Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ Yep, you are clearly a pro-adoption cheerleader and probably work in the industry.

And an industry it is.

You know, if you were angry about vaccines, and I showed you viable data that goes against your belief, you would accuse me of working for Big Pharma. Lol. Not everyone is profiting from facts. Your argument is immature and naive. Come up with a fact, not an ad hominem attack, it's not effective and it sours your premise. If you have a strong premise, you would not have to resort to childish barbs.
So, no, again. I am a history professor, an adoptee who was literally adopted on the black market decades ago, and the "industry" you speak of doesn't really exist now in the way you think- it's not a defined concept the way it was in the 50s and 60s, it's an ad hoc organic opportunistic venture which can be ethical and oftentimes not with NONE of the same variables involved. Sociology has changed everything about sex , reproduction, women's rights, economics, societal norms, and issues surrounding identity. And, sorry, we would all hope that mothers would and could keep their kids if they want, or abort if they choose. However, there are still mothers and fathers ( they were not even considered years ago) who do want to give up their babies, if they haven't aborted. It's not even reasonable to assume otherwise. You can improve the system but it's never going away. There will always be unwanted babies, as sad as it is.

And with regard to all your esoteric examples of coercion, etc., these are outside variables that do somehow intersect the entire adoption paradigm, but they don't define it. There will always be bad actors and bad religion and culture, but it does not apply to everyone, or hardly anyone. Laws and policies have changed what is supposed to happen, and we didn't have those before.

You seem angry about your own experience, whether you are an adoptee or birth parent. Try to climb out of your own circumstance in order to continue to improve the future of babies, because your personal experience doesn't not generalize in this regard. I 've done that, but I suspect I've had much more time to reflect. Best of luck.

Following up months later, I am the PP you so condescendingly referred to in your reply dismissing my concerns about domestic adoption industry coercion as only religious and claiming this is nothing like the Baby Scoop Era. Your rose-colored glasses about adoption are ridiculous.

It is NOT only religious adoption agencies that are coercive and shame based. The entire domestic adoption industry in the U.S. is this way. The only way to create a supply of adoptable, sale-able healthy infants is to convince vulnerable women that they are selfish, immature, and unworthy of motherhood if they even consider parenting their own baby, this is NOT just a practice of religious organizations; it is the standard practice of all recruiters of women who can be persuaded to relinquish their babies either out of desperation, fear, or lack of resources.

As a professor, you are utterly ignorant about the realities facing women and girls in poverty. We have almost no social safety net whatsoever in this country anymore. Single mothers in the 70s and 80s may have had slightly more social stigma but they had a LOT more societal support from WIC to welfare to affordable housing to Medicaid. Those programs have been whittled down to the nub now. Young women with no health insurance, no child care, no maternity leave, no sick leave….they literally have no way to keep their babies with just government help. And so the predators swoop in.

The issue of whether a person’s DNA can stay anonymous forever is irrelevant to the issue of adopters closing adoptions that were supposed to be open. Relinquishing mothers have zero legal recourse when that happens, zero. The fact that her child might - MIGHT - some day choose to find her through commercial DNA services does not in any way ameliorate the loss of family, the loss of connection, the loss of relationship through childhood that was promised during the predatory attempts to convince a vulnerable mother that she should give away her child forever. There are NO laws in any state that protect a relinquishing mother and her child in this circumstance. An entire extended family may have had the expectation and promise of an ongoing relationship when the child was relinquished and then all that connection, heritage, relationship…all that can be taken away forever at the absolute power of the adopter. The baby never signed up to lose her grandparents, cousins, siblings, aunts, uncles, and parents…all of that is taken from her for a minimum of 18 years but potentially forever even when the relinquishing family may have been promised otherwise throughout the entire process.

My mother was a relinquishing mother during the Baby Scoop Era. The shame and stigma felt by women in the vast and growing evangelical “Christian” community in the U.S. is no less powerful and damaging than what she faced 60 years ago.

You clearly have never read the scholarly research that is encompassed in Relinquished by Gretchen Sisson, which focuses solely on the domestic adoption industry in the last 15 years, not 60 years ago. Marketing of adoption is deceptive, coercive, and predatory, now even moreso than when my mother was forced to relinquish because the coercive practice of pre-birth matching plus the fact that many pregnant women turn to adoption while in desperate financial straits means that women are under different kinds of emotionally manipulative pressures…the guilt at disappointing the would-be adopters, the fear of legal action or demands to repay support during pregnancy…the guns to the head of women considering relinquishment are, on a practical level, more intense than the shame that forced women into secrecy back then.

Your situaiton is not relevant today and you sound toxic.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ Yep, you are clearly a pro-adoption cheerleader and probably work in the industry.

And an industry it is.

You know, if you were angry about vaccines, and I showed you viable data that goes against your belief, you would accuse me of working for Big Pharma. Lol. Not everyone is profiting from facts. Your argument is immature and naive. Come up with a fact, not an ad hominem attack, it's not effective and it sours your premise. If you have a strong premise, you would not have to resort to childish barbs.
So, no, again. I am a history professor, an adoptee who was literally adopted on the black market decades ago, and the "industry" you speak of doesn't really exist now in the way you think- it's not a defined concept the way it was in the 50s and 60s, it's an ad hoc organic opportunistic venture which can be ethical and oftentimes not with NONE of the same variables involved. Sociology has changed everything about sex , reproduction, women's rights, economics, societal norms, and issues surrounding identity. And, sorry, we would all hope that mothers would and could keep their kids if they want, or abort if they choose. However, there are still mothers and fathers ( they were not even considered years ago) who do want to give up their babies, if they haven't aborted. It's not even reasonable to assume otherwise. You can improve the system but it's never going away. There will always be unwanted babies, as sad as it is.

And with regard to all your esoteric examples of coercion, etc., these are outside variables that do somehow intersect the entire adoption paradigm, but they don't define it. There will always be bad actors and bad religion and culture, but it does not apply to everyone, or hardly anyone. Laws and policies have changed what is supposed to happen, and we didn't have those before.

You seem angry about your own experience, whether you are an adoptee or birth parent. Try to climb out of your own circumstance in order to continue to improve the future of babies, because your personal experience doesn't not generalize in this regard. I 've done that, but I suspect I've had much more time to reflect. Best of luck.

Following up months later, I am the PP you so condescendingly referred to in your reply dismissing my concerns about domestic adoption industry coercion as only religious and claiming this is nothing like the Baby Scoop Era. Your rose-colored glasses about adoption are ridiculous.

It is NOT only religious adoption agencies that are coercive and shame based. The entire domestic adoption industry in the U.S. is this way. The only way to create a supply of adoptable, sale-able healthy infants is to convince vulnerable women that they are selfish, immature, and unworthy of motherhood if they even consider parenting their own baby, this is NOT just a practice of religious organizations; it is the standard practice of all recruiters of women who can be persuaded to relinquish their babies either out of desperation, fear, or lack of resources.

As a professor, you are utterly ignorant about the realities facing women and girls in poverty. We have almost no social safety net whatsoever in this country anymore. Single mothers in the 70s and 80s may have had slightly more social stigma but they had a LOT more societal support from WIC to welfare to affordable housing to Medicaid. Those programs have been whittled down to the nub now. Young women with no health insurance, no child care, no maternity leave, no sick leave….they literally have no way to keep their babies with just government help. And so the predators swoop in.

The issue of whether a person’s DNA can stay anonymous forever is irrelevant to the issue of adopters closing adoptions that were supposed to be open. Relinquishing mothers have zero legal recourse when that happens, zero. The fact that her child might - MIGHT - some day choose to find her through commercial DNA services does not in any way ameliorate the loss of family, the loss of connection, the loss of relationship through childhood that was promised during the predatory attempts to convince a vulnerable mother that she should give away her child forever. There are NO laws in any state that protect a relinquishing mother and her child in this circumstance. An entire extended family may have had the expectation and promise of an ongoing relationship when the child was relinquished and then all that connection, heritage, relationship…all that can be taken away forever at the absolute power of the adopter. The baby never signed up to lose her grandparents, cousins, siblings, aunts, uncles, and parents…all of that is taken from her for a minimum of 18 years but potentially forever even when the relinquishing family may have been promised otherwise throughout the entire process.

My mother was a relinquishing mother during the Baby Scoop Era. The shame and stigma felt by women in the vast and growing evangelical “Christian” community in the U.S. is no less powerful and damaging than what she faced 60 years ago.

You clearly have never read the scholarly research that is encompassed in Relinquished by Gretchen Sisson, which focuses solely on the domestic adoption industry in the last 15 years, not 60 years ago. Marketing of adoption is deceptive, coercive, and predatory, now even moreso than when my mother was forced to relinquish because the coercive practice of pre-birth matching plus the fact that many pregnant women turn to adoption while in desperate financial straits means that women are under different kinds of emotionally manipulative pressures…the guilt at disappointing the would-be adopters, the fear of legal action or demands to repay support during pregnancy…the guns to the head of women considering relinquishment are, on a practical level, more intense than the shame that forced women into secrecy back then.

Your situaiton is not relevant today and you sound toxic.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

What about in families where there is a mix? For example in birth order: a bio child, adopted child, another bio child.

Open adoption so the child has known the bio mom, dad AND grandparents who regularly visit the family home. Now the bio mom and dad are in new relationships and one of them are pregnant/expecting a child.

They are excited to introduce the new baby to the adopted child as a "sister/brother." But no mention of how to integrate that baby with the bio children. Or how to address the grandparent issue.

The adoptive parents have expressed they want to have an element of control over what is said to all the kids and there is a subtle hint that if it doesn't go according to their wishes, the "open" adoption may begin to have the door swing shut.

What is the healthiest way for this to be explained to the adopted child and the bio children in the family?

This isn't an answer to this exact question but I will share as an adoptive parent that it is incredibly painful to watch the impact that a fact pattern like this has on adopted children. The message being imparted by the bio parents is that neither of them were willing to step up and parent adopted child, but they are more than willing to parent another child they are having with a different partner. That's what the child is very likely to feel---that they are "less than" this new baby. The bio parent needs to clearly understand that is the potential message that they are sending. The adoptive parents are well within their rights to feel protective and entitled to have a say in how this potentially devastating news is handled. Had I known that my child was going to be sandbagged with a surprise half-sibling when meeting one of their bio parents I would have insisted the meeting be handled differently---especially since it was very obvious from age of half sibling that bio parent had chosen to let DC languish in foster care while entering into new relationship and parenting new child. I personally think open adoption to this extent---where bio family continually "drops in"---is a bad idea. It is confusing and painful for a child and relegates adoptive parents---the people who ARE doing the hard day to day work of childrearing and making a lifelong commitment to that work---into foster caregivers.

Thanks for the insights from your perspective as an adoptive parent.

In the case above, it is going to be very problematic because the adoptive family's biological children are now used to the adoptive child's parents & grandparents being part of their lives for several years now. The bio parent and partner have already been to the home and told ALL the children there is a new baby on the way.

Since the adopted child KNOWS who their biological parents & grandparents are it will be almost impossible to cut them off without damaging psychological implications to everyone, wouldn't it? But the adoptive parents are not the type who want complications if it's too much hard work, and won't think twice about forbidding the adoptee's family to still come around.

I agree that in being this "open" was far too much and now there is going to be life-long fallout, I'm afraid.

I find it very offensive you term a child adopted child. Adoption is how a child joins a family. It should define the place in the family.

It's perfectly fine to say adopted child when you're having a discussion about adoption!

- adult adoptee

No, it’s not. My child woukd be very hurt by it and it’s not appropriate.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

What about in families where there is a mix? For example in birth order: a bio child, adopted child, another bio child.

Open adoption so the child has known the bio mom, dad AND grandparents who regularly visit the family home. Now the bio mom and dad are in new relationships and one of them are pregnant/expecting a child.

They are excited to introduce the new baby to the adopted child as a "sister/brother." But no mention of how to integrate that baby with the bio children. Or how to address the grandparent issue.

The adoptive parents have expressed they want to have an element of control over what is said to all the kids and there is a subtle hint that if it doesn't go according to their wishes, the "open" adoption may begin to have the door swing shut.

What is the healthiest way for this to be explained to the adopted child and the bio children in the family?

This isn't an answer to this exact question but I will share as an adoptive parent that it is incredibly painful to watch the impact that a fact pattern like this has on adopted children. The message being imparted by the bio parents is that neither of them were willing to step up and parent adopted child, but they are more than willing to parent another child they are having with a different partner. That's what the child is very likely to feel---that they are "less than" this new baby. The bio parent needs to clearly understand that is the potential message that they are sending. The adoptive parents are well within their rights to feel protective and entitled to have a say in how this potentially devastating news is handled. Had I known that my child was going to be sandbagged with a surprise half-sibling when meeting one of their bio parents I would have insisted the meeting be handled differently---especially since it was very obvious from age of half sibling that bio parent had chosen to let DC languish in foster care while entering into new relationship and parenting new child. I personally think open adoption to this extent---where bio family continually "drops in"---is a bad idea. It is confusing and painful for a child and relegates adoptive parents---the people who ARE doing the hard day to day work of childrearing and making a lifelong commitment to that work---into foster caregivers.

Thanks for the insights from your perspective as an adoptive parent.

In the case above, it is going to be very problematic because the adoptive family's biological children are now used to the adoptive child's parents & grandparents being part of their lives for several years now. The bio parent and partner have already been to the home and told ALL the children there is a new baby on the way.

Since the adopted child KNOWS who their biological parents & grandparents are it will be almost impossible to cut them off without damaging psychological implications to everyone, wouldn't it? But the adoptive parents are not the type who want complications if it's too much hard work, and won't think twice about forbidding the adoptee's family to still come around.

I agree that in being this "open" was far too much and now there is going to be life-long fallout, I'm afraid.

I find it very offensive you term a child adopted child. Adoption is how a child joins a family. It should define the place in the family.

It's perfectly fine to say adopted child when you're having a discussion about adoption!

- adult adoptee

No, it’s not. My child woukd be very hurt by it and it’s not appropriate.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

What about in families where there is a mix? For example in birth order: a bio child, adopted child, another bio child.

Open adoption so the child has known the bio mom, dad AND grandparents who regularly visit the family home. Now the bio mom and dad are in new relationships and one of them are pregnant/expecting a child.

They are excited to introduce the new baby to the adopted child as a "sister/brother." But no mention of how to integrate that baby with the bio children. Or how to address the grandparent issue.

The adoptive parents have expressed they want to have an element of control over what is said to all the kids and there is a subtle hint that if it doesn't go according to their wishes, the "open" adoption may begin to have the door swing shut.

What is the healthiest way for this to be explained to the adopted child and the bio children in the family?

This isn't an answer to this exact question but I will share as an adoptive parent that it is incredibly painful to watch the impact that a fact pattern like this has on adopted children. The message being imparted by the bio parents is that neither of them were willing to step up and parent adopted child, but they are more than willing to parent another child they are having with a different partner. That's what the child is very likely to feel---that they are "less than" this new baby. The bio parent needs to clearly understand that is the potential message that they are sending. The adoptive parents are well within their rights to feel protective and entitled to have a say in how this potentially devastating news is handled. Had I known that my child was going to be sandbagged with a surprise half-sibling when meeting one of their bio parents I would have insisted the meeting be handled differently---especially since it was very obvious from age of half sibling that bio parent had chosen to let DC languish in foster care while entering into new relationship and parenting new child. I personally think open adoption to this extent---where bio family continually "drops in"---is a bad idea. It is confusing and painful for a child and relegates adoptive parents---the people who ARE doing the hard day to day work of childrearing and making a lifelong commitment to that work---into foster caregivers.

Thanks for the insights from your perspective as an adoptive parent.

In the case above, it is going to be very problematic because the adoptive family's biological children are now used to the adoptive child's parents & grandparents being part of their lives for several years now. The bio parent and partner have already been to the home and told ALL the children there is a new baby on the way.

Since the adopted child KNOWS who their biological parents & grandparents are it will be almost impossible to cut them off without damaging psychological implications to everyone, wouldn't it? But the adoptive parents are not the type who want complications if it's too much hard work, and won't think twice about forbidding the adoptee's family to still come around.

I agree that in being this "open" was far too much and now there is going to be life-long fallout, I'm afraid.

I find it very offensive you term a child adopted child. Adoption is how a child joins a family. It should define the place in the family.

It's perfectly fine to say adopted child when you're having a discussion about adoption!

- adult adoptee

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ Yep, you are clearly a pro-adoption cheerleader and probably work in the industry.

And an industry it is.

You know, if you were angry about vaccines, and I showed you viable data that goes against your belief, you would accuse me of working for Big Pharma. Lol. Not everyone is profiting from facts. Your argument is immature and naive. Come up with a fact, not an ad hominem attack, it's not effective and it sours your premise. If you have a strong premise, you would not have to resort to childish barbs.
So, no, again. I am a history professor, an adoptee who was literally adopted on the black market decades ago, and the "industry" you speak of doesn't really exist now in the way you think- it's not a defined concept the way it was in the 50s and 60s, it's an ad hoc organic opportunistic venture which can be ethical and oftentimes not with NONE of the same variables involved. Sociology has changed everything about sex , reproduction, women's rights, economics, societal norms, and issues surrounding identity. And, sorry, we would all hope that mothers would and could keep their kids if they want, or abort if they choose. However, there are still mothers and fathers ( they were not even considered years ago) who do want to give up their babies, if they haven't aborted. It's not even reasonable to assume otherwise. You can improve the system but it's never going away. There will always be unwanted babies, as sad as it is.

And with regard to all your esoteric examples of coercion, etc., these are outside variables that do somehow intersect the entire adoption paradigm, but they don't define it. There will always be bad actors and bad religion and culture, but it does not apply to everyone, or hardly anyone. Laws and policies have changed what is supposed to happen, and we didn't have those before.

You seem angry about your own experience, whether you are an adoptee or birth parent. Try to climb out of your own circumstance in order to continue to improve the future of babies, because your personal experience doesn't not generalize in this regard. I 've done that, but I suspect I've had much more time to reflect. Best of luck.

Following up months later, I am the PP you so condescendingly referred to in your reply dismissing my concerns about domestic adoption industry coercion as only religious and claiming this is nothing like the Baby Scoop Era. Your rose-colored glasses about adoption are ridiculous.

It is NOT only religious adoption agencies that are coercive and shame based. The entire domestic adoption industry in the U.S. is this way. The only way to create a supply of adoptable, sale-able healthy infants is to convince vulnerable women that they are selfish, immature, and unworthy of motherhood if they even consider parenting their own baby, this is NOT just a practice of religious organizations; it is the standard practice of all recruiters of women who can be persuaded to relinquish their babies either out of desperation, fear, or lack of resources.

As a professor, you are utterly ignorant about the realities facing women and girls in poverty. We have almost no social safety net whatsoever in this country anymore. Single mothers in the 70s and 80s may have had slightly more social stigma but they had a LOT more societal support from WIC to welfare to affordable housing to Medicaid. Those programs have been whittled down to the nub now. Young women with no health insurance, no child care, no maternity leave, no sick leave….they literally have no way to keep their babies with just government help. And so the predators swoop in.

The issue of whether a person’s DNA can stay anonymous forever is irrelevant to the issue of adopters closing adoptions that were supposed to be open. Relinquishing mothers have zero legal recourse when that happens, zero. The fact that her child might - MIGHT - some day choose to find her through commercial DNA services does not in any way ameliorate the loss of family, the loss of connection, the loss of relationship through childhood that was promised during the predatory attempts to convince a vulnerable mother that she should give away her child forever. There are NO laws in any state that protect a relinquishing mother and her child in this circumstance. An entire extended family may have had the expectation and promise of an ongoing relationship when the child was relinquished and then all that connection, heritage, relationship…all that can be taken away forever at the absolute power of the adopter. The baby never signed up to lose her grandparents, cousins, siblings, aunts, uncles, and parents…all of that is taken from her for a minimum of 18 years but potentially forever even when the relinquishing family may have been promised otherwise throughout the entire process.

My mother was a relinquishing mother during the Baby Scoop Era. The shame and stigma felt by women in the vast and growing evangelical “Christian” community in the U.S. is no less powerful and damaging than what she faced 60 years ago.

You clearly have never read the scholarly research that is encompassed in Relinquished by Gretchen Sisson, which focuses solely on the domestic adoption industry in the last 15 years, not 60 years ago. Marketing of adoption is deceptive, coercive, and predatory, now even moreso than when my mother was forced to relinquish because the coercive practice of pre-birth matching plus the fact that many pregnant women turn to adoption while in desperate financial straits means that women are under different kinds of emotionally manipulative pressures…the guilt at disappointing the would-be adopters, the fear of legal action or demands to repay support during pregnancy…the guns to the head of women considering relinquishment are, on a practical level, more intense than the shame that forced women into secrecy back then.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

What about in families where there is a mix? For example in birth order: a bio child, adopted child, another bio child.

Open adoption so the child has known the bio mom, dad AND grandparents who regularly visit the family home. Now the bio mom and dad are in new relationships and one of them are pregnant/expecting a child.

They are excited to introduce the new baby to the adopted child as a "sister/brother." But no mention of how to integrate that baby with the bio children. Or how to address the grandparent issue.

The adoptive parents have expressed they want to have an element of control over what is said to all the kids and there is a subtle hint that if it doesn't go according to their wishes, the "open" adoption may begin to have the door swing shut.

What is the healthiest way for this to be explained to the adopted child and the bio children in the family?

This isn't an answer to this exact question but I will share as an adoptive parent that it is incredibly painful to watch the impact that a fact pattern like this has on adopted children. The message being imparted by the bio parents is that neither of them were willing to step up and parent adopted child, but they are more than willing to parent another child they are having with a different partner. That's what the child is very likely to feel---that they are "less than" this new baby. The bio parent needs to clearly understand that is the potential message that they are sending. The adoptive parents are well within their rights to feel protective and entitled to have a say in how this potentially devastating news is handled. Had I known that my child was going to be sandbagged with a surprise half-sibling when meeting one of their bio parents I would have insisted the meeting be handled differently---especially since it was very obvious from age of half sibling that bio parent had chosen to let DC languish in foster care while entering into new relationship and parenting new child. I personally think open adoption to this extent---where bio family continually "drops in"---is a bad idea. It is confusing and painful for a child and relegates adoptive parents---the people who ARE doing the hard day to day work of childrearing and making a lifelong commitment to that work---into foster caregivers.

Thanks for the insights from your perspective as an adoptive parent.

In the case above, it is going to be very problematic because the adoptive family's biological children are now used to the adoptive child's parents & grandparents being part of their lives for several years now. The bio parent and partner have already been to the home and told ALL the children there is a new baby on the way.

Since the adopted child KNOWS who their biological parents & grandparents are it will be almost impossible to cut them off without damaging psychological implications to everyone, wouldn't it? But the adoptive parents are not the type who want complications if it's too much hard work, and won't think twice about forbidding the adoptee's family to still come around.

I agree that in being this "open" was far too much and now there is going to be life-long fallout, I'm afraid.

I find it very offensive you term a child adopted child. Adoption is how a child joins a family. It should define the place in the family.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s “all intents and purposes,” not all intensive purposes.

OMG I was gonna write this. Pet peeve.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ Yep, you are clearly a pro-adoption cheerleader and probably work in the industry.

And an industry it is.

You know, if you were angry about vaccines, and I showed you viable data that goes against your belief, you would accuse me of working for Big Pharma. Lol. Not everyone is profiting from facts. Your argument is immature and naive. Come up with a fact, not an ad hominem attack, it's not effective and it sours your premise. If you have a strong premise, you would not have to resort to childish barbs.
So, no, again. I am a history professor, an adoptee who was literally adopted on the black market decades ago, and the "industry" you speak of doesn't really exist now in the way you think- it's not a defined concept the way it was in the 50s and 60s, it's an ad hoc organic opportunistic venture which can be ethical and oftentimes not with NONE of the same variables involved. Sociology has changed everything about sex , reproduction, women's rights, economics, societal norms, and issues surrounding identity. And, sorry, we would all hope that mothers would and could keep their kids if they want, or abort if they choose. However, there are still mothers and fathers ( they were not even considered years ago) who do want to give up their babies, if they haven't aborted. It's not even reasonable to assume otherwise. You can improve the system but it's never going away. There will always be unwanted babies, as sad as it is.

And with regard to all your esoteric examples of coercion, etc., these are outside variables that do somehow intersect the entire adoption paradigm, but they don't define it. There will always be bad actors and bad religion and culture, but it does not apply to everyone, or hardly anyone. Laws and policies have changed what is supposed to happen, and we didn't have those before.

You seem angry about your own experience, whether you are an adoptee or birth parent. Try to climb out of your own circumstance in order to continue to improve the future of babies, because your personal experience doesn't not generalize in this regard. I 've done that, but I suspect I've had much more time to reflect. Best of luck.

Following up months later, I am the PP you so condescendingly referred to in your reply dismissing my concerns about domestic adoption industry coercion as only religious and claiming this is nothing like the Baby Scoop Era. Your rose-colored glasses about adoption are ridiculous.

It is NOT only religious adoption agencies that are coercive and shame based. The entire domestic adoption industry in the U.S. is this way. The only way to create a supply of adoptable, sale-able healthy infants is to convince vulnerable women that they are selfish, immature, and unworthy of motherhood if they even consider parenting their own baby, this is NOT just a practice of religious organizations; it is the standard practice of all recruiters of women who can be persuaded to relinquish their babies either out of desperation, fear, or lack of resources.

As a professor, you are utterly ignorant about the realities facing women and girls in poverty. We have almost no social safety net whatsoever in this country anymore. Single mothers in the 70s and 80s may have had slightly more social stigma but they had a LOT more societal support from WIC to welfare to affordable housing to Medicaid. Those programs have been whittled down to the nub now. Young women with no health insurance, no child care, no maternity leave, no sick leave….they literally have no way to keep their babies with just government help. And so the predators swoop in.

The issue of whether a person’s DNA can stay anonymous forever is irrelevant to the issue of adopters closing adoptions that were supposed to be open. Relinquishing mothers have zero legal recourse when that happens, zero. The fact that her child might - MIGHT - some day choose to find her through commercial DNA services does not in any way ameliorate the loss of family, the loss of connection, the loss of relationship through childhood that was promised during the predatory attempts to convince a vulnerable mother that she should give away her child forever. There are NO laws in any state that protect a relinquishing mother and her child in this circumstance. An entire extended family may have had the expectation and promise of an ongoing relationship when the child was relinquished and then all that connection, heritage, relationship…all that can be taken away forever at the absolute power of the adopter. The baby never signed up to lose her grandparents, cousins, siblings, aunts, uncles, and parents…all of that is taken from her for a minimum of 18 years but potentially forever even when the relinquishing family may have been promised otherwise throughout the entire process.

My mother was a relinquishing mother during the Baby Scoop Era. The shame and stigma felt by women in the vast and growing evangelical “Christian” community in the U.S. is no less powerful and damaging than what she faced 60 years ago.

You clearly have never read the scholarly research that is encompassed in Relinquished by Gretchen Sisson, which focuses solely on the domestic adoption industry in the last 15 years, not 60 years ago. Marketing of adoption is deceptive, coercive, and predatory, now even moreso than when my mother was forced to relinquish because the coercive practice of pre-birth matching plus the fact that many pregnant women turn to adoption while in desperate financial straits means that women are under different kinds of emotionally manipulative pressures…the guilt at disappointing the would-be adopters, the fear of legal action or demands to repay support during pregnancy…the guns to the head of women considering relinquishment are, on a practical level, more intense than the shame that forced women into secrecy back then.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ Yep, you are clearly a pro-adoption cheerleader and probably work in the industry.

And an industry it is.

You know, if you were angry about vaccines, and I showed you viable data that goes against your belief, you would accuse me of working for Big Pharma. Lol. Not everyone is profiting from facts. Your argument is immature and naive. Come up with a fact, not an ad hominem attack, it's not effective and it sours your premise. If you have a strong premise, you would not have to resort to childish barbs.
So, no, again. I am a history professor, an adoptee who was literally adopted on the black market decades ago, and the "industry" you speak of doesn't really exist now in the way you think- it's not a defined concept the way it was in the 50s and 60s, it's an ad hoc organic opportunistic venture which can be ethical and oftentimes not with NONE of the same variables involved. Sociology has changed everything about sex , reproduction, women's rights, economics, societal norms, and issues surrounding identity. And, sorry, we would all hope that mothers would and could keep their kids if they want, or abort if they choose. However, there are still mothers and fathers ( they were not even considered years ago) who do want to give up their babies, if they haven't aborted. It's not even reasonable to assume otherwise. You can improve the system but it's never going away. There will always be unwanted babies, as sad as it is.

And with regard to all your esoteric examples of coercion, etc., these are outside variables that do somehow intersect the entire adoption paradigm, but they don't define it. There will always be bad actors and bad religion and culture, but it does not apply to everyone, or hardly anyone. Laws and policies have changed what is supposed to happen, and we didn't have those before.

You seem angry about your own experience, whether you are an adoptee or birth parent. Try to climb out of your own circumstance in order to continue to improve the future of babies, because your personal experience doesn't not generalize in this regard. I 've done that, but I suspect I've had much more time to reflect. Best of luck.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

What about in families where there is a mix? For example in birth order: a bio child, adopted child, another bio child.

Open adoption so the child has known the bio mom, dad AND grandparents who regularly visit the family home. Now the bio mom and dad are in new relationships and one of them are pregnant/expecting a child.

They are excited to introduce the new baby to the adopted child as a "sister/brother." But no mention of how to integrate that baby with the bio children. Or how to address the grandparent issue.

The adoptive parents have expressed they want to have an element of control over what is said to all the kids and there is a subtle hint that if it doesn't go according to their wishes, the "open" adoption may begin to have the door swing shut.

What is the healthiest way for this to be explained to the adopted child and the bio children in the family?

This isn't an answer to this exact question but I will share as an adoptive parent that it is incredibly painful to watch the impact that a fact pattern like this has on adopted children. The message being imparted by the bio parents is that neither of them were willing to step up and parent adopted child, but they are more than willing to parent another child they are having with a different partner. That's what the child is very likely to feel---that they are "less than" this new baby. The bio parent needs to clearly understand that is the potential message that they are sending. The adoptive parents are well within their rights to feel protective and entitled to have a say in how this potentially devastating news is handled. Had I known that my child was going to be sandbagged with a surprise half-sibling when meeting one of their bio parents I would have insisted the meeting be handled differently---especially since it was very obvious from age of half sibling that bio parent had chosen to let DC languish in foster care while entering into new relationship and parenting new child. I personally think open adoption to this extent---where bio family continually "drops in"---is a bad idea. It is confusing and painful for a child and relegates adoptive parents---the people who ARE doing the hard day to day work of childrearing and making a lifelong commitment to that work---into foster caregivers.

Thanks for the insights from your perspective as an adoptive parent.

In the case above, it is going to be very problematic because the adoptive family's biological children are now used to the adoptive child's parents & grandparents being part of their lives for several years now. The bio parent and partner have already been to the home and told ALL the children there is a new baby on the way.

Since the adopted child KNOWS who their biological parents & grandparents are it will be almost impossible to cut them off without damaging psychological implications to everyone, wouldn't it? But the adoptive parents are not the type who want complications if it's too much hard work, and won't think twice about forbidding the adoptee's family to still come around.

I agree that in being this "open" was far too much and now there is going to be life-long fallout, I'm afraid.

Anonymous wrote:

What about in families where there is a mix? For example in birth order: a bio child, adopted child, another bio child.

Open adoption so the child has known the bio mom, dad AND grandparents who regularly visit the family home. Now the bio mom and dad are in new relationships and one of them are pregnant/expecting a child.

They are excited to introduce the new baby to the adopted child as a "sister/brother." But no mention of how to integrate that baby with the bio children. Or how to address the grandparent issue.

The adoptive parents have expressed they want to have an element of control over what is said to all the kids and there is a subtle hint that if it doesn't go according to their wishes, the "open" adoption may begin to have the door swing shut.

What is the healthiest way for this to be explained to the adopted child and the bio children in the family?

This isn't an answer to this exact question but I will share as an adoptive parent that it is incredibly painful to watch the impact that a fact pattern like this has on adopted children. The message being imparted by the bio parents is that neither of them were willing to step up and parent adopted child, but they are more than willing to parent another child they are having with a different partner. That's what the child is very likely to feel---that they are "less than" this new baby. The bio parent needs to clearly understand that is the potential message that they are sending. The adoptive parents are well within their rights to feel protective and entitled to have a say in how this potentially devastating news is handled. Had I known that my child was going to be sandbagged with a surprise half-sibling when meeting one of their bio parents I would have insisted the meeting be handled differently---especially since it was very obvious from age of half sibling that bio parent had chosen to let DC languish in foster care while entering into new relationship and parenting new child. I personally think open adoption to this extent---where bio family continually "drops in"---is a bad idea. It is confusing and painful for a child and relegates adoptive parents---the people who ARE doing the hard day to day work of childrearing and making a lifelong commitment to that work---into foster caregivers.