:
If this grandmother could do the best thing for the child it would be to do what she has already done.
I liked this article. It perfectly sums up the American attitude towards adoption. No mention of the first mother's life-long grief. No mention of the psychological/emotional damage done to the child as a result of having been relinquished and adopted. And the adoptive parents. When they are not catering to their beloved child's every whim, they are off polishing their halos.
No one wants to take off the rose-colored glasses and look at what adoption really is. It is giving YOUR child to strangers. Yes, strangers even if you've met them. They have to keep up the rainbows and fairies myth because they don't like the alternatives. Many people are opposed to abortion and many grandparents do feel they will end up doing the majority of the work to raise the child and they don't want to. Some families band together when there is a crisis pregnancy and others do not. So adoption is presented as the best alternative and people buy it hook, line and sinker.
In all honesty, Mirah? What's to educate? The young woman in question was 24 when she got pregnant. "Homework" time would put her way past the age of 30. In reading between the lines, I sense that this is someone who never fully stepped into her parental role so grandma had to take it on. This is never an ideal situation and has nothing to do with whether or not single parents can raise kids well because we know they can. If the family was supportive of an open adoption and if the 24-year-old really didn't wish to parent to begin with, I can understand why Anon questions the decision in hindsight. Maybe she's looking around at this kid's life and wondering what adults he really has to count on besides herself. Just because she doesn't share your views doesn't mean she hasn't thought deeply about the issues involved here.
Robin. Did you read the same article I posted? There is no adoption!
O Solo,
That's a valid way of looking at it, I suppose. I am willing to accept your supposition that PERHAPS she has thought deeply about it, but I do not think she has any idea what adoption is really like.
What I see is a grandmother who has ENABLED a woman plenty old enough to have taken more of the responsibility of raising her own daughter, and regretting THAT! Now in hindsight, because she does not know how to set healthy boundaries and or to ask for help - for instance: where's the father and HIS parents? - she now has a FANTASY that adoption would have been a more ideal solution when in fact adoption is a crap shoot.
There are no guarantees that the adopters will be good people, or that they will stay married, and there is certainly no guarantee that any promises of openness will remain so, and no way to enforce it if it doesn't.
She is fantasizing about a "perfect" adoption that would have gotten her off the hook. But it's just that - a fantasy. The reality is that she and her daughter would feel guilt and shame and grief and the child - even if the adoptive parents were ideal and very loving would feel rejected by people who were obviously perfectly capable of caring for her and not being pressured to place her...but simply chose to abdicate responsibility! How does a child live with that and why should any child have to?
As parents, we all have days of regret now and then and wishing perhaps we had no children at all and could be free as the breeze. But then we come back to reality. Our kids are our kids...and we don't just choose to give them away because they are occasionally inconvenient!! That's nonsense!
There are consequences to every action. Raising kids is difficult and there are tough days. So too is living with having given your flesh and blood away and so too is being given away! They are trade offs. It's not a win-win. And therein lies the educational piece to anyone reading her fantasy and agreeing with her.
You may disagree, but that's how I see it and I think my opinion is at least as valid as, and no more biased, than yours.
As I told the grandmother of Travis - the toddler boy found in the apt of Joel Steinberg and Hedda Nussbaum after they murdered Lisa - the only "guarantee" you have that your grandson will be well cared for is to do it yourself. Anything else is, who knows? They are grateful they heeded my advise instead of letting him go to yet another unrelated family.
Adoption IMO is a LAST RESORT. It is for orphans and children who have no family able to care for them. that is not the case here. these people are able is it tough at times? YES! But that's what people DO for family! They make sacrifices! They don't just unload their responsibilities on others.
I find it really odd that "welfare mothers" are so highly criticized, but it's considered OK to dump your kids and run. What odd morality that only exists because of prevalence of that win-win myth...that there are so many "DESERVING" couple "out there" who would be so grateful to have a child you didn't want! So demand creates supply...
There are people who want and need my house too, but I don't chose to simply give it to them! Why should children be given simply because they are wanted and highly sought?
While n one should be FORCED to parent if they do not want to, if we look at adoption from a child-centered perspective: No child should be made to suffer such rejection simply for convenience. This grandmother wa snot forced. She made a decsion and now she had some second thoughts. And if she had chosen adoption, you don't think she'd likewise have second thoughts about having done that?? It would haunt her the rest of her life!
That's my opinion. You are welcome to disagree.
Yes, Mirah, I realize there was no adoption. But the grandmother is saying she wished the child had been given up for adoption. I think she regrets the child remaining in the family because she doesn't understand the negative side to adoption (which is rarely mentioned in this culture). That's what I was trying to point out (albeit a bit sarcastically).
Gothcha! Thanks for clarifying, Robin. Sorry I misunderstood.
An analogy would be if we - or more precisely divorce attorneys and the wedding industry - promoted divorce as a solution for all marital problems.
You could get rid of all the things that annoy you about your spouse, AND, as a bonus, you were recirculating your spouse to someone poor never-married who 'deserves' to have their wedding, etc ...without ever mentioning the downsides of divorcing; financially, emotionally and most of all the effect of children.
We don't do that and we don't do it for good reason. No separation of a family is without consequences!!!
Only separation by adoption is promoted because of suppositions about who is "deserving" and who is not.
AND...If Grandma wants to live in fantasy-hindsight-land, why not WISH that daughter was careful enough not to have gotten pregnant until such time - if ever - she was capable of caring for a child! That makes a whole lot more sense than wishing her daughter got pregnant, had a child, and had it up for adoption!
I actually think it's kind of funny that you posted this. It screams of what's wrong in pressuring women to keep babies because they "ought to". This grandmother is raising this child. You speak of enabling, seriously, talk about having no "real" choice. What should she do if the child's mother doesn't step up to the plate? Tough love? Ignore the child? As if.
Grandma has every right to resent having to raise a baby she didn't have or make the choice to raise. The baby has the right to be raised by people who don't resent raising it.
Sounds like the mother HAS completely abdicated her responsibility and the child is being made to "suffer such rejection simply for convenience", right in front of it's face. Thank goodness for this grandma who obviously thinks about the situation plenty, likely every day.
Boy, I sure wish I'd have gotten to watch my mom leave it up to my grandma to raise me. That'd be so cool! Maybe I'd even be able to tell that grandma was pooped and wishes I wasn't her responsibility, even though she loved me so much that she enabled mom to keep me....sorta, kinda. I mean, it's obviously better than being loved so much I was given way, right?
"AND...If Grandma wants to live in fantasy-hindsight-land, why not WISH that daughter was careful enough not to have gotten pregnant until such time - if ever - she was capable of caring for a child! That makes a whole lot more sense than wishing her daughter got pregnant, had a child, and had it up for adoption!"
Yes, except that Grandma suggests this young woman bowed to peer pressure when she may have been reluctant to parent to begin with--and circumstances seems to confirm Grandma's hunch. No point fantasizing about kids not being here when they're already here.
Grandma's statement, "What no one thinks about in these situations is that women who “aren’t ready to be mothers” aren’t lying about that; they really aren’t, and now, many grandparents are doing the job they had thought that daughter (or son) would step up and do" is a perfectly valid one. When Grandma stepped in, you call it "enabling". Yet do you not call for such support all the time for pregnant women and bemoan the lack of it? Didn't Grandma do exactly what she should have? Why penalize her for stepping up when her daughter would not? Some people never fulfill their responsibilities. That doesn't mean they have been enabled.
"No point fantasizing about kids not being here when they're already here."
But isn't that exactly what Grandma is doing? Fantasizing and wishing her daughter relinquished her grandchild for adoption and thus wasn't there?
Enabling - with resentment - is not the same as providing support. I don;t think you are understanding the psychological term "enabling" as in allowing a child to use drugs in your home. It is up to parents to set healthy boundaries and expect their children to obey the rules of their house.
In other words, instead of grandma resenting her daughter not taking a role in childcare, why isn't she setting guidelines and seeing that they are obeyed or have some consequences?
It is her resentment that is the problem. She has made herself a martyr. Where was she when her daughter's friends were persuading her? Why didn't she lay down rules for allowing the daughter and grandchild to stay there? The girl is 24, not 14!!
If she resents her daughter not stepping up to the plate, she needs to say so to her daughter...that is what I mean by "enabling." She does things for her instead of teaching her what needs to be done.
However, all of this is besides my main point: that she looks at adoption in a fantasized way. **It is NOT a win-win and provides no guarantees!!!**
We can all speculate forever - but no one knows if it is in this child's best interest to remain with her resentful grandma or to have been given away by them.
I think the grandma needs to accept the choice she allowed to be made in her home and stop being resentful of an innocent child and living in a fantasy world of what might have been.
As you and I both said:
"No point fantasizing about kids not being here when they're already here."
If this grandmother had said she wishes she forced her daughter to relinquish because she wishes she wasn't srtuck raising the kids - that would be honest.
But she is lysing - perhaps to herself - when she tries to convince anyone reading her letter: "had adoption been the choice, I know it would have been the best one for this child."
She does NOT know that! It MIGHT have been better for her. She doesn't even know that! She doesn't know if the guilt of that choice wouldn't have haunted her and ruined her relationship with her daughter.
And then she really puts on her martyr hat and says:
"You have to understand, it isn’t because I resent what I have needed to do; it is all about this child’s life."
BULLSHIT to that! Admit that you resent the kid. Admit you are kicking yourself in the ass for not being strong enough to say NO to your daughter. And in a way she admits just that:
"If I had it to do over again, I would take my daughter out for a long drive and beg her to reconsider the decision to keep her child."
But she didn't and now she should shut up and live with the choice SHE made not to do that as well as her daughter's decisions! But don't live in a fantasy world that the choice you didn't make would have led you to a primrose path where the sun shines all day and there are no regrets and no pain for ayone!!
Go back to the central theme of the poster, which is the sense that her daughter had considered adoption but then did not surrender. I believe that is the source of her unease and don't know shy she has to "shut up" about this or anything else.
I think the charge of "enabling" is a tricky one here too. We simply don't know what is going on with Mommy except that she abdicated her responsibilities. It is not anyone's role to coach someone between the ages of 30 and 40 into good parenting behaviour if they haven't accepted the responsibility already. The focus should not be on Mommy anyway. Grandma wisely gave up on her own daughter and made sure her grandchild was looked after. Her regrets start with her own daughter's behaviour--something that actually exists--and invariably turn to the "what-ifs". I don't think that's fantasy at all; I think that's realistic under the circumstances, especially since the intent of the piece was to clarify Grandma's thoughts, not Mommy's.
At the very least, she is entitled to her opinion.
Well I have news for Grandma. Most of the time giving the child up for adoption is not in the child's best interest. Scary that this argument that it is better for the CHILD is still so prevalent and used to "sell" adoption. I think not having to raise the child is better for her, not the child. She needs to get her own daughter to step up to the plate rather than tossing the kid.
Just agreeing with Osolo Mama. The grandma has every right to have regrets. There is nothing to "educate" here. We do not know all that has gone on in that specific situation with her daughter which she does know. Every case is different, and the best solution for all is different in each case. You are coming from the viewpoint that adoption is always a worse solution than keeping the child. I do not think that is always the case.
Robin,
Very well said! It MIGHT be better for her, IF she could live with the guilt. It surely is a total crap shoot for her granddaughter as is every adoption!
I have two books full of adoptions that were definitely NOT in the child's best interest. Children who were sexually abuses from the day they came to live with their pedophile adopters, children who were starved, beaten, caged and KILLED...or simply abandoned back to the system or to "camps" or underground to other adopters. And all were obtained through supposedly "reputable" adoption agencies, most of which are still in business!
And adoptees in the vast majority of US states, no matter how living their adoptive parents are legally denied equality to their non-adoptive peers. THIS is the what this grandmother dreams would be better than raising her own grandchild! Good luck to her!
O Solo...roll on, by all means...keep defending giving children to unknown strangers who are not well screened and who can divorce even before the adoption is final (as per Sandra Bullock and many others far less famous) so the child winds up being raised by a single parent anyhow...
I do not think ALL adoptions are ALWAYS bad. If you or anyone, however, thinks they are ALL ALWAYS good then you are not dealing with reality.
This grandma seems to think she knows that her grandchild would have been better off having been adopted. Reality is she does not know that, no one can ever know that about any adoption. And that is what I think the public needs to be educated about.
If you believe the public should simply remain in a state of naively beleiving that every adoption is magically BETTER than being raised in one's own family - good for you! Promote everyone placing their children with others! Let ALL kids be "better off"!!
I believe there is a time and a place for out of family placements just as I believe there is a time and place for abortion. But neither should apply to EVERY pregnancy or every child! Neither is ALWAYS the right choice!
Am I making myself perfectly clear?
And, I repeat my comment of 12/30:
If Grandma wants to live in fantasy-hindsight-land, why not WISH that daughter was careful enough not to have gotten pregnant until such time - if ever - she was capable of caring for a child! That makes a whole lot more sense than wishing her daughter got pregnant, had a child, and had it up for adoption!
Isn't that the REAL REGRET...that her daughter had a child she (the daughter) can't or won't care for? Why stop at wishing she didn't choose adoption? Why not wish she never got pregnant in the first place???
Do you disagree with that???
It is true that this is a short piece and it doesn't get into all of the possible familial circumstances that might make adoption appropriate in this situation. However, I do think it is possible to infer from the grandmother's comments that she is very naive about the effects of adoption. Probably because society is still presenting the paradigm: Problem pregnancy, Solution....Adoption!
This reminds me of two Dr. Phil episodes.
Episode #1--The guest is a 20 y.o. young women who has had several suicide attempts, drug addiction, stints in rehab, and cutting. Dr. Phil asks her point blank what she thinks the issue is behind all this self-destructive behavior and she says (head bowed) "Well, I was adopted".
Episode #2--Teen parents who just had a baby girl. The teen father is on the stage with his father (who he looks EXACTLY like) and the teen mother is on with her mother (who she looks EXACTLY like) and her father. The teen's mother is sobbing begging her daughter to move back home with their new granddaughter. The parents are offering to help raise the baby, support her,etc. They just want their daughter and granddaughter home. The dad of the teen father has also offered his full support. So what does Dr. Phil say?? "Have you two thought about adoption?". I'm thinking WTF??? These teen parents have support coming out the wazoo and Dr. Phil thinks they should consider adoption. I'm wondering if he forgot about the traumatized 20 y.o female guest. Maybe he doesn't even watch his own show.
I think this mentality is rampant in this culture and do think the Grandmother in this case sounds like she has been affected by it. That's why I think education is in order and that it is an appropriate title for this article.
And have a Happy New Year, everybody!
YUP! And my questions is a simple one: If adoption by unrelated strangers is always so good, why don't we redistribute ALL kids?!
You raise mine. I raise yours. Oh woops...that doesn't help the poor "desperate-to-be-parents" but can't. So how about we each give ONE of our kids to someone who can't have kids of their own? It would be kinda like the Chinese rule to not have more than one!
And all those given away would all be better off! A win-win!
As for dr P, he is no different than all others. they hear the adoptee blame adoption and they chalk it up to her being bitter...and it's an anomaly that a child with so many "advantages" would feel suicidal! Just as it's chalked up as an 'anomaly' every time a child is abused or killed by an adoptive parent. It's the exception to the rule! After all, the "studies" produced and paid for by th adoption lobby have "proven' over and over that adoptees fair BETTER or just as well as their non-adopted peers! And as for the high numbers of adoptees in metal hospitals, jail, teen facilities, rehabs of all kinds..it's bad blood, not adoption!! Probably what caused the teen on Dr Phil to say what she did.
Of course it doesn't explain things like the triplets who were separated at birth and one killed himself when he found out they had been used as a human experiment and followed throughout their lives with no one telling them there were three of them! just ONE committed suicide! he must have gotten ALl the bad blood...because it couldn't have been adoption that was the problem.
It's of course in people's best interest not to have their medical history...or to even give a false medical history! This is all part of "better living through adoption." Too bad so many kids are DEPRIVED of these many benefits!! The poor deprives kids who get stuck in the families they were born into! What a pity it is!! Such a shame.
Sarcasm aside, I do not think that you MaryAnne or O Solo believe that ALL adoptions are good anymore than Robin or I believe they are ALL bad (despite your trying to make that ridiculous claim of us).
Thus...exactly what I have been saying from the get go: There is NO GUARANTEE. Neither this grandma nor anyone else can ASSUME that any given child will be better of being adopted than staying with family.
Thanks for admitting that those of us who disagree with you are not saying all adoptions are great, without problems, or better than all in family placements.
Mirah wrote:"There is NO GUARANTEE. Neither this grandma nor anyone else can ASSUME that any given child will be better of being adopted than staying with family."
Just as there is no guarantee that anyone can assume that any given child will be better off staying with natural family than adopted. It a crapshoot either way, with good and disastrously bad outcomes both with biological families and adoptive families. Each situation needs to assessed separately, with the safety of the child taking precedence over the needs and wants of the adults,either potential adoptive parents or biological parents or relatives. Either way, a crapshoot with unknown outcomes in the long run.
Yes, there are many adoptions that should not happen, and nobody can guarantee anything. I agree with that. But there are also difficulties for children raised by relatives who began as crisis pregnancies, or whose parents are incapacitated by addictions or other issues. There is not one easy solution.There are many, many shades of grey.
I would just tell this grandma to deal with what is and forget what might have been, in her day to day dealings with her grandchild. But she certainly has a right to express her regrets at her daughter's actions that created the situation she is now in.
PART I:
Yes, Mary Anne, I try to people others with respect and not over generalize or exaggerate their position, twist their words or put words in their mouth as you continually do to me.
We actually agree for the most part with you more to the right of center and me more left, so to speak. I am able to RESPECT those who disagree with me and have no need to MALIGN or disparage them, Mary Anne.
Where I do disagree is, in your saying that we cannot "assume that any given child will be better off staying with natural family."
I'm sorry, but if we cannot assume or trust parents can and will care for their offspring...then we better pass laws to make those who don't meet some special criteria - sterile! Let's go back to
eugenics...unless you prefer to have the "imperfect"...those not "better" have their kids as brood stick for the adoption industry?
You admit that "many adoptions that should not happen" and yet you still sound like a foaming at the mouth pro-adoptionist, ala Elizabeth Barthgolet who, as Lorraine Dusky rightly said, "has never seen a child she didn't think was better off adopted"
According to you, we should look at every child in every family and try to find some fault, some quirk, some reason to remove and redistribute! I am sure if you look you will find it, since few to none of us are "perfect" ideal mothers or parents. Not mine or me or yours or you!!
Some of us are lousy housekeepers -- reason for removal of MANY children! How clean is YOUR house?! We have documented cases of children removed because there was not ample food in the house, regardless if it may have been the end of the month and the check was on its way...or Mom just hadn't gone shopping that day! A widowed mother who had a stroke wrote to me that the is being threatened with loosing her ten-year-old son because he missed school! Mothers have had babies taken for breastfeeding "too long' by someone'
s standard or allowing them to sleep in their bed. Are you advocating more of these practices?
PART II:
MaryAnne, *** Are you saying that given the fact that none of us are perfect there is no advantage - or constitutional right -- tipping the scale in favor of remaining with kin??? ***
I am saying exactly that! I am saying adoption should be a LAST RESORT for orphans and children who have NO kin able to provide a SAFE home for them. I am saying that when you have a battle between a relative such as a father against stranger non-related foster PAPS, all things being equal and neither being blatantly unfit, the father wins hands down, every time...and has the automatic advantage simply because he is the child's father and wants his child. In order for that RIGHT to be severed, there needs to be serious CAUSE!! otherwise the welfare system, would be worse than it already is!
YOU SAY: "Each situation needs to assessed separately."
BY WHOM? Those who profit from family spearations?
I do not want BIG BROTHER watching over us and grabbing our kids because one day we loose track of a toddler in the grocery store (ever happen to you? it did to me!), or our ten year old son breaks a leg and then a week later breaks his arm cause he climbs trees...or our teen gets mad at us for setting rules and lies to his school counselor and says something awful about us abusing them...
Do you place value on familial relationships? Genetics? Heritage? To family medical history? To knowing who you look like? Or, like Prof Bartholet do you think ethnicity is "over-rated"?
On some level, we all could be "better off" elsewhere. So, maybe we should take every kid born in utter poverty and give them to a middle class family. Then we should take all the middle class kids and give them to the CEOs of the world...and take THEIR kids and give them all to Bill Gates and Warren Buffet..or give them all to Angelina Jole or person of the year and adopter, Sandra Bullock! Or maybe you prefer the homier type "mom" and would give YOUR kids to Kelly Rippa who gets it all done with a perky smile!
If "either way it is a crap shoot" as you say in that there are no guarantees that anyone will be a perfect parent - those who give both or those who adopt:
Do you think there are no inherent negatives to losing your family - or to families losing kids? Do you deny the suffering that results from loss in adoption to mothers, fathers, siblings? Not to mention the adoptee?
Do you think U.S. adoptees are treated with equality, dignity and respect like all other adult citizens??? If not why should any child unnecessarily suffer that second-class treatment?
Do you think Australia had no reason to apologize for taking so many children from their families for what seemed like good reason at the time??
Why risk the crap shoot with these additional risk factors only on the side of adoption???
AND, what about HELPING families in crisis instead of exploiting their problems to fill a demand and trading one sets of problems for others???
Mirah wrote:
"According to you, we should look at every child in every family and try to find some fault, some quirk, some reason to remove and redistribute! I am sure if you look you will find it, since few to none of us are "perfect" ideal mothers or parents. Not mine or me or yours or you!!"
Oh, I thought you never put words in my mouth or assumed I said or meant things I did not. This is a shining example of just that. The rest of your two part posts went on to do more and more of this.
No, I do not want to redistribute the kids of the world. I simply said that some family placements are as problematic as some stranger adoptive placement. The rest of the hyperbole here is all yours.
And YOU neglected to answer any of my questions,
even this one I starred to highlight:
*** Are you saying that given the fact that none of us are perfect there is no advantage - or constitutional right -- tipping the scale in favor of remaining with kin??? ***
NOR, any of these:
Do you think there are no inherent negatives to losing your family - or to families losing kids? Do you deny the suffering that results from loss in adoption to mothers, fathers, siblings? Not to mention the adoptee?
Do you think U.S. adoptees are treated with equality, dignity and respect like all other adult citizens??? If not why should any child unnecessarily suffer that second-class treatment?
Do you think Australia had no reason to apologize for taking so many children from their families for what seemed like good reason at the time??
Why risk the crap shoot with these additional risk factors only on the side of adoption???
Maryanne said: " I simply said that some family placements are as problematic as some stranger adoptive placement."
I disagree with this as there are problems that are only particular to being in a stranger adoptive home, i.e. loss of medical history, heritage, not looking like anyone, having been given away by one's flesh and blood, etc. This comment sounds as if you are not considering the unique difficulties and pain of being in an adoptive home vs. being in one's bio-family. Yes, there can be awful bio-home situations but they do not include these issues that only an adoptive placement has.
Your questions were all rhetorical traps, Mirah, I leave it to you to fill in the blanks with the answers you have already decided I would give. I can't be bothered.
Robin, there are also unique issues with in-family placement where there is resentment, non-acceptance, sometimes abuse and neglect of the kid that the grandparent or other family member did not really want to raise. With grandparents, there is the problem of losing them as well while the child is still young, depending on their age.
Those issues particular to adoption would mostly not be issues if the adoption were open, such as family history, medical records, knowing who you look like. The issue of being abandoned or unwanted would still be there in family placements unless the mother and father are raising the child, which is not what we are talking about here.
My questions were not rhetorical. They were quite serious.
As far as family "issues" - yes, sometimes there is jealousy of siblings. There are resentments like this grandma case in point is having. There are untold numbers of family issues, but removing children is NOT the solution!!!
And thank you for answering what you did...too bad you do not see the irony in your reply.
"Those issues particular to adoption would mostly not be issues if the adoption were open." IF!! And if I had balls I'd be a man!
And yet you promote more adoptions while they are NOT open!
Adoption AS IT IS SUCKS, yet you suggest it as a solution for some families!! You would take children out of the frying pan and throw them in the fire. Trade whatever "issues" they are having in their family for the not knowing that IS adoption! That would be the likely outcome for this grandma and her grandchild, yet you seem to think that's preferable?
If you don't, than why did you start the whole disagreement with my post to begin with??
And yes...THAT is rhetorical, so you needn't answer.
Your very first comment here:
"There is nothing to "educate" here. We do not know all that has gone on in that specific situation with her daughter which she does know. Every case is different, and the best solution for all is different in each case. You are coming from the viewpoint that adoption is always a worse solution than keeping the child. I do not think that is always the case."
NOTHING TO EDUCATE...despite adoption beginning with a falsified birth certificate - something the general public and likely this grandma are unaware of. Despite all the secrets and lies. Despite the fact that this grandma - and many others like her - believe if they request an open adoption they avoid all these issues...AS IF the birth certificate isn't still falsified and openness is an unenforceable promise.
NOTHING TO EDUCATE when this grandmother and others are not aware of the lifetime of guilt, shame and grief experienced by mothers (and their mothers) who relinquish children for adoption, or the consequences to the children.
But according to you (and Solo) there is nothing to educate!
OK, then.
We DISAGREE! I believe that there is a great deal of education that needs to be done to get the public's heads out of their behinds is always thinking adoption is some magical cure-all solution to simple and mostly temporary problems. It's a crap shoot and a trade off. one should be totally desperate to take chances like that with one's flesh and blood child! Like throwing a child out the window of a burning building with a chance she MIGHT be caught safely in a net.
Barring abuse and neglect, I would certainly prefer my own grandmother or an aunt and uncle over strangers.
Please see further discussion of grandparent adoptions here:
http://familypreservation.blogspot.com/2011/01/grandparent-adoptions.html
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