Sharing the words of one adoptee, Mary Constance Mansfield, for today’s blog –
It’s exhausting. People just refuse to connect the dots. Adoption agencies and private adoption attorneys make no money if they don’t encourage and often time coerce a young woman to place their infant for adoption.
There’s a whole group of women who struggle with infertility and are praying a newborn experience the trauma of being abandoned by their mother, because they deserve to be a parent.
They are quite sure that their almighty, always right, god, chose this other woman’s child to actually be their child and they are sure their love will heal whatever trauma the infant might experience. And they will address it when and if the child brings it up. Because they believe they have a god given right to be a parent.
I would disagree….
Well many of us don’t actually come out from the innate Stockholm syndrome that the adoption industry thrives on until our last adoptive parent dies and that ghost kingdom we kept hidden for so long begins to scream at us.
The American Academy of Pediatrician’s official statement about an adopted child is “It should be assumed, ALL adopted children have suffered an irreversible trauma” and they recommend early recognition and appropriate treatment. They know that the child doesn’t have the vocabulary to bring it up. The earlier the recognition the better the chance for recovery.
With the influx of the “domestic supply of infants” that’s expected from the overturning of Roe vs Wade, it’s imperative that those who end up adopting do their due diligence and actually help the child talk about what they feel.
Yes it will hurt when you hear they think about their bio mother and wonder if they have siblings, among other things any child would ask if they knew they were living with strangers but had a history before they were adopted. But that pain you feel is for you to deal with. It’s not so you can convince a child they don’t need to know anything truthful about life before adoption. The reality is you should’ve already grieved the biological child you can’t have and done your homework in regards to the trauma of never seeing your mother this side of the womb causes, so you can be aware of the symptoms when you see them.
And for the sake of keeping it real. Most private adoption agencies are affiliated with a church or a denomination. And private adoption attorneys? Well they are just that…. they get paid only if they find a womb wet infant for the 30 to 50 people in line for one. They have absolutely no monetary reason to give natural mother’s the info regarding resources available if she should want to parent.
Missing Mom 