NOTE: The complaint against Whiners does not apply to this following commentator, Rather it is against those who whine about their adoption as Causing their separation/loss from natural/birth mother and/or father, culture, country, language, etc. Causality is very clear- It is theconceptthatanactionoreventwillproduceacertainresponsetotheactionintheformofanotherevent.
"The simple fact is that Adoption does not CAUSE the separation."
I agree that qualifiers should be used rather than blanketing something or someone and all of adoption in discourse. A qualifier would have been suitable here because it's not entirely true. There are indeed *many* instances where adoption has caused the loss and separation of mothers and children.
As an adoptee and feminist, I have long been concerned with the U.S. obsession of "righting" the "illicit" childbearing of impoverished and/or unwed mothers by adoption--something that came about after careful marketing and the creation of a supply and demand system in the domestic industry in the United States. In the 1970's, for every one "unwed mother" who might give her baby up for adoption, there were ten prospective adoptive couples waiting to adopt (that ratio has since skyrocketed astronomically) with few facilitators and institutions at the time disagreeing that an adoption wasn't the only option. This system stacked against vulnerable, young, women did in fact cause them to lose their babies to adoption. The need for adoptions to happen as, second to marriage, the only way for a woman to "redeem" unwed childbearing drove the losses of over one million women. These are losses the blossoming industry at the time absolutely caused.
The over one-million U.S. women, and who knows how many worldwide, victimized by this system should not be dismissed. Their children were also victims. How can we dismiss them or tell them how to feel about it all either?
I know you've heard the voices of these mothers. What they say is true. My mother was treated very much like this in the 1980's. The second she walked into the agency, the decision was already made for her. Adoption was the agency's #1 priority and so many absolutely repugnant things happened to her, I, and my adoptive parents, just so adoption was the end that justified the agencies means.
Not every person, mother, family, or adoptee shares that experience. But we cannot dismiss them. I don't want my mother dismissed because her loss to adoption--because of adoption--isn't nice to think about because that's not fair. She was one of those women people use as examples of those who don't want their babies, she was raped. She loved me. She wanted me. I don't "pine" that I wasn't kept. I "pine" because of her horrific experiences--because she's a human being, and my mother, and no one should have to be treated that way.
I don't blame my adoption, adoptive parents, adoptive parents as a whole, adoption workers, original parents, or anyone else for any problem that I've ever had. But I do expect adoption to be accountable for the reprehensible amount of losses it, in itself, causes to orphans, foster children, youth adoptees, adult adoptees, original families, and adoptive families. I'm gladly a "whiner" for the cause of accountability ;-)
*"The simple fact is that Adoption does not CAUSE the
separation."
I agree that qualifiers should be used rather than
blanketing something or someone and all of adoption in discourse. A qualifier
would have been suitable here because it's not entirely true. There are indeed
*many* instances where adoption has caused the loss and separation of mothers
and children."*
{*many* instances where adoption has caused the loss and
separation of mothers and children}-
My point is that the facts are that a
child was conceived, in any manner (marriage, unwed premarital sex, rape,
incest, IVF, etc) and then adopted in any manner, that adoption does not CAUSE
the loss and separation. A life has been produced, and no matter how it was
brought into being, babies and children are in the world having already
suffered loss and separation.
Here is the entire paragraph: {TO ME, and I am not one
gifted with great intelligence just years of making mistakes and trying to
learn from them..in MANY cases, women were forced to make decisions to
"give up raising their children" for many reasons. The simple fact is
that Adoption does not CAUSE the separation. It may provide a solution for a
young mother who has few support networks, or a mother who has no SONS, or a
child that is born with physical or mental disabilities in a society that
rejects such.}
"Adoption does not CAUSE the separation"- No case,
not one, that I have heard used to illustrate this belief has a logical
argument to prove causality. Causation presumes that "A happens Causing B as a RESULT".
Or causality is also the relationship between a set of factors (causes) and a
phenomenon (effects). Those who claim that adoption caused a pregnant woman to
give up her unborn child are missing the point of causality. The Pregancy comes
first, no matter how it happened. The issues (factors) that Cause the
first/birth/natural Parent(s) to give up/relinquish a child was not
"Caused" by someone wanting to adopt.
I have seen this ill-stated logic used over and over, that
of blaming Adoption Industry/Adopters/Adoption Agencies/ etc for
"causing" a child to be adopted. Supply and Demand, a marketing term could apply here. A "Product" must exist
before it can be "Marketed". Many abandoned/relinquished/given up
children exist because of conditions whereby the child could not be raised by
it's natural/birth/first parents/family.
It is these and other conditions that CAUSE
separation/loss not the other way around. It may be death of one or both parents, it may be extreme poverty,
it could be the mother was forced by the societal and family lack of support,
or she just did not want to be a mother yet. Rape or incest, and a decision not
to abort or lack of facilities or religion may prevent turning to abortion.
There are many Causes for the separation.
BUT, LET ME SHOUT HERE- ADOPTION IS NOT THE CAUSE.
Next: *As an adoptee and feminist, I have long been
concerned with the U.S. obsession of "righting" the
"illicit" childbearing of impoverished and/or unwed mothers by adoption--something
that came about after careful marketing and the creation of a supply and demand
system in the domestic industry in the United States.* Hmmm, U.S. *obsession of
"righting" the "illicit" childbearing of impoverished and/or
unwed mothers by adoption*
AGAIN, this is Post conception and relinquishment
phases. Demand for children to be adopted did not Cause pregnancy and male preference did they? No. "Supply" is over abundant for many factors, in different ways over the years it changed as in the USA fewer women gave up their children. Single motherhood became more acceptable by society in many countries (one factor). It is a clear indication that THE RESULTING adoption both Domestic and International is that there is a huge SUPPLY. Not Demand 'causing' the Supply. YOU
SEE? You prove my point, that it is not the cause but the Effect of the huge
SUPPLY that led to the marketing and some abuses within the system. THIS I
AGREE WITH, that abuse HAVE and DO occur.
It is when a few adoptees use language that sounds like they
are speaking for "all international adoptees" and WHINING that Adoption makes(Causes) the loss alone moves me to have fits. These whiners speak in words that they speak for ALL International Adoptees. WELL, NO ONE can speak for all, or even most. THEY DON"T SPEAK FOR ME!
I can
agree with those who are upset about the extreme viewpoints (i.e. "forever
families", Christian zealous motivations to adopt and save a
child"). There are also problems of the Process that international adoption has
undergone and In-Country adoptions are still unregulated in Sending Countries. Non-Hague signatory countries are still allowed to send orphans, so the Hague Conventions are worthless and cannot be enforced.
This: *This system stacked against vulnerable, young, women
did in fact cause them to lose their babies to adoption. The need for adoptions
to happen as, second to marriage, the only way for a woman to
"redeem" unwed childbearing drove the losses of over one million
women. These are losses the blossoming industry at the time absolutely caused.*
You continue to blame those who were waiting to adopt or PAP (Potential
Adoptive Parents is the term used) as though the DEMAND set the pace of the
SUPPLY. I beg to differ again because it is the Government, Society, and Religious viewpoints in both sending and receiving
countries that play major huge factors (CAUSES) in women giving up their children. Let's not forget poverty, war,
tragedy, social experiments such as Native Americans, Aborigines, orphan
trains, etc.
A woman, married or single unwed status, pregnant and facing
motherhood in such situations of life these things CAUSE her or her own family
to send her child away. Correcting such abuses of kidnapped children turned in
as though abandoned without fully identifying and confirming the truth just was
not possible in the past. In Korea, tens of thousands were abandoned in public
places, with no papers, names, birthdates, etc. These days there should not be
any such cases but Korea has not yet signed the Hague Conventions. These things
should be done, but only Koreans will decide that, not by whining but demanding
that separation is by consent of the Mother and that she was NOT forced.
Let me be clear, when I say
{So let's stop the WHINING and PINING that a few do "I ARE ADOPTED
that is why I am all messed up".} I speak not about the things that
happened in anyone's life, there are horror stories in both biological and
adoptive, divorced, non-married, families all around. No, I am talking about
those who whine and claim that they were adopted BECAUSE their adoptive parents
'wanted them'.
It has nothing to do with the circumstances that CAUSED life to
start, rather it has to do with the whining about "losing culture,
language, family" AND BLAMING ADOPTION only. Another whine is only
"Rich White people" adopted them, what a load of crap that is from
socialists/ultra liberals and not all inclusive at all. Black Americans and other people of Color have adopted. Not all adoptive parents are WHITE are they? And the Pining about
race...there is racism everywhere but you cannot just whine about it. What? Should people not be allowed to
cross-cultural marriage? Can non-racism be enforced? Only on the law books but
not on the heart.
We all sang songs about peace and love in the sixties, yet in Vietnam I saw the horrors of reality and hate. Call for peace? When people shoot at you, you shoot back and kill them or you die. Hesitate squeezing the trigger and your friends die. Peace, when there is no peace in the hearts of some men cannot simply be without enforcing the peace. To run around with 'flowers in their hair' turned out to be unsuccessful. Just wanting peace does not bring it.
We call President Obama a Black American but he has publicly admitted that he is mixed-raced- a mutt. He was conceived from a multicultural marriage therefore he is half-white/half-black and was raised as a White man. Yet I am proud that we
have a person of color in the "White House". Media continues to falsely call him only a "Black President" What about his White Mother? I could Whine about that.
"But I do expect adoption to be accountable"?
AGAIN, Amanda, you are putting the blame not on the Cause but the EFFECT.
Adoption may give an option to a woman/mother but it does not Cause her to give
up her child. The Causes are other factors. Please, whining about the
"cause of accountability" should be on improving the legal process of
adoption both intercountry and in-country, to insure that both child and
biological family (if possible) are giving up the legal rights. Yes to trying
to improve Receiving countries processes but it is impossible to correct the Sending
countries social attitudes. Lots of whining will not change the hearts or
minds neither will laws.
Thank you for your thoughts.
Korean War Baby, not always totally right but usually willing to
listen to almost all.
I agree that qualifiers should be used rather than blanketing something or someone and all of adoption in discourse. A qualifier would have been suitable here because it's not entirely true. There are indeed *many* instances where adoption has caused the loss and separation of mothers and children.
As an adoptee and feminist, I have long been concerned with the U.S. obsession of "righting" the "illicit" childbearing of impoverished and/or unwed mothers by adoption--something that came about after careful marketing and the creation of a supply and demand system in the domestic industry in the United States. In the 1970's, for every one "unwed mother" who might give her baby up for adoption, there were ten prospective adoptive couples waiting to adopt (that ratio has since skyrocketed astronomically) with few facilitators and institutions at the time disagreeing that an adoption wasn't the only option. This system stacked against vulnerable, young, women did in fact cause them to lose their babies to adoption. The need for adoptions to happen as, second to marriage, the only way for a woman to "redeem" unwed childbearing drove the losses of over one million women. These are losses the blossoming industry at the time absolutely caused.
The over one-million U.S. women, and who knows how many worldwide, victimized by this system should not be dismissed. Their children were also victims. How can we dismiss them or tell them how to feel about it all either?
I know you've heard the voices of these mothers. What they say is true. My mother was treated very much like this in the 1980's. The second she walked into the agency, the decision was already made for her. Adoption was the agency's #1 priority and so many absolutely repugnant things happened to her, I, and my adoptive parents, just so adoption was the end that justified the agencies means.
Not every person, mother, family, or adoptee shares that experience. But we cannot dismiss them. I don't want my mother dismissed because her loss to adoption--because of adoption--isn't nice to think about because that's not fair. She was one of those women people use as examples of those who don't want their babies, she was raped. She loved me. She wanted me. I don't "pine" that I wasn't kept. I "pine" because of her horrific experiences--because she's a human being, and my mother, and no one should have to be treated that way.
I don't blame my adoption, adoptive parents, adoptive parents as a whole, adoption workers, original parents, or anyone else for any problem that I've ever had. But I do expect adoption to be accountable for the reprehensible amount of losses it, in itself, causes to orphans, foster children, youth adoptees, adult adoptees, original families, and adoptive families. I'm gladly a "whiner" for the cause of accountability ;-)
My point is that the facts are that a child was conceived, in any manner (marriage, unwed premarital sex, rape, incest, IVF, etc) and then adopted in any manner, that adoption does not CAUSE the loss and separation. A life has been produced, and no matter how it was brought into being, babies and children are in the world having already suffered loss and separation.
It is these and other conditions that CAUSE separation/loss not the other way around. It may be death of one or both parents, it may be extreme poverty, it could be the mother was forced by the societal and family lack of support, or she just did not want to be a mother yet. Rape or incest, and a decision not to abort or lack of facilities or religion may prevent turning to abortion. There are many Causes for the separation.
AGAIN, this is Post conception and relinquishment phases. Demand for children to be adopted did not Cause pregnancy and male preference did they? No. "Supply" is over abundant for many factors, in different ways over the years it changed as in the USA fewer women gave up their children. Single motherhood became more acceptable by society in many countries (one factor). It is a clear indication that THE RESULTING adoption both Domestic and International is that there is a huge SUPPLY. Not Demand 'causing' the Supply. YOU SEE? You prove my point, that it is not the cause but the Effect of the huge SUPPLY that led to the marketing and some abuses within the system. THIS I AGREE WITH, that abuse HAVE and DO occur.
I can agree with those who are upset about the extreme viewpoints (i.e. "forever families", Christian zealous motivations to adopt and save a child"). There are also problems of the Process that international adoption has undergone and In-Country adoptions are still unregulated in Sending Countries. Non-Hague signatory countries are still allowed to send orphans, so the Hague Conventions are worthless and cannot be enforced.