The whole story, from beginning to end, of how I became a birthmother. Adoption as a Solution to Crisis Pregnancy The following is a collection of post recounting my experience as a teenage mother and how I found myself in the situation where I placed my infant son for adoption. It is wholly based on my current memories and my writings of that time of my pregnancy and relinquishment, and…
Where Is All This Birthmother Cake They Speak of? The mysterious “Birthmother Cake” that birthmothers all expect to feast upon. Somehow, people actually believe that being separated from one’s child is easy and maybe even selfishly pleasurable? Pardon my pun, but do they think that relinquishment is actually a cakewalk?A mother is suppose to give her children away to more deserving parents, dry her tears, buck up and move on. She is suppose to leave the adoptive parents alone and “get over” herself.
I have a guest post over on The Other Mother called “This Is Adoption Happily Ever After” A Perfect Adoption by the Books I usually find this kind of comment dismissive, but rather than focus on being insulted, I point out that, in truth, the relinquishment and subsequent adoption of my son was actually picture perfect. I am a perfect example of exactly what adoption is when it works just…
I figured I am usually so mean against adoption agencies and never do anything nice for them. So I figured that I would write a post that makes it easier for women to become birthmothers. See, look at me supporting adoption! Hence, here’s a handy guide on how to become more vulnerable for adoption agencies and ways to ensure that you will place your baby.
The agency is telling me that I am asking too much from the adoptive parents, and that I need to get into therapy and move on with my life. They have no idea what being a birthmother is about. They cannot imagine what it feels like to give your child away because others have convinced you that you were not good enough for your own child, only to come to your senses after it’s too late and say to yourself, “I would have been good enough.”
Somewhere along the line the connection has been made that young, unwed mothers with unplanned pregnancies are destined to live a life of poverty and drag their children down with them by abusing their children, resenting their existence, and failing to provide an adequate life. The simple answer is given that if more of these women made adoption plans when facing these unplanned pregnancies then we could prevent future involvement by Child Protective Services and keep these children in ideal homes from the get go, removing the need for Foster homes, and prevent the damage created by the initial abuse. It’s a lovely concept, but like so much in adoption, it is seriously flawed and this belief is not based on fact.
Kathryn A. Sweeney* Purdue University Calumet Abstract This study used data from 15 in-depth interviews to better understand how perceptions of birth families by White adoptive parents rely on and challenge cultural perspectives of poverty. Findings show the complexity of their views: even when adoptive parents recognize structural causes of poverty, they tend to rely on the idea that birth parent poverty results from inadequate choices made by individuals. Findings…
Who do YOU think is behind BraveLove.org? My spider senses are tingling. Of course I always mistrust these places that claim to “provide honest, informative and hopeful communication” and then have a clearly pro-adoption agenda. Plus this one is in Texas, home of the mighty Gladney Center for Adoption.
Online Information About Adoption There are many sources for adoption information online. You will find research and support groups and history and facts. If you can’t find something, please ask me. I can usually point you in the right direction. More support, national organizations, worthy places to donate money to, place to volunteer time and effort, people to contact. Adoption Information and Resources AAC Adoptee Rights Coalition Adoption Crossroads Adoption History…
Statistics, Studies and Research on Adoption and Adoption Related Issues In the United States, there is not a central body that is collecting accurate adoption statistics. There is no one single oversight organization that actual collects data from all the different adoption agencies around the country. Often all the “big” number on adoption are estimated at best. Various facts and numbers float around and if they get repeated often enough, they are…
Truthful Views of Adoption Practices in the USA today Adoption is supposed to be about finding families for the children that need homes. That is the way adoption is sold to society in a carefully homed marketing message as controlled by the adoption industry and reported on by the mass media. Finding Faults in Current Adoption Practices is NOT “Anti-Adoption” The truth is that the adoption system is greatly flawed….
What the adoption industry counts on is that we won’t bother digging in and finding how they are all connected. It’s really easy to make a nonprofit host one website that links to another controlled website that links to another and make them all look independent. What they are doing is breaking up the whole message into little bits that then get fed to women over and over again, It looks like the message comes from all these different sources that have only her best interests at heart, but all roads lead to Bethany and Adoption and a lifetime of grief.
This whole election has just made me feel HATED for being a women and I am just having trouble understanding it. I have trouble understanding we are having these conversations with the other side. I have trouble understanding WHY there even IS another side!
Huge said: “So you are an anti-religious bigot. What about the millions of women who regret killing their baby for the rest of their lives??? What about all the of women that are maimed and ruined for life by being pushed into killing their own child? Do you really think mass abortion is a sound choice for birth control when so many other methods are available? I think you hate yourself and other women.”
Kathleen Ja Sook Bergquist, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Illinois State University, School of Social Work. M.S.W., Norfolk State University; Ph.D. in Counselor Education, The College of William and Mary Domestic and international adoption legislation and practice has purported to take into account the “best interest of the child.” More specifically, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and subsequently the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children…