Tag: Christian Adoption

The Ethics Of Praying To Adopt

Actually, come to think of it, this is good advice – IF – by praying one is seeking guidance rather than to coerce the outcome to what they believe they want – when what they may get is not what they are expecting.

Adoption is a practice fraught with tension, pain, suffering and little reward – though the agencies that sell babies to couples wanting to adopt may not want you to know about that part.

Bottom line, it is NOT okay to want and pursue another woman’s baby.  Adoption is always the sad outcome to some kind of trouble in the original parents lives.  A case worker forcing the original mother to sign relinquishment papers reminds me way too much of my maternal grandmother’s sad circumstances at the hand of a master – Georgia Tann.

Every pregnant woman at risk should be given time and space.  Surrender should never be rushed and in the best circumstances delayed for some months to allow the new baby to continue the bonding process post-birth.  My maternal grandmother was married.  It may be that a Super Flood on the Mississippi River before my mom was even born kept my grandfather from knowing the danger my grandmother and mom were actually facing.

Maybe the guidance you will receive will be to help this family stay together rather than tear it apart and separate a child from its original family.

Entitlement

It has been a long process for me of wrapping my mind around the issues of what is bad about adoption and needs reform.  Forgive me a little rant and hopefully a bit of educating for those who care but really don’t know what the issues are.  Thanks to an outspoken group of women who are adoptees, or have been in the institutional trenches, I am beginning to understand there are problems in adoptionland.

I’ll share a few as starters.

Going all the way back to the 1930s, and my own grandmothers – up through my own sisters, I believe they would have ALL kept their children – IF they had had the support they needed.

In adoption propaganda, it is often said that the original parents made the “most selfless decision” by giving up the raising of their own child.  It is not selfish to want to keep your child, even when you are struggling to do so. It is not a selfless decision to give your child to someone else, it is an act of desperation.

The determining factor should always be what matters most for the well-being of the child.  The dominant narrative in the adoption community has been stories of “selfless birth parents” who simply wanted a “better life” for their child.  Of course, they wanted a “better life” and they would have preferred to have been the ones providing it.

There are alternatives to adoption for infertile couples – kinship care, legal guardianship without lying on birth certificates or choosing the charity of giving whatever kind of assistance the original Mom or Dad need to help them parent successfully.

I seriously question the agenda of Christians who push adoption.  I suspect they are wanting to create more Christians by taking children who would not have been raised according to their own belief system, knowing that their way is the superior one of course, and indoctrinating these children into “the way” of their own religion.

And I am seriously concerned by crowd funding for adoption costs without any qualms on the parts of those donating money – while not once considering crowd funding to help a Mom or Dad keep their baby.  Our values are misplaced people.

So are adoptive parents fears that the child will NOT be theirs PERMANENTLY supposed to outweigh what is now known to be better for the children?

What is known ?

Separation should be the last resort. We KNOW there is trauma from the separation, even if it happens at birth. We KNOW children need genetic mirrors. We KNOW people have a right to know the truth about themselves. We know so much that points to a practice where, based on the best interest of the CHILD, we should avoid the permanent legal and physical severing of a child from their genetic parentage and family through adoption.

Guardianship provides all the emotional support any child needs and as much safe permanency.

And another thought – if people are really so dead set on parenting, and they can’t reproduce (are infertile), they can still act as guardians and caregivers to older kids who really do need someone.  In today’s society – unfortunately – there are a lot of kids that could use that kind of help.

Those who wish to provide a home for a child should be OK with not getting an infant and fake papers saying they gave birth to that child.  This is denial and self-delusion on the part of infertile, adoptive parents – and it IS harmful to the child.

Every baby brought into this world and then given to someone else to raise is aware and does care about what happened to separate them from their original parents.

Please realize that there’s always a situation that makes the original parents feel they have no other choice but to give up their precious child.  Whether it be finances, homelessness, the mother’s relationship with the baby’s father, or a lack of support during and after the pregnancy.

None of those “reasons” should be the determining factor leading to separation from their baby. They are all temporary circumstances which time may heal given resources when they are most needed.