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another thought
I'm an adoptee, my b-mom too was fortyish. I think some of the assumtions that come from adoptive parents may come a fundamental misunderstanding of class in America. Many of the adoptive and prospective adoptive parents are firmly middle class. (I am defining middle class as household incomes 100,000 and above.) Among this group there is an assumption that if you are lower middle class or, god forbid, lower class in income, you must be flawed. By this I mean, drug addicted, of low intelligence, lazy, uneducated, mentally ill etc.
In this country, economics, to a large extent, defines how you are precevied. I work in a low paying job, live in a rural area and drive an older domestic car. I also have an IQ that is in the 150's and a 4.0 GPA in what college I have attended. People of higher economic classes always tell me I should "get out, you don't have to do this." They cannot understand that I have enough, enough money to get the things I need, enough time to enjoy the things I want to do, enough peace of mind to sleep well. They do not understand that if I lived in a million dollar home in the 'burbs and drove a Lexus my life would not be that different.
I'm afraid these assumptions will continue, they are ingrained into the American mind. Our culture is too very much about attainment.
LewEllen
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