Family Preservation

This is the topic my heart wanted to write about yesterday but I just didn’t have time to do it justice. Then, today I saw a post by a FB adoptee friend on the topic and thought I really need to address this today. These kinds of coincidences always have an impact on me.

After sharing that she still struggles to heal the deep seated abandonment wound within her. She ends her story with “Family preservation. Even if that family is just a mother and her baby. These are the seeds we should be planting today if we want a better future for our children and grandchildren. We can find a better way to care for children whose family won’t or can’t.”

In googling around on the topic, yesterday, I found what is usually the argument against LINK>Fatal Preservation in something called the City Journal. The author, Dennis Saffran is a Queens-based appellate attorney, writer, and former GOP candidate for the New York City Council. Okay, I know. There are situations where the parents are so damaged themselves that they are not good for their own children. No one who cares about kids would suggest that there are not some situations where the children do need to be removed for their own safety. It is true that any good thing can be taken to extremes.

Dennis notes – “It is hard to imagine a more conservative-sounding name for a social policy than family preservation. But in fact, those on the Left who are usually the most hostile to ‘family values’ and parental rights have shaped the policy into its present form and are its most vehement and dogmatic advocates. Family preservation is a classic example of a seemingly sensible and humane liberal reform gone awry because of the ideological single-mindedness of its supporters. The policy now badly hurts those it was meant to help.”

Even so, a rational application of family preservation and reunification efforts by the child welfare agencies in our states has merit. It is true, sometimes parents are not given the time they truly need to address their various issues. A rush to move cases through the courts does cause a miscarriage of what really does need to happen to keep families together.

As a movement, LINK>Family Preservation is actually fairly old (dating back to the 1890s) but has been poorly and improperly applied at times. Family preservation was the movement to help keep children at home with their families rather than in foster homes or institutions. This movement was a reaction to the earlier policy of family breakup, which pulled children out of unfit homes. Extreme poverty alone was seen as a justified reason to remove children.

And that still happens today – poverty is often the main reason that children are removed from their biological, genetic parents. I did like this article in Huffington Post on the topic – LINK>Lifting Families Out of Poverty, One Crib at a Time by Katherine Snider.

She notes – “There are too many stories of need in this country. And nearly all of them start the same way — with the unspeakable stress endured by families in poverty. They tell of parents who reuse disposable diapers; children who are sent home from school for hygiene issues because shampoo and soap are luxury items for a poor family; parents who can’t afford a crib so they put their newborn babies to sleep in a dresser drawer, a hamper, or in a cardboard box. These are the everyday, constant challenges for families in poverty.” Blogger’s note – I was originally put to sleep in a dresser drawer after I was born. That is not abuse, just necessity. I will also note, that although we did use a bassinette, my children never slept in a crib but that is another story for some other day.

One final observation – this country really does not care about families as much as it pretends to. There is a severe lack of resources and the will to supply them does not exist. Money still talks, profit in the adoption industry motivates and adoptive parents still rule over the lives of many children, especially babies, that could have been raised, given adequate supports, by the mothers who gave birth to them (with or without a father present in that household).

It’s Not A Couch

I’m in a natural birthing group and a woman who’s 30+wks pregnant has been married for over 5 years. Both the woman and her husband come from a conservative community where procreation is expected, even though neither of them felt drawn to parenthood. They decided to give it to God. After so many years of marriage, they are expecting and neither is excited nor do they feel connected to the baby.

The amount of COMMENTS FOR ADOPTION in that group were INSANE. She didn’t come for that suggestion. She asked if anyone else had issues before delivery with feeling attached to their child – if anyone wasn’t really a kid person – if those feelings changed when they delivered their own child, etc. She was looking for emotional and mental support from a group THAT DOESN’T UNDERSTAND THE HORMORMAL AND BONDING PROCESS and YET, people were STILL SUGGESTING IF SHE DOESN’T FEEL IT, JUST GIVE THE BABY AWAY! The poor mother hasn’t even had the bonding chemicals come into play yet. This “give the baby away” suggestion was WELL LIKED .

(blogger’s note – what is written above and below this is NOT my own story but because adoption is encouraged in evangelical circles, the above really does NOT surprise me.)

The woman writing about this incident is a former foster care youth and adoptee. She continues – Y’all I freaking LOST IT. I told them to NOT suggest TRAUMA to a mother, which will last throughout her LIFE as well as impact their baby, when the couple just needs the TOOLS TO HELP THEM PARENT.

Boy did I get attacked. I was actually quite nice about it all, and people told me I was shaming her (I didn’t, I actually told her I also struggled with bonding and attachment due to the ADOPTION AND FOSTER CARE INTERFERENCE) and wasn’t being harsh with the woman at all. I was harsh with the insane notion that before birth, these folks who are supposedly seeking to help, are just like – “oh, don’t feel attached ?, oh well, just give it to someone who wants it.”

It’s not a couch that you got that didn’t fit though the door and you’re pawning it off on your neighbor. It’s a child, who will look for you one day (most likely) and wonder why they weren’t wanted.

Tolerance

After seeing this, I went looking for some background on Christianity and LGBTQ issues. I found this – Cultural backlash: Is LGBTQ progress an attack on Christianity? – from Washington University in St Louis Missouri. PS – FD is Foster Daughter. From that linked article –

“Many Christians have come to see themselves as being on the losing side of the culture wars,” said Clara L Wilkins, principal investigator and associate professor of psychological and brain sciences in Arts & Sciences. “Christians may perceive that an America where same sex marriage is legal is one in which they have lost their sway and are now victimized.

“This is especially common among conservative Christians, who also are more likely to believe that Christianity is a defining feature of being American. As a result, they see themselves as being at odds with LGBTQ individuals, who are perceived as having increasing social influence.”

The root causes and consequences of “zero-sum beliefs” or ZSBs— these are a belief that social gains for one group necessarily involves losses for the other – are most common among conservative Christians, and are shaped by their understandings of Christian values, the Bible and in response to religious institutions.

Christians saw the decrease of LGBTQ bias as corresponding to more bias against Christians. ZSBs are driven by symbolic threats, not realistic threats. White Christians are concerned recent social changes threaten their social influence, namely their ability to instill and enforce their notions of Christian values upon broader society — not realistic threats, such as loss of livelihood. Simply reminding white Christians about a changing cultural climate in which their influence is waning was sufficient to increase their perception of Christians’ victimization and perceived conflict with LGBTQ people. “The church is a strong moral authority with the potential to shape norms and attitudes toward sexual minorities like court rulings have shifted attitudes on same sex marriage,” the study authors wrote.

Momentous changes such as the Biden Administration’s appointment of Pete Buttigieg as the first openly gay secretary in the presidential Cabinet and Rachel Levine, the first openly transgender federal official as well as the electoral win of Delaware Sen Sarah McBride (the first openly transgender person in that role) have sparked outrage by opponents. They argue that the growing acceptance of LGBTQ individuals impedes the ability of Christians to practice their faith — as if gains for one group necessarily involved losses for the other.

While the number of white evangelical Christians has decreased significantly in recent years — from 23% in 2006 to 14% in 2020, their political influence continues to grow. Mass media has enabled white evangelicals to disseminate their messages of Christian nationalism, culture wars and cultural grievances and political conservatism to a far-reaching constituency. The Human Rights Campaign predicted that this will be a record-setting year for anti-LGBTQ legislation with as many as 250 bills introduced in state legislatures in 2021 alone.