Shannon’s Mamaversary post (I had to take it here)
Feb 25, 2007 Adoption
Shannon said:
There might be orphans whose parents have died. There might be women who want to parent with people not genetically kin to their children. So sure, there would be adoption in that world. But there would not be such disparity of privilege–race, class, cultural and national privilege–that render some women adopters and some women first mothers automatically, almost as if stamped on their heads at birth.
And that’s actually what’s at the root of my (for lack of a better term) adoption-guilt (better term: feelings of humble responsibility). Whatever the reforms are, most times it’s the haves taking babies from the have-nots and no matter how good an adoption is and how ethical it is, it’s still based in social injustice however and wherever we’re adopting. (American Family and I have talked a lot about this because obviously it’s something she thinks about in her China adoption. But we both feel like there is so much overwhelming work to do and meanwhile there is this need for ethical adopters so NOT adopting doesn’t really save any babies from the adoption machine, which is a topic I could go off on but need to get back to the entry at hand so I’ll save it for another time.)
The things that make the smallest adoption reform changes so hard to get are the same things that make larger policy changes even harder. We don’t like women who don’t fit a specific mold, we don’t like mothers who don’t fit a specific mold, we don’t like poor people of any kind and we really don’t like poor women who are mothers. If women were valued — if mothers were valued — we would have universal health care and reproductive rights and decent, affordable child care. And one hopes that we also wouldn’t have an adoption system that preys on women and treats them like breeder mares.
To me it’s like the breastfeeding activism that was so important to me when Noah was small. The lack of support for breastfeeding (real support like reasonable maternity leave and time to pump at any job and not just the white collar ones) is at heart because we don’t care about women and we don’t care about kids.
As adopters I think, so where do we dive in? And I guess the answer is, wherever we can.
I think some of the small steps of adoption reform can help orient people to examine the bigger issues of social justice. To my eyes, whether it’s the predatory practice of an adoption agency without ethics or welfare-to-work reforms that push women away from their babies, it’s all about how we don’t care about women and we don’t care about mothers. To me, it’s all part of the same beast.
February 25th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
I think coming down on those agencies and the way they advertise is a good solid start. And make it illegal to advertise that the mothers get over it with a bit of time and counselling.
I think starting with one thing at a time is a good thing, you can’t bring down the whole giant but it you chop off it’s toes it won’t be able to walk as far.
February 26th, 2007 at 5:26 am
I’m thinking health care is pretty key. These days, that’s where I’m headed, because it seems like a goal we really could achieve with enough political will. Meike was saying they have only about 30 domestic adoptions a year and she chalks it up to decent access to health care that prevents crisis pregnancy in the first place and makes raising a kid that much more structurally supported. I do think health care (and child care!) are achievable goals.
February 26th, 2007 at 7:21 am
“To my eyes, whether it’s the predatory practice of an adoption agency without ethics or welfare-to-work reforms that push women away from their babies, it’s all about how we don’t care about women and we don’t care about mothers. To me, it’s all part of the same beast. ”
this is exactly it. thanks for articulating that, dawn.
February 26th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
It’s a hydra, and cutting off one head seems to give rise to three more, but that’s probably just my hopelessness talking. (In my state we’re still fighting for ANY regulation whatever of adoption advertising and the bill I helped write just got killed…what are women’s lives and health worth when we’re suggesting interference in free enterprise?)
Our first referral was a child who was due in 4 weeks, in a nearby metro area, whose mother didn’t have eligibility for more welfare benefits. When our homestudy case worker brought the file to a meeting, she said she was ashamed to work in a system that gave her such lousy options for this mom of two. (Which I think was appropriate, though not terribly helpful.) I was sick for a few days just reflecting on the reality that, for that mother, adoption wasn’t a first choice, or second or third–she just has no choices.
Speaking for myself, I was done with guilt after that. I’m willing to continue doing the futile in pursuit of the improbable, but damned if I’m going to feel more responsible than my neighbors for the many-headed beast…at least I know it’s out there, ravening away.
February 27th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
I would be ashamed to take a child from a mother who didn’t want to relinquish but was doing so because she felt she had no choice and it was based on financial reasons.
Nothing would make me take a child in that situation, I would rather give the mother money and help keep her family together.
Really there would be no other option would there?
March 1st, 2007 at 11:12 pm
[...] Shannon muses on adoption reform. SephardiLady cannot believe that parents send their teenaged children away on unsupervised vacations. MotherInIsrael recommends her favorite books on parenting. Aliyah06 at BakaDiary thinks she might be raising a Hobbitt. Barbara downplays the inconvenience caused by her daughter’s allergies to milk protein. I will admit that as a mother of kids with some food allergies, I haven’t always been quite as blase about the inconvenience of the whole situtation. [...]
March 3rd, 2007 at 4:39 am
This is absolutely right, Dawn, as always, thanks for putting it into such clarity.
There are so many levels on which the work can take place, from the simple education of a friend or acquaintance, to lobbying on a national scale.
But I truly believe an awakening is needed. I don’t believe that society in general makes the connection between society’s devaluation of women and mothers and unjust adoption practices. How do to that eludes me, but I hope someone figures it out, because I think it would jump start the reform effort.
March 20th, 2007 at 9:15 am
Thank you for this. I gave up my almost-three-year-old son to his grandparents because I couldn’t afford to keep him and didn’t want to go on welfare (and at that time I did not understand the changes that had taken place in the welfare system, so it’s just as well), and more recently I’ve been on the receiving end of some rather harsh judgment because I’m a poor mama again; a woman I’ve known online since the late nineties and who doesn’t like me so well anymore and has been trying to conceive (is now pregnant) said she didn’t understand how “someone like” me could conceive at the drop of a hat but someone stable like her had to take Clomid. There were almost nine years between my two children, but never mind that.
I had considered giving up this child as well, at least before she was born, because her father and I were having so many problems. One of the potential recipients on my short list guilt-tripped me because I ultimately decided that if I did give my daughter up it would be to my son’s grandparents to keep my children together. *Keeping my children together,* mind you, and this woman still felt entitled to judge me and guilt-trip me. Turns out she’s got so many health problems that in my opinion she’s not going to be able to keep up with an infant or a toddler anyway.
In both cases I would never have considered giving up my kids (and I did keep my daughter) if I’d had better financial means and social support. And it appalls me how entitled middle- and upper-class women feel to take the children of lower-class women. It’s pretty much turned me off to the idea of adoption as Great White Rescuer Of Women Of Little Means.