Response from: Mirah Riben    (07/07/08 7:46pm)

Michelle,

I am very sorry if my words felt hurtful to you personally. They certainly were not intended in any way to be for or about you, as prior to reading your post today, I had no idea what your personal connection to adoption was.

You wrote about "positive" adoption language and that was what I responded to. For many of us there is nothing positive about adoption and framing it with flowery words not only doesn't change our lifelong loss, it rubs salt in our wounds and diminishes us as feeling human beings who should be allowed the courtesy of expressing our feelings and our experiences in our own choice of words.

We especially deserve the right to self-identify.

Putting a "positive spin" is done, Michelle, to "sell" things that are otherwise unpalatable. A perfect example was changing the Dept. of War to the Dept. of Defense. Or calling missiles "peace keepers."Doing so is insulting and extremely offensive to those whose lives are lost or ruined in war.

Similarly, describing losing a child to adoption as a "choice" is inaccurate and diminishes reality, for instance. A "choice" implies a thoughtful decision made after considering several options and having them all explained. That is seldom the case for mothers losing a child to adoption.

I do not think that your daughter's
mother "chose" to lose her child to social services. No mother - other than a paid surrogate (many of whom have serious regrets) DECIDES to become pregnant and lose their child.

Response from: Mirah Riben    (07/07/08 7:58pm)

As for the phrase that upset you the most: "paying client"...that, too, Michelle, is the unfortunate truth. The truth is often not pleasant.

The inconvenient truth is that infant adoption (NOT adoption from foster care) is a multi-billion dollar industry that was created to meet a demand.

All adoption practitioners - from the most respectable to the the most unscrupulous baby brokers - including non-profit agencies - rely on fees paid by ADOPTERS to stay in business.

Mothers who surrender supply the COMMODITY but it is adopters who pay all the fees and keep the adoption business running.

If you were not party to that than you should take no personal offense but, yes, should join those of us who believe it is indecent to traffic in human lives in the name of adoption.

Unless we expose the truth in honest ways - instead of sugar-coating it - we cannot begin to rectify what is wrong with adoption and restore some morality and ethics, making adoption about finding homes for orphans and children who have fmailies incapable of providing a safe home for them...NOT about finding infants to meet a demand, at a price.

Response from: Mirah Riben    (07/07/08 11:02pm)

You can delete my first post as I redid it. Your website doesn't give a message saying if the comment has been accepted.

I would like to say a few more things about language.

1) As for who gets the title "mother" and who doesn't - it's not a sum zero contest. The person raising a child will almost always be Mommy or Mamma. Therefore, as this article says, http://tinyurl.com/4xxwme
children will figure it out. No need to feel in competition, or to feel threatened. I believe firmly in the right of each of us to self-identify and to respect what others which to call the people in their lives.


2) Volumes have been written and zillions of dollars spent by Madison Ave - to find out which words have what words affect people in what way.

In adoption, words can be equally persuasive and even subtly coercive.

For instance, whatever you feel about motherly nomenclature, calling an expectant mother "birthmother" is absolutely, positively incorrect and creates a set up.

It is directly in contradiction to allowing of options and the ability to make an informed choice. No one is a birthmother until after they have surrendered, and that can never happen pre-birth. Ethics in adoption demands that no mother (which she is until IF and when she relinquished that right!) make that decision until AFTER the birth and seeing and holding one's own baby - unencumbered by "others" in the delivery room which create indebtedness.

Response from: Michelle Donahue Hillison    (07/07/08 11:54pm)

Mirah,

Thanks for replying.

FWIW, we did not pay a dime for our adoption. We adopted through one of the handful state licensed agencies. Yes the state pays the agency for placing a child. However, we researched agencies until we found one that we felt comfortable with how they did business.

The agency employed a fantastic therapist that offered free family and/or individual therapy for the families who adopted through them. Our daughter was in and out of therapy with them for about 18 months - all free of charge.

The agency offered free licensing as foster parents - 30 hours in class time. Plus a number of workshops and classes to support adopting children from foster care. The most we paid for a class was $10 for a workbook. Our homestudy was free as well.

While I understand no adoption agency can stay in business without making some money, I'm completely confident that the agency we used offered an immense amount of support for the money they received. Our running joke is that probably were a negative in their books. No not every family avails themselves of all the services of course.

For what it is worth, it was the therapist at the agency who stressed birth family connections strongly and it was she who helped us open the door initially to expanding the relationship.

I think I get upset b/c many parents who adopted get lumped into a stereotypes. I'm sure you too are familiar with that problem.

I'm not going to get into specifics about my daughter's background but her surrender was not court ordered. After a long series of events, it truly was the best course. Sometimes when you go too far down a road, there can be no turning back.

Adoption will always be needed. There will always be people who made choices that are not in the best interest of a child. Sadly there will always be times when parents choose drugs, violence, spouses or others over their. We must protect those child and we can't keep them in an eternal limbo.

I do know a number of women who placed their child in adoption knowing all the options.

But I definitely see a great deal about infant adoption in the USA that can be reformed. I actually spent several years volunteering at a pregnancy support group that focused on helping women get in the position to be good parents - classes in parenting and budgeting, clothing closets for maternity and work outfits, etc.

I am creeped out by the concept of 'better' when people talk about placing a child for adoption. There is what is best for the child but no one can say life with any family is better, it is just different.

When we decided to adopt, infant domestic adoption was the first thing we ruled out because it didn't feel like something we wanted to deal with. We considered international adoption because there are children in need. We had the resources to pursue either route but I felt drawn to consider adoption from foster care.

I completely honor your right to self-identity and your right to feel however you do about adoption.

I appreciate your responses and I think this is a healthy dialogue people can learn from.

Part of the reason I do talk about this is I want to expose more people to adopting from foster care. I want them to understand you can take this path by choice. And I want people to know that there are families who adopt who want to do this the right way.

Take care,
-michelle

Response from: Michelle Donahue Hillison    (07/08/08 12:22am)

I completely agree that calling a pregnant woman anything but a pregnant woman is wrong. No one is an birthmother when pregnant. They may be an expectant mother who is considering placing their child but women have the right to make a rational choice in a rational time frame.

However part of the use of positive adoption language - at least in my opinion - is to remove some of the harsh judgment words towards mothers who have placed their children for adoption.

While infant adoption wasn't the course for us, I know people who are doing it the right way. I know women who felt they were coerced as well. I do think it can be done ethically and I know people on both sides who do have successful adoptions so far under those terms.

I hope we can find a way in this country to allow women who decided to place their child the chance to pick the family their child joins without having to feel indebted. It is a tough line to walk and I don't know any answers to that.

Adoption is always going to play a role in our country. Can we do it better - definitely. However I don't think the guardianships are the answer. It will run into many of the same issues foster care has in keeping children in a limbo and not allowing them to bond into a family unit, which truly is something most children crave.

Response from: Miarh Riben    (07/08/08 1:18pm)

Michelle, I agree. Dialogs like this are educational.

I agree of course with all you say with one exception. I do not accept the idea that infant adoption will always be necessary and will always remain.

Australia is a perfect example of a nation that made it their priority to support expectant and single moms. They provided them with all the necessary support and options without any pressure whatsoever. Guess what? They reduced infant adoptions to a total of TWO a year in the entire nation!

What of those two who could not or would not parent even with support? Their chidlren are provided loving, caring GUARDIANS. Their names remain th same and their parents not are not revoked and then given back "openness" at the control of the adopters.

There is no reason that adoption needs to begin with a falsified birth certificate stating the child was born to adopters. This is in no way in any child's best interest.

We CAN do batter!

I encourage readers of this blog to read: THE STORK MARKET -- especially if they are considering adoption. It has a section for prospective adopters on how to avoid being scammed.

Response from: Michelle Donahue Hillison    (07/08/08 3:34pm)

Mirah, we found the birth certificate process very odd. I found a sympathetic clerk who mailed me for free our daughter's original birth certificate before the state destroyed it. I had a copy from the dept of SS but I wanted an original for our daughter since we didn't know how open things would end up.


She did decide to change her last name to ours. We gave her the choice and wouldn't have been super upset if she decided not to. Obviously, a child is probably going to say yes but that only one person in her birthfamily, that she didn't know really, had that last name was part of it for her. She knows her former last name.


I have seen people who wanted to adopt get scammed and it is horrible. Most of the time scammers aren't even pregnant women/families at all. My hope is by injecting more openness, honesty and ethics into adoption those people too will be protected.


I'm in a tough situation on the openness part. Yes, I'm the gate keeper but I'm definitely not trying to be condescending. Hayley's birthmom and I talk, she's called asking for advice before. Her birthgrandmother and I get along really well, I consider her a friend. We are really just getting to know her birthdad's family but I like all of them. I hope by having a friendship with these people that Hayley grows up knowing WE value them in her life and respect them as people, so she can respect herself - if we condemn them, we condemn her.


We'll have to disagree on the guardianship and need for infant adoption but I think we have a lot of common ground. I truly am sorry your experiences with adoption were horrible and for the loss of your daughter. All of our children deserve better.

Response from: erika    (07/16/08 6:24pm)

I am a first mother who lost her child to adoption in 2001 thru the child welfare agency. I had recently lost my apt and went to them for help. I was raped. I needed support and time to gather resources. I NEVER wanted my child to be adopted.
their idea of help was to force me to surrender her for adoption. my older child was returned to me after i signed.the open adoption promised was renegged on.
my daughter and i live with the on going grief. our child welfare system is funded at 2.4 billion. canada has an all time low birth rate. and poor single moms like me are exploited.
you seem like a decent adopter.i dont believe in a triad when as a first mom i hold no legal rights.orphans will always need homes. but i think guardian ship is right.adoption for me was a permanent devestating conclusiopn to something temporary.i was looked upon as worthless.not all adoptions thru CPS are ethical