Fake News

My all things adoption Facebook group is all about reforming the practice. The first step is waking people up. When I first joined this group, I was just beginning to learn who my original grandparents were (both of my parents were adopted). Because adoption was the most natural thing in the world in my own family, I was totally in the adoption fog, even though I was not adopted myself. It was so normal in my family that both of my sisters gave up babies to adoption – one did it as her intentional choice, the other one wanted to keep her daughter but could not access the support to do so. Unbelievably to me now, my own mother who was actually troubled or at the least conflicted about her own adoption (believing she had been stolen from her birth parents by Georgia Tann) pressured my sister to relinquish her daughter to adoption.

So today’s story speaks to me of how society’s perspectives on adoption are based on illusions. Here it is –

I joined the group because I have always wanted to adopt a child. In my head (because of media, and various stories I’ve heard elsewhere) there are hundreds of thousands of children, maybe even millions, out there suffering and in desperate need of a loving home. I was SO convinced this is true that I believed having my own child was selfish. I’m not infertile or anything….I just had visions of helping a child… or even multiple children. I joined the group hoping to learn more about the adoption process and how best to help a child through the process. Boy – was I naive. Thank you ALL for your sharing your stories and providing an education that I never would have gotten if it wasn’t for this group. Seriously. Thank you. I am now no longer interested in adoption in the way the current system is run. But – it has left me with a deep wanting to help children and moms who go have to go through the system. It seems like poverty is the main reason children are pulled from their homes. What is the best way to be helpful, reunify, provide resources (what resources?) help the birth mothers, etc.?

One commenter wrote – I’ve realized the best way I can help is at the source. If through the foster care system I am fostering pregnant and parenting teens to make sure the cycle won’t continue and help them keep their own babies. If it’s outside of the system same idea. Help at the source without removing the child. Offer babysitting, a room in your house, groceries, transportation, professional clothes and a hair dresser for interviews, etc. to do it right the focus is on the parents and supporting the parents.

Some more advice –

If you learn of a mother to be who is – for whatever reason – struggling/considering adoption for her baby/vulnerable take her under your wing and offer to help her educate herself and find balance, so she can focus.

Saving Our Sisters will educate and offer guidance and assistance.

Safe Families may have resources but be cautious as some factions are related to adoption agencies and highly religious.

The Family Preservation Project is a great site for education and resources.

Promote preserving the family….both in foster settings and vulnerable pregnancies. Our society loves to takes babies from parents who are “less than” (pffffttttt) and give them to the almighty “better than” (no, nope, nada)!!!!! Change in this area is an uphill journey but the more we speak of how critical it is for the children to be preserved in the family they were born into, the sooner THAT message will begin to drown out the child snatchers!

Reasons Why A Woman Chooses Adoption

Read this today –

I am an expectant mother, due in a couple weeks. I’m single and the baby’s father has recently informed me he wants no part in parenting but I am confident he will pay child support (though I know he prays I choose adoption, though his opinion on that matter is not even on my radar).

I am also in a transitional place in my life: staying in a very small apartment with a friend who is supporting me, no job, and won’t be able to raise a baby here. I don’t have safe family I can stay with, and my friends live in different corners of the country and are not a viable option right now either.

I’ve spoken to a few Hopeful Adoptive Parents and feel comfortable with one couple in particular, but with the clock ticking & COVID precautions in place, I don’t feel ready to make that choice: either to choose them to raise my child OR to choose adoption at all. But I feel like my back is up against a wall: I don’t have a safe place to raise a baby and I don’t have any income at the moment but in no way do I want to make a rash decision to relinquish my rights just because time is running out. Luckily the Hopeful Adoptive Parents are NOT pressuring me in any way, shape, or form so that’s not an issue.

I read up on a thread of resources posted a while ago, and I saw Safe-Families mentioned as an option. There is a chapter about 3.5 hours from me.

Another well-known option is called Saving Our Sisters.

One voice of experience wrote – “Listen to those of us who have walked this path. I am 73 and will never recover from the loss of adoption. Take heed.”

Another woman offers this – “My best advice is to try to parent. People will take a toddler as fast as a baby. If you can’t do it, you have options BUT if you go through with adoption, you can not get your baby back. Things will work out, just try.”

One woman cautioned – You would “think that voluntary placement would mean that she could get them back just as easily. Not the case. She had to prove herself fit.” This is so close to what my maternal grandmother went through it breaks my heart that this is still how it goes. My grandmother lost my mom to Georgia Tann during her brutal reign.

In the final analysis –

The #1 thing your baby needs is you. Just you. Not a nice house, not a nursery, not baby gear, not anything that can be bought. Some second hand baby clothes and cloth diapers, a good sling and a car seat if you have a car is all you really need to take great care of your baby. If you can have a place where you can live safely, your baby will be happy.

About Fostering Teens

This comes up frequently in adoptee discussion groups. The concern is the many older children in foster care who would benefit from the stability of being in one single home/family for the duration of their childhood – where the possibility of being returned to their original parents may never exist, for whatever reason that is the case.

That’s a whole different ballgame than adopting healthy infants or toddlers.

Nobody is stealing teens from their families. They’re just harder to place and most child welfare agencies would rather not have to bother doing the work, quite frankly. Teens who’ve been in the system since their younger years are even harder to place because of the continual trauma that being in the system has done/continues to do to them. The best (and possibly only) thing a Foster Parent can do for a teen Foster Youth is give them a safe, supportive place to land until they can be reunited with their parents or other biological family members; or if that isn’t possible, at least support them through to maturity and beyond the Foster Care Emancipation process.

In 2016, over 400,000 children were in Foster Care in these United States.

The Safe Families Act has been implemented in several American states.

There are three pillars of the Safe Families Act, all with the intention of returning children to their parents as soon as possible.

[1] Hosting – parents choose to allow certain approved families to care for their child until the parents are able to again.

[2] Befriending – providing a supportive environment for the parents of children in care. Support meant to return the ability of parents to adequately provide for their children.

[3] Resources/Physical Needs – rehabilitation services, job assistance and counseling. Food and childcare help. Community organizations willing to step in.

Especially because of the Opioid Crisis, the Foster Care System is overwhelmed.

It is heartening to know that there are so many people looking for better ways to ensure the well-being of our nation’s children.