The Adoptee’s Burden

So a hopeful adoptive mother asked about gender preferences when adopting. An adoptive mother responded honestly – Your perfect little girl is not going to come from adoption. Adopted children are traumatized and are not there to fulfill our dreams. If you heart wouldn’t be in it with a boy, I would think very carefully about what you’re going into. We are not shopping for children here. I am sorry if this sounds harsh but hard truths are something hopeful adoptive parents need to hear.

One foster parent noted – It seems that they want a specific gender based on their fantasy for what life will be– they are essentially bringing a child into their home with a job/responsibility (i.e., to fulfill that fantasy). The question becomes: what happens if that child doesn’t fulfill that fantasy? I honestly feel the same way when parents have strong reactions at gender reveals.

blogger’s note – I grew up in a family with female siblings. My first child was a daughter. Then, in my second marriage, with a husband who grew up with male siblings, we ended up with 2 boys. I will admit to some gender shock and understand the origin of the word boisterous. Raising them is the greatest privilege and responsibility of our lives, whatever they end up being – non-binary, intersex (a person born with a combination of male and female biological traits), etc LOL See below for what caused my comment.

A person commented – I find that most people with a strong gender preference are more focused on expecting their kid to fit a certain gendered idea. A really narrow reason that feels somewhat legit to me is a single parent or same sex couple who feel better equipped to help a child of the same sex navigate things like puberty and some of the different challenges the world throws at boys vs girls. I can certainly say I find the idea of teaching my daughters about periods and the importance of being aware of the dangers of diet culture much less intimidating than I would find the idea of teaching sons how to navigate male puberty and various kinds of toxic masculinity. (But I’m married to a cis man, so if we’d had a boy, he could talk to his dad about some of this stuff. And otherwise I would just be spending a lot more time doing research to figure it out.)

No Man In Sight

At least one mom in my own mom’s group decided to have a child with no man in sight. For same sex female couples who want children but want to be ethical about doing the right thing, what are the options ? One offers her experience.

I’m a queer parent to a donor-conceived child and also have adopted kids through foster care.

The topic has come up before but is always interesting to me and just inherently homophobic—that women who have conceived a child by having sex are encouraged to keep and raise the child – no matter what: mental health issues, extreme poverty, abusive partners—but then, queer people are told there’s no ethical way to have a child. So somehow sex with a man makes it ethical and idealized?? So having sex gives you a right to parent – no matter what, and if you can’t get pregnant by having sex, you have no right to have children and should go mentor kids….there’s just no way to view this stance as anything but homophobia.

The ethics of sperm donation, in my opinion, based on learning from donor conceived people and also my experience as someone abandoned by my father, is that anonymous sperm donation is not ethical. I chose to conceive with a known donor who has no interest in parenting/co-parenting but is a known and present figure in our lives. [blogger’s note – I agree that any reproductive donors ought to be known. Every person should have access to their genetic background.]

Fostering is a different story. When we went into it, we were open to adopting (if things went that way) but really tried to approach it as us supporting a family in crisis by being that safe healthy person who could watch the kid(s) until the parents got back on their feet. We fostered 8 children and have adopted 4, which statistically is in line with our state’s averages that 50% of placements reunify. Our first adoptee has 3 siblings in two different families, neither of which was willing to take her. Our second adoption is a sibling set of three, with few healthy family members, a lot of criminal involvement and in incarceration, and years of trying to find a way for parents or family to be a resource. There were only a couple of healthy family members but they were unwilling to take on 3 young children. Unlike the usual assumptions, we had zero plans to adopt them and would have gladly welcomed family for them. Yet if we didn’t adopt them, they would have been moved again to non-relatives, which would have increased their trauma, so we did the right thing for them. I don’t say this for any accolades—I say it because the reality for these kids is that at this moment in time, we’re their best option.

So yes, in my opinion, there are ways to ethically raise children, even if you can’t have sex with a man.

Don’t Erase Identity

Today’s story –

I work with this guy who’s sister lost her 4 kids. Of those 4, he and his mom have 3 of them. When the children went into Child Protective Services care, the baby was not given to the grandma but to a foster family, a lesbian couple.

I was talking with my coworker yesterday and he said they just went to the baby’s second birthday party. Apparently, they have a good relationship with the couple. He told me they’re about to adopt his nephew and change the baby’s whole name. He said one of the wives comes from a similar situation and her adoptive family changed her name and she was glad they did because she hated her original name. So they’re changing his name, so that he doesn’t grow up hating his name like she did.

I told my coworker, the little boy will likely grow up hating his name because they changed it. I also told him that changing the little boy’s name means his original birth certificate will be closed and sealed. Doing this is destroying a part of that little boy.

My coworker said he doesn’t like it either but understands why they want to do it.

Just ick though, ugh.

When Something Doesn’t Feel Right

From Slate.com’s Dear Prudence.

Titled – Help! I Think the Kids We’re About to Adopt Are Being Wrongfully Taken From Their Family.

Subtitled – The parents may be incarcerated, but the extended family seems totally qualified to raise them.

My husband and I (both white men) decided to become foster parents several years ago, with the ultimate goal of eventually adopting. We took the classes and our first placement came to us in September 2020, during the pandemic. In my estimation, we have done an excellent job with the day-to-day, but something has come up that I’m at a loss about. I’ll try to be brief.

In short, the agency has decided that the children’s extended family (they are two siblings, both parents are incarcerated for unknown “drug-related” reasons) is ill-equipped to care for them, despite owning a home, seeming to have a stable income, and already having raised two children previously. They have asked us to step in and proceed with a full adoption. My husband wants to do this as he has always wanted children, and these two are pretty awesome. I am very hung up on a number of things that can be boiled down to: I feel like we are stealing someone else’s kids. We don’t know (and the agency won’t say, for “privacy” reasons) why the parents are incarcerated, and we don’t know why the extended family has been ruled out and denied custody (they really seem fine, stable, nice, and they are interested in the kids), also for “privacy” reasons.

This seems insane to me. What if the parents are in jail for possession, or some other goofy crime that God knows I’ve committed 8,000 times myself (in bygone years)? What if the extended family is perfectly fine but has been precluded due to some bureaucratic nonsense issue like lacking paperwork? We live in a large urban area and the foster system is known, according to them, for its diligence, but this still feels icky. Both our families are pro the adoption, and I’m the only one pointing out red flags. They think it’s because I’m not “fully committed” to the idea of adoption or having kids, but I can tell you I’ve been agonizing over this and can’t get past the lack of data we have on how the kids have come to this point. They are Latinx kids caught up in foster care and the carceral state. Am I overthinking this? Should we trust the agency’s process? What should I do?

I don’t entirely agree with Prudence’s response – but here it is.

I think your concerns are very, very real and very thoughtful. But the thing is, they are about the system, not about this one adoption. Declining to move forward won’t free your kids from that system and all of its problems—it will (as far as I know; hopefully a reader will correct me if I’m off base here) simply lead to them being placed with another family that may or may not be as loving and sensitive as you are.

I think you should do it, and make it a priority to give the kids as much contact as possible with their family of origin, and as much reassurance as possible that they are not terrible people. So no, you’re not overthinking it at all. You are thinking about it the perfect amount. And I have a feeling you’ll put the same amount of thought into all the future aspects of raising Latinx kids and the many complicated issues that come with being an adoptive parent.

I Admit I Am Old School

This not the first time it has come up. I am doing my best to recognize changing norms and find a good level of acceptance within my self. For one thing, among those changing norms is a recognition of the trauma that every adoptee experiences. Another is same sex couples and the frequent desire of these couples to go beyond marriage to parenting. There I do struggle with having grown up with a certain kind of mindset that believes optimal for children growing up is having both a male and female role model. I am also realistic enough to know that isn’t always possible. We have several single mothers in my mom’s group. Some chose to enter into pregnancy without a male partner and some became widows after their children were born. In both cases the children do seem to be thriving and I am a witness to that fact.

Today the question was asked in my all things adoption group – What are your thoughts about the Buttigieg’s impending adoption? I didn’t know about it until I saw that. So I went looking and see that this male same sex couple is at least enlightened enough to have been seeking “a baby who had been abandoned or surrendered at short notice”. Yet, we are talking about an infant it would appear. I once had a discussion with a friend who was good friends with a male same sex couple who was raising a little girl who they had via a surrogate. I expressed my reservations about that situation honestly. I have less concern about a female same sex couple where one contributes the egg and the other carries the pregnancy. There is still the issue of the child being donor conceived and how some sperm donors have fathered a multitude of genetically related children.

I am glad my boys have their father as a male role model. I am glad they have me as a female role model. There are a lot of gender issues in our modern society. There is toxic male culture but my boys are home schooled so they aren’t exposed to very much of that in their daily life. It’s enough that they have witnessed me have to push back on some of that at home. Thankfully, my husband is for the most part respectful, appreciative and considerate of me. With over 30 years of marriage completed, there are bound to be moments that aren’t sterling.

In these days of gender equality, marriage equality and equal employment opportunities, it might seem odd to even contemplate discussing the topic of a male parent versus a female parent. Undoubtedly many well-adjusted children are raised in single gender families making the equality of parenting question seem out-dated and narrow-minded. I do understand this.

However, there are a number of ‘experts’ who agree that the influence of both a female and a male are vital for proper child development. This diversity give the child a broader, richer experience of interactions. I found an article that shares the perspectives of Dr Kyle Pruett of Yale Medical School who notes that females and males parent very differently.

If you are at all interested, you can read about his perspectives in this article – Do Children Need a Male and Female Parent? “Need” is probably too strong a concept given the realities. I would say in a perfect world . . . but this isn’t . . . is it ? So adoptions still continue to happen today. They probably always will but reforms in the practice are still possible and adoptees are leading the charge to make reforms possible – keeping genetic and identity information intact – even after an adoption.

Strong male/female influences can be created through other family members such as an aunt or uncle, grandfather or grandmother. In an imperfect world this is a reasonable alternative method of supplying male or female role models in single sex households.

What It Costs

A few days ago, the New York Times had an article titled What I Spent To Adopt My Child. Sharing some statistics, facts and excerpts today.

Each adoption process shares the same ultimate purpose: to unite children who need families with those that want children. Yet, despite this common goal, the price tag of adoption in the United States varies widely.

The cost depends on what path you choose: If adopting through the public foster care system, your total out-of-pocket expenses can be next to nothing. If you hope to adopt a newborn, however, the cost can reach $45,000 or sometimes higher if you’re adopting from outside the country.

There are two main paths to adopt an infant in the United States: through a lawyer, often referred to as an “independent adoption,” or through an agency. An independent adoption can cost $15,000 to $40,000. My youngest sister chose through a lawyer. Some of her living and medical expenses were covered by the adoptive parents. Prospective parents are responsible for finding a birth mother. My sister received several packets from hopeful adoptive parents and shared them with me for my own impressions about her choice. Her choice was always her own and she always knew she was going to surrender her baby from early on in her pregnancy.

My other sister’s surrender went through an agency. When adopting through an agency, costs can vary by state, ranging from $20,000 to $45,000. The cost covers organizational, legal and medical expenses. And all agencies operate differently. It is up to the prospective parents to carefully review what is and is not covered in their rate prior to signing with any agency.

One same sex male couple in this article who adopted a 9 year boy out of Foster Care comes the closest to one of the better outcomes. Older children in Foster Care need loving and stable homes more than most of the infant adoptions (which are primarily due to financially unsupported mothers). This couple recently celebrated 14 years of marriage. Seems stable enough to me. One of the partners in this relationship is an adult adoptee. When asked to total the out-of-pocket expenses this couple allocated toward their adoption, one said, “At the risk of sounding glib — gas money. Otherwise, nothing. No processing fees, or surprise $1,000 bills here and there, and that’s very typical of the foster care experience.”

You can search the NY Times for this article. I’ll even give you the link – What I Spent To Adopt My Child.