I’m answering the juciest one first
Feb 25, 2008 Adoption
I’m cheating because I was going to do these in order but a commenter responded to Suz’s question and made me want to answer it.
Question: Here is a thought, a crazy one at that, imagine a world where prospective adopters HAD to adopt from foster care - and they were no newborns there. Only say toddlers or older children? Would they? What would happen to adoption?
And Mags said: I would think it pretty hypocritical considering adopting a newborn is exactly what Dawn did. I do[n't] go for “do as I say, not as I do.”
So that made me want to answer it.
People would adopt toddlers and older children because there are lots of people who go overseas and do adopt toddlers and older children. In a lot of international adoption, the children are over a year.I did want a baby. That is why I chose a domestic infant adoption so that’s a sentiment I can understand. (We wanted to adopt a child under two years ‘cuz I was nervous about attachment issues. When we talked to folks about foster-to-adopt here in Ohio we got spooked because we were told that we would have to do foster care — not foster-to-adopt — and we didn’t feel great about bringing maybe siblings in and out of Noah’s live like that. We were also nervous about homeschooling and fostering although I’ve since found out we needn’t have worried.) The bigger question is what if domestic infant adoption disappeared? What would happen?
First of all, I don’t want domestic infant adoption to disappear because I’m pro-choice and I believe that women have a right to place their babies. My issue is that as domestic infant adoption is worked today it’s not about giving choices to women and is instead entirely defined by it’s “building families” mantra.
When we think about adoption we think about a child coming into a family. We rarely think about a child also leaving a family. I’m not just talking about whether or not we throw adoptive parents baby showers (of course we should) but about how what we think drives what we do. When we cease to think about adoption as a choice to serve expectant parents and their children and instead think about it as a way to build families for wannabe parents it changes the way we do things; it drives coercion both subtle and overt. My argument is that we have to tease apart our social constructs around adoption and be more mindful about what we’re doing.
So when agencies create policy first and foremost to serve adoptive parents, they are forgetting (or don’t believe) that adoption is a matter of choice. Agencies like Bethany (and I haven’t experienced Bethany so I’m going by their web page) see adoption as a solution to problem pregnancies — problematic as defined by the agency. They see hopeful adoptive parents as the means to solve single motherhood, teen motherhood, poor motherhood, etc. Their attention isn’t on serving women struggling to make choices; it’s about furthering their belief system.
My guess is that more reform would equal fewer babies placed within a certain segment of the population. Because adoption reform would only reform adoption — it wouldn’t solve issues of poverty or make families supportive or change people’s ideal visions of parenthood. It’s a start — a needed start — but until we actually make it possible for women to be mothers we will have women who need to place their babies. That’s outside the realm of adoption (subsidized safe childcare, training and educational programs, healthcare for all, affordable housing) but I don’t think we should throw up our hands and say, “Well, some women need to place so why change things?”
(I just think it’s a bad idea to create policy or define philosophy on Worst Case Scenarios — even though some women will still be too poor or too ill or too screwed up to raise their kids doesn’t mean it’s ok to treat every woman considering adoption like it ought to be a done deal.)
Shannon will tell you, Mama Rose needed the option of adoption. As she says, “… Mama Rose had crappy choices constrained by racism and poverty … .” (Obviously I edited the hell out of that quote but I wanted to have an excuse to link back to that entry.)
Adoption reform wouldn’t have solved things for Mama Rose because what she needed was so much more than adoption reform has to give. Adoption policy is a small piece of a big bad mess we’re living in. The whole mess needs cleaning up. Some people are going after the big ugly tangle of -isms that made Mama Rose’s decision inevitable and some of us are trying to clean up the edges — the policies informed by that big ugly tangle of -isms.
We get accustomed to not seeing the mess that underlies some of our most easily held assumptions and discussions like the ones we have on blog force us to look at what’s happening underneath.
February 25th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
That was a great answer, Dawn.
P.S. I hope my comment wasn’t overly snarky. I didn’t mean it to be.
February 25th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
People would adopt toddlers and older children because there are lots of people who go overseas and do adopt toddlers and older children. In a lot of international adoption, the children are over a year
There’s a bit of detail here that I want to tease out, because this is an interesting ‘what-if’ scenario to explore exactly to the extent that it’s counter-factual. The meat of Suz’s question and your answer is found in the fact that ‘no newborn placements’ is not the situation in the domestic system but IS found in international adoption. Since that’s my gig, I’d like to extend the thought a bit.
In many international adoption programs, babies and children are placed in orphanages or foster care at very early ages, but not available for foreign placement until a period of time has passed. (Guatemala has been a glaring exception to this and is in the process of changing…a lot of things.)
For some of us, that was the reason for pursuing international adoption: We wanted to adopt a baby, and we wanted to be fairly certain that the particular baby would otherwise have been raised in an orphanage. (Note that this is different than, We wanted to save our child from her birth country/culture/poverty. It’s a subtle difference but I think an important one.) We were not willing to adopt a child older than two at all, and that’s not always the case but is often the case in international as well as domestic private adoptions.
So for those of us whose motivations are as described here, an end to pre-birth placement planning wouldn’t change a thing except by taking some of the travel costs out of adoption. But I have learned, to my sadness, in the decade I’ve been listening to other parents talk about adoption that stopping the conveyor belt of newborns into ‘more appropriate families’ might actually make some PAPs into non-parents.
February 25th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
I didn’t read it snarky — I read it like you make a good point!
February 26th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Something similar is happening here in NL. There are only 5-7 adoption agencies (for int’l adoption, there is close to no domestic adoption), and the largest one recently decided not to accept applications for non-special needs adoption any more. Guess what? Almost everybody now applies to adopt SN children!
February 28th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
“Agencies like Bethany (and I haven’t experienced Bethany so I’m going by their web page) see adoption as a solution to problem pregnancies — problematic as defined by the agency. They see hopeful adoptive parents as the means to solve single motherhood, teen motherhood, poor motherhood, etc. Their attention isn’t on serving women struggling to make choices; it’s about furthering their belief system.”
I agree with most of what you said, especially the last paragraph. But I have to speak to the quote above. I have direct experience with Bethany as a pregnant single woman, an interim foster care provider and an adoptive mother. Bethany was not like that for me in my situation. When I was pregnant and single I always felt they respected me and supported my decision making. I did not place my baby for adoption, I raised him. Fifteen years later I was working with Bethany again as an interim care mother. I adopted two sons through Bethany as a single mother. Although I respect other women who did not have the same experiences I have had with Bethany, and I hear what they say about their experiences, I must say that single pregnant woman were not seen as a problem to the Bethany staff I have worked with.
But again - “Adoption reform wouldn’t have solved things for Mama Rose because what she needed was so much more than adoption reform has to give. Adoption policy is a small piece of a big bad mess we’re living in. The whole mess needs cleaning up. Some people are going after the big ugly tangle of -isms that made Mama Rose’s decision inevitable and some of us are trying to clean up the edges — the policies informed by that big ugly tangle of -isms.
We get accustomed to not seeing the mess that underlies some of our most easily held assumptions and discussions like the ones we have on blog force us to look at what’s happening underneath.” AMEN to that.
February 28th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Cloudscome, I am REALLY glad to hear that your experience has been different! Thanks for sharing that!
February 29th, 2008 at 3:20 am
Thanks Dawn. I hesitated to post my comment because I know other women have not had good experiences with Bethany and I don’t want to discount that. But I wanted to speak to my own experiences. I went to Bethany’s birthmother counselor and didn’t get coerced, and I’ve seen other first mothers keep their babies after coming to Bethany. I only wish it always turned out to that every mother got the best care and the right support…