[RobertHafetz]

I know this is hypothetical but it should be discussed. My birth mother fought to keep me for 5 months. It was in 1951. She visited me in foster care often.Im certain that she was altered forever by giving up her child. What do you think would have been the result if there was a system in place to help her keep me instead of one that pressured her to give me away? A system with counseling, financial help, job training, emotional support, and group therapy, all with the goal of keeping a birth family together, instead of breaking up a mother and child to create a new family. Whats best for the child... and the birth mother, as a family in their own right? How would the life of a birth mother(your life) be different if society supported you instead of isolating you. How do you think your life would be different? Respond any way you like.

[Dawn74]

Hypothetical is right. How many times have I thought about this. I ache every day of my life for the baby that I was unable to keep. My empy arms still long for her even after 32 years. I still dream at night of the life we were robbed of. Of never seeing her smile, never hearing her cry, her laugh, seeing her first steps, kissing her boo-boos, hearing her call me mommy. Being there for her every day of her life.
If there had been some support back then, other than a very poorly run welfare system, we would have shared all of those things. She would not feel abandoned as she does now.
I have never had any other children. I have punished myself the rest of my life by making myself believe that I never deserved to be happy, to have another child. How could I have another knowing that I was unable to raise my first born. I have always felt that it would have been unfair of me to have more children after I was unable to keep her. My love for her was so great that I didn't think there would be room in my broken heart to love anyone else. Sound silly? But it is true.
I had only a high school education and was making minimum wage as a secretary. It was a temporary position in my local high school. But I knew it would have to end when my pregnancy started to show. In the early 70's they wouldn't have allowed an unmarried teenager to work in the front office of the local high school.
Maybe this doesn't answer your question fully. But I think you do understand that my life is quite messed up because I have beaten myself up for 32 years for giving my daughter up for adoption.
We will never know the true answer to this hypothetical question as you know what happens when one "assumes" something.
How will answering this help you?

[RobertHafetz]

Originally Posted by Dawn74

Hypothetical is right. How many times have I thought about this. I ache every day of my life for the baby that I was unable to keep. My empy arms still long for her even after 32 years. I still dream at night of the life we were robbed of. Of never seeing her smile, never hearing her cry, her laugh, seeing her first steps, kissing her boo-boos, hearing her call me mommy. Being there for her every day of her life.
If there had been some support back then, other than a very poorly run welfare system, we would have shared all of those things. She would not feel abandoned as she does now.
I have never had any other children. I have punished myself the rest of my life by making myself believe that I never deserved to be happy, to have another child. How could I have another knowing that I was unable to raise my first born. I have always felt that it would have been unfair of me to have more children after I was unable to keep her. My love for her was so great that I didn't think there would be room in my broken heart to love anyone else. Sound silly? But it is true.
I had only a high school education and was making minimum wage as a secretary. It was a temporary position in my local high school. But I knew it would have to end when my pregnancy started to show. In the early 70's they wouldn't have allowed an unmarried teenager to work in the front office of the local high school.
Maybe this doesn't answer your question fully. But I think you do understand that my life is quite messed up because I have beaten myself up for 32 years for giving my daughter up for adoption.
We will never know the true answer to this hypothetical question as you know what happens when one "assumes" something.
How will answering this help you?

The adoption process needs to be changed not abandoned as some advocate. What better way than to have an honest discussion about it. When you share your experience others can see the parallels and know that they are not alone. My question is simply what would we be like if the support to keep the mother and her child together was equal to the support to divide them and adopt? We can only wonder and explore it because we can never know. In my case adoption saved my life. My mother had three more boys after me. One died at age 43 a passive suicide. He stopped his heart meds. The second is an ex convict, and the third an addict living on the streets. My question is how did the adoption process of 1951 effect my mothers ability to be a mother? What would have been her outcome if there was support to keep her together with me. Counseling, therapy, job training, financial support etc. I who was adopted had a wondeful life. Was it at her expense and the expense of her future children. Are we damaging people to create new families from divided ones? Sometimes adoption is clearly the right path but not every time. Theres a bias in the system to adopt when it should look equally and objectively at both sides. Why is the system biased to adoption?

[Montraviatommyg]

Personally I do actually feel that more should be done to encourage mothers to keep their babies and helped with job training or further education and helped to cater for childcare. If they're working but can't afford childcare that they are given help.

My son was born in 1981 and attitudes weren't much better. I was working so could afford childcare and I was emotionally capable of keeping him which I actually wanted to. My parents were adament that he was adopted, nobody else gave me support and the case worker basically lied to me. It got to the point that as I was digging my heels in that the case worker told me it was too late to put a stop to the adoption. Last year I found out the truth but by then it was way too late.

Pip

[Mitzi]

So Sad...So true.....I think a lot of bparent's often wonder that. Adoption has come a long way....but still has a long way to go. It seems that there are more resources out there to "place your child" with someone else...rather than keeping your child within your family and parenting your own child.

[Mitzi]

Remembering how many conversations I had with my SW about resources to help young women keep their baby.

UH.....none.


But oh so many about placing my child with a family that had many resources.



Pretty sad.......hopefully one day I will be able to tell my daughter the truth about it all.

[heartened]

When I was pregnant with my oldest - 1991 - I was not yet married to the father. There was little or no support for me. There was a local organization I was in contact with. Supposedly, they were all about providing resources to unwed mothers. In reality, they were recruiting women to give up their children for adoption. There was a LOT of pressure from them to place. They even kept calling me after we were home asking me to rethink my decision.

I got similar pressure from my adoptive family. I'm glad I resisted but man, was it hard. I ended up marrying the father and having two more children with him. I don't regret keeping them, but I regret the fact that it seemed the only option available was to marry the father. It wasn't good or healthy for either of us or for our kids. If only I knew then what I know now. I made huge mistakes for myself, my then-husband and my children as a result.

Adoption is big business. There is a whole lot of money changing hands, and so there is a whole lot of money to be lost if there are any great strides in adoption reform. They can't and won't allow that to happen. Adoptive parents become unwitting participants in this. The industry preys on the heart-wrenching desire of couples all over the world who want nothing more than a child to love, protect and cherish. They charge these couples exorbiant fees and no one ever questions why it costs so much money for something that really only involves a couple hundred dollars in court fees and a few hours of work on the part of the agencies and associated employees. Nowhere near the $30,000+ these families are charged.

In addition, these money-makers get all sorts of legislation enacted which makes it nearly impossible for a couple and a pregnant woman to come together on their own and make an agreement for adoption. Supposedly, this is all done to protect the birth mother and adoptive parents, and I think that is true to a point. But lets face it - for every scammer, there are thousands of successfully completed adoptions in which everyone is just trying to make the best of a difficult situation.

It has become so important to meet the needs of adoptive parents (and to obtain the money they are willing to spend) that the industry is focusing more on providing kids than it is on protecting those kids and/or doing what we can to keep birth families intact.

I understand wanting to have kids and I am thankful for the fact that I was able to, but as an adoptee, I have to consider the price I have paid for the desire of someone else to raise a child. Totally setting aside the fact that my adoptive family was utterly dysfunctional, the fact remains that at almost 35 years old, I am STILL grieving for the brothers and sisters I don't know. I am STILL recovering emotionally from the pain of this separation. And we still have not come far enough along for there to be any sort of concrete support services in place to help me deal with this. Nor do we have such services in place for the birthmothers to turn to. So the pain is just perpetuated upon another generation and still another.

Would I have been better off with my birthmother? I have no idea - perhaps not. But we never had a chance to find out. Thankfully I had the chance to find out with my own kids. Thankfully I was able to stand up to the pressure placed on me to relinquish. But how many thousands of others have not? How many had no chance? And who is looking out for them?

[Dawn74]

Robert,
I agree with you that the adoption process has got to be changed.
I still live in the same county now as I did when I was pregnant in 1974. This year with the help of the community a haven for pregnant unwed mothers will open. It is small but it will help 6 girls at a time, for now. Hopefully more in the future. They will be able to stay there while they are pregnant and continue to stay after the baby is born. They will help them to care for their babies as well as help them get some type of education so they will be able to take care their child and themselves. This has been way to long in coming.
I have come to realize now that adoption does hurt everyone.
Hypothetically, even this forum may have made a difference in my decision back then. Nobody that talked with me told me how my child would resent me for abandoning her. They only told me that I was doing the best for her so that she would have a stable home life with two loving parents. I am sure that people in the Child Welfare system even back in the 70's had an idea of how harmful it was for children to be given up for adoption. How they feel abandoned and unloved, even when the parents who adopt them show them nothing but love and encourgement. How naive I was. Even until I found this forum back in 2002. How silly it was for me to not realize that she would feel abandoned and unloved. When all along I thought she would realize that it was my love for her that helped me make the decision to let her be adopted by two older and well established parents.

[RobertHafetz]

Originally Posted by Mitzi

Remembering how many conversations I had with my SW about resources to help young women keep their baby.

UH.....none.


But oh so many about placing my child with a family that had many resources.



Pretty sad.......hopefully one day I will be able to tell my daughter the truth about it all.

Do you think its the money issue? If the goverenment helps mothers keep their children then theres a cost involved but if there is an adoption then there is income to the parties involved except of course the adoptive parents who pay a hefty fee. It seems to me that adoption should be free when you consider that people are willing to take the responsibility of raising a child upon themselves and relieveing the state of that responsibility and cost. The chances are better that the child becomes a productive member of the community instead of being raised in a group home, residential treatment facility, or foster home. Just thinking out loud I could be all wrong on this

[heartened]

You hit on a good point here, Robert -

I know of at least a dozen couples who would gladly adopt foster kids of many different age ranges, if not for the cost. This includes my husband and I, actually. As one friend observed, "As much as I want to give a home to a child who needs one, what kind of home can I provide if I go bankrupt just to be legally entitled to go further into debt raising them?"

My brother and sister-in-law had to take out an enormous loan from the credit union in order to adopt my nephew. That was 4 years ago, they are still paying it off, all the while trying to raise two kids.

I really wonder how many more children would find loving homes if not for the expenses involved. It makes me so sad.

[RobertHafetz]

Originally Posted by FH-heartened

You hit on a good point here, Robert -

I know of at least a dozen couples who would gladly adopt foster kids of many different age ranges, if not for the cost. This includes my husband and I, actually. As one friend observed, "As much as I want to give a home to a child who needs one, what kind of home can I provide if I go bankrupt just to be legally entitled to go further into debt raising them?"

My brother and sister-in-law had to take out an enormous loan from the credit union in order to adopt my nephew. That was 4 years ago, they are still paying it off, all the while trying to raise two kids.

I really wonder how many more children would find loving homes if not for the expenses involved. It makes me so sad.

I worked in a 2 PA residential treatment centers as a therapist and I can tell you that a home is better than an institution any day. It doesnt have to be a "perfect" home either. The cost was over 200,000 per year a few years ago and very likely more today. While I have been advocating that we support mothers to keep their children we should also make adoption easier for adoptive families while the bias to adopt first should be stopped. Everyone thinks they know whats best for the child.

[heartened]

It really makes you wonder how much the adoption industry would change if all adoption-related careers were filled by adoptees.

[Montraviatommyg]

Robert,

Although you have a good point I was in a position that I was working and could have paid for childcare so where would that have cost the British government to help me keep my son? The only financial help I would have got was Child Benefit which all mothers get automatically where they work or not nor did I gain financially by my son being adopted.

Pip

[RobertHafetz]

Originally Posted by FH-heartened

It really makes you wonder how much the adoption industry would change if all adoption-related careers were filled by adoptees.

Psychotherapists get little training on how to recognize and treat adoption issues. Neither to psychiatrists. I was part of many treatment team meetings and adoption dynamics were never seen as part of the patients pathology. Im not saying adoption is pathological, but its a contributing factor when you are treating a depressed, angry, kid who doesnt trust anyone and in his history there is an adoption event.

[RobertHafetz]

Originally Posted by FH-Montraviatommyg

Robert,

Although you have a good point I was in a position that I was working and could have paid for childcare so where would that have cost the British government to help me keep my son? The only financial help I would have got was Child Benefit which all mothers get automatically where they work or not nor did I gain financially by my son being adopted.

Pip

You have me at a disadvantage I dont know how British social servcies work. I am assumming that the state would pay for counseling, job training, day care and anything else required for you to stay together. When an adoption occurs the new family takes on that cost.