This is for Rob
RRBBS: Reading Bloggers Corner Thread
1. Not all antiadoptionists are “birthmothers who regret their relinquishment decisions, years after.” Some are (and it’s valid — don’t dismiss them because they have regrets “years after”) but some have more recently grown to regret their decisions. Others didn’t get to make decisions; their hands were forced. And many — this is important, Rob — many are adult adoptees and many of them had parents who didn’t support them as they struggled with their own adoptions. Also the antiadoption movement sometimes overlaps with the adoption reform movement. I would say I’m an adoption reformist — I’m obviously not anti-adoption but I wouldn’t say I’m pro-adoption either. I’m pro-choice, which means I support women making empowered decisions and not being bullied, forced, or coerced into family planning decisions.
2. I don’t think you need to “be in favor of a very open adoption” and none else to have a good adoption. I think you need to be honest, ethical and upfront. A great adoption takes into account the feelings and needs of all its members. It has adults who start out in more or less the same place, who are willing to reconsider their decisions/positions as the child grows, and who are willing to eventually give control to that child. It’s flexible, accepting and has appropriate boundaries, (which are different for every family). I think that because adoptive parents are ultimately responsible for the well-being of the children they are blessed enough to care for and because they are the most powerful members of the triad, that they need to work hard at being self-reflective to be sure that their decisions aren’t based on fear, jealousy or self-pity. Also I am an adoptive parent and so obviously my focus is going to be on what I see as my responsibility. I’m sure as heck not going to lecture to birth/first parents about what they “should” do — I will leave discussions of birth/first parent ethics to people who can speak personally to that experience.
3. That you cannot truly appreciate your transgression for sending that email boggles my mind. You told me that you deliberately sent it to antiadoption activists because you thought controversy would net you more play. But you also sent it to first parents who are personally struggling with their own adoptions and are NOT activists — people who write only from their individual experiences, who are generous with their attention to other triad members and who have never used their blogs to promote or put-down adoption. It was inappropriate and it was hurtful. It was wrong. And it showed tremendous insensitivity to adoption issues, which — considering that you’re a wannabe adoptive parent — is pretty darn disturbing.
4. Why not question the validity of the blogger? Because this is one of those leap of faith things. If she’s scamming to get baby blankets, so be it; I can spare a baby blanket or two. Sometimes an act of kindness isn’t about the person on the receiving end.
5. I’m not sure why you see guilt as a motivating factor. Here’s my deal: I love the woman putting on this charity event. I respect her, I appreciate her generosity and I have learned a lot from her. KimKim is a fiery personality in the online adoption community and yes, she and I fundamentally disagree about adoption BUT there’s a lot we agree on and if I can support her by supporting this woman she has adopted, that’s good enough for me. Will it make a difference for this woman (assuming she is for real)? Maybe. Sometimes knowing that there are people who care is enough for a person to step forward to a better place. Sometimes knowing that there are people who care is enough for a person to make a decision more freely (like Suz’s cousin who did ultimately choose to place her baby).
6. Personally my tzedakah has always gone to women and kids in crisis (I worked at a shelter, remember?) so the only difference for me is that this time the handy donations I grab when I’m out and about will go to a P.O.Box instead of a drop box here in town. You can tell that Rush Limbaugh on your shoulder that it’s a mitzvah.
7. It sounds like you might want to dismiss me because I have “genetic children of [my] own” but where did you get that idea that adoptive parents aren’t allowed to adopt for selfish reasons? Heck, you think I took Madison on as a daughter to help Jessica??? Like I’m heaving a beleaguered sigh and parenting my daughter for charity? Oh Rob, you silly silly man. Of course we adopt because we want to be parents first and foremost. When we talk about selfishness we’re talking about people who put their own needs first in an adoption. People who will lie about openness; people who will Fast Track an adoption; and people who will put their driving need/want for a child above the grief of someone else by, say, sending out a plea to pimp out their “Dear Birthmother” video.
Rob, you just don’t seem comfortable with the realities of modern adoption. You sound awfully anxious to be a parent but you don’t sound ready to be an adoptive parent. You just don’t. You sound as clueless and as whining and as self-absorbed about your own difficulties as ever.
This is the last I will speak to Rob-without-a-clue on this here blog. And I’m doing it publicly because this guy is a publicity hound so he probably doesn’t care and also because I’m not registering on his stupid blog to make a non-anonymous comment. Bleah.
Hi Dawn -
Thanks for putting this so beautifully. It is the wanton cluelessness and lack of consideration for others that makes his approach so sad.
I am not anti-adoption in any way, shape, or form. However, I am pro-ethics, pro-compassion and pro-integrity. That is why I thought it was completely callous and unthinking to send vulnerable women an email asking them to use their pain to promote someone else’s desires. No one is guaranteed parenthood. There is no justification that can warrant exploiting others regrets for your gain, Rob.
I am an adoptive mother of two. I treat my children’s first parents with the same compassion, love and respect that I hope to be treated with. You give what you get Rob.
P.S. Guilt does not motivate me in how I feel about adoption, integrity does.
Right on. I am an adoptive mother but I wish that my daughter’s mother had been able to make a choice like Jessica made. I think adoption is great for my family, but I also recognize that it involves loss for all of us. I posted on Rob’s blog before I read your post. I should have just waited as you said it all.
You are right. Not ready to be an adoptive parent.
Oh and PS. I am not a “blindly supportive adoptive mother blogger.” I am a “wow..this adoption stuff is hard and I am the one benefiting the most from it so I better bust my ass to learn and process everything I can because I was lucky enough to get to raise my daughter, and even if things make me uncomfortable or push the limits of my understanding I better sure as hell do it because I am the lucky one here” adoptive mother.
There will always be a need for some form of adoption/guardianship..of orphans or children like Bug. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t help out a woman who wants to parent.
Baggage, I don’t wish the choice that Jessica made on any mother. I wish your daughter’s mother hadn’t been a damaged person and I wish Bug hadn’t been abused.
I wish you hadn’t experienced what you did too.
I wish I didn’t know what it’s like to grieve for your child.
I wish that nobody had trouble getting pregnant.
I do wish that more adoptive mothers were like you and Dawn.
I wish that people like Rob didn’t pass homesutdies. He is not ready to become an adoptive parent, please God, no.
I wish for so much but I never wish for a mother to be separated from her child, it’s bloody painful.
Ok I got my rant out of the way now I was thinking what do we disagree on Dawn
I think you guys are wonderful I truly do and forget to tell you that, you don’t realize what a big part of my healing you are so THANK YOU.
Dawn, why are you linking this sad person? He has nothing positive to offer and is like a big fat clichè of what is seriously wrong in the adoption community. Ok I just answered my question.
To answer his stupid comment about Ally whom we are all helping:
1.she is a real person and her situation is geunin.
2. she is not a teenage mum with her first baby, she had an 8 year old son and a 2 year old son.
3.she has studied and has a job.
4.she just left her abusive husband and it takes time to get on your feet after a separation.
5.she NEVER asked for help, she NEVER asked for money. THE IDEA CAME FROM ME FIRST AND NEVER FROM HER. I had to push her to accept.
6.Thank you to all the angels who are helping, please let me know if you want to be involved daisy-camille@hotmail.com
7. Short term help in this case is long term, we are helping her now which will get her going for the long run. We not only help her, we are helping 3 children too now. And not only that: we are filling our hearts with joy doing this, it’s the best feeling in the world.
Thank GOd for you guys,thank you for making me a softer person, thank you for taking me from being angry at the world and giving me faith in people again.
It all happens here at Dawn’s blog. Dawn, we need more chairs…..
Hi Kim.Kim,
What I meant was that I wish that Bug’s mom had a choice at all. She didn’t get a choice (and of course, this was because of her behavior) about the adoption. Even though, from what I read here, Jessica had a hard choice to make, at least it was her choice.
That is the same reason I support the big sister program…it should be about choice..not being forced.
Wow. I am sending clothes on to Alley. Like Dawn I would otherwise leave them at a shelter for abused women and children. Is she real? DOn’t know for sure, just know if she is it is a good use of my boys’ old clothes. I too am not anti-adoption just think it should be the last and freely made choice. Ignore Rob. If you watched the video you know he’s an odd duck.
DS-L
Dawn, this is well put.
I think the key to Rob’s perspective lies in this statement: “Why are we supposed to support people for their mistakes?”
Why would he assume Alley made a mistake? As I see it, her only mistake is being part of a culture that has failed her.
My son’s first parents were failed over and over by this system, and they make no bones about the fact that, if their financial situation was better, they wouldn’t have even considered relinquishing him.
I don’t see any mistakes in sight.
Ah. I thought this was the person who started the controversy. I read their blog/forum about 18 months ago, and was … startled … by their mindset. The extended family has some ideas about parenthood and entitlement that are … well, based in the 1960s era of adoption, it looks like. Lots of talk about being the “one and only” Lots of wanting secrecy REALLY to be best for all involved, never mind the studies or research or testimony of adoptees. A reluctance to accept contemporary ideas about adoption.
It’s hard to imagine that they’re alone, either.
Oh, and that “mistake” comment disturbed me. Because if crisis pregnancy = mistake, then of course adoptive parent = more deserving than bio parent.
We don’t have to help you recover from your “mistake,” we just get to benefit, by taking your child, instead.
{shivers}
Not everyone is meant to be an adoptive parent. That’s a stark truth that isn’t often discussed–but it is true. Infertility doesn’t give a couple a free pass to adoption or ensure that a couple will make good adoptive parents. I’ve long had the opinion this particular blogger may not be cut out for domestic adoption at this point. And this was BEFORE his latest stunt. He says they are taking down the blog–I wish they would take a break from pursuing adoption. Heck, keep the blog up and blog THAT. I hope that he and his wife take a very long look at what they REALLY want. Professional counseling might enable them to make a better decision about their future. Honestly, I just feel very sorry for them–not because of their opinion on openness (that really is the least of their issues) but because they seem to fundamentally not understand adoption. And that is just sad.
You know what, Dawn? I actually think they’d make pretty decent adoptive parents, even though they don’t know it yet. I’ve kept up with their blog on and off for about a year now, and I think theirs is a case of rhetoric engendered by fear, being mainly on the surface, and quite a bit of compassion underneath. The “extended family” has made my jaw drop on quite a few occasions, (acually, every time they write!!) but even they mainly seem fiercely protective of their “kids” and would probably come around.
They haven’t researched adoption as they should, (again fear) and at this point would probably have an easier time with an international program that involves no first parent contact, but easier isn’t always better. I think that once they actually meet and interact with the first parents they will realize that most of their fears were just chimeras, and that others are quite real and need to be worked through. That video was stupid, and I don’t for the life of me understand why they didn’t run it by you, if they know you, and sending it to first mothers who are grieving is - well - let’s not get into that. Dumb doesn’t cover it. But I, too, have botched up things pretty thoroughly in my life now and again, and depended on forgiveness. Of cource that is entirely up to those that were injured, as always.
To me, they seem two things - overly anxious to have a child (understandable) and afraid. Somehow, I get good vibes from them that they’d be able to deal if actually in the situation, and would not let the child down, or the first mother. Or themselves.
There are others that talk sweeter and frighten me more, because there seems to be a ruthlessness much deeper buried. Those are the types that I can see closing an adoption down the road, breaking their promises, etc.
All I know is that if my mom was saying the things that their mom says on my blog, I would tell her to keep her mouth shut. A potential birth mom could easily read her words..like she just called Bug “lucky”… and be very turned off on them as a couple. If I was choosing a couple to adopt my baby, I wouldn’t pick one if I knew the grandma had that kind of attitude towards me.
I’m late to the party as always!
Dawn, thank you for responding to Rob! I’m still scratching my head at the whole thing - the fact that he chose this approach, at his incredible lack of judgment and sensitivity, and at his sweeping generalizations about people he doesn’t even know (like us adoptive moms he characterizes as just wanting to “fit in” - meanwhile, I didn’t know him or his blog from a hole in the ground until his email popped into my mailbox.
I’ve made no secret that I struggle with feelings of guilt about adoption. But these are my personal feelings only, and in terms of adoption policy, that guilt translates to a desire for adoption to be ethical, to focus on the mother’s right to keep her child first, and when adoption takes place on the needs of the child.
Never on ensuring a source of babies for infertile people. And always on truth and honesty.
nice comments about tzedakah so i thought you would like to see what we
do at ziv tzedakah fund:
http://www.ziv.org
great direct giving. i think you and your fans will like it!
arnie
[...] Why I’ve gone blogging-lite: 1. To spend more time writing; 2. Because my emotional reaction to Madonna’s adoption and Rob’s enormous blunder made me realize that I have to take a step back from the craziness that is the adoption blogosphere; 3. Because Jessica is finally reading my blog and it’s made me feel like it’s all come full circle. (I’m so glad she is although it gives me stage fright, too.) [...]