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But it is not a system working in harmony. The adopted children (the adoptees) are unhappy, They are worse than 2nd class citizens. Their entire identity was stripped away from them and they are blocked from finding out who they really are.
I'm not seeing much in the system that benefits the birth parent, either.
The birth parent makes ALL the decisions. They even have a period after birth to revoke the adoption.
Most adoptees are far better off. The birth parent gave the child up for reasons. With my kids, they are American, not Russian. They don't feel like they have lost anything. If anything is blocked, its because the birth parent chose it to be that way.
In the past decade, I have made the acquaintance and/or friendship of three different women who all were highly pressured/forced to give up their babies back in the time now referred to as the "baby scoop era" (post WWII to the early 1970's).
I only met them when they were much older - 60s and up. In each case they had never felt at peace with the decision, or that the decision was truly theirs to make. They thought of their babies throughout their lives, and when the internet made it possible, through various means, they were able to find their children and reconnect. In each case, the children have wanted a relationship with them, although it wasn't a directly straight-forward path.
It is interesting to read about the history of infant adoption in the US. Here is a snippet about that time period from wiki:
Quote:
Beginning in the 1940s and 1950s, illegitimacy began to be defined in terms of psychological deficits on the part of the mother.[6] At the same time, a liberalization of sexual morals combined with restrictions on access to birth control led to an increase in premarital pregnancies.[7] The dominant psychological and social work view was that the large majority of unmarried mothers were better off being separated by adoption from their newborn babies.[8] According to Mandell (2007), "In most cases, adoption was presented to the mothers as the only option and little or no effort was made to help the mothers keep and raise the children".[9]
Solinger describes the social pressures that led to this unusual trend, explaining that women who had no control over their reproductive lives were defined by psychological theory as "not-mothers", and that because they had no control over their reproductive lives, they were subject to the ideology of those who watched over them. As such, for unmarried pregnant girls and women in the pre-Roe era, the main chance for attaining home and marriage rested on their acknowledging their alleged shame and guilt, and this required relinquishing their children, with more than 80% of unwed mothers in maternity homes acting in essence as "breeders" for adoptive parents.[10] According to Ellison, from 1960 to 1970, 27% of all births to married women between the ages of 15 and 29 were conceived premaritally. This problem was thought to be caused by female neurosis, and those who could not procure an abortion, legally or otherwise, were encouraged to put up their children for adoption.[11]
"In 1970, approximately 80% of the infants born to single mothers were [...] [taken for adoption purposes], whereas by 1983 that figure had dropped to only 4%."
If you are interested in a deeper, yet not too long overview on the "baby scoop era" and all that it entailed, this is a good read: https://babyscoopera.com/news/
Last edited by KittenSparkles; 11-02-2023 at 04:03 PM..
The birth parent makes ALL the decisions. They even have a period after birth to revoke the adoption.
Most adoptees are far better off. The birth parent gave the child up for reasons. With my kids, they are American, not Russian. They don't feel like they have lost anything. If anything is blocked, its because the birth parent chose it to be that way.
We've always discussed my son's adoption with him. We adopted him at birth and met his birth mother at the hospital 7hrs after his birth. She signed a voluntary termination of parental rights, which took a few days to take effect. Even so, we left the hospital after 1.5 days with our son. His birth mother could not or would not disclose the paternal parent, so the law firm did the typical posting in obscure publications to meet the requirement for searching for the father. We didn't expect him to respond, and he never did.
Since the adoption, we've had no contact with the birth mother, although we did send 5 years' worth of pictures and updates (she has never picked any up, or requested they be delivered). We still have a picture in my son's bedroom of his birth mother holding him at the hospital. Each year, we celebrate "Family Day" on the day his adoption was finalized.
I've done enough research that, should he ever want to meet her, he would be able to do so, and it is something I would support, but only if both my son and his birth mother were interested. He's never shown a desire to meet her, but that could change some time in the figure.
We've always discussed my son's adoption with him. We adopted him at birth and met his birth mother at the hospital 7hrs after his birth. She signed a voluntary termination of parental rights, which took a few days to take effect. Even so, we left the hospital after 1.5 days with our son. His birth mother could not or would not disclose the paternal parent, so the law firm did the typical posting in obscure publications to meet the requirement for searching for the father. We didn't expect him to respond, and he never did.
Since the adoption, we've had no contact with the birth mother, although we did send 5 years' worth of pictures and updates (she has never picked any up, or requested they be delivered). We still have a picture in my son's bedroom of his birth mother holding him at the hospital. Each year, we celebrate "Family Day" on the day his adoption was finalized.
I've done enough research that, should he ever want to meet her, he would be able to do so, and it is something I would support, but only if both my son and his birth mother were interested. He's never shown a desire to meet her, but that could change some time in the figure.
The problem comes from the reverse. A regretful birth parent may not be so easy to dissuade of the adoptee and/or the adopting parents find that person disruptive. Worse, there is the potential of kidnapping.
The problem comes from the reverse. A regretful birth parent may not be so easy to dissuade of the adoptee and/or the adopting parents find that person disruptive. Worse, there is the potential of kidnapping.
In my particular case, it is no longer a concern as my son is 18 years old. I understand there in some instances there may be a risk of a birth parent resorting to kidnapping, but I never felt this was realistic for our specific situation. Since the adoptive mother no longer had any parental rights by the time we left Indiana to head home (we had to wait for the Interstate Compact to be finalized before we could enter our home state with our son), and did not have our contact information for my family, it wasn't something we even thought about occurring.
We thought about the possibility of kidnapping, when our son was younger. Due to the birth parents having had our son for a couple of weeks, the agency had them appear in front of a judge to sign the adoption papers, which should be the way it is always done thinking about it. To read through, the finality of the words, and be able to sign it, one would have to be pretty sure they were doing the best thing for their child.
I don't think I have ever heard of a child being kidnapped by their birth parent(s). I might be more concerned if the child was "taken" due to ANE (abuse, neglect, exploitation) from an angry parent. OK, I just googled, and found a case where the birth mother went in with a mask and a gun to kidnap her birth child.
The rules are written to protect the birth parents, not the children or the adoptive parents.
In most cases domestically, its a young teenage girl. And they not only pick the parents, they decide the relationship. Will they have none? Will they be there for every holiday?
While its understandable, its just way too tilted for the birth parents and not for the benefit of the child.
Same here, in terms of adopting abroad. We were not interested in "co-parenting" with the birth parents, who may or may not have been the kind of people we would have wanted to have any influence in our children's lives.
We've told our kids that we would support them if they want to hunt for their birth parents, even to the extent of accompanying them to their homeland of South Korea to provide moral support. When they are adults. But as long as they are still minor children, they are under the authority and the protection of us, their legal parents.
Same here, in terms of adopting abroad. We were not interested in "co-parenting" with the birth parents, who may or may not have been the kind of people we would have wanted to have any influence in our children's lives.
We've told our kids that we would support them if they want to hunt for their birth parents, even to the extent of accompanying them to their homeland of South Korea to provide moral support. When they are adults. But as long as they are still minor children, they are under the authority and the protection of us, their legal parents.
As an adoptive parent, this didn't seem right: "who may or may not have been the kind of people we would have wanted to have any influence in our children's lives", as are you not familiar with "nature vs nurture"?
Children have the influence of their birth parents in their DNA! We adopted our son when he was 4 weeks old, but the "influence" of the birth parents has always been present since he was very young. So many unexplained likes and dislikes were clarified as I looked at the FB page of his birth parents.
Just wanted to acknowledge that "nurture" isn't everything. Also, those birth parents make a lot of dreams come true for others, and were able to put the needs of their baby above their own needs. They also chose "life" for their baby, something millions do not. I often tell people that "nature" is 90% of who the child becomes.
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