[Howdy]

I think there are a lot of risks when a young girl keeps her child when she doesn't have enough support. I think an advertising campaign that encourages adoption as an option is not a bad thing. Women should not be made to feel like placing a child for adoption is being a bad mother. And that is what the ad is saying, that it can be a good act of mothering to place a child.

Whether it is good or bad depends on all the factors. I wish my coworker had placed her first three children. She had her first baby when she was 14 yrs old and her third when she was 17. She lived with an abusive boyfriend. She is glad she kept her kids but to me it seems very selfish, they made her happy but her choices messed them up. One is in prison, one is in juvie, and one was in foster care for sexually abusing a younger child. Although she didn't mean to mess those kids up and didn't do it herself, her lack of support and forced-choice of living with an abusive man was a very poor choice compared to adoption.

Another coworker has a foster son who was simply locked out when he turned 12 yrs old. His mother had several children starting when she was young. She didn't place any of them even though she had a bad lifestyle. Then she died and the grandmother didn't make any adoption plans for any of them, but instead raised them until they were 12 and would lock them out forever on their 12th birthdays. I think people like that should receive an advertisement for adoption every day!

One of the foster children I've had was kept by the very young dad (the mom abandoned the baby with the dad). The father would just leave his kid with friends and go off partying for days and weeks and months at a time. The child had a very sad time being dropped off here and there, never knowing when his dad would show up again.

There are many circumstances when adoption would have been a better choice. I think there should be advertisements aimed at encouraging parents to choose adoption for their children that are not babies, if they have found that they are not interested in being parents.