More answers (for the short ones)
Feb 25, 2008 The Story of My Life
My hair: It looks pretty darn good. She ended up doing highlights with foil over a brown that’s lighter and more reddish than I had before. The stylist isn’t as enamored with me going grey as I am but she’s game to get me there if that’s what I want. She says the highlights will make it easier to let my grey grow than if I’m solid and next time we’re gonna make ‘em chunkier. I do like the cut a lot (she used a razor on the whole thing instead of scissors mostly with razors for details).
Who I’m voting for: I was sure it was Obama until I thought of voting early and realized I still wasn’t sure. I’m likely going that way — it would be hard to change my mind — but it still makes me a little sad. Couldn’t I just vote for both of them??? The real question is do you think he’ll ask Edwards to run with him?
Biggest parenting success so far: Honestly, I just don’t think this way much especially because from what I can tell the pre-teen years are pretty darn easy in comparison to what comes next. But I guess if I’d have to say something I’d say the fact that both my kids are able to talk about their feelings easily and expect to have those feelings respected.
Biggest parenting failure so far: Ummm, I wish I was better at keeping my kids to their chores but I so suck at chores that I can’t get it together enough to make them do stuff on a regular basis. Like I have a vague wish that Noah did laundry but don’t want it enough to make him do the laundry. And since I only haphazardly do the laundry I am a poor role model.
How did I know my family was complete: We originally wanted four kids because we only had one and were naive. The truth is, Madison was so hard as an infant and so busy as a toddler (remember that child started walking at eight months) that we knew we were done-in. And after that first year with Pennie we knew we could never do another adoption. For one, I can’t imagine having a relationship with any other woman like we have with Pennie. For two, it would feel like a weird betrayal to try (my issue, not hers). For three, my feelings about adoption have changed enough that we’d have to adopt a different way and I don’t have the energy to figure it out. Besides which it’s all moot because we’re full up with parenting over here. (I still have fantasies about doing respite care someday. I wouldn’t want to do long-term foster care, I don’t think, but I’d like to do the kind of care that gives foster parents a break now and then or emergency placements. I don’t know. I’m naive about that, too. And I wouldn’t do it until the kids were old enough to have a say in it.)
Have I ever been to Halifax, Nova Scotia: No. I have never been out of the US of A. But if I ever get up that way I’m heading to Prince Edward Island because I’m a literary girl!
Men getting pregnant, feminism and adoption, my life plan — those are biggies. I’m saving those out.
And Gloria, I like it when my readers give me a break and ask questions! But get me off your pedastal — I’m afraid of heights. Besides, did I mention my kids don’t do laundry? I’m no role model!
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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.
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Tags: adoption ethics, adoption reform, domestic adoption, feminism, homeschool, Homeschooling, infant adoption, Noah
I know I keep repeating myself
Feb 25, 2008 Adoption
I got a rather passive-aggressive email from an adoptive parent the other day that first told me everything I was doing wrong for the adoptive parent community and then gave me golf claps (you know: clap. clap. clap.) telling me to keep “fighting for the birthmoms.”
Some people are clueless because here’s the thing: the way we treat first mothers — or any other marginalized woman — is indicative of how we treat women. We’re all one bad sexual encounter away — real or imagined upon us — from being called a slut. Sooner or later any one of us could end up with a big old red A across our chest so it behooves us, I think, to pay attention to how the world treats women we think of as “not us.” Because we are all of us in this together.
I have to go to a meeting (that I’d rather miss) and you guys are likely sick of me and my little platitudes any old way.
Hey, I have an idea! You guys ask me stuff. Pretty please? About any old thing — I’m easy. (As you all know now, right?) I don’t care if it’s adoption or not. And feel free to challenge me or not.
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Tags: adoption ethics, adoption reform, feminism
There’s some wrong info here
Feb 25, 2008 Adoption
Like Madison not being 18-months old. But this was a timely quote, eh?
TheStar.com | living | Open adoption controversy
“Openness is controversial in a lot of different (online) groups I’ve participated in, particularly among adoptive parents,” Friedman, who started the group and the website openadoptionsupport.com, says in a telephone interview from Columbus, Ohio. “You’re emotionally raw around your own child’s position and you’re naturally defensive.”
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Tags: adoptive-parenting, Madison, open adoption, open adoption support
Story of my life
Feb 23, 2008 Blogging
Maybe I’m lucky enough to get to show you first because it’s been making the rounds! (Brett smirked, especially because I showed it to him and then headed down to the basement to growl at the computer screen.)
xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - By Randall Munroe
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Tags: internets