' [Birth Mother] First Mother Forum: Who has a baby to make 'it' a gift? And why has this attitude permeated society?

Sunday, July 30, 2017

Who has a baby to make 'it' a gift? And why has this attitude permeated society?

My daughter Jane, at four or five, given up with 
blood, sweat and tears, and never a gift
How would you--adoptee and mothers--feel about a photograph of a pregnant woman's belly with a blue ribbon wrapped around the belly and tied in a bow?

Five Likes under the photograph on the Facebook page, Hoping to Adopt.

I would do a screen shot and show it here, but that function doesn't work on Blogger, no matter how I try to do it.

Lorraine at 5 years old 
I came across this the other day when I got a "friend" request from Hoping to Adopt. Bemused and thinking, Boy, have you stumbled into the wrong person for your cause and Facebook page, I went to the page and saw the aforementioned photo. Also one of those slogan things that unforunately I cannot remember exactly but it was designed to scrub "give up" in adoptese. It went something like: No one gives up a baby; no one gives up on her child. Since I am one of those who refuse to insist on prettifying language--I use "given up" as well as surrender and relinquish as it suits me. I also like given up because it so exemplifies how I felt at the time: I gave up thinking there was another way. My story is simple and as old as time: The father was married, promised to divorce but at some later time, the pregnancy in 1966 was scandelous and shameful; I felt the push of society to give up, and give my child to parents who supposedly were better qualified to be my daughter's parents.

Without the details, I pointed this out on the Facebook page, got an immediately apology from the owner of the page, he was sorry and did not intend to offend, he wrote; but I responded again saying, then stop trying to scrub the language of what adoption means to the first birth biological blood kinship natural mother. [What to call us mothers who bore the children of adoption is another problem for another day.] I would relate the exact exchange here but when I went back to Facebook later in the day, both the original saying at Hoping to Adopt and my comments were gone, including in my own list of my Facebook comments. Fair enough.

There are other sites about hoping or wanting to adopt on Facebook; I never comment because what is the point? But this photograph of a belly-wrapped gift really gets my dander up. Who is having the baby that is the ribbon-wrapped gift to this couple? The idea that the photograph perpetuates about women having babies they "gift" to those hoping to adopt is sickening. Any thoughts?--lorraine

POSTSCRIPT: The page has either been taken down or changed but the blue ribboned belly is visible to me no more. I may have been blocked, but there is another page by another couple with the same name. I may have been blocked by the other page owners. At another page by the same individual who responded to my comment, however, I did see the slogan that he likes so much: There is no "giving up" in adoption. No body gives up on their child. It appears to be a slogan from adoption.com. He and his wife are hoping to adopt a third time. They do not seem to be considering from foster care, or adopting an older child. It appears they are in the market for a newborn.

48 comments :

  1. Calling a baby or potential adoptee a "gift" serves the purpose of making adoption a beautiful win-win. Because, as you said, one does not relinquish a gift. One is not brokenhearted over giving a gift. By repeating this fantasy scenario over and over ("She loved you so much she gave you to us") it becomes what passes for truth. And saying any different is viewed as angry, bitter, hostile, and proof that the adoption was necessary.

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  2. These people are brainwashed by the adoption industry. They imagine there are pregnant women self identified as "birth mothers" just looking for a couple to give their baby to.

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    1. Or they are deliberately ignoring the self-evident truth - that mothers do not want to be separated from their young - in order to get what they want. Selective myopia, wrapped in bows.

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  3. I would feel somebody is suffering from a huge sense of entitlement and not dealing well with reality. If a mother wrapped herself up in a bow, just how sad is that?

    Lorraine, you are right. It is sickening. I "love" the fact that the comment exchange was removed. Not as if that will make the reality go away too. It doesn't, but others must attempt to live in that fantasy land of there being no despair on the mother's part in surrendering her child. "Boss, de plane, de plane (hey, maybe there's a "gift" baby on board)! Sigh.

    You wanna see something as sickening? Go take a read of 'Lawmakers eyeing adoption law penned by Nazareth student as part of [?] writing contest' in the Allentown Morning Call 7-28-17.

    The popular narrative in adoption has so influenced the thinking of folks and sadly the current young generation is totally saturated in it, not understanding what is the reality of the one surrendered or the one surrendering. It has permeated society because of the firmly controlled story telling/narrative.

    You don't 'gift' of a human being any more than you should buy a human being, but those that promote adoption -seem to- condone both those things. "Made an adoption plan" is adoption promoter/agency speak and yes, sometimes the mothers of today use that language as well. Why? Is it because it is what they have been taught and heard for 10 to 20 years? Uh, yeah it's called "positive" adoption language. Why don't we call 'adopt' what it also means. To -take-. Instead of 'adopted child' call them the 'taken child'. Now that's positive (real/affirming for ME) adoption language.

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    1. Yes,that "made an adoption plan" might suit some, but boy, think about how that relegates the mother to someone who had the foresight to "plan" giving up her baby? It makes her sound smart and calm, at the same time she says she couldn't "plan" to keep her baby. So where does that leave baby? What about her plan?

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    2. Oh! that story is pathetic. A little girl bonds with a baby after a couple of days and wants the law to make it harder for natural mothers to consider their decision to relinquish because she wanted to keep that baby. Pathetic.

      Lawmaker eyeing adoption law penned by Nazareth student as part of his writing

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    3. Adoptees are people, even our natural parents can't gift us, because they don't own us. If adopters consider the child they will adopt to parent a gift, I shudder for the psyche of that child.

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    4. Yes Lorraine, not a thought on the little girls part of, "oh, his mommy was sad and missed him and wants him". Nope, not a thought or care. That girl / those kids are definitely well 'primed' for "making an adoption plan" aren't they?

      What the heck makes a pregnancy a crisis anyway? Being abandoned by any, every, and all support? Being suddenly without a home/kicked out on your backside? Being unmarried (suddenly dumped/abandoned, no hubby for you)? Why call a pregnancy a "crisis" anyway? Whose bright idea was that? Pregnancy is a beautiful thing. It's often the circumstances that one finds oneself in (often quite suddenly) or what everyone around the mother feels or *might* feel, that makes it a "crisis"? What would happen IF we all treated every pregnancy as a most beautiful thing? As we should for the ultimate health and welfare, mental and physical, of the baby. How much would that change the direction AWAY from the very slippery (often pushed down with help) slope, that so many of us mothers found/find ourselves on?

      It's often -all in the dialogue-. The *framing* of the matter.

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  4. I am an Adoptee with very high regard and empathy for what Mothers suffered at the hands of the industry, the church and society in no particular order. Reading this gives me confidence in myself and level of acceptance and maturity at age 55. There are no adopted adults if you look at the language used to describe myself and fellow Adoptees. We are "chosen" " selected" gifts is a new one and I have been around the block in terms of restoring access to individual identity to those of us from whom it was stolen. This article disgusts me and I will politely finish there.

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  5. Reminds me of frat parties where a stripper jumps out of a birthday cake. Total de-humanization of "lesser" women.

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  6. The idea of "gifting" a child or being part of a three way triad "blessing" scenario as so much wording today suggests is the system's way of not addressing the fact that mothers are being robbed of their children. I tend not to use the term "adoption" when I write because to me "adoption" isn't the issue: society's stigmatizing of women, entrenched religious gender bias and skewed socioeconomic values are the problem. As far as I know, my child was not adopted, my child was just flat out taken from me in an era where there were private religious hospitals into which two females entered - one pregnant - and two females left - one robbed of her family.

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  7. Adoptee here, and I also had my own experience when I was a pregnant teenager (I didn't surrender my child). During my pregnancy, one of the manipulations tried on me was to insist that I could give the gift of my child to (more) deserving parents who "had done everything right" (code, presumably, for the belief that they hadn't had sex outside of marriage), so they therefore "deserved" to be parents, and this would atone for my sin of having sex outside of marriage. There was the suggestion that this was a way/the way for God to turn my terrible sin into something good, and the Bible verse "...all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28)" was cited as evidence for this view. When I refused to surrender, they all went around acting as if they were in mourning because I wasn't doing "the right thing". Blatant religious abuse. Pressuring me to surrender my child as a "gift" was nothing but the promotion of human trafficking.

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    1. Sarah, this is so true. To the religious human trafficking industry, adoption is divine and all part of God's plan, while doing the natural thing (keep the child) is base and sinful. Whenever I hear these tales, I imagine Mother Mary weeping over them.

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    2. Lmao, it is hilarious anyone would indicate to you that the potential adoptive parents didn't have sex before marriage. How the hell do they know?!(And let the "more deserving" couple prove it!) What a crock of shit the adoption industry and the churches really are.

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    3. Unless you have been through this sort of manipulation, it is hard to believe it is there. I too had this sort of thing said to me (minus the religious element but certainly underpinned by it - me being the 'Whore' element of the mother/whore categorization of women, becase i had sex as an unmarred woman. My son's adopter would've been the 'Mother' of course, being married).

      In my diary written in he year of my son's adoption, I wrote 'Why aren't I good enough?'. Someone persuaded me of that. That's how they got me, and others like me, to relinquish.

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  8. I've never posted here before, but some comments suggest it is never right for a mother to choose adoption. How is that any different than saying a woman should not choose abortion. Do you think they should both be illegal or neither should be illegal? If a woman knows she can't parent, but chooses adoption over abortion, is that evil? Should it be illegal?

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    1. Unless there is something wrong with the woman, no one "chooses" adoption freely. It is a matter of last resort. We understand that there will always be circumstances when a child needs a home that the immediate or extended family cannot supply, but we do not advocate women "choose" adoption as if it were equal to abortion. It is a life changing choice for BOTH mother and child and is never the best choice. We believe that if a teen/woman brings a child into the world, she should raise that child and not give it to someone else. Adoption on the part of the mother as a "choice" is a deluded idea of what happens when you give birth. More to come in a full post. Dear Anon, what is your connection to adoption? Adoptive parents or "hoping to adopt"?

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    2. Actually, adoption as it is currently legally forumutated and looked upon, by many who adopt should be abolished. Birth records should never be sealed; the child should always know the identity and circumstances of the adoption, and whenever possible retain a relationship with the mother.

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    3. The only women who can't parent are the ones in jail or who are drug addicts. Their babies should live with a blood relative then. Yes, both adoption and abortion should be illegal because both hurt children and exploit their well being for money.

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    4. The idea of the gift-wrapped pregnant mother and the whole concept of giving up a child as giving a gift is repulsive. That facebook page is insensitive and crass, it was good to point that out. A human being cannot be a gift.

      Lorraine also said:"Unless there is something wrong with the woman, no one "chooses" adoption freely." I have to disagree with this. There can be something extremely wrong with the circumstances a woman finds herself in that make her freely chose to surrender without there being something "wrong" with her.

      Some women are not maternal, do not want children at all, but can end up in a situation where they cannot get an abortion, or have moral scruples against abortion but still do not want to raise a child. Would forcing those who feel this way make for a good life for that child?

      I can well imagine a woman who has nothing intrinsically wrong with her not wanting to raise the child of rape or incest. I know women have done it, but I find it hard to imagine myself.

      Truly the majority of mothers who give birth want to raise their child and should be helped to do so. That was certainly true of us here reading this. But like so many other generalizations, it is not true of all mothers and never was.

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    5. If a woman decides to bring a child into the world, I do believe she has an obligation to do everything in her power to raise that child or let the father do so. Yes, I think that some women do not get the rush of hormones to keep their baby, and those I suspect would be mothers who are not interested in reunion.

      You are a much stronger proponent of adoption than I am.

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    6. It's an oxymoron to say that some women in extremely wrong circumstance freely give their babies away. The extremely wrong circumstances negate their free choice.

      True some women who don't want children find themselves pregnant. These women want to be unpregnant and they have abortions. While some states make it exceedingly difficult for women to have abortions, women who are committed to non-motherhood can and do come to Oregon or another enlightened state for an abortion. They don't suffer nine months of pregnancy and labor just to abandon give their baby at birth.

      As for women with "moral scruples against abortion," I can't believe they would care so little for their child after they are born, that they would gladly give them away. The same mind set that causes women to oppose abortion causes them to be a natural nurturers. (This is not true of many men who oppose abortion such as Congressmen who oppose abortion and want to eliminate maternal care from health insurance policies and cut welfare and food stamps. Their opposition stems from their need to control women's babies.)

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    7. 'If a woman knows she can't parent...'

      Very few women can't parent.

      Obstacles to parenting are often temporary or illusory.

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    8. I am not a "proponent of adoption" just being realistic that adoption in some form will always be with us, hopefully not in the sealed records, secrets and lies, commercial form that exists today. I am also a believer that women's emotions about their children, or anything else, are NOT solely the result of hormones, even if hormones play some part. Perhaps I am a romantic, but I believe human emotion and love are more than that.

      I do not think that in the real imperfect world that every woman who brings a child into the world has an "obligation" to raise it. That kind of thinking automatically demonizes and dismisses any mother who actually does make a free choice to surrender, or whose parental rights are terminated for a good reason, like severe mental illness or ongoing addiction. Some women in extremely wrong circumstances do choose to keep their babies, often with dire results to those children as they grow. In those cases, and where the child is truly unwanted (yes, it happens in a few cases)adoption can be the lesser evil for the child.

      In a perfect world there would be no need for adoption. Sadly, our world is far from perfect. The idea that women who oppose abortion are all "natural nurturers" is just odd. In my experience those who actively oppose the right to choose for others, not themselves, whether male or female, are most interested in controlling others and enforcing their religious agenda on those who do not share it.

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    9. I would love to live in a perfect world where all women who get pregnant want to be mothers and all women are supported in parenting their child. I don't think we will ever live in that space, though. People suck. We can be horrible and awful to one another. I don't think all the good in the world can overcome all of that suckiness.

      That's not to say we can't work to make a huge difference. Every day that one mother finds this blog and is reaffirmed in her feelings is a better day. Every day that people work towards changing the institution of adoption is a better day.

      It's just anecdotal, not scientific study kind of facts, but I can think off the bat of two situations I know of where adoption was a good choice for the mother. In one, adoption was chosen, and in the other, it wasn't.

      One of my good friends growing up had been an accidental pregnancy. His parents were forced to marry one another by both their parents (abortion was also off the table due to religious reasons). His mother didn't want him, and she made that very apparent to him. He was never aware of a time in his life when he didn't know that his mom had never wanted him. I heard her rail against him and yell at him that he had ruined her life. It really messed him up, and although her two other kids grew up normal and have productive lives, her oldest has gone through a lot and has never been able to get his life together. Is it other factors besides how she treated him? Maybe. But I have no doubt that being told how unwanted he was for his entire childhood had a pretty big impact. He more than once told me he wishes he had been adopted out instead of his mom being forced to keep him. You can say that she should have kept him because she gave birth to him, but it definitely didn't do him any favors just because she owned up to her responsibility in giving birth.

      My high school boyfriend (oddly, the nephew of the above mentioned woman) had an older sister who was raped when she was a teenager. She became pregnant, and initially, she decided to keep her baby. Her parents were incredibly supportive of this decision. (They were some of the best people I have ever known. Looking back as an adult, I realize I was more in love with them than my boyfriend, actually! They were wonderful parents.) After giving birth, she struggled along for several months before she couldn't handle it anymore- the baby was a reminder of what had happened to her, and she couldn't deal with it. They went ahead and did an open adoption. Her mom kept in touch with the family, actually. I wonder if they ever ended up meeting in person later one... the son must be in his late 20s by now. Anyway, the girl went on later in life to marry and have two other kids, and she was also an amazing mother and bonded very much with them. She just couldn't handle being a mom so young combined with the trauma of the rape. It wouldn't have been right to force her to parent the baby, and it wouldn't have been fair to him to have a mother who didn't want to parent him. She truly was a good person and a loving mother. It was just too much for her.

      I wholeheartedly agree that these types of situations are the exceptions rather than the rule. But it's not fair to completely ignore them and say "all mothers" and say that there is no one who feels this way. My thought is that we should spend time and energy knocking down the obstacles for women who want to parent, cleaning up the corruption in adoption agencies (and the associated laws such as sealing of birth records), and leaving a structure in place for those that choose not to, and then not bashing them for what is a very personal choice colored by far too many nuanced experiences for us to judge out of hand.

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    10. [If a woman knows she can't parent, but chooses adoption over abortion, is that evil? Should it be illegal?]

      It depends. If she knows she can't parent, what is wrong about abortion? Abortion could be a blessing in some cases.

      If she knows she can't parent and is too far in her pregnancy to safety abort... well then, I *still* find it tragic she has to carry the baby to term just to give it up.

      Mei-Ling

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    11. [There can be something extremely wrong with the circumstances a woman finds herself in that make her freely chose to surrender without there being something "wrong" with her. ]

      The issue here is, you're still saying something *wrong with the circumstances.* If the circumstances are so horrible that ANY factor - either external or internal - is making her feel like she HAS to relinquish, then that is a problem.

      The outcome could end up being fantastic - but unless she is COMPLETELY free of all external/internal pressures to keep/relinquish her child and/or had zero maternal urges to begin with - there is a problem.

      [Some women are not maternal, do not want children at all, but can end up in a situation where they cannot get an abortion, or have moral scruples against abortion but still do not want to raise a child. Would forcing those who feel this way make for a good life for that child?]

      A woman is considered a mother as soon as she becomes pregnant, before baby is being carried to term. As a woman, she should have the choice to choose - OUTSIDE of all external/internal influences, whether or not to abort or relinquish. IF, and only IF in that case, when she never wanted to be a mother in the first place, THEN I would say relinquishing is best for her/the baby.

      But the other part of the issue here is that she isn't JUST a woman - she is a mother. And there are different societal expectations of her being a WOMAN versus being a MOTHER.

      Mei-Ling

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    12. [I do not think that in the real imperfect world that every woman who brings a child into the world has an "obligation" to raise it. ]

      I do. Whether or she *wants* to is a different story. I think saying "Mothers should love their children" is different from saying "Mothers ALWAYS love their children" because I always get told "Well obviously you're wrong Mei-Ling, not all mothers love their children." Well, obviously - DNA isn't magical. There are some pretty shitty mothers out there who should have never been mothers. Doesn't mean I don't think they should love/care for their children.

      But I do think mothers (yes, I am generalizing) should care and love for their children. I've seen the damage done when they DON'T.

      Mei-Ling

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    13. What I wrote about choosing adoption:

      "For me, there are three justifiable reasons to put one’s child up for adoption:

      - You are absolutely unwilling to parent the child and you are pretty sure that it won’t change soon.

      - You are in one way or another unfit to parent the child, to meet even it’s basic needs, not to mention doing your best for it, and there is no way it could change soon.

      - You live in an insafe environment and see no chance in the nearest future to get out of it (I’m not talking about bad neighbourhood or even hostile family members, but serious danger like child molesters or drug dealers occupying the same apartment).

      I do NOT condone putting a child up for adoption just because you are poor (unless it’s an abject and inescapable kind of poverty), seemingly too young (unless you feel definitely not ready to care for a child) or single (sorry, but replacing one bio parent - or even one relative - with two strangers is absurd)."

      https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-feel-about-giving-up-your-child-for-adoption/answer/Karolina-Nowicka

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    14. Unfortunately potential adopters would have abortion made illegal and adoption made compulsory so they can snaffle the baby. In Australia we had the black stolen generation, the white stolen generation, and now we are heading for providing babies for gays stolen generation.

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  9. It is really interesting to know that you gave up signifies the despair you felt when you signed the termination of parental rights, thus giving up any legal claim to your daughter, you continued to use it in both speaking and writing.

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  10. Kudos to you for resisting the guilt trip and standing your ground. You child is much better off.

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  11. This reminds me of that horrid advertisment a year or two ago with the baby adoptee under the Christmas tree.

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  12. Lorraine. Your daughter is so beautiful and looking very much like Mom. I feel deep sorrow for your loss. As for the "gift." When I bake a cake for your birthday and bring a present, these are gifts. Things are gifts, beings are not gifts to transfer to another arbitrarily. I have said in posts that "hand over" a child to another for safekeeping was my thinking. If my adult daughter's adopted mother would have been willing to include me in my daughter's life, this would not have been perceived by me as a gift. I would simply be grateful for an open heart. Frankly, I'm sickened by the cruel terms used ad nauseam. It's simply part of the industry marketing hype, those that seek babies buy into it for their own agenda.

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  13. My David was born on December 22 and was slated for 'delivery' to the adoptive family, literally, on Christmas Day. I told the social worker to tell them Merry Christmas, my voice filled with sorrow and acrimony, reflecting my true state of emotions. I was fully aware that I'd just been robbed and manipulated by forces I had no control over - society & family. I knew the score, as did every young woman in the residency program I was in. But I'm guessing the tone of my message or my emotional state probably was not conveyed by the social worker to his adopters.

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  14. ADDED TO THE BLOG: POSTSCRIPT: The page has either been taken down or changed but the blue ribboned belly is no more, or I have been blocked. At another page by the same individual, however, I did see the slogan that he likes so much: There is no "giving up" in adoption. No body gives up on their child. It appears to be a slogan from adoption.com. He and his wife are hoping to adopt a third time. They do not seem to be considering from foster care, or adopting an older child. It appears they are in the market for a newborn.

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  15. I can't think of a better recipe for an unhappy family than having a mother or parents who are obligated to love you. Love does not work that way. One can be obligated to provide financial support and a roof over their children's head until the age of majority, but nobody can be forced to love anyone else. We all have to live in the real world where a lot of painful things like this are true.

    Pamela: my son was a "Christmas Gift" like yours, but a bit older as he had been in foster care from birth. I was appalled when I heard that. You do not even give a kitten or puppy as a Christmas gift, with all the chaos going on during the holidays. Utterly tasteless and cruel.

    Nasty slogan too, Lo. I never gave up ON my child, but I certainly did "give him up", right after utterly giving up on myself. I think that was true for a lot of us. The whole point was to save him from me, a worthless human being in my own eyes at that point. My beloved son deserved better. He did not get it. Newborn infant adoption today should be rare, well regulated, and only after the mother has really been presented other viable options.

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  16. The whole "gift" issue really stirs up emotions in me. My daughter's adoptive parents have reportedly always told her that she was a "gift from heaven". If that is true, then it would mean there was an entire plan to have me become pregnant and for me to supply her parents with a baby they, sadly, could not. And if that "gift" concept was true, it would mean that I willingly gifted them with a vital part of myself. I don't consider surrendering equal with gifting; they are two entirely different things. And what they considered to be their "gift" was the opposite of my excruciating pain of surrender. I consider myself to be robbed, not especially by the adoptive parents, but by all those who failed me, her father, my family, the agency, the industry of adoption, and society as a whole. She was not a gift, although now that I know her as an adult, I know that she is an incredible person who has many personal gifts she shares with me and all the others in her life. Big difference between the two.

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  17. If they really believed that "gift from heaven" thing, which is not an uncommon sentiment among religious people when thinking of their own kept children, shouldn't they have been afraid that taking the gift somebody in heaven had intended for you, would make that somebody in heaven dislike them?

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  18. This whole adoption as a gift language is particularly sinister when you add in the fact that our VP is a right wing adoption advocate who believes in hetero two parent families needing healthy babies to build the Fundamental Christian army. I fear we are gearing up for another baby swoop era. Our current President cancelled a significant teen pregnancy study half way through, giving up millions of research dollars and losing significant data. Meanwhile legislators are chipping away at RoeVsWade and working to defund Planned Parenthood. The gift premise is part of all this. We are heading into some dark days.

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    1. You are absolutely right about that. And it will be worse than ever because they have a more intense ideological arsenal than ever. A must read is Katherine Joyce's, _The Child Catchers_. She is an an award winning investigative journalist who does a brilliant job of exposing the Christian rights strategic plan to 'save' children through one glory-spent adoption after another. Coercion is not a word that exists in their vocabulary because they are convinced they are on god's mission.

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    2. You are both right. I survived a short unhappy ill-advised first marriage, well before I met Mr. B, during which I was constantly badgered to "save" my shaky marriage by having a baby.

      I wouldn't say out loud, "Not in a million years!" However, my silence was countered with the suggestion that I bear and give away one or more! turkey-baster baby/babies to a brother- and sister-in-law who were then having trouble conceiving. That, they preached, would "teach [me] the importance" of having children, as well as "giving a gift to a deserving Christian couple."

      I got out, divorced, remarried happily, and needed no tutoring in the importance of hearing children. Whom I kept, and raised as Jews 3,000 miles away from my youthful demonstration of poor marital judgment.

      But honestly! The idea that my then-empty womb should be filled up for someone else's benefit... the nerve of those people!

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    3. Mrs TBB, I couldn't believe what I was reading in your comment. Say WHUT! Jaw drops in shock and horror. That is insane!

      Thankful you survived and walked away from some of the most unsound "advice" I've ever heard.

      What were they thinking!? Christian that is not! But then, we're talking about folks that think taking a baby from it's mother is a way to make her 'atone' for her sin. Do they also cut the tongues out of liars and the hands off of thieves? Do they take the eyes / heart out of the covetous? No, they don't. They don't acquire what they *covet* with those things.

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    4. Thanks, Cindy, for sharing my outrage from decades ago in such a satisfying fashion. These Christians also believed--quite vocally--back then that Jesus also found them parking spaces in congested areas, so it's not so much of a stretch that he also could guilt-trip someone they perceived as a heathen into giving them one or more babies...

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  19. I saw an episode of Teen Mom 2 the other day. Briana was considering adoption after her baby daddy cheated on her. Her 5, almost 6, year old daughter was very against it. She was trying to "reason" with her by talking about how much it would mean to a loving couple to become parents. She asked her daughter if she would want to do that for them.

    The 5-6 year old was having none of it. She bluntly and immediately said no. She didn't want to lose her soon-to-be little sister.

    On a side note, we got to see Briana talking on the phone to the adoption agency. They were telling her about common misconceptions about adoption. They actually said that a big misconception was that it was the same as foster care. Seriously?

    And, of course, when Briana was trying to convince her reluctant ex to go along with the adoption she explained that they could have an open adoption and that they would get to determine the level of contact that they had with her.

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    1. The wisdom of children! Their basic instincts about family haven't been worn away by adoption industry propaganda.

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    2. On the most recent episode Briana told her ex that he was being "selfish" by rejecting adoption. She is totally drinking the cool aid and delivering all the associated talking points. I guess if choosing adoption is selfless then not choosing it is selfish.

      Briana had since kept the baby, although we haven't seen those episodes yet. Her twitter page says that she has cut contact with both of her children's father. And she also says that she would have done the adoption, because she wants "what's best" for her daughter, had her ex Luis not stopped her. But she did come very close to signing the papers and forcing him to contest it.

      https://mobile.twitter.com/_brianadejesus?lang=en

      Delete

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