e-mail
For quite some time, I have struggled to understand the positions that some adoptive parents take when there is talk of tougher guidelines to adopt or when adoption is criticized in general. After considering it for a time, I realized that when there is talk of making adoption requirements less stringent, birth parents are highly affected as well, but in a different way.
However, I finally had an epiphany of sorts and think I have reached a conclusion as to why many of us are so firmly entrenched in our differing positions. The love of our children motivates us in great part when these heated discussions are underway.
With different experiences as birth and adoptive parents, we are driven by the love of our children in different directions. I love my relinquished son with every fiber of my being. There are over thirty years worth of stored up love, and there is nothing I would not do for him. His experience with being adopted has been positive, and I am grateful that he has fared as well as he has. However, I feel reasonably convinced that had I raised him, he would have been much the same person, but without any adoption baggage.
Part of his good fortune with his adoption I attribute to sheer accident. His positive attitude also affects his outcome. In addition, the mother chosen for him has worked out well; she is a good mother. I also believe that part of the success for his adoption was because the agency that handled his adoption was reputable and not noted for cutting corners.
Whenever I hear about fast-tracking adoptions, cutting corners and/or eliminating more of the current safeguards (as feeble as some seem), my thoughts drift to my son. I play the “what if” game. There are many possibilities.
What if home studies had been streamlined and made less exhaustive before my son was adopted? What if he had ended up being adopted by parents who really should have been screened out as unfit to adopt? What if he had been abused? What if because corners were cut, he ended up with the worst adoptive parents on earth?
Those are things I think about when I hear adoptive parents complaining about how hard it is to adopt a child. When I hear adoptive parents moan about how long the wait, how intrusive the home studies or how many hoops they must jump through, I ALWAYS THINK ABOUT MY SON. (Sorry for shouting!)
If you met my son, you would think he deserved the best possible parents on earth. My son is bright, funny, hard-working (and hard-playing) and has the best heart you could ever find. He is the person that he is today because of what his birth father and I gave to him through our genetic gifts AND the love and care that his adoptive mother gave to him while he was growing up. He needed both to be who he is today.
I am glad that no new lowering of standards occurred before he was adopted. No books had been printed yet then to show ways to fast-track the process, by-pass normal procedures or even get around requirements that someone did not meet. Coercion was rampant, lies and secrets were the norm, but at least fast-tracking and skirting policies was not in vogue.
My son deserved primo adoptive parents – the very best parents possible. Every time I hear parents complaining about how tough it is to adopt, I think of my son and that he and every child deserves the best possible parents. It angers me for people to think that my son or any adopted child should be part of a fast tracked adoption that skirts legalities and/or ethics.
Next, I will discuss some reasons that I believe that some adoptive parents may react as they do.
Further Reading:
Birth Mother Reactions – the Process of Adoption
Photo by Jan Baker 2007
That’s true; my daughter is always in my mind. But some beefs I have with the whole fast-tracking mindset come from the experiences I had with the less-than-ethical agency that basically screwed me over, emotionally and from my child. Ethics are VITALLY important to me since mine were trampled ALL over.
Not all of my beef with the way adoptions are currently practiced comes from my love for my son (although that is very real). Anotehr large part of my position is the men and women I have seen hurt, taken advantage of, used and discarded, and then and sentenced to lifetimes of pain and regret. That motivates me, too.
I can only speak for myself, Jan. Admittedly, during the adoption process, it was incredibly frustrating. HOWEVER, I was never one of those people who wanted to fasttrack the adoption. In fact, we were offered to switch to another country when Vietnam went into an almost shutdown period, but we remained resolute because we were committed to Vietnam; we had been with that country’s program for a long time and did not want to change. This was before it closed down for a few years and it did open up again.
I myself get frustrated with adoptive parents who view adoption as a race — it’s NOT a race. You go through the process and it all works out. I understand the time put in and the frustration but I do believe that if the steps are taken and done properly, things do work out. Our homestudy was in-depth and exhaustive, and that’s OK. From start to finish, our adoption took 22 months, and that’s an international adoption — those are reputed to be “faster” adoptions. It doesn’t matter because I became a mom.
I guess my point is that not all of us want things to be easier or faster. Maybe the majority. Probably, unfortunately the majority. And definitely the most vocal want things to be easier and much quicker. But not all.
Just wanted to point out that little bitty thing. It sure was frustrating, and I am NOT a patient person unless I really have to be — and in this case, I just took it by faith that I really had to be. And I did. And it worked out as well as it could.
Good points in the post.
I’ll echo that statment, Judy!
Our adoption journey was three years, including a situation where we made the agonizing decision to relinquish our initial match due to questionable actions/ethics on the part of the laywer involved in the case. That decision was absoloutely agonizing for us and not only did we lose a child we were already bonding to, we extended our adoption journey by seven months. We surely did not choose the fast track. Most of the adoptive parents I was in contact with at the time were very supportive of us and didn’t encourage us to continue in a situation where ethics were so questionable.
That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Human nature can be pretty awful and I don’t have trouble believing that some adoptive parents have their own needs first on the agenda. But there are a lot of good adoptive parents out there, too…..
Awesome comments! I am going to talk more about some of the things several of you said in a upcoming post (or two).
“But there are a lot of good adoptive parents out there, too…..”
I do know that – I really do though sometimes it may not know.
Jan I appreciate these last few blogs.
I must echo the above in that I found the entire adoption process brutal and at times heartbreaking. I had to switch from one country to another because of an explosive political situation and in some ways it felt like a miscarriage. I mourned for several months before I could get myself together enough to put all of the paperwork through one more time.
Then it was months of waiting for my little guy – I adopted from Guatemala – before I could finally bring him home.
My biggest concern with longer processes? The attachment needs of children. It was tough bringing my son home when he was almost a year. He had a terrible mourning process, struggled on many levels emotionally, and it was just plain difficult to watch his pain and not be able to do a darn thing about it.
If only they could find a strong, ethical balance between protecting birthfamilies and not leaving children in limbo. That is what I hate to hear when some people mention adoption reform – children languishing for years in orphanages and foster care – and it really does happen far too much.
Love to tell you that I am all goodness and light, but yes, I wanted my son home as quickly as ethically possible for the reasons I mentioned above. By no means do I want some streamlined process that runs over anyone’s rights but, as I said before, I don’t want reform at the cost of children’s healthy emotional growth and attachment. There has got to be a balance, and I do believe some agencies strive very hard to do just that.
I am currently going to an attachment therapist to further ensure my son is doing well (he is), and it has been fascinating to learn about the attachment process and how early it starts.
Sorry, I am rambling on. Thanks for looking at all sides of the issue.
Romee