Comments on: An interesting question

By: shannon

shannon — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:05:02 +0000

It also occurs to me that this question of who you would die for can be much more general than a parenting question.

Would you, for example, rush into a crowded intersection to push a toddler out of the way of a bus, even if you never laid eyes on that kid before?

I think I would. I think many people have this “protect children” instinct with regard to the whole species, not just the kids they are personally responsible for.

So the “who would die for” question is really kind of silly, and I don’t think it has as much to do with love as with instinct. Love is soooooooo much more complicated than that.

By: shannon

shannon — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:02:01 +0000

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I have also “step-parented” a nonlegal partner’s child and as far as my mother heart is concerned he was my first baby. I did always try to keep myself at a certain distance from him, knowing that I would not have a lifelong relationship with him or any parenthood rights or privileges. But crazy me, I fell in love with him anyway because he was a helpless child who loved me unconditionally. This made it impossible for me not to return the love. Yes. I would have thrown myself off a cliff for him if necessary.

I feel differently about my “own” adopted children because my responsibility for them is more concrete. But I do not love them more, or in a more real way.

Never had a bio baby, never plan to have one, so I can’t address that.

I’d appreciate it if people who never adopted would refrain from addressing THAT.

By: sarah

sarah — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 19:11:46 +0000

In my experience, biology and abuse have so often(tragically) been hand-in-hand that I don’t worry as much about “as good as.”

By: PhoenixRising

PhoenixRising — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 00:25:26 +0000

That’s an interesting quote, as removed from its context it appears to be a slur against adoptive parenting.

In context, what Rebecca said is that she feels differently about the child she lived with in her 20s, the now-teenage son of her then-lover, than she feels about the child she baked with her current lover.

It would be strange if she felt otherwise, I think.

That raises all kinds of interesting questions about privilege, race, hetereonormativity…I could go on. But it really doesn’t have anything to do with adoptive families.

What speaks poorly of Rebecca is that she’s surprisingly ignorant about the differences between step-parenting in a relationship that is not and could not be (at the time) socially or legally recognized, and adoptive parenting. It’s mighty entitled of her to work in this field and not bother to learn the first thing about that distinction.

But hey, since I’ve done both (lived with a woman whose child I could not be even a step-parent to, and adopted a stranger’s child to raise as my own) I guess it would be surprising if I didn’t know more than she does about the topic.

By: Whitequeen

Whitequeen — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 04:10:51 +0000

How can I be threatened by something so fundamentally wrong about me and my daughter?

Okay, can I say that with that one little sentence I was able to shake off all of the negative feelings that have been building lately.

I don’t know why, but every negative thing someone says about international adoption and IA parents and just adoption in general has been wearing on my heart and I’ve been taking it all so personally… like it was a truth about me and my future child (I’m a PAP through China)

Not now though. You said exactly what I needed to hear.

Thanks!!!