All adoptive parents are wealthy*
Truth: We live in apartments, condos, bungalows, townhouses, two-story homes, and sprawling suburban homes. Some of us rent; some own. Some of us are highly educated and have powerful jobs. Some of us are still paying off student loans. We are doctors, homemakers, social workers, construction workers, caregivers, and teachers. Some of us borrowed from our parents or held fundraisers to fund our adoptions. Some of socked money away for 20 years while other people were making babies. The one thing we all have in common is we were ready to be a family.
Prospective adoptive parents are desperate and will do anything for a baby
Truth: Prospective adopters are driven, focussed and patient. Most people who are able to have children biologically can’t imagine what’s like to have that deep cellular ability taken away. Wanting to be a mom or dad, to care for children, to be a family, is a basic desire. So yes, prospective adopters want very much to be parents. We will travel around the world, endure the whims of legal shifts and changes, drain our bank accounts, be rejected by potential birthparents, and wait years to become a family. Does that make us desperate? I think it just makes us normal.
Adoptive parents win and everyone else loses
Truth: Most prospective adoptive couples have endured heartbreak in the form of multiple miscarriages, stillbirths, cancer or illness at a young age that have made childbirth impossible not to mention multiple invasive medical procedures. Add the loss of the dream of family, and there are scars that can take a lifetime to heal. Adoptive parents are not out to take other people’s children; they are ready to raise a child who needs the love and stability of a family
Adoptive parents agree to openness in order to get a baby
Truth: The jury is out on openness. It’s best for birthparents to know how their children are doing. It’s best for adoptive children to know their roots, to know their biology and where possible, know the people involved in their creation. And as an adoptive parent, I want what’s best for my child. I want him to know where he came from, that he is loved not just by us, but by his birthfamily as well. I want him to know why he was placed with us and not carry around a fantasy that is shattered later in life as was the case in so many closed adoptions of the past. And I want his birthparents to know him because it’s important to them to know him and to see him thrive, and because I care about them.
* I understand the economic disparities that often exist in adoption. I simply want to point out that by North American standards, adoptive parents aren’t necessarily wealthy.
Are you an adoptive parent? Do you feel that there are myths and stereotypes about who you are?
I think I can pretty honestly say I’ve never thought any of those things, especially the first, except maybe the desperate thing, but no more than people who try to get pregnant for years and drain their bank accounts for medical procedures. As for the last? Never even would have occurred to me.
I don’t think anyone can know just what they will do “for a baby” until they’re there. Most of the people I know who make blanket statements about just where their line in the sand is haven’t dealt with infertility. Even in my own very minor case of spending more time trying to conceive my second child than I expected, what I expected to feel in that situation and what I actually felt were two very different things. Life is like that.
So, anyway, I totally get that it’s not desperation, it’s normal. And I think you’re making some really good, well-thought-out points.
My sister-in-law leaves for China in a few days to meet her new son, a two-year-old who has already stolen our hearts with his pictures. Is it possible to love someone you’ve never met? She and her husband have an adopted daughter already.
Anyways, this has nothing to do with your post really. But I’m excited!
Good post! I appreciate your honesty that the jury’s still out on open adoption because it is something that hasn’t been common for generations yet. But every time I hear of a friend’s struggle with finding birth parents after a closed adoption & then reconciling their lifelong dreams with what’s usually a very disappointing reality, I think openness has to be for the best for most people.
Also, this post reminds me of another blog I read–Finding Magnolia. Do you know of it? They’re doing something really interesting to fundraise for their second adoption, called ‘Give it Forward’. http://www.findingmagnolia.com/p/give-it-forward.html
I love this line; “I think it makes us normal”.
One thing that drives me crazy is the way that people ask about our children’s birthparents. There’s always a tone that implies that the birthparent is somehow the enemy and that it must be really difficult for us to allow these intruders into our lives. In reality, we love them and not just because they placed their children with us but because they are strong, selfless women who made an exceptionally difficult choice for the sake of their children. Are visits sometimes difficult? Yes. But through those visits we’ve been able to see wonderful things happening in the lives of our children’s birthmothers which helps us to see that they are moving forward and finding happiness which helps us develop feelings of entitlement. It is a difficult relationship to build as it’s unlike any other but to imply that birthparents and adoptive parents are enemies to one another takes some of the beauty out of the miracle that is adoption.
Nicely put. Lovely. I even have problems with “it’s best for the child.” What about the birthparents? I think their interests are important as well. And we as adoptive parents also gain from these relationships. We’re all in this together.
Harriet Fancott harriet@karmavore.com
Couldn’t have said this better myself.
I can’t tell you how many eyebrows go up when I talk about our birthfamily and how great they have been with my husband and myself. They totally see them as the “enemy”. I’ve found that I wind up taking it really REALLY personally when I get comments like “are you sure it’s a good idea for them to be involved” or even better “you actually let the mom HOLD the baby”. People always seem to have an opinion of the birth family and it never seems to be one of admiration or appreciation for the life that was entrusted for us to raise and love.
As a birth mother, it still warms my heart to see comments like this because I too have those same stereotypical views of adoptive parents having to “endure” visits and contact for the sake of the child. I’ve had enough contact with parents in open adoption relationships with their child’s birth parent(s) to know that this is more false than it is true, but I still can’t help the amazement I feel. Hopefully someday we’ll all be able to push past the stereotypes about us!
Great post as usual, Harriet. Thought evoking as always.
Great post and very eloquently written.
Thank you
Thank you for this “Most prospective adoptive couples have endured heartbreak in the form of multiple miscarriages, stillbirths, cancer or illness at a young age that have made childbirth impossible not to mention multiple invasive medical procedures” The ability to conceive and carry a child is not only about reproductive organs. That sometimes gets lost and dismissed.
Great post.
Thank you for this post. As a new adoptive mom in an open adoption I have recently heard time and time again the disparaging remarks both about birth families and about adoptive parents. As soon as I say that my son is adopted, I have heard great things but also “oh it’s such the hip thing to do now” and/or where did he come from. Believe me, the process and thought that has to go into any adoption, it cannot be for as shallow a reason as being cool or hip. My son was born in the US, there are children everywhere in need of stable loving homes. People seem to be shocked when they hear he was born here. His birth family are not irresponsible or untrustworthy, they put a great deal of thought and love into their decision to select us to parent their child. If they can entrust us to parent, why would I disrespect their love and trust by shutting that door. I think people need to know that the child comes first. And yes we are not rich, our family all came together and helped us create our family which now also includes two wonderful birth parents who we talk to, share our lives with and are planning our first visit to in May.
People also make the comment that we should do more to support single mothers (as if I had done something WRONG by adopting a child. So adopting from Africa is fine, but not in North America. It is implied that because I am “privileged” I must have taken advantage of a poor, under privileged birth mother. This judgment of course coming from people who can give birth to their own children and have no idea of what they’re talking about. The privilege of spending every dime I saved and made over several years. Everything we’ve done is for what is best for the child, not what is best for us personally.
Many of these myths have never even occurred to me, but I guess that’s because I have an adopted brother? I don’t know, but I do think (and have always thought) that his birth mother made the right decision for herself and her son at the time.
Love this post H!! I love it when people who are sometimes pigeon holed speak out in a straight forward manner. It opens up dialog and disperse the myths.
love this! great points, and eloquent, as usual!
I agree, and I personally get extremely irked by the idea that (and I’m going to go ahead to paraphrase a quote from FirstMom:BirthMom) “Women who adopt are wealthy, past their fecundity matriarchs who waited too long to have kids and now they can’t- so they “steal” them from us birth mothers.” I damned near flew into a rage when I read that.
I understand that closed adoptions from the past have coloured that particular writers’ perspective (she’s in her 70’s and she wasn’t given the choice about placement)- but to paint all adoptive parents with that same blackened brush was too much for me to swallow.
I don’t expect to be lauded for adopting, but I also don’t expect to be attacked for it. I love my son dearly, and I have a good relationship with his birth family. One that I’ve worked very hard to build. I did that because I love him. Because it’s in his best interests (even when I was hurting I stuck with it because it’s right).
The only time we’ve even come close to ‘closing’ (and by that I mean disallowing unsupervised visits) was when his birth grandmother threatened to kidnap him. We worked through that, and have come to a place of mutual trust and respect.
I like that. I don’t expect to be lauded and but I don’t expect to be attacked. Well put. I think it’s risky to view the present through the lens of the past.
I’m happy that you’ve reached a place of trust and were able to remain “open.” It’s certainly a process!
Harriet Fancott harriet@karmavore.com
Thank you for this wonderful, succinct post about adoptive parent myths. I know I’m discovering your post a year late, but with all the recent discussions related to the adoption tax credit in the U.S. your first point was certainly top of mind for me. My husband and I both work at nonprofits and, after suffering through the humiliation and depression related to our fertility problems, we saved everything we could for our open adoption. As they talked about doing away with the adoption tax benefit supposedly because it only benefited the wealthy, I was so indignant!
One other myth I’d like to add to your list, which I’m sure your family can appreciate (I discovered you after reading about you on the Production, Not Reproduction blog: http://www.productionnotreproduction.com/2012/03/meet-harriet-of-see-theo-run.html):
– Adoptive parents are white-
I can’t tell you how hard it has been to try and find resources/stories for transracial adoptive families where one or both adoptive parents is a person of color. I know for me it’s already presenting special challenges. I hope to find some other adoptive parents of color through the awesome Open Adoption Blogger network. And also to contribute my work one of these days.
Thanks for your blog!
Good one! So true. The assumption is that most adopters are white and nowadays, especially where I live, mixed race couples are almost the norm!
I think the assumption that all adoptive parents struggle or have struggled with infertility is my least favorite. My husband and I are (maybe? we don’t really know for sure) fortunate enough not to experience infertility, but adoption is our #1 choice when it comes to starting and building a family. Why? Because we believe in it. We feel like it would be selfish of us to add more children to this planet when so many in foster care sit and wait for a home and a forever family. But yeah.. I can’t even tell you how many times we’ve been asked if we are infertile when announcing that we’re pursuing adoption.. It makes me sad that people automatically assume this is our “second” choice, not our number one.