Tag: Basic Essentials

The Rich Exploiting The Poor

While it may not be meeting a stranger on a street corner and handing them a wad of cash and then, walking away with a newborn, it really isn’t much different – those with the financial means basically “buy” the babies of poorer people. It has been that way since almost Day 1 of the modern adoption industry. Georgia Tann had the belief that by taking the babies of poor people and placing them into the homes of rich people, the children would have a better outcome. She was involved in my mom’s adoption and took the baby of my destitute grandmother, who had been in effect abandoned by my grandfather (they were married and whether that was his intent can be debated but never answered), and sold her to my much more wealthy adoptive grandparents.

In our society, a birth mother offering her child, born or not yet born, for sale is reprehensible but adoptive parents advertising their willingness to adopt or adoption agencies advertising the children that are available for adoption is no problem, as noted in this piece at Adoption Birth Mothers.com LINK>Craigslist: You Can’t Sell Your Baby, But You Can Advertise FOR a Baby by Claudia Corrigan DArcy. In fact, Georgia Tann discovered the value of advertising back in her day.

It is unbelievable how much money is sloshing around in adoptionland. The sad reality is that this country is unwilling to support struggling single mothers or parents to parent their own children. Many an unmarried, unwed mother has surrendered a baby she would have loved to raise because she didn’t believe she was able to effectively support her child. In my all things adoption community, where adoptee voices and personal experiences are highly valued, the group encourages such struggling mothers and parents to give parenting their child a good try. Many find, once they spend time with their newborn, any sacrifice they have to make, any humbling necessary to get the supports they need are well worth it. We see many stories a few years later thanking us for encouraging them.

Just today, I completed a community survey for LINK>East Missouri Action Agency. They take a holistic approach to ending poverty; starting by addressing the most basic needs, eliminating them and applying progressive programs designed to move families into financial freedom. Over 21,000 people received services last year through EMAA’s Community Service programs. You too can find the supports you need, if you just make a determined effort.

The Child Of Separation

Family separation has taken on a new meaning in the current government administration.  Many of my friends and myself included are horrified at the barbaric and cruel images of what is being done as we witness these.

Rainer Maria Rilke wrote – “Every happiness is the child of a separation, it did not think it could survive.”  I think in the context I am considering, one could not equate happiness with separation.

Family separation means something different in my life.  It means my parents being taken away from their mothers.  It means families so broken they cannot be put back together again.  There is so much damage done when any baby is taken away from the mother who’s womb that child developed within.

Activists and reformers within the adoption world are hoping to see the common place separations end.  We seek stronger safety nets for mothers with children with no judgement applied.  It is not about how hard the mother works or how well she does trying to provide for her children but about the children themselves.  Seeing that children grow up in safe spaces with loving relatives with enough to eat and enough usable clothing to wear.  With a roof over their heads to protect them from the environment.

This is really not so much to ask of society and especially the wealthier members of our society – that we each accept a responsibility to the future generations of human beings on this planet.

Recent advances in the science of brain development offer us an unprecedented opportunity to solve some of society’s most challenging problems, from widening disparities in school achievement and economic productivity to costly health problems across the lifespan. Understanding how the experiences children have starting at birth, even prenatally, affect lifelong outcomes—combined with new knowledge about the core capabilities adults need to thrive as parents and in the workplace—provides a strong foundation upon which reforms can be created.

Not all stress is bad, but the unremitting, severe stress that is a defining feature of life for millions of children and families experiencing deep poverty, community violence, substance abuse, and/or mental illness can cause long-lasting problems for children and the adults who care for them. Reducing the pile-up of potential sources of stress will protect children directly (i.e., their stress response is triggered less frequently and powerfully) and indirectly (i.e., the adults they depend upon are better able to protect and support them, thereby preventing lasting harm). When parents can meet their families’ essential needs stress can be reduced rather than amplified.  Families are better able to support a healthy development in their children.