Attention people dropping by who haven’t read my blog. On this blog you will not find support for the following myths:

  1. Adoptive parents aren’t more privileged — they’re just more deserving.
  2.  First parents are by definition irresponsible.
  3. Women who are too young, too old, too poor, or too single make bad parents.
  4. There is no such thing as adoption loss.
  5. The adoption industry is just, fair and equitable.

Got it? Comments that argue any of this will go through (I don’t moderate anything but spam and once I deleted some guy who had some ugly things to say about Jewish people) but you’re wasting your time if you think you’re going to be changing any minds.

I left this in response to an ignorant comment (scroll down at your own risk): Privilege is “a special advantage or immunity or benefit not enjoyed by all.” My privilege as an adoptive parent is unearned. I am not better than my daughter’s first mother; I am luckier.

If we had to “earn” babies based on the rules (as Andrea, the commenter, describes these socially constructed ideals) I would not have any. I had sex very young, fairly often, with a number of different men before I met my husband. I didn’t happen to get pregnant until after I was married but only because my birth control (when I used it) didn’t fail. Sheer luck. I was less responsible that my daughter’s first mother and frankly quite a bit sluttier. The difference? She is more fertile. It’s damn unfair that her reproductive life is open to censure when she was more responsible and more discerning than I was. Lucky me, I get to hang the “good woman” sign around my neck because people mistakenly believe that I earned her baby. Listen, that homestudy ain’t all that hard to pass. What — some fingerprinting? A doctor’s approval? Signed checks?

I didn’t work harder; I got luckier. LUCKIER. That’s it. (My infertility saved my ass because seriously — ask my mother. I was sleeping around.)

You can’t look at any woman who had an unexpected pregnancy and assume ANYTHING about her or her behavior except that at some point she had sex. You cannot assume she did it willingly. You cannot assume she did it unprotected. Besides which, so what if she did? It doesn’t say a damn thing about her ability to parent.

Let’s play fair on this blog. I will promise not to lump every adoptive parent in with the predatory pedophiles who use adoption as their own means of procuring children and commenters like misguided Andrea can promise to quit making out like any woman who placed a child got the grief that she deserves.

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