Wednesday, July 13, 2011

And There's Another One!!


Just when I find myself in the delighted position of not having to decline comments for a long time, along comes another PAP (or so she says) with her, "just curious" questions about my views on adoption. Here's her seemingly innocuous comment:

"Hi there-
I just stumbled across your blog, and I must say that I am intrigued. I am a soon-to-be adoptive parent and while I don’t expect rainbows and puppy dogs, I am excited. I was wondering if you think that adoption is ever a good thing? In a perfect world, I don’t believe adoption would ever be necessary. But since we live in an imperfect world, do you believe that there are any situations where adoption can be the best option (given the circumstances) for all parties involved? Interested to hear your thoughts."


Whatever would adopters, the industry and PAPs do without that good, old, imperfect world (crack-whore moms and undeserving, single teens) to justify them doing what they really feel, inside, they have a perfect right to do? Sorry, but I don't buy it, especially if said PAP is lusting after a womb-fresh infant or toddler. There they are, just like saints, waiting to take in the, seemingly, "unwanted." How convenient.

To the commenter: You don't really want to hear my thoughts. You want to try to argue me down or see what king of opposition there is out here in the real world. Often, agencies, church-affiliated, especially, will assume an identity and try to stir the pot among those of us who don't like adoption, especially as it was practiced in the last century. Unfortunately, we are learning from heart-broken moms, that coercion has just put on some pretty lace, powdered its face, spritzed on some Rainbow Farte parfum and still going at it. The ads are slick and the tactics are slicker.

Yes, I do think that there are some women who truly don't want their babies and I encourage them to seek out a first-trimester termination. Better yet, avail yourself of available and effective birth control and seek termination if that fails. Why reduce yourself to serving as a brood mare for someone who sees themselves as more deserving and subject a child to emotional pain? If you feel you must carry to term, then see about finding a way for that child to remain in his/her family of origin. There has to be a daddy somewhere, no?

I talk to a lot of adopted people every day. One thing I have learned is that the hardest thing for anyone to accept is the thought that their mother did not want them, that said mother saw them as disposable. That idea does a good service for the adopters and the facilitators, even if it often slanders innocent Mothers who were coerced. From what I have seen, Mr. and Mrs. PAP, the most loving, most nurturing adopters in the worlds cannot take the sting out of that abandonment issue. All the love in the world cannot heal that wound and "attachment therapy" is a ridiculous concept.

And as for reunion, there is no reunion that can make up for the years lost, the bond twisted and the misconceptions that grew and grew. It is a minefield born of the most unnatural separation there is. Even after 18 years, I find myself still walking on eggshells occasionally and suffering through periodic breaches in the relationships. I was not put on this earth to provide an infant for C. and C. S. or for K. and S. S. !! There is no "meant to be" or "God's Will" about it...just injustice, a sick, punitive society and the greed that marks us as nothing more than a garden plot from which a product can be reaped.

My children were conceived and gestated in MY body. It was MY job to raise them and care for them. I suffered and they suffered because I was not allowed to do my job. Don't expect any friendly words about adoption from me.

There. Those are my thoughts. Accept or reject them, but don't expect to change my mind or my message.

Adoption separation sucks.


19 comments:

Sunday Koffron Taylor said...

"Better yet, avail yourself of available and effective birth control and seek termination if that fails." If everyone who spent their time worrying about the "orphans" spent even half the time they spend on trying to convince people that adoption is fantastic on providing birth control for women who want and need it...there would be far less orphans in the world to worry about it the first place.

So it's not really about the poor orphans in the first place, if it were we would spend our energies in more productive directions.

Von said...

Next month I will have spent 67 years as an adoptee.I support everything Robin says and believe that adoption in America is a profit making industry which preys on naive adopters who haven't done their research and mothers who haven't had better advice and opportunities presented them.
There are no innocent 'just curious' questions abut adoption, if you think there are you haven't done your homework well enough.

Mary said...

Brava!
You said it!

elizabeth said...

Great post! And great answer to the barfalicious "perfect world" comment.

And I couldn't agree more that women who really don't want to be mothers should get an abortion. More abortions and less (zero) adoptions I say.

See you in Texas!

Elle said...

Adoption separation sucks because the adoptee and birth mum is forced to live with the consequences from adoption. You sort of relive the separation every day of your life...
If the prospective APs would have experienced the same end of the stick they might think twice before causing adoption separation. But if you're infertile and have a lot of many then you're encouraged to choose between adoption or IVF treatments. And after failed IVFs the only option left is adoption.

Several years ago my adoptive mum somehow mentioned that I would have been aborted if my birth parents weren't poor... Therefore I can't really take standpoint for abortion (at least not personally) but it's pure logic that abortions would result in less adoptions because the children that were born would hopefully be loved and cared for.

Anonymous said...

You go girl! That bit of fluff didn't even deserve an answer, but you did it right. Don't you think that sometimes PAPs just troll for blogs like this and throw up a flag, hoping to either twit us, or get a response that makes them feel better?

PhoenixRising said...

I agree with Denise. She was a troll trying to stir the pot. I am seeing that more and more on many sites and forums. They need to get a life and stop trying to denounce the pain that natural mothers and their children live with every day.

I love this quote:

"and while I don’t expect rainbows and puppy dogs, I am excited."

Oh yes she does expect rainbows and puppy dogs, and sunshine too. She will also expect her adaptee to bow down at the altar of the almighty adopter for eternity; while demeaning and dehumanizing the child's natural family and never including them. THAT is what adopters want. Then, they want their experiences and feelings validated by coming to first mother blogs to denounce what our experiences and feelings are. These people make me physically ill...

I feel sorry for the infant, (and mother) that Mrs. Pap get's her hands on....

Chris said...

Evidently Mrs. Pap never learned to read. If she had, she would have read all of your many enlightening blogs (and comments too), and therefore no need to ask for your opinion....Mrs. Pap is an asshole!

Amidst my most distressing recent experience...there came out of this the most awesome, amazing, bittersweet experience...my eldest daughter was with me..right from the beginning. I was in the Maternity/Gyne floor of the hospital. I could hear crying newborns being brought to their moms. One afternoon, it was just me and my 'baby' sitting in my hospital room together. Not saying much, as I was still in pain. I then said..."Who would ever have imagined we would be back in the maternity ward after all these years..again..together". My daughter said to me..."I was just thinking the same thing. It only took us 46 years." She then asked me if I wanted to walk..I said yes...she held my hand walking down the maternity hallway, we walked to the nursery..to see the babies...but the babes were with their moms...as they should be. Both my daughter and I were silent, but we both looked at each other with wet eyes.
So Mrs. Pap...get over yourself...the vast majority of surrendering mothers never forget their babies and those 'babies' don't forget about their mothers. And in that hospital, my daughter at all times when speaking to the nurses, etc. about me....called me her 'mother' and 'my mom'. And proudly saying, yes..my daughter. Life can be O!so tragic and painful and then things like this happen and you have to wonder about a greater force in the universe, that even a surrender doc/adoption paper cannot supersede. I have much to be thankful for.
Now Mrs. Pap...put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Lori said...

Bravo! It took me a long time to learn, but almost every idiot that asks those questions doesn't want a real answer.... Trolls, Freaks and OMG Who Let Them Adopts..... Sigh... Thank you. It needed to be said.

Robin said...

To Andrea and Anonymous...being willing to debate does not strengthen nor does it weaken my stance. Quit picking, name-calling and baiting. You're too easy to delete. There is no way that you are going to debate, threaten or insult me into seeing things your way so why try?

Robin said...

Yep, Anon, you're deleted because your ignorance is showing. I am a liberal Democrat,anti tea-party and you don't know jack shit about me. Boy did you ever miss the mark by a country mile. I am also leaving FL...we lived here to be close to my husband's elderly mother. We won't be around here much longer. But I think that most Floridians are probably smarter than you are.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Marah said...

ROBIN YOU ARE A LEGEND,
A CHAMPION OF THE TRUTH,A CHAMPION OF MOTHERS OF LOSS TO ADOPTION,AND OUR LOST CHILDREN. YOU ARE GIFTED IN THE WRITTEN WORD, TELLING IT AS IT IS, NO QUARTER GIVEN. I SALUTE YOU ROBIN NEVER GIVE UP TELLING IT AS IT IS.

Marah

ANON. IS WHERE YOU SHOULD REMAIN,ANON TO THE HUMAN RACE,YOU ARE NOT WORTHY OF ANY NOTARY, YOUR IGNORANCE,RUDNESS<QUALIFY'S YOU TO ALWAYS REMAIN ANON A NON ENTITY.

Molly said...

I'm curious-- sincerely so, as someone who is also quite anti-adoption myself-- what you think infertile couples ought to do to have children?

I recognize that the issues are entirely different, and that adoption ISN'T the answer. Someone else's infertility shouldn't become anyone else's problem to solve, of course. But what do you think is the answer? Do you have compassion for people who desperately want children, but cannot? Must they just accept their biological fate?

Robin said...

Molly, I am going to take a gamble in your post being sincere and answer you with something that someone else said. I have compassion for the infertile. I also have compassion for the amputee but that doesn't mean I should give him my leg.

In the past, where I came from, there were several fine women who never had children of their own. They were decent, middle class, churchgoers. They accepted their fate and, in the case of my two childless aunts, lavished their care on nieces and nephews, worked as playground monitors and made quite a difference in quite a few young lives.

Adoption by those unable to have children of their own is forcing the child to act as a stand-in for the children they could not bear and is anything but child-centered. It places an emotional biurden on the child and I have seen the long-term effects of that.

There is also the fact that the infertility is often the result of delayed childbearing. Whether this sounds compassionate of not, the infertility in that case is a direct result of the actions of the infertile. Yet many of these people think they are more deserving of an infant that that child's own mother. It is a sense of entitlement that our society has created which has no basis.

So YES, I think that acceptance and making a good life is the healthiest thing to do. Then, if a love for children is a part of the makeup of the infertile person, then make a difference in a child's life. Big Sisters/Big Brothers, Boy's and Girl's clubs, there are any number of ways to help a child without owning one.

Molly said...

Thank you for your response, Robin. I promise, my question was a sincere one, and coming from the perspective of someone who thinks domestic adoption is unethical. I personally think that infertile couples can and should pursue every medical avenue available to them (IVF, egg donors, etc) and I feel terribly for them, but that, as you said, it doesn't entitle anyone to someone else's child, and it's not good for either natural mother or adopted child.

Robin said...

I feel the same way about Egg Donation and Artificial Insemination. In both cases, the genetic heritage of the child produced is different. There is a part of their heritage they will never know.

zoeentwistle said...

Robin...you are my new hero!

Anonymous said...

November (national adoption month) was originally intended to encourage people to adopt exclusivly through the foster care system. That has been taken over by people who want healthy newborns through pre birth matching. The exact same is true of the "Angles in Adoption" Award... (intended to encourage foster care adoption). Even though both the "Angles in Adoption" award and "adoption awareness month" have entirely reversed their meanings and priorities, they never bothered to change their names. (I would think if your vegan restraunt became a steak restraunt you might have to let the public know....... but apparently where adoption is concerned, there's no need to tell anyone. Also regarding international adoption: 85% of the world's true actual orphans are children over five years old, but 90% of the ones adopted into the U.S. are under five (usually much under) but they are still referred to as "orphans"! Add all that to the kidnapped babies smuggled into Utah and I think most of the general public will agree... adoption is losing its halo... even (to some extent) in the media. Dateline's show on John Wyatt's daughter received more than three thousand comments; the vast, vast majority absolutely enraged with John's seperation from his daughter. You can see them on their Facebook page. The story aired Aug 19 (sorry anon... google trouble) Clare