Perhaps Jan, as a birth mother blogger, it would be approriate to get to know more of the 'other' birth mothers, the ones who are drug or alcholol addicted, the ones who had their rights terminated for cause, and the ones who do not fit into the upper class. These are birth mothers too.

Another thought would be some degree of equal treatment. If you are going to seem to gush about the inherent wonderfulness of birth mothers, you might consider covering the 'other' birth mothers with more than "...not all birth mothers are alike". This is really about credibility, most of us know that birth moms are part of humanity, some are great, some are ok, and some are not. Just a thought. John

John--WHY?

Jan writes about domestic infant adoption 99% of the time. IF she wrote about fost-adopt, then maybe yeah, she should get to know the women who have their rights involuntarily terminated...

I do imagine it is very painful on them, too, though... I wish more of them would talk, speak out. It's such a complicated issue, losing a child due to unfit parenting... I imagine the stigma and shame are even greater than what we experience.

Back to domestic infant adoption, though... you know, it's just kind of hard to find women who really needed to relinquish voluntarily and did. I'm sure there are some out there, but... they don't seem to be online or in support groups.

The truth of the matter is.... it just seems more common to run into functional, good-mom-material first moms who voluntarily relinquished than really-not-able-to-parent first moms who voluntarily relinquished.

P.S. Where's the comment?

Nicole, there are mothers who have placed at birth due to addiction. There are mothers who have placed and are not middle or upper class. These are not mothers of older children with rights terminated for cause, but genuine birth mothers. This is part of the picture, that is why it should be covered, to settle for meeting the moms who will fit in your group is easy, but very skewed. It may take some doing to find these ladies, but someone who is very experienced in searches surely has the capability to do this.

All these kids who have FAE and FAS did not get it because the stork stopped at the bar. I'm suggesting that it isn't going to come off as very credible to just cover the super birth moms. John

John - How many women do you know who "voluntarily" relinquished? (Not the women who had their rights terminated because of abuse, neglect, etc.) I'm talking about women who approached an adoption agency and signed papers themselves.

I'm just curious how many of these women you actually know.

They are two very different categories of people, producing two very different kinds of adoptions, and it isn't right to lump them together.

Thank you Heather and Nicole for helping to enlighten John. I feel a whole post coming on about this subject.

The short response is: No, I have no interest in tracking down drug-addicted birth mothers who relinquished.

Nicole - I haven't found John's comment yet about "Super birth mom bloggers" - if I do, I will post it. Maybe John remembers where it is?

Hi Jan, wondered if you were going to respond or if only your troopers were going to do the grunt work. Touched a nerve I think. Look under Deb's posts for the super birth mom bloggers.

Jan, of course you aren't going to get to know the 'other' birth moms, its called 'beliveable denyability'. If you haven't met them you can know that they mustn't exist, or if they do, it is surely in small numbers, and no one can argue that you know better, you have carefully made sure you don't.

You are an expert at searching Jan and it would not be all that difficult for you to meet some of these ladies, you don't because you can pitch the line about the wonderfulness of bith mothers this way. So birth moms remain almost 100% wonderful but misunderstood women, iterestingly the same line that Nicole and Heather like so much.

New flash ladies, if you inquire about infant adoption, almost any agency will let you know that you may be asked to consider a baby that has been exposed to alcohol or drugs. They got that way because of the actions of birth mothers, two of my sons get to live with this for the rest of their lives. If the agencies are to be belived (yes, I can figure out your response), the percentage of newborns with this problem is considerable. Sorry ladies, there is a noticable chunk of your group that is not only not wonderful, they did harm to their child. Mother Terresa my butt. Yes there are some wonderful birth moms, they are only a part of the birth mother group. Anyone can make their group look good by excluding those who might make the group look bad. John

"Troopers to do the grunt work?" - Honestly John, when you were polite, I took the time to respond to you - sometimes in depth. However, I are not obligated to respond to you. Your recent tone makes me not want to do so.

That was uncalled-for, John. Looked at from your point of view, every blog could be considered to have its minions, which is what you appear to be calling anyone who agrees with Jan.

To the following point: "if you inquire about infant adoption, almost any agency will let you know that you may be asked to consider a baby that has been exposed to alcohol or drugs." Yes, it happens. I would also point out that agencies offer infants who were not voluntarily relinquished, but whose parents had their rights terminated. Normally, if a woman has the caring and thoughtfulness to consider adoption, she isn't a mess. As I always say, it is the women who SHOULD relinqish that don't, and the women that SHOULDN'T relinquish that do.

The point is, I don't consider women who had their children taken away from them part of "my" group. "My" group consists of women who didn't want to abort, weren't sure about parenting, and were told that the "selfless and noble" thing to do was to surrender. For whatever reason, whether because it happened to be true or because we were sold on it, we believed in that. So we relinquish, and then we get people like you trying to make us into what we are not - drug-addicted child abusers. Can you see how incredibly frustrating that is?

None of the hundreds of birthmoms I know and have personally met have been drug addicts or alcoholics. None of them ever thought about abusing a child.
Do women with scary problems like that exist among the "voluntary" relinquishers? I'm sure they do, and I would like to get to know them (because as Jan says, the stigma they face is even worse than ours). But the hundreds of birthmoms I have met have all been responsible human beings. While not every one is likeable, they are not the child-harming demons that you prefer to fixate on. I have nothing in common with that demographic, so yes, it is highly insulting when you try to tar me and others like me with that brush.

I completely understand why, as a parent who adopted from foster care, you tend to see birthmoms as bad people, and why you want to make sure everyone understands that not all first parents are good. I get that. What I do not understand is why you view the two systems - infant adoption and foster care - as analogous.

John - perhaps you can write soley about adoptive parents who are abusive? Thanks.

Jenna, you are right, there are abusive adoptive parents, I think some of those cases have been covered by the adoptive parent bloggers. Any group has some bad apples in it, including adoptive parents. Abuse is never right, and in my mind, is even worse when adoptive parents do it.

Heather, you are right, what I am talking about is balance. Yes there are wonderful adoptive parents, but there are also some who should never have been allowed to adopt. Are the bad guys in the majority? Not from what I have seen. But we are all adoptive parents, and it is not ok for us to say "We banish them from our group so that we will all look good."

This is what bothers me so much about Jan's posts, a huge lack of balance. It is one thing to say "Many of the birth mothers that I have known ...", you aren't claiming to be talking about the whole, you are talking about personal knowlege. If you are claiming or infering to speak for the whole, then it is not ok, or balanced to talk only about one part of your group.

Another problem is that Jan pushes one of the newer types of adoption, open adoption with frequent visitation. Families considering this option need to go into it carefully. Misrepresenting the birth mother population as surely only wonderful moms, may well mislead a first time adoptor into an adoption that overloads them to the point of failure. The one thing you ladies have in common is that you have not adopted, the stress level at the tough points has to be experienced to be appreciated.

Your point about the drug and alcholol babies surely coming from only involentary placements is not correct. Odd part of the system, a child entering the system will not be avalible for adoption for at least one year, usually it takes three years. Processing time. Any new born placement is a volentary placement, and according to agencies who help facilitate volentary placements, there are a number of placements from addicted mothers. They can't stop using, but the do know that pareting wouldn't work.

My point is NOT to paint you all with a brush so that you are all seen as defective moms. The whole group needs to be presented, because that is the group. The bad part of the group is not the majority, they simply exist. Many of you do fit the wonderful birth mother image, you will stand out more noticablly if the whole group is presented. If a teacher grades everyone in his class with an 'A', it isn't going to carry much weight, likely just an easy grader. If the class is shown with 'F' and 'D' students, as well as 'A' and 'B' students, much deserved credit flows to the responsible students. If it sounded like I was infering that you were the same as a drug mom, I apologise.

Jan, if you are going to use quote marks, the quote has to be exact. Yes Jan, sometimes you do let your troopers run interference for you. I have said before, you have great talent as a writer, and a great deal of unique personal experience. Don't downgrade what you write by ignoring balance. John

I am an adoptive mother and I am having difficulty with what I perceive to be a condescending and lecturing tone in your comments, John. If I am misreading these, I apologize, but even this last comment rubbed me the wrong way.

I am not one of her "troopers" and I don't really see her as having "troopers." I think that Nicole and Heather can speak for themselves and were simply doing so; it's done quite a bit on these blogs. Putting one's two cents in on a topic does not necessarily equal running interference for some general in an army. Please!

Also, I can totally see Jan's point. Regarding a later post that she's made -- when I am talking about adoptive parents in general, no, I'm not including the minority of adoptive parents who are abusive -- Joel Steinberg, the people who put their children in cages, those who have ended up killing their children. If Jan and Jenna are trying to show what the majority of first mothers are like, then of course they are going to focus on the successful, well-adjusted, educated first mothers.

I am way too exhausted to take this on in full, but the more comments I read the more frustrated I become. I realize that this has been your experience, John, but it is not everyone's experience. Do you write your own blog? If you don't already, maybe you'd like to share your experience on a blog. I mean that sincerely. You seem to have a lot to say and I'm sure that many people would benefit from your experiences.

In the meantime, I would hope that you can disagree with Jan respectfully and at some point (i.e. soon) let it go.

~ Judy, nobody's "trooper"

Judy - would you please email me? I tried to comment on your blog, but it would not let me.

adoptionsearchblog2@adoptionmail.com.