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Have you been enjoying our impromptu look at birth parents and adoption issues around the world? Me too! It really wasn’t my intention for a series of posts this week but other countries are just putting out a bunch of information and I’m gobbling it up! Today I learned a bit about birth parents in Barbados from a piece in The Nation Newspaper.
What I found most interesting was the age of birth parents in that country. While the Evan B Donaldson Adoption Institute study on birthparents taught us that American birth parents don’t frequently fit the stereotype of the teen mother, I was still a bit shocked to read about the average age of Barbados’ birth parents.
Women over 30 top the numbers of those who put their children up for adoption, with teenagers being the least likely to exercise this option.
Over thirty? Wow. When I think about mothers over thirty in our country, I think of ones who have already put in some time in the career world and have made that conscious decision to have children. Of course, there are lots of unplanned pregnancies for women in their thirties as well (as statistics say 50% of all pregnancies are unplanned) but, again, that’s just the thought that comes to mind: a woman (and her partner) who are making the conscious and ready decision to start a family. So, yes, I’ll admit to being caught off guard by the fact that the majority of women relinquishing in Barbados are over 30. Even still, mothers over the age of 30 in America have placed children for adoption and will continued to do so.
The reasons parents in Barbados choose to place are similar to those of American birth parents. Financial reasons, concern about quality of life and a better environment for their child to be raised top the list. She did mention, however, that some birth parents with parented children place simply to give adoptive parents a child. This, of course, made my head spin a bit. I don’t know if that was the wording chosen by the birth parents or the spin put on it. I’d be interested to talk with a birth parent from Barbados who is supposedly to have placed for this reason.
One thing that pleased me about the article was how it was mentioned that it is not “easy” for birth parents to just relinquish their child.
Bayley, also a senior child care officer at the CCB, said birth parents who wanted to place their children up for adoption had to undergo a series of counselling sessions to prepare them to understand what they were undertaking.
Did you ead that, as I did: they had to undergo a series of counselling sessions. Isn’t that what I’ve been talking about (forever, over and over) needing in our country? And people tell me things like, “No, you can’t force people to undergo counselling if they don’t want it.” Sure you can. No, they might not be receptive. They might not listen to a word you’re saying. But if the counselling is provided, birth parents then cannot turn around, like so many of us are able to, and say, “Well, I wasn’t told about this.” If we’re fully informing our expectant parents about the ins and outs of adoption, both legal and emotional, we’re then doing right by the entire triad.
Interestingly, Barbados also has something in place that a group of birth parents were just discussing on the forums. In the country, newborns cannot be placed until they are six weeks old. I can tell you that would never fly in our country but, well, it’s very intriguing. Allowing parents time to make that decision (which they’ve been counseled about) and time to bond. Very interesting concept.
Moreover, the article mentioned that contested adoptions rarely go through. I also give a big cheer to this idea. It removes the years-long battle that usually erupts over a contested adoption.
I think our system could learn a lot on the ethical treatment of expectant parents and birth parents by looking to Barbados. But will anyone?
