A Response to NY Times “Adoption, Destiny and Magical Thinking“
I recommend reading it, but the jest of it is “that most adoptive parents feel their children are meant to be theirs“. Don’t shoot the messenger. I am quoting the word “most”.
Not surprisingly, I can’t say that I buy into the concept at all.
I got my answer down to the 1500 limit that the NYT does for commenting:
I relinquished my son to adoption almost 25 years ago. It was the picture perfect adoption scenario circa 1987. It also was the single most life altering event of my life and continues to affect my family to his day.
I have been called a vessel. I have been told that my child only went through me to get to where he was supposed be. I read the poems about being grown in a heart rather than under. I have listen to people talk about destiny and adoption and, as a birthmother, I detest it.
As it has been kindly pointed out, was it my destiny to make the biggest mistake of my life out of fear? Is it the same God that left me without support, floundering, and trusting, ripe to be exploited away from my child? Was my son, an innocent newborn, fated to live a life among people, however good, who were strangers, and I fear will always think him strange? Must he live with the ramifications of my choice and always be denied his true human rights to access his own birth record?
No.
And reality is; no matter how much he was wanted and loved, if it was not me who was pregnant and scared, then they would have gladly taken the next child available. Nobody misses the ex boyfriend that they didn’t date or the fantasy kids in a marriage that never was. And they would not miss my son that never was either.
That, to me, says cruel chance and luck of the draw.
End quote myself.
However there are a bunch of folks who also have something to say about this article. Its getting a whole lot of comment action which I may have played a small part in, but only with a single Facebook post because other commenters wanted to know what adoptees thought about magical thinking. I only obliged. It’s my new self appointed job you know.
Adoption Destiny Blog Fodder
And of course there are blog posts.
So, it seemed clear that it was time for a new installment of The Adoption Lists. Remember if you write a post on this subject, please feel free to add it to the list. Then you can embed it on your blog too.
Claudia Corrigan D'Arcy
Owner
Adoption, Destiny and Magical Thinking
On August 15th, 2012, the NY Times Motherlode blog posted a "http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/adoption-destiny-and-magical-thinking/
Source: http://www.musingsofthelame.com/2012/08/Adoption-Lists-destiny-adoption.html
How does magical thinking manifest in adoption? The New York Times Motherlode article explores the phenomenon, and I do, too.
I love this post & Harriet's (will head over to Lori's later). But... I kind of disagree - I need to go write my own post instead of these ridiculously long comments. I'm a "things happen for a reason" person. Bad stuff, good stuff, all of it. I wanted to punch anyone who said that to me while we were in the throes of grief, but that was because people are stupid and tactless not because I didn't believe in it. I agree that adoption is romanticized and it shouldn't be. But my experience with international adoption is so different from yours - we weren't "chosen" and didn't have to work at it - because there is no direct birthparent involvement in international adoption. Shit happened to us, shit happened to Miss E, choices were made, but all on a timeline where a couple from Chicago, Illinois, were matched with this particular girl in Kinshasa, DRC. That is amazing to me... that Miss E who fits our family so perfectly ended up in it. Adoption is messy and not a Disney fairy-tale and Miss E will have her own feelings about it that we will do everything we can to support. But I marvel at how we got here and am incredibly grateful to whatever led us here-- circumstances, coincidences, fate, higher power, or whatever.
Our adoption was “meant to be.” This statement is a perennial favorite for debate among adoption writers and bloggers. Was our adoption meant to be? Or was it in fact, a painful and pos...
Magical thinking in adoption hits a nerve with many adoptees
Dear people who believe placing children for adoption and adopting children into your families is “Destiny” and a “Part of God’s Plan”: This is my mother. She passed away 1.5 years after I was adop...
This post is written as a response to an article in The New York Times in which the writer addresses adoptive parents who think adoption is God’s Will, part
Most adoptive parents feel their children are meant to be theirs though God's hand or destiny.Was it my destiny to become a birthmother?
We don’t believe God orchestrated S. getting pregnant so WE could be parents. To think so is arrogant and unloving towards a woman whose decision was painful and difficult. But we believe God took all of our choices, hers to place, ours to adopt, and directed us to find these particular children to become part of our family.
This is the original article as published in the NYT.
Here is my view – when you stop and think about adoption it’s a little crazy, decisions that four (or less) people make impacts generations of people. The rippling effects of adoption go farther than I ever imagined, and the deepest (and very possibly sometimes negative) impacts of those decisions are to the person at the center of it all, the adoptee. Accepting responsibility for all those ripples and that intial impact to this person I love most in the world is terrifying, but not taking any responsibility and saying this was how things were meant to be for all of us seems unfair to J.
I think it is a safe place to feel that the world has destined your role and the roles of other’s in your life.
If you believe this or the “everything happens for a reason” train of thought then you never have to take responsibility for your own actions in how your life and the lives of others you persuaded or touched turned out.
Did my daughter’s adoption happen because she was meant to be the daughter of her adoptive parent’s? I know they would like to think that. But was it destined to be that she grew up without her sister and brother? Was it destined that her real mother would recover from post-partum depression in a few scant months and live a life without her daughter?
Was she destined to live a life in a broken family while her natural parents are still happily married? Was she destined to be told that we were dead, and later that she was “given up” because we “didn’t want her”?
If so then destiny dealt us and her a very harsh hand. Destiny must have loved her adoptive parents most of all and thrown us all away.
Magical thinking………..
You rabble-rouser, you.
One of your most endearing traits!
As an adoptive Father and a big advocate for adoption I will say that I do believe that destiny played a huge role in my childeren coming to me. This destiny however came in the form or bad choices of the “bio-mom” and her inability to take care of her children. If you read the DHS reports and would hear the stories my son tells of his first three years….you would belive it was destiny.
I understand that you cannot see this. Bio-moms I’ve spoken with (in confidence) tell me that its either blame the “adoption process” or commit suicide and given that choice, I say stay alive blame the “adoption process”
That having been said however, couples like me, children like my son and daughter are out here and we are more than willing to show everyone that this was destiny from the get go. Too many factors came togeather perfectly for us to think otherwise.
As a part of the Adoptive Father movement here locally I have to think that this is a reflection of some kind of guilt that uprising within you. Your want of committing more pain for children like my two kids is obviously extremly upsetting. Our families are not yours to play with and threaten with your ecco chamber hyperboly. Your attempting to make yourself feel better by attempting to cause chaos in the lives of children…
You know this. I know this.
Forever your opposition.
fartherthanfather.blogspot.com
Ok…. I was all kinds of “wow.. maybe this Father guy isn’t so bad” until your last paragraph. Then, you completely jumped the shark.
Guilt? Yes. I do carry guilt for making the choice as it was. I feel guilt about how adoption continues to affect my family. I do feel guilt for the part I played in denying my son’s father the right to his son. I feel guilty that my son is denied his civil rights to his OBC.
More pain to your kids? What? ummm no. I fail to see how I am playing with your family or threatening them in any way. Likewise, I equally fail to see you as opposition unless you choose to make that so, and I won’t join you on that.
Here’s a news flash: I don’t think children should be abused. I HATE the stories of abuse and like every other NORMAL person, I shake my head and say WTF is WRONG with people! I have been known, to even say, that I can support foster adoptions as they ARE the children that really NEED homes. I am friends with MANY parents who are parents based on situations very much like yours..and even international adoptions and a handful of domestic adoptions too.
What you are FAILING to let into your brain is that many of us were NEVER in danger of abusing our kids. We’re not YOUR kids biological parents or abusers or whatever your children prefer to call them.
For someone who throws around the title of self absorbed, I would think that you could see that YOUR story isn’t EVERYONE’s story. It’s not mine. THIS is what I KNOW. The rest is in your imagination.