Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Adoption is for children who need homes. Not for adults who want a child. Full stop.

Sure, keep telling yourself that.

I guess I should have said adoption SHOULD be. It currently isn’t. It’s a billion dollar industry that commodified children and exploits poor women.

It exploits both birth families and adoptive families. There should be far more rules and regulations at the federal level so each state handles things the same way and there should be caps on what agencies and attorneys charge and facilitators should be banned. Or, they should do all adoptions through the state (even if its a private direct placement) and have far more oversight. Its all about supply and demand. Things got much worse when they introduced the adoption tax credit and adoption "professionals" really raised prices as they tell families you will get it back in a credit (but they don't tell you you have to adopt, pay the money first, etc).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We adopted our kids privately though our attorney. There is no planned contact wit the birth fmaily unless the kids want to on their own when they are 18.

I think this is often the least traumatic. We're seeing problems with our family member's open adoption and the full inclusion of the child's birth family. There are real concerns arising about how this will affect both the adopted child and other children in the family.

It’s more traumatic for kids not to know as well as the birth family.

How do you know this - can you cite a reference? Please show me some longitudinal studies which show that fully integrating the birth family into the child's life is psychologically healthy? I'm not talking about an occasional letter/photos or a visit once or twice per year. I'm talking about full-on involvement - contact at least weekly, birth parents choosing/deciding which clothing child will wear, having their extended family involved and visiting regularly and posting info on SM of "their baby." It's all happy family now while child is young but what happens when conflict arises? Where are the studies which show those impacts on the adopted child and the rest of the families? That information MUST be made available to birth families AND adopters if they want to fully understand the decisions they are making.

Wait, are you saying anything less than fully integrating the birth family is a closed adoption? Because I would call anything where the child knows who there birth family is (not even contact, just a name/birthdate/identifying info available to the child) an open adoption. I know a couple people who don’t have anything at all and I am extremely against hiding birth info from kids but I think there’s a lot of (healthy) space between nothing and fully integrating the birth family. There are studies showing that hiding birth info is unhealthy, but I don’t know of any assessing the degrees of openness and relationship between birth and adoptive families.

An open adoption is not just telling the child information about the birth family. It ranges from xx of pictures/letters a year to visits, phone calls, and emails. Telling my child about their birth family is a closed adoption. Emailing, talking to and seeing them regularly is an open adoption.

What is the term for an adoption where there is no contact between the families but the child is given information about them? If that is “closed” what is the term for an adoption where the child has no way of finding their birth family and the birth family has no way of knowing what happened to the child?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And on that note...did anyone see footage of the anti-choice march in DC? How about that couple holding the sign advertising they want to adopt someone's baby? Nice marketing strategy there.

I will never understand how people haven't caught on to the anti abortion culture and how it fuels so much misogyny- and how it fuels the adoption industry plain as day.

These folks are protesting for attention. They don't care about the kids after they are born or they'd be foster/adopt parents, which many are not. It doesn't fuel the adoption industry and its two separate issues.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Adoption is for children who need homes. Not for adults who want a child. Full stop.

Sure, keep telling yourself that.

I guess I should have said adoption SHOULD be. It currently isn’t. It’s a billion dollar industry that commodified children and exploits poor women.

DP. I understood what you meant and agree 100%.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We adopted our kids privately though our attorney. There is no planned contact wit the birth fmaily unless the kids want to on their own when they are 18.

I think this is often the least traumatic. We're seeing problems with our family member's open adoption and the full inclusion of the child's birth family. There are real concerns arising about how this will affect both the adopted child and other children in the family.

It’s more traumatic for kids not to know as well as the birth family.

How do you know this - can you cite a reference? Please show me some longitudinal studies which show that fully integrating the birth family into the child's life is psychologically healthy? I'm not talking about an occasional letter/photos or a visit once or twice per year. I'm talking about full-on involvement - contact at least weekly, birth parents choosing/deciding which clothing child will wear, having their extended family involved and visiting regularly and posting info on SM of "their baby." It's all happy family now while child is young but what happens when conflict arises? Where are the studies which show those impacts on the adopted child and the rest of the families? That information MUST be made available to birth families AND adopters if they want to fully understand the decisions they are making.

Wait, are you saying anything less than fully integrating the birth family is a closed adoption? Because I would call anything where the child knows who there birth family is (not even contact, just a name/birthdate/identifying info available to the child) an open adoption. I know a couple people who don’t have anything at all and I am extremely against hiding birth info from kids but I think there’s a lot of (healthy) space between nothing and fully integrating the birth family. There are studies showing that hiding birth info is unhealthy, but I don’t know of any assessing the degrees of openness and relationship between birth and adoptive families.

An open adoption is not just telling the child information about the birth family. It ranges from xx of pictures/letters a year to visits, phone calls, and emails. Telling my child about their birth family is a closed adoption. Emailing, talking to and seeing them regularly is an open adoption.

Anonymous wrote:And on that note...did anyone see footage of the anti-choice march in DC? How about that couple holding the sign advertising they want to adopt someone's baby? Nice marketing strategy there.

I will never understand how people haven't caught on to the anti abortion culture and how it fuels so much misogyny- and how it fuels the adoption industry plain as day.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Adoption is for children who need homes. Not for adults who want a child. Full stop.

Sure, keep telling yourself that.

I guess I should have said adoption SHOULD be. It currently isn’t. It’s a billion dollar industry that commodified children and exploits poor women.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If she couldn't live and support her child which is why it appears "she wasn't forced into it" means that her circumstances forced the decision. Your argument is very surface level comparing unwed mothers of previous decades to women today. Society no longer judges unwed mothers and forces them and underage women and "forces" them to relinquish a child, but now it's financial and life circumstances. As a country, we don't even support families, any kind of family, on any level. .health care, family leave, flexible working schedules, the list goes on.

Women graduate college with unprecedented loans, and before you indicate that they could have gone to community college or a state school ( also not cheap) , perhaps a woman in veterinary or med school or any higher learning-might have to give up a child because she can't take a break due to the loans already incurred. My point is that the rich and unencumbered win children from these situations.

These women aren't forced into it by circumstances because there are plenty of women in the same circumstances who choose something else, whether abortion or raising their children. Moreover, as a woman who graduated with a ton of debt (you are responding to my post, and I believe that I already mentioned that my parents were poor and also I am in the first generation to go to college, so I know about college debt!), there are deferral periods and forbearances if you are not working, you can tie payments to income level, you can even just not pay -- are those good choices? Of course not, but those are choices that people have. No one is forced to place a child for adoption.

Yes, women give up children because our society makes it impossible for them to raise their own children. You are not more responsible, better able, or anything else. You are likely white, have money, and lots of luck. Please understand the systemic issue. And I don't think you understand "force" still.
Have you read Little Fires Everywhere?
Not the video please...thet butchered the story, but the book. You might understand a little more.

Yes, there are millions of women all over the world, and here, who are forced to give up their children. That shouldn't be happening unless that is the one unilateral specific choice that the birth mother chooses for no other reason than she absolutely doesn't want the child and she didn't have the abortion for whatever reason, and today, that is probably rare. It shouldn't be if she can be a mother, or provide the better life, or any other reason. And don't forget about the father. He also gets his choice if the baby is born.

There isn't a smarter mother, a more responsible mother, a more financially stable mother, a more well connected mother, or a married or partnered mother, or anything that supersedes the birth mother.. for any other reason than both birth parents unequivocally do not want the baby at all. It happens, but today it is rare. There's the mother, and then there's the woman who wants to be the mother, there's not a "better" mother.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m an adoptee who knew some identifying information. I would not consider that an open adoption by any means.

Thank you for responding! I’m the poster above who was asking — where do you draw the line between “open” and “closed” adoptions? The adult adoptees I know had no information before they did DNA testing (one international still has no info about her birth family; the other in her 50s managed to reconnect with her birth mother’s family via 23andme and has a good relationship with them) and the younger adoptees I know are either adopted by extended family or were adopted from foster care as older kids so they naturally have knowledge about and/or a relationship with there birth families. I feel like we need more than two terms here, since there’s a lot of space between those extremes.

The term "open adoption" is primarily a marketing term targeted towards birth mothers, supposedly to make their decision easier. The reality is that "open" adoptions do not legally exist. Once that child is legally adopted the birth parent(s) contact with the child can be stopped at any time with no legal recourse. It may not always happen that way and some adoptive parents allow various degrees of contact with birth parents/families, with varying degrees of success.

Anonymous wrote:I’m an adoptee who knew some identifying information. I would not consider that an open adoption by any means.

Thank you for responding! I’m the poster above who was asking — where do you draw the line between “open” and “closed” adoptions? The adult adoptees I know had no information before they did DNA testing (one international still has no info about her birth family; the other in her 50s managed to reconnect with her birth mother’s family via 23andme and has a good relationship with them) and the younger adoptees I know are either adopted by extended family or were adopted from foster care as older kids so they naturally have knowledge about and/or a relationship with there birth families. I feel like we need more than two terms here, since there’s a lot of space between those extremes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my opinion, adoption is trauma, for the mother and the child, at least the way it was practiced in the 1920s-1970s, conservatively. I have a father and husband who were adopted. Maybe the trauma gets balanced out in some cases. But there is trauma.

Some people have this crazy idea of adoption that they "save" a poor infant. There are some stories like that. But mostly, for the majority of recent past, young women were forced into giving up babies they loved to people who were better positioned. Babies as commodity. And now, you barely get a baby unless you hire someone to gestate for you.

Today it's hard to adopt an infant, but easier to adopt an older child who comes with emotional problems, special needs, etc. Those kids are waiting for homes while most prospective adoptive parents want a perfect infant.

I feel bad for people who want to adopt and are waiting. But not sure I could make the same choice. I respect you for it, if you understand the trauma and are not in a fantasy world of creating a family without considering what went on before.

It’s not the adoption that causes the trauma; it’s the circumstances that lead to birth parents placing their children for adoption. Don’t blame adoption.

For the scoop era babies, there was no actual situation was traumatic. An unwed pregnancy is not trauma. An affair isn't traumatic, a young mother isn't traumatic unless the society says it is and removes the child because of misogyny. Now? It's more often than not elitism. Why should a well to do couple have a baby over a poor mother who can't raise a child and continue to educate herself and survive, regardless of what country the mother is from? Why not help the mother? It's still an industry- look at how the GOP fuels it.

Why do you think that all these mothers want and are capable of raising their children? I agree with you about the past, and I. Any speak to international adoptions because I don’t know enough about it. But here, it is possible to raise your kids, no matter how poor you are. It’s not easy, but I know it’s possible because I come from a family that had plenty of young, unwed mothers (not that this is the only demographic choosing adoption). My own mother had 3 kids before she eventually married and had a fourth. I am an adoptive mom and I met my daughter’s birth mother. She was in her late 20’s and She had one child and said that raising her second was not fair to her first child or my daughter. I hope my DD reconnects with her birth parents if she wants to do that. Her mom made the choice that she thought was best for everyone involved. She wasn’t forced into it.

If she couldn't live and support her child which is why it appears "she wasn't forced into it" means that her circumstances forced the decision. Your argument is very surface level comparing unwed mothers of previous decades to women today. Society no longer judges unwed mothers and forces them and underage women and "forces" them to relinquish a child, but now it's financial and life circumstances. As a country, we don't even support families, any kind of family, on any level. .health care, family leave, flexible working schedules, the list goes on.

Women graduate college with unprecedented loans, and before you indicate that they could have gone to community college or a state school ( also not cheap) , perhaps a woman in veterinary or med school or any higher learning-might have to give up a child because she can't take a break due to the loans already incurred. My point is that the rich and unencumbered win children from these situations.

But we have people in such circumstances in our society. And some of them get pregnant. They can't or chose not to parent those children. The responsible adults who step into this breach are not the only ones "winning." The baby is. As well as society. Because babies need adults who can feed and house them, as well as nurture them to adult hood. Humans do best when they have families, who can love and care for them.

They vast majority of "can't or chose not to" is because they could not afford to. Period.

If you went to these same women and said, "Look. Here is a full support system for you. You won't have to worry about housing, child care, health care nor your further education. You can parent your child and we have mentors for you. It may be tough but we are here to help you and your family and you will get through it OK." We have not developed this kind of support system for women because the adoption industry took hold, particularly in regards to infants.

The options mothers now get are usually based on the open adoption construct, "Look. You don't have to worry about raising the child because here is this wonderful UMC family that will take wonderful care of your baby. They will open their hearts and homes to YOU, too. Your child will be loved and cared for and will have everything they want and need. The best part is you can maintain a connection with your child and be a part of their family life. You can go on and fulfill all those wonderful dreams you had for yourself and still be involved with your child!"

And of course the most important part of the pitch, "Don't worry about any housing, medical, legal or other expenses for things you need because the wonderful UMC family will take care of it for you."

It's about money.

I’m an adoptee who knew some identifying information. I would not consider that an open adoption by any means.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We adopted our kids privately though our attorney. There is no planned contact wit the birth fmaily unless the kids want to on their own when they are 18.

I think this is often the least traumatic. We're seeing problems with our family member's open adoption and the full inclusion of the child's birth family. There are real concerns arising about how this will affect both the adopted child and other children in the family.

It’s more traumatic for kids not to know as well as the birth family.

How do you know this - can you cite a reference? Please show me some longitudinal studies which show that fully integrating the birth family into the child's life is psychologically healthy? I'm not talking about an occasional letter/photos or a visit once or twice per year. I'm talking about full-on involvement - contact at least weekly, birth parents choosing/deciding which clothing child will wear, having their extended family involved and visiting regularly and posting info on SM of "their baby." It's all happy family now while child is young but what happens when conflict arises? Where are the studies which show those impacts on the adopted child and the rest of the families? That information MUST be made available to birth families AND adopters if they want to fully understand the decisions they are making.

Wait, are you saying anything less than fully integrating the birth family is a closed adoption? Because I would call anything where the child knows who there birth family is (not even contact, just a name/birthdate/identifying info available to the child) an open adoption. I know a couple people who don’t have anything at all and I am extremely against hiding birth info from kids but I think there’s a lot of (healthy) space between nothing and fully integrating the birth family. There are studies showing that hiding birth info is unhealthy, but I don’t know of any assessing the degrees of openness and relationship between birth and adoptive families.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Adoption is for children who need homes. Not for adults who want a child. Full stop.

Sure, keep telling yourself that.

I think it should be about finding parents for an infant, not babies for the parents

Anonymous wrote:
If she couldn't live and support her child which is why it appears "she wasn't forced into it" means that her circumstances forced the decision. Your argument is very surface level comparing unwed mothers of previous decades to women today. Society no longer judges unwed mothers and forces them and underage women and "forces" them to relinquish a child, but now it's financial and life circumstances. As a country, we don't even support families, any kind of family, on any level. .health care, family leave, flexible working schedules, the list goes on.

Women graduate college with unprecedented loans, and before you indicate that they could have gone to community college or a state school ( also not cheap) , perhaps a woman in veterinary or med school or any higher learning-might have to give up a child because she can't take a break due to the loans already incurred. My point is that the rich and unencumbered win children from these situations.

These women aren't forced into it by circumstances because there are plenty of women in the same circumstances who choose something else, whether abortion or raising their children. Moreover, as a woman who graduated with a ton of debt (you are responding to my post, and I believe that I already mentioned that my parents were poor and also I am in the first generation to go to college, so I know about college debt!), there are deferral periods and forbearances if you are not working, you can tie payments to income level, you can even just not pay -- are those good choices? Of course not, but those are choices that people have. No one is forced to place a child for adoption.