I’m kind of peeved. I really shouldn’t be this peeved before nine o’clock in the morning. But I kind of want to spit. Yes, I’m that peeved. Because I don’t spit.
I have an adoptive Mom friend with a blog. She got hit by an anonymous comment on a post in which she talked about guilt for adopting regarding the birth mother’s emotions of grief and loss. The anonymous commenter was an adoptee, telling her she should adopt again. Normally I let adoptees say their piece because they teach me so much about adoption. Today? With this statement? Remember the spitting?
You, the parent adopting, are relieving her of a burden (economic, social, etc.) and keeping the child out of the foster system from an early start.
A) My child was never a burden. I would have and would still lay down my life to that little girl. In fact, the simple act of carrying that outrageously complicated and tumultuous pregnancy to term did put my own life in danger at least twice. By seeking adoptive parents for her while I was pregnant, unable to work because of my kidney disorder that was complicated by the pregnancy and generally down-trodden, I wasn’t sitting in my empty apartment thinking, “Gee, I’d like to relieve myself of this burden.” I was trying to do something right, in my mind at the time, when everything else in the world had gone wrong prior to that point. Burden. None of my children are a burden. They’re noisy to boot but never a burden.
B) Say what? The assumption in the second half of that statement is so painful that I physically felt the sting when I read it. To say that the Munchkin would have ended up in foster care had I parented is the most ludicrous and simultaneously painful thing I have ever heard (regarding our own situation). Why is there this outlandish assumption that parents who place either didn’t want their children (and thus are cold-hearted wenches) or would have made neglectful and abusive parents? Where the heck does this come from? Why is it one extreme or the other? Why are (“voluntarily” relinquishing) birth parents viewed either as saints (oh, so selfless, they made a loving decision, they are to be praised) or sinners (well, they would have ended up dumping the baby in a trash can anyway). Where the heck is the in between?! Why can’t we be viewed for what the majority of us are: mothers and fathers who made a really, really hard decision that changed the course of life for approximately five or more people.
I’m tired of it. The Munchkin would not have ended up in foster care. She would have been loved and well-provided for from birth. Would we have had some struggles financially? Yes, I am sure. Would it have been the end of the world? No. Would I have come up out of the muck and mire and done what was necessary to provide for my child, no matter what? You betcha.
I am not an abusive mother. I never was and I never will be. My children, all of them, are the light of my life. (Okay, TheHusbandMan is cool, too.) I make decisions in my life with all of them in mind. I proceed with caution in certain areas because I want them all to be proud of me. Ya know, someday, when they stop thinking that all parental figures are lame-o. (When does that start? Four? Five? Seven? If it’s seven, we’re good, because BigBrother is still boycotting seven.)
To be honest? Though I’m sure they exist (and now I have a story in mind where I think this is the case so, I’ll say one), I know of only one mother who “voluntarily” relinquished a child for adoption and then had others taken by the state at a later date. (This does not count mothers who voluntarily relinquished to avoid having the state take the baby at birth. That, again, is a different scenario.) The birth mothers and fathers that I know are amazing parents. Sometimes they’re a bit overprotective. I know I am. But abusive? Or neglectful? These parents know about loss, about losing a child that they love so dearly.
Then again, what do I know.