This summer I read for days accounts of birth mothers and analysis of the process and system, and it seems bad. I know only a few adopted people but all of them have told me they were very happy to be adopted, so I feel a bit conflicted. But adopting someone's baby instead of 1. adopting an orphan or 2. using the same money to make the same child comfortable but without including them in your day to day life seems bad. My bloglines whatever got transfered to merchant circle and now it's way different? So I have been browsing blogs looking for new feeds and I found one called rageagainsttheminivan and the blog author had a guest poster, Jennie, who writes at www.thestearnsweeklynews.blogspot.com, and wrote about her "6 children" 2 biological, 3 pending adoption, and one that she didn't adopt at all but just loves. And- I feel bad for writing this, but- feels entitled to. She wrote, "That day we faithfully began praying, and that week our daughter's birth mom conceived... When we were matched and heard about our birth mom we were ecstatic. She was 14 and had been in and out of the foster care system. " Wow. I don't believe praying makes things happen in strangers' lives but this woman does and she writes that "her daughter's" (not her daughter's) "14 year old birth mom concieved". 14 year olds are very much children, maybe not in terms of how clever they are or how much say they need regarding their life circumstances, but they should be protected as much as other children are. And it sounds very much like this girl was not. Then Jennie writes that,
"instead we got a call that the birth mom had changed her mind and wanted to parent, so she ran away. What I want you to know is that we mourned the loss of our daughter. I mourned as I had never mourned before. I didn't matter that our DNA wasn't the same. She was our child. We had prayed for her since before her conception." and then,
"We have forgiven the birth mom for the pain she's caused, and we realize that she was in a lot of pain, too. We still pray for our daughter", and I feel like, you are "forgiving" someone who is not culpable. Partly because of her extreme youth, and also because what she did wrong is not realize (maybe not acknowledge?) that she wanted to parent her baby.
1 comment:
I appreciate your thoughts and feelings of conflict. I'm not sure I know any adoptive families who don't struggle with this issue. I did want to address one thing though. People adopt babies and children all the time here in the U.S. who have living parents. Just because they are living does not mean they should or can raise children. Also, if you look into some circumstances, especially in Africa, being a widow can mean not only did she lose a partner and protection, but she may lose property, way of life, and all belongings. Friends and family may shun them because they are thought to be cursed. In many cases, she'll have very little education and skills training. Her kid/s are alone all day because she's trying to work or find work for pennies. It's not like being a widow here where there are supports and free education. I agree, that all adoptive families should also be involved in widow care so that mothers CAN avoid having to make such a difficult choice. I just think we all need to be careful about criticizing an ethically processed adoption -- especially when you don't know what their family is doing to help support widows and keep families together. Additionally, sending that 14-year-old their agency, lawyer, and government fees will not provides NO gaurantee that those children will have food, shelter, education, and/or family.
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