Tag: Different

Different Not Better

Valid response from a former foster kid –

Stop saying better. Start saying different. When the adoptee is rehomed, abused or killed then it’s not our problem. We can’t guarantee better. Right now adoption is based on what people want. It was based on this way ever since the government and agencies took over. It’s not about helping kids but helping yourself to kids. People don’t adopt to help kids. They adopt to become parents. To be mommy and daddy – not play mommy and daddy.

It also upsets me – the kids who aren’t seen as worthy, don’t get adopted. So again, who is adoption for ? People are waiting for a non-existent baby to be created or a baby to lose their family in foster care, so they can grow their family.

What was this in response to ?

I am a social worker by education, been out of the field for about 6 years, I worked for about 1 year in foster care/adoptions. I left the field because I felt it was difficult to make a difference/help due to all red tape and bureaucracy.

Anyway, one thing I took from my experience, was that I want to adopt. I just thought I would be loving a child, adding to the family, teaching them, helping them grow, etc.

I did believe/was taught (or something) that adopting children from foster care, etc was… making a difference, that it was in a way, giving them another chance. A chance to give them a good home, better opportunity and away from abuse, neglect, exploitation etc. Or that parents who give up their children for adoption are brave, because it’s really hard to give up a child, but they do it out of love, because at that moment they can’t provide a good life for them, etc.

It’s Not Better, Only Different

Today’s story

I don’t have a bad adoption story. But, it was hard, really hard, because I always missed my mother. Then, I relinquished my daughter at age 19, the exact same age my mother was when she relinquished me.

Just recently, after a lifetime of searching, I located my mother. It was beautiful and painful and healing and heartbreaking all at the same time, because we fit. And, she’s a lovely, kind, intelligent, woman of faith. She would’ve been a wonderful mother! 

To realize this is devastating. I was told it was a “better life” when, in reality, it would’ve just been different. I missed her every day. I spent the first 45 years of my life believing adoption was something brave and beautiful, even when it separated me from my mother and then again later from my own daughter. I realized the decisions that were made FOR me as an infant, and, even worse, the decisions I made FOR my daughter were, in fact, a tragic mistake. We were told it was a “selfless decision”; that my mother ‘loved me so much” she gave me away.

Love=Abandonment. 

You can read the entire essay here – Dear Adoption, I’m Trying to Unravel the Mess You Made