Needing to focus
Dec 7, 2007 Adoption, Feminism/Politics
I’m in a Sondheim mood so he’s on rotating on my iTunes. I’ve got a big assignment due next week and am not as far along as I want to be. And I’ve got people coming over for Hanukkah and might want to prepare some for that. Jessica has my food processor so grating the potatoes is gonna suck. I’m hitting up the guests — they may as well make themselves useful, right?
I’ve been thinking about the open adoption brochure and thinking about informed consent in adoption. And I’m also thinking about the conclusion of my book.
I’ve mentioned this before but when I worked at the shelter (a shelter based on feminist ideals) most of the women we served weren’t feminists. And because I was 22-years old and pretty naive, this surprised me. I thought every woman was a latent feminist. I thought that once she saw the way the patriarchy was hurting her that she’d embrace feminism and we’d all be on the same side. But instead I was serving women who sometimes were very happy not being feminists and they didn’t blame the patriarchy for their partner’s abuse or their own entrapment; sometimes they blamed feminism.
Sometimes you just have to meet people where they are.
I think about this with adoption. How do you serve women who don’t necessarily want to be served? Adoption industry reform is needed and it’ll go a long way but it won’t stop women from placing their babies. And should it? If we’re empowering women then does it make sense to disempower their choices?
I’m not such a strong reformer that I think every single adoption that goes through is a failure of the system. I think there’s a danger of infantalizing women much like abortion waiting periods and the like. I want women to have options — including post-placement but pre-adoption options — not barriers. Barriers are infantalizing because it’s telling women they’re too silly to know their own minds. (Note here: I’m not talking about women brainwashed by unethical adoption professionals. This is a different issue.)
I was talking to Erin about this once. If a woman came to me and said she was placing her baby because she believed her child was conceived in sin and deserved a good Christian two-parent home, I’d want to talk her out of it. From my perspective, her shame and her singleness aren’t good reasons to place. But what do I know? I’m a feminist. I can’t force my values on her. What I would want for her is an agency that’s ethical, that will give her all the information (including that the parents she chooses could divorce, that she will likely suffer from post-traumatic stress, that her child won’t care that she’s single) but won’t force her to make a decision either way. There’s a bigger issue at play, which is that she’s accepted her broader culture’s values. If she chooses an agency that resonates with those values, well, that adoption is likely going to happen. I don’t like it. I’m a feminist who pretty easily rejects those “traditional” values. But I’m not the boss of the world and I’m sure not the boss of an individual woman making choices.
(Sometimes it sucks to be a liberal because if you’re a liberal you’re always saying, “Hey, you have a right to your point of view” instead of taking a more conservative stance, which is to tell everyone who doesn’t agree with you that they’re wrong. Yeah, I get why liberals are sometimes such a joke.)
Adoption — as much as domestic violence and equal pay for equal work — is a feminist issue because it’s about how we devalue women and how we devalue mothers. It’s about how we punish women for their sexuality and for stepping outside of rigid mores. Women place because the services our government provides are inadequate (the adoption agency workers I spoke with told me that the women who contact them know all about welfare and food stamps and work programs — many of them still can’t afford to keep their babies). And women place because they are told they are inadequate by their community leaders. (Which leads to an interesting conundrum — is it more ethical to adopt a baby from a woman whose hand is forced by poverty or from a woman whose choice is freely made? It’s arguable.)
So. How do we create adoption policies that empower women given that:
- Some women don’t want to be empowered.
- Empowerment doesn’t go a long way when you can’t feed your family.
I mean, this is besides talking about unethical lawyers and facilitators. This is beyond talking about entitled prospective adoptive parents.
I keep thinking that this is the crux of my book. I’m a pro-choice feminist and because of that I’ve painfully watched women choose very very poorly for themselves. At shelter I’d provide women with information and support and sometimes they went the wrong (to my eyes) way because of what I interpreted as internalized -isms and they interpreted as free will. But I’m a feminist and that means I support women to make their own decisions but also feel an obligation to work towards a greater understanding. Thus our outreach program at shelter. Thus our domestic violence support groups and parenting program.
In this way I think every adoption is unethical because it’s built on injustice. But given that this injustice runs deep, given that some women would strongly disagree with me that there even is injustice, what’s a feminist to do?
It’s hard to dismantle a system when the system is in play. Sometimes it means straddling two worlds to work within a system to make it better and working without to take it down. And sometimes it means living with a lot of paradox.
December 7th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
I think some women’s reasons for placement are much more complicated than lack of financial resources and the views of single motherhood. Some women don’t want to deal with their child’s father for life. Some women don’t think they want to be mothers period. Some women truly aren’t ready at that time to be mothers. Some women think they would be bad mothers because of their own childhoods… It really is a choice issue. No woman should be told she HAS to mother, any more than she should be told she HAS to give birth.
But you are right, that to make that informed choice, she needs all the information. I agree every woman must warned about potential regrets, long term grieving, etc. for themselves and their children, as well as potential financial options, etc . I don’t think most expectant parents are given this information in even a neutral manner. That’s a shame, because you are right, no adoption will be ethical without it.
December 7th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
This is awfully heavy for me on the minimal amount of sleep I had last night. But I have a few things to say. Apologies if nothing makes sense. Blame Parker and the fire in town last night.
“If we’re empowering women then does it make sense to disempower their choices?”
This is where I stand on a lot of reform issues. I think less women would place if they were FULLY informed about the ins and outs of adoption. I think that, in itself, is what is needed: full disclosure of all the issues that surround adoption. I believe that because I was lied to and/or deceived by our agency because I wasn’t informed that OA’s were not legally binding in our state. (And a billion other errors.)
As a pro-choice birth mother, I get a lot of flack. It’s automatically assumed that I should be pro-life because I chose to carry my pregnancy to term. And that’s the point, isn’t it? I chose to carry to term. I had a choice. Of course, then the choice to place gets all blurry since there was deception and coercion involved… and that’s what we need to remove, really. You can’t blur the lines on womens’ choices or they aren’t really THEIR choices.
I have more to say but Nick says it’s time for lunch. Where did my morning go… oh, right, NO WHERE.
December 7th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
did you work at the local d.v. shelter?
December 7th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
I stand firm that its not about the mother entirely, or even at all. Its about the child.
Adoption, is, after all, in the best interest of the child, right? (Sarcastic laugh).
If a women wants to surrender her child to adoption, ensure she knows truly all the pros and cons and obtains those from an NON BIASED source. Direct her to do what is truly best for her child - and not for herself - and certainly not for any Prospective Adopters.
Women and men need to be held accountable and responsible for the children they bear. My opinion only.
December 7th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
[...] Open Adoption Support var sc_project=696183; var sc_invisible=0; var sc_partition=5; var sc_security=”100cf657″; _uacct = “UA-2724559-1″; urchinTracker(); _qacct=”p-b0ktj-uTN0uA2″;quantserve(); ← Needing to focus [...]
December 7th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
I have a rough time with this because until the child leaves her body, I think it’s about the woman. I think we both agree that the “best interests of the child” are too often inflated to seem more important than the best interests of the woman. As in, your baby deserves more than you could ever give. Yeah, what kid doesn’t????
December 7th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
This is a heavy topic, and I am tired.
First I’m digressing. Dude, die hard liberals are oftentimes the most intolerant people i’ve ever met. Living in the bay area was a nightmare, because they were “tolerant” of every position except mine as a conservative Christian. LOL I have never understood or experienced discrimination in my life until we moved there. One “tolerant loving man” wouldn’t sell us his eggplant at the farmers market after we got into a conversation and he found out John was in the military. But I love your liberal feminist self Dawn, cause you actually practice what you preach and all those terrible cliches that mean walk the talk.
Second, I don’t want adoption to go away. I think that needs to be in the realm of choice for women. I want adoption to change, evolve, and start serving women and their children, and stop serving p-aparents. I fear it doesn’t serve the right people way to often.
I do think that the rights of a child always are more important than the rights of their parents, but that doesn’t automatically mean that relinquishment is in the best interest of the child. It isn’t in many of the domestic cases I know. That doesn’t mean that the adoptive parents are bad, or wrong, but that the baby would have been just fine without experiencing the trauma of seperation.
There are situations that I wouldn’t accept placement for. If it were solely financial, I wouldn’t, or the sin example above, or she wanted to finish her education or whatnot. There are situations that I don’t feel are right to place under, and I couldn’t take placement of that child. There are other families out there that would be comfortable with that.
But at the same time, we were willing to accept placement with Punky, though I spent much time trying to talk her out of it. So I can’t make such a blanket statement as the above either. Once you are in the situation, things change.
I’m tired, thus circles..
December 7th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
oh and I’m not one of those folks who think it is a good reason to place if a woman gets pregnant and isn’t married and wants her baby in a two parent household. While I am a Christian and understand why she may think that way, I don’t believe the scriptures speak to that subject. Often that is accompanied (even by natural moms) with the “wrong womb” theory. But God doesn’t make mistakes, so he didn’t put my daughter into the wrong womb.
December 7th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
You have really explained a lot of what I think. That yes, we need to reduce the number of adoptions because many adoptions are coerced. But if a woman is educated about all of her choices, all of the ramifications about what each choice entails and still choses adoption, then we need to try to respect that choice even if we don’t personally agree with it, even if it’s one that we wouldn’t make, even if we think she could parent the child. Ultimately, it is her choice and we need to respect her choice.
Just like in other matters, even if I don’t agree with a choice that a friend has made or she’s made a choice that I wouldn’t make, I still need to respect her right to make the choice that is right for her life. As long as she has all of the information available, all of the options, knows what all of the ramifications of each decision may be, then I need to step back and support the decision that she makes and support what her ultimate decision is. I need to respect what that decision is.
I applaud this post, Dawn. You have a way of putting into words what are complicated topics, things that I have thought of but are too muddled in my mind to put down on the computer screen.
Thank you!
December 8th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Dawn, I just wanted to say how much I love your last paragraph, about straddling two worlds and living with a lot of paradox. I think that is so important to keep in mind and so true, and you said it much better and more clearly than I ever could.
December 8th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
I agree about paradoxes that exist in adoption. I went through a season of questioning my son’s mother’s choice and ultimately had to accept that it was just that -HER CHOICE, under those circumstances, at that time. The hard part is that those circumstances change and things may look different a couple years down the road. That’s where an agency that really has the client’s interest (the mother) at heart, and is truly educating her about the process, is so vitally important.
My mind spins with all of the complexities involved in adoption reform. What about the agency that DOES inform the mother of potential post traumatic stress, but the mother isn’t in a mental place to hear and digest that? What about the fact that it might not become real to her until it happens? I don’t really know how to process knowing that even well-informed women sometimes feel they made the wrong choice.
Right now we are thinking about adopting again and trying to find an ethical agency/program/placement is of utmost importance. However it’s not like you can go down a checklist and ensure an ethical adoption. Like Erin said, once you’re in the situation, thing’s change. And when you’re working with a woman who wants to place, but you don’t agree with her reasons for placing, that’s a real challenge. I don’t know how many agencies would appreciate you trying to talk a woman out of placing…but if they’re not doing it…well?
December 9th, 2007 at 6:19 am
I was thinking about my situation with Punky tonight. The first time around with her, I didn’t think she could parent. She was a recovering addict, a very new recovering addict, like two months, and seemed to have every intention of living a very rough life.
I vaguely remember mentioning parenting to her. I asked if her counselor had talked about the parenting option with her, and she said not at all.
After the baby was born and came home with us she realized she COULD be a good mom.
And she is.
The second time around I didn’t agree with the reasons she wanted to place with us, and I told her that over and over.
But was that my responsibility? Yes because it wasn’t being done and if we were going to parent this little boy we needed to make sure that it was done right.
But in the end, even though I didn’t fully agree with her reasons for placing, I would have accepted placement. First off I love her dearly and trust her judgment. We were going to give her plenty of time post placement to change her mind. Second, I know if she was going to place, that she would have the best shot at a good healthy ethical adoption if she placed with us. That wouldn’t have been guaranteed with another family.
So once you are there, in the midst of that situation it becomes harder.
I’m not trying to sound arrogant, but I know that we are going to do our best to insure our children are adopted in the most ethical possible fashion. I don’t know that for some other families. So I’ve got another question. Do people like us need to continue in the system to insure a continued push for ethics? A traditional domestic infant adoption where we do the books and are picked by a mom is probably something that we won’t pursue again. I don’t know that I have the emotional strength for something like that again, but sometimes I wonder if we are exactly the type of people who should do it again.
December 9th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
[...] were far more children here than I remember seeing) and Jessica came, too, so we talked some about these posts and about the brochures I’m supposed to write (and she told me about this [...]
December 15th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
Again, mostly agree, but some uneasiness.
This right here: “I’d want to talk her out of it. From my perspective, her shame and her singleness aren’t good reasons to place. But what do I know? I’m a feminist. I can’t force my values on her.”
Yes, you are right, you’re not qualified to address those issues with her.
But a competent, licensed psychologist IS. And ethically, SHOULD.
Shame is not a value. It’s not a good reason for making decisions. And if a woman is making a decision out of shame, she SHOULD be challenged on it(appropriately, with all the therapy-techniques counselors have learned, in a way that will be useful to her). Not challenged by you, but by someone who IS qualified and SUPPOSED to do so.
There’s emotions, and there’s information. Right now, unethical treatment takes place on both levels. Ethical adoptions won’t be possible until BOTH issues are addressed. And informed consent laws only address one of those issues.
December 16th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
[...] tactics, emotional blackmail, informed consent, relinquishment | Dawn wrote two strong, articulate, smart posts about adoption ethics [...]
December 16th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
[...] Madison dances about three feet from my laptop. This entry may suffer as a result.) In response to this post she said, in part: Shame is not a value. It’s not a good reason for making decisions. And if [...]
December 18th, 2007 at 4:39 am
[...] know enough, I haven’t listened enough, to talk about this. Other people, like Dawn and Nicole, are talking about it more critically and thoughtfully than I could.) I’m going to [...]