Slate's "Prudence" gets adoption all wrong; advice columnist ignorant about adoption--again

Daniel Mallory Ortberg
aka Prudence

Daniel Mallory Ortberg, the 32-year-old child of evangelical pastors, spews advice under the name "Prudence" in Slate Magazine. His skill as a writer -- nothing more --qualifies him to dig into the human heart and mind, and thus he's an advice columnist at Slate. Ortberg has no children. He transitioned from female and says he identifies as queer but has dated women. His experience is far removed from a) being adopted; and b) being a woman who gave up a child. And he makes no attempt to walk in their shoes. It's all sliced-and-diced contractually, with no attempt to understand. Well, then, neither did Ann Landers, or her sister, Dear Abby, when it came to adoption.

Nonetheless, Ortberg, aka Prudence, has no problem telling a womAn who identifies herself as "What Do I Owe Her?" who had just been found by the daughter surrendered to adoption over 30 years earlier that  "you do not need to tell her anything and, in fact I'm inclined to think you shouldn't have any further communication with her." (Emphasis his)

What Do I Owe Her? explains that the daughter is the product of years of sexual abuse by her half brother. She says she feels nothing for the girl and doesn't want a relationship. She concludes with "I have told no one in my current life about my past. You are the only one I can tell."

Annie Lane's damaging advice: When one child has an open adoption, and the other doesn't

So-wrong-about-adoption
Annie Lane

Annie Lane, a columnist with Creators Syndicate, offered up some noxious advice recently to "Anxious Adopter," who has two adopted children, a girl, 6, and a boy, 4. The boy's adoption is open and he visits his first/birth mother twice a year. The girl's natural mother, however, requested a completely closed adoption. There's the rub. The girl wonders why she does not have another family like her brother has. Lane tells the adoptive mother: "You might want to consider whether these visits would be good to continue in the long run. Are they good for your son? Do they confuse him?" Clearly a not-subtle recommendation that Anxious cut off contact with the boy's mother to spare the girl any disappointment, as well as to make life easier for "Anxious Adopter."

Tell Dear Abby: Birth mothers think of their children lost to adoption.

Jeanne Phillips ("Dear Abby")

In advising a brother not to talk to his sister about the baby she lost to adoption, Jeanne Phillips, aka Dear Abby, joins the sorry parade of media personalities whose ignorance about adoption is no barrier to giving advice on the subject. These charlatans include Marguerite Kelly, Carolyn Hax, Ann Landers, and deadly doctors Laura, Phil, and Drew. They mislead the earnest souls seeking help as well as perpetuate popular stereotypes about adoption.

When your adopted child wants to visit her birth mother....

Marguerite Kelly

Washington Post columnist Marguerite Kelly’s advice to adoptive parents whose nine-year-old daughter wants to live with her birth parents is among the worst advice that fellow blogger Lorraine and I have read about adoption since we lost our daughters 46 years ago.

At one time we thought nobody could be worse than the late Ann Landers and Dr. Laura, both staunch opponents of open records and reunions. But then along came Washington Post writer, Carolyn Hax. She published a guest opinion by a grandma who regretted that her daughter had kept her child, the writer’s grandchild, totally oblivious to the pain and loss that adoption brings to mothers, children and grandparents.