It’s dangerous. The things that books can put into one’s head. That said, I’m reading “The Mommy Brain: How Motherhood Makes Us Smarter.” Wet Feet has had it on her sidebar for ages and, when it was a bargain book on Amazon, I snatched it up. I’m just getting around to reading it. I wish I would have read it earlier. I’m only on chapter four so this is not a review. This is me, being unable to read much further because my head is stuck; wrapped around the tree of this thought and I need to get it out.

Page 27 speaks about “stereotype threat.” Basically, without plagiarizing the book and instead, stealing definitions from Wikipedia, stereotype threat is:

the fear that one’s behavior will confirm an existing stereotype of a group with which one identifies. This fear may lead to an impairment of performance.

Anyone else sit back and go, “Holy Moses?” I actually had to put down the book on page twenty seven, go pour myself a big glass of iced tea and go sit in my back yard, alone with my thoughts, to start processing the brief jump into the subject on page 27 of the book. (Nothing like reading a book where you get thrown for a loop by page 27.)

And then I did a little more (seriously, only brief because this week has been crazy) research (mainly just wikipedia and a few other mentions) and I’m just further astounded by the theory itself.

Does this Stereotype Threat help LEAD to placement? And, once placement has occured, does it thus affect how birth parents act and react in their lives? I mean, seriously, look at it from the specific perspectives I’ve mentioned (though there are some nice ones on Wikipedia that Steele wrote about in 99).

A woman gets pregnant. She is unwed. The father is unavailable or uninterested in parenting. And we know that there’s still a blatant and maddening stigma against unwed mothers in today’s society, as made evident by this useless garbage published in the wake of a single mother’s murder. So, she feels that she’s destined to fail: to fail as a mother because she can’t provide a father, to fail in a career because single mothers can’t be successful in the fields of their choice, to fail in love because no one wants to marry a single mother, to fail at life in general. To be that bottom rung. Along with all of that, she is told, especially by those promoting the stereotypes and stigmas of eras that should remain bygone, that she will, without a doubt, fail her child.

And some do fail their children. Is it because they’ve been emotionally set up for failure or because they were just failures to begin with? This theory would say that writers of articles like this are partially at fault for the failure of the mother. Obviously, this won’t be a theory for those who believe that we are solely in control of our actions and reactions. I realize this as I’m “writing out loud” in a stream of consciousness type manner. But, at the same time, it’s not as if our country’s means of assistance for single and impoverished families is either easy to navigate or devoid of its own stigmas. Are we shutting down and shutting out mothers before they even have a chance to succeed.

And how does this whole idea play into placement? Obviously, there are some people whose biggest fear is failure. I am one of them. I’ll raise my hand. I avoid things, purposefully, to avoid failure. I hate failing. While I may seem like a big risk taker, remember that I deal with some pretty heavy anxiety on a daily basis. A lot of that anxiety is tied into those risks and those possible failures.

So, if a mother with a similar mindset and outlook to mine was told, “Man, you’re gonna screw this kid up and your whole life and the only way to stop this failure cycle is to place your baby for adoption.” Well, what is she supposed to think? If she’s never told that she can succeed, how could she believe that she could succeed? With unethical agencies and attorneys breathing down her neck, reminding her of everything that she cannot offer this child and telling her of everything that x, y or z family can offer this child, how is she NOT supposed to realize her failure.

Okay, ditching the single mother and failure aspect for a moment because, with this summer cold, my head is already about to explode, let me traverse the idea of how birth parents act/react in the months and years post-placement.

Birth parents, on the whole, are faced with a boatload of stereotypes and stigmas. We’re poor. We’re selfish. We’re loveless. We’re drug addicts and alcoholics. We don’t care about our children. We are uber-fertile. The list goes on. With all of these stereotypes, speaking specifically of the negative ones, flying at a birth parent’s head, I’m wondering how ANY of us succeed at ANYTHING and I’m suddenly much more compassionate/awakened to those who have continued to experience failures in their personal lives.

Again, I think my own personal attitude (the one determined NEVER to fail even though I fail at SOMETHING daily) has allowed me to supercede any stereotypes other than “bitter.” (Oh yes, Munchkin’sFirstMom has been labeled bitter as of late. I’ll show you bitter! Eat a lemon. Take a picture!) I am an amazing mother and while I make (daily, oh yes) mistakes, I am determined not to fail (any of) my children. I’ve found success in love, though by all accounts of the rest of the world, no one wants damaged goods. I’ve found success in career, twice now, though others think I should be more focused on things like drugs and lots of wild sex with strangers. The list goes on.

Anyway, I’m rambling. I want to really delve more into this and think I might, perhaps, next week on the birth parent blog. Could some/any of you give me some opinions or examples of this in your own life, either disproving or proving or fence-walking like me? OR ask questions. Or provide other links.

I’ll leave everyone with this quote for right now:

Stereotype threat can result in physiological responses since the pressure and fear caused by negative stereotypes is so great.

Yeah, I hear that one. Seriously, hit me with your comments and questions. I feel a Big One brewing.

Side Note About Book: Until I finish this book, I can’t give an adequate review, however, adoptive mothers may not be all about how the language and research is specifically designed to state that pregnancy and childbirth are factors in the making of a smarter Mommy Brain. Don’t nail me to the wall if you buy this and hate what she’s saying! :)