[BrandyHagz]

I’ve seen an increasing number if people coming to the forum with the assumption that most domestic adoption “situations” are a result of drug addicted/alcoholic birthmothers, and that the children will be born addicted.

This really bothers me…a lot! If people think this about birthmothers, it means they think it about me…

How did this stereotype come about?

I’d be lying if I said that reading some of the recent posts hasn’t been hurtful. It’s hard to see some of the labels being used these days.

So, how can we change it?

[echaos]

Brandy,

I've noticed the trend as well....

As an adoptee, born in the early 70s, I grew up with the stereotype that all birthmothers were young teenage girls who had "gotten themselves in trouble". Once I found my birthmother, I was very shocked to find out that she was a 40 year old business woman when she had me and was a single mother with a 6 year old daughter!

As to how the new stereotype has come about, I really don't know.... but it is very sad. We adopted our son from a domestic newborn adoption, and both of these stereotypes couldn't be further from the truth!!

So how can we change it? Education, correcting people, talking about it..... Every single time we see a single stereotype or assumption, about anything (I have been assaulted with a lot of stereotypes in my life), we need to stand up and say, NO! that is not correct!!

[BrandyHagz]

Andy,

I didn’t even think about that!

I too was born in the early seventies, to an older birthmother who was raising (well, her parents were really raising him) as son.

Isn’t it odd how stereotypes change? Odder still, is the method in which they come about.

Stereotypes are so evil! Ack!

[maryjanek]

I think the best way for birth mothers to fight stereotypes is to be "out" as much as possible. IMO the only thing that really changes people's pre-conceptions is meeting actual people who don't match them.

[lewellen]

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

[lewellen]

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

[sugarbabysmommy]

Yes, I do think class has a lot to do with it, but I also see a lot of people expressing the fear of,"They are not me." My child's birthmother is very much me and it has shocked some people when they realize that.

Talking kindly and respectfully of birthfamilies can change things, at least in each of our small cirlces. But how do you balance the privacy of your child's information and of the birthfamiles involved and educate at the same time?