No, You Don’t Deserve A Baby

Regarding adoption, one prospective couple wrote – “I want a baby not a full grown kid. My husband and I deserve a baby. We both crave a baby to raise as our own”.

I get that. Not that I believe they deserve someone else’s baby but that they are hoping for that blank slate that Georgia Tann always advertised her babies as being. Science has determined that isn’t the truth but anyway.

Another prospective adoptive couple stated, “Older children come with so many issues. You can’t mother an older child like an infant. Especially as first time parents”. Though I was not a first time parent, my husband was.

When my husband decided he wanted to be a father, we did talk about adoption but decided that we wanted a truly blank slate as our beginning position. We wanted to conceive and for me to carry our baby in my womb, give birth and breastfeed that baby for a reasonable length of time. We did need considerable medical assistance and there was a compromise involved that seemed reasonable but still must be faced fully and accepted. Which I believe I have for the most part.

Regarding the expense of adoption, someone was quoted as saying, “Adoption should be free like abortion is”. Now that does blow my mind because abortion is not free. I know. I had one back in the mid-1970s. There is a cost in dollars at the time and over the long run a cost mentally and emotionally with making such a significant decision. I continue believe it was the right decision at the time I made it but that doesn’t equate to the reality being easy to live with.

Here is another statement that is absolutely not true – “If adoption wasn’t so expensive, there would be more kids who find homes”. Fact is there are 4 couples wanting to adopt for every child available to be adopted. That is one of the reasons that over the most recent decades, many couples have gone out of the United States to obtain a child to raise as their own.

One of the major interests among the members of the adoption community – original parents and adoptees – is reform. Part of reform is actually raising awareness and changing perspectives. That is the hope and the purpose for which I write a blog on related topics each day.

Hope Springs Eternal

It is a story as old as humanity. The rebirth through time of the species. Every child spends time in its mother’s womb. Every child carries the seeds of its father. Every human being is precious.

Sadly, many children are born into humble beginnings. Just as the old Christmas story tells us of the struggles of the young family who give birth in a stable for animals because there was no room for them at the inn.

All of us who live have reason to be grateful. No one promised us a rose garden on being birthed into physicality but many many humans have proven to us that anyone with enough persistence and determination can change the circumstances of their life.

When times are exceedingly difficult, we can be comforted with knowing that change is constant. When times are abundantly good for us, we should remember that this too is likely to pass into something else.

Christmas Eve is a time when the whole world hopes for peace, goodwill towards men. However you celebrate and whether you celebrate or not, may your holidays be blessed with warmth, loving souls around you and harmony for at least some few moments so that you too know that it is possible.

The Scourge Of Poverty

Many children end up in foster care or adopted for no more reason than poverty. A recent suggestion was if stipends that go to foster care could be redirected to parents working hard to keep their children.

Definitely, a single mom can feel stuck in a never-ending cycle of poverty, constantly worried that one financial emergency will send everything tumbling down.

In 2014 there were 46 million poor people in the U.S., and millions more hovering right above the poverty line. A single mom may live in a cozy two-bedroom apartment and have food, furniture and toys for her child and still be very much at risk. That apartment may not be located in a very safe place to live. Yet subsidized housing may be all she can afford.

I was such a single mom at one time in my life. Most of my paycheck went to rent, food, child care costs so I could work, gas and pediatrician bills. What drove me to leave my daughter with her paternal grandmother was – so I could try and earn a higher standard of living. I didn’t have a lot of hope for the future, if I stayed in the situation I was in.

If you’re poor, it may be in every aspect: emotionally, support-wise and family-wise. And even when there is family support ? As in grandparents raising several grandchildren as their own of which I do know more than a few. Heck I turned to a grandparent myself in my own dire time of need.

And the strain on children of living with adults who are overwhelmed by life or who don’t have the skills they need to raise their children because they themselves came from troubled homes only compounds the core problem of poverty.

Poor families today are more isolated from neighbors, work, family – all of the social networks that help people through life. There has to be a better way than the business as usual way we have now.

The Eternal Mother

~ artist, Mark Missman

More than Mother’s Day, the holiday season celebrates the hope of humanity in two symbolic persons – a mother and her baby. A quiet calm image of nurturing and the infinite possibilities represented in any single person.

In discovering who my original grandparents were (both of my parents were adoptees), I never expected to learn so much about the impacts of adoption or the deep often unconscious wounds that are left behind when we separate a child from their natural mother.

For nine months, the fetus nestles in the cozy warmth of it’s mother’s womb. As close to her as her very breath, hearing her heartbeat, feeling her emotions and sharing the culinary tastes she prefers. It is now known that the baby is not fully developed at the time of its birth.

For at least the next year, that bond between mother and infant will be a core and deep sense of security, of love, of responsiveness and gentle care that will have a profound effect on that child’s well-being throughout their life.

We owe every single mother the support and encouragement to raise the child conceived within her womb and help her create the next best yet to be human being as we continue to evolve into better and better, more caring always, kinder human beings.

May we all know someday that it is so.

Words Of Encouragement

Life changes, never forget that it can.

It is perfectly acceptable to wish for better days to come.

There is nothing wrong with wishing for better income, more stability, and an ability to give MORE.

Years from now, you may realize something startling –

Your wish came true.

You will realize that those “better days” that you once could only dream of are now your reality.

It can be so easy to feel discouraged and just want to give up. Keep your hopes for better alive. Dreams can come true. I know. I’ve seen my own come true in amazing ways.

I remember one Christmas with my daughter when she was just a toddler. I bought the tiniest tree. I painted little wooden ornaments. I bought her a little bra and underwear set, patent leather shoes and lacy socks and one of those children’s microphones she could sing through. We didn’t have much but we did have a Christmas. Life is full of ups and downs. Change is constant and can be a source of hope when nothing seems hopeful at all.

HUGS of encouragement for you, who in a season that can feel so discouraging and depressing for a lot of people, must somehow carry on. You are never truly alone in difficult moments. Others are struggling and some are overcoming those same kinds of struggle.

People Still Buy Babies

In this day and time so far away from the scandals of Georgia Tann stealing and selling babies, I never expected to see someone actually talking about “buying” a baby. It troubles my heart though realistically, one doesn’t come by a baby without cost, even when that child is gestated in their body.

The bit of advertisement above came from a FB group called “Mothers United Against Anti-Adoption”. I removed the more personal, identifying information.

I’m not joining and I am NOT “anti-adoption”. I have simply come to understand that being adopted is way more complicated than I understood growing up or for most of my life (both of my parents were adopted).

I agree that regardless of how you become a mother (or father), the common thread is love. And whether we are natural or adoptive parents, we all go through the same kinds of challenges of feeling like an utter failure. As one adoptive mom said in a Huffington Post article –

“Some days I get tired of it all and just want to be a family. Not the adoptive family … just a family.”

A young woman approached the adoptive parent (it is a transracial adoption and so it was rather obvious), “I was adopted as a baby and it has been a wonderful thing. We need more families like yours.” I stared at her, stunned.

“She didn’t think what I assumed everyone was thinking. She saw beauty and love and hope and family. She thought we were wonderful and it made her smile.”

There are children who need alternative parents for whatever reason. What is perceived as “anti-adoption” issues are really mainly related to two core issues –

[1] Identity and Genetics – let your adopted child keep their original name and don’t have their birth certificate altered.

[2] Family Preservation – whenever possible, the natural parents should be supported in locating the resources to parent their children and given every encouragement.

For those times when a child actually does need alternative parents, then adoption fills a need.

Florence Crittenton

Babies for sale ? Displayed in a street side window for passersby ? The National Florence Crittenton Mission was an organization established in 1883 by Charles Crittenton. It attempted to reform prostitutes and unwed pregnant women through the creation of establishments where they were to live and learn skills. Their mission was very similar to that of the Salvation Army at its inception.

Families were eventually sending their unwed mothers to Crittenton homes to hide them from public view and avoid shame. The young women sent to these homes were required to give up their children for adoption. During the time period of 1945 to 1973, the Florence Crittenton Agency was a major player with a share as large as one-third of the approximately 200 confidential maternity homes which existed during that time period. In 1976, the Florence Crittenton Association of America merged with the Child Welfare League of America.

My family did not have any dealings with this agency but the organization still exists. They even have a Facebook page of smiling young women from a diversity of cultures and the motto “Where hope comes to life”. Today there are still 27 Crittenton agencies around the country.

And today the focus of the agency has matured. A primary interest is serving teens in foster care as they have few resources and tend to be poorly informed about their rights. These young women are often pressured by child welfare agencies to relinquish their babies. Crittenton agencies also currently provide services to girls who have been sexually abused or trafficked for sex or who are addicted to drugs.

Beyond these modern day efforts, it is progressive of them to operate a search service to help their former clients and their now adult adoptees to re-connect. Former clients operate an outreach known as the Florence Crittenton Home Reunion Registry.
.