[Cjmeck]

Originally Posted by thanksgivingmom

Not talking about my particular story, but I think I think that there's a difference between the perception that your children will be better off and the reality of if your child will ACTUALLY be better off.

Some women place because their families, agencies, society, etc. convince them that their children will be better off, when in reality that may not be the case. As Belle mentioned some situations expectant Moms may be in truly are temporary. A student for instance that is a semester away from a college degree may feel like she has no options when coached that way by those around her. She perceived that her child would be "better off." The reality is that perhaps she could complete her degree and get a job even with parenting the child. And that the child would not end up with a better life after all - but the end result isn't what dictates placement (of course, as we can't see the end result). It's the perception.

So for me, it's one thing if an expectant Mother says, "I think my child will be better off" than to be later told, "You're child is better off."

I'm afraid that didn't make any sense...if anyone knows what I'm saying feel free to help me out, and if I'm just talking crazy you can ignore it too

I think I get what you're saying; and I think I was trying to say the same thing. I agree it is all about perception; and whether the people surrounding the emom (family, friends, agency) are influencing her perceptions one way or the other. That's what I meant when I said she "believes" that her child may be better off. I didn't mean to use one paint brush here to color all birthmom's experiences or situations. There are far too many variables.

[startedover]

In MY situation, as I know all of ours are different, I would not have adopted my daughter if her bmom said to me "I know she will be just as well off with me". I couldn't have digested adopting a child whos bmom was capable of giving her everything she needed. I would have felt like I was hurting everyone involved especially that little girl. I will explain to her as she grows, that at the time of your adoption your birthmother wanted more for you than she was capable of giving . My DD birthmom specifically said to me "I want her to have a better life than I can give". I guess I shouldn't have generalized my situation but that is all I know. Sorry for those of you I offended. That was not my intention.

[thanksgivingmom]

No offense taken Started - I understand what you're saying

[Oceans]

Startedover as a bmom you didn't offend me at all. I think "better off" is common adoption language to be honest with you and for whatever reason is on the top 10 list of bmoms. But I agree strongly with TG:

I think I think that there's a difference between the perception that your children will be better off and the reality of if your child will ACTUALLY be better off.

And my original thought of we will never know.

To me it's not about better it's about different. When I look back on my choice to place, I realize now that there was no right or wrong choice. It was just a choice. Things have turned out the way they did b/c I chose adoption. Things would have been fine had I chose to parent - different, but fine. Yeah... we would have struggled but we would have made it. In the short term, my son had better clothes and a more comfortable crib than I could have provided - probably more parent time as well since I would have been a single working teen mom.

So better off short term... probably. Long term, who knows. But I say that with 26 years of having placed behind me. I can see long term today. I couldn't back then.

Hopefully that makes sense...

[dpen6]

I am going to answer this one as an adoptee as it is something I have thought about alot. In my situation, in the times and moral attitudes that I was born into, I was "better off". My birth mother did not have any support whats so ever to keep me, no fininacial support, no emotional support, no educational support, nothing. If she brought me home she would have had no place to live as my bgrandmother would not allow me in the house. She also had some issues of her own(for the time anyway...in todays world they would have seemed like nothing). I was heard 3rd pregnacy, she was 23. She had her first at 16, her second sometime in between my older brother and me. She got married at 16(because she "had "to), divorced him, that son went to live with his father. She "had" to get married a second time and that baby died at 6mo. That marriage ended up in divorce. then dated my bfather, became pregnat with me. As the story goes, they were suppose to get married, went as far as the blood test(that i know to be true because salvation army sent me records and the hinton??? test was included.) Don't know what happended after that in terms of their relationship as she never talked about it. All I know that when I was born daddypops was gone, she had me in the salvatioin army hospital. she had no skills, worked in a factory, had some health problems. I also beleive that she emotionally was a mess because of what she had gone trough in a relativly short, crucial period of time. Some may judge her and say she did it to herself, and yes that is true...but she worked with whatever coping mechanisms she had...which were not many. Her parents were divorced(GASP!!!don't forget this was 50 years ago) and as much as her mother tried she had her own issues to deal with. Her stepfather tried...but again not easy given the times. So as much as she would have wanted to keep me(and she did) she just didn't have the ability to parent me in the manner that I needed. She had me in foster care for 2 years in the hopes of getting me back, when she fineally got married agin when I was 7 I was already adopted by my parents(THANK GOD).
So yes, I was "better off". Even as I say and understand all of that, it doesn't tkae awya the fact that it was sad that it happeded the way it did, it was sad that I was not able to be brought up by biological family, it was sad for me and for her also. Adoption can be a very sad thing for the mother and child, but in the long run I an glad I was adopted by the paretns I was adopted by. They were not perfect by any means, and most childrren turned adults figure that out after a while and are ok with it. The understanding is a whole lot more acute when said child has their own children who see their parents as not being perfect anymore .

Anyway, the whole"being better off", I think sometimes gets taken in the general public as being personal. Its not that the birthmother was less better, or the adoptive mother being better, as in moral judgements of the peole invovled. Its not necessarily that one PERSON is a better PERSON, its more sbout...IMO..the situations being better for the child. I think thats what people get hurt and upset over when they here the child was "better off". Its like saying one person is bad and the other angelic..none of that is true. The situation, at that time was not good....not the mothers invovled.

Did I make any sense at all?

[SchmennaLeigh]

I think in certain situations it's legitimately true.

I think in other situations it's not.

So, case by case, it wouldn't be wrong to say it/feel it/etc.

[Leigh131313]

First of all - In my situation I stronly believe M was placed because his birthmom felt he would be better off with us. She is now parenting her newborn baby - do I think that child would be better off with us/someone else?? NOPE! But life has changed and things are different now.

But I have to ask.....If it's not because you think the child will be better off with another family (for WHATEVER reason under the sun, ie. Finances, two parents, age etc. etc.)....why would you place a child for adoption?

[ourdreamcametru]

I think this is a question best answered one situation at a time. In our situation I do believe that Castle is better off being raised by dh and myself. She is in a stable, clean home with lots of love and is being given a life filled with oppertunities that she would not have been offered had her bparents raised her. This being said, do I believe they would have not been good parents? At the time of her birth, no, I do not feel bmom would have been a good parent. Now four years later I still feel she would not be the best parent but could do it if she tried and I do believe that in the future she will be a great parent if she decided to have more children. I believe you have to look at life where you are and that it is okay to think you are meant to be your child's parent. We do not have contact with bfather so I can't say what kind of parent he would be.

[belleinblue1978]

Originally Posted by Leigh131313

First of all - In my situation I stronly believe M was placed because his birthmom felt he would be better off with us. She is now parenting her newborn baby - do I think that child would be better off with us/someone else?? NOPE! But life has changed and things are different now.

But I have to ask.....If it's not because you think the child will be better off with another family (for WHATEVER reason under the sun, ie. Finances, two parents, age etc. etc.)....why would you place a child for adoption?

Leigh, the only thing I can tell you about that is when you find yourself in panic mode it is really easy to allow the people around that you trust to convince you of things that, in reality, may not be entirely.

There are days when I truly believe that I made the worst possible choice I could have for my child, but I can't go back and change that now. I let others influence me too much.

[opalwench]

Originally Posted by Leigh131313

But I have to ask.....If it's not because you think the child will be better off with another family (for WHATEVER reason under the sun, ie. Finances, two parents, age etc. etc.)....why would you place a child for adoption?

Honestly, I'm going to have to go with Belle on this one. Also, there's the fact that some people will help you if you tell them you have XYZ plan, but they aren't going to offer that help up while you're scrambling trying to get a plan together.

And while we may place because we believe our children would be "better off" that belief doesn't necessarily stick around. I mean, hindsight is hindsight, but I now know that speaking in terms of certain financial costs, adoption was more expensive (and more damaging to my credit) than parenting would have been. And I know if was also terribly expensive for my daughter's a-parents.

I think the problem sometimes comes that, if you compare X now to Y now you see Z, but if you compare X past to Y past you see Q so the road from past to now is long and winding and changes, and even throwing little differences (and parenting vs. placement is no little difference) can change things dramatically. (I think this might be getting into chaos theory land...)

Again, a non-adoption example... I crashed my car last month. I can talk about 20 things I could have done differently or whatnot that would have kept me from having the accident that I did (car + utility pole). But by changing that, we open up a whole new realm of possiblities... If I hadn't crashed my car into that pole then, well maybe someone would have rear-ended me two blocks later.

This isn't to say that I don't understand the sliding doors bit that the OP talks about... I'm very guilty of it. I relive conversations from elementary school, if I'd just put that bully in her place then, maybe she wouldn't have made me miserable all the way through to graduation... I relive stuff about my pregnancy and the adoption...

I think that the problem that we're getting close to here is the topic of hindsight and regret. "Better" does not always materialize as we thought it would, so despite thinking that a situation would be "better" it may not turn out to be so. Are we to be held to an original thought/hope that some one could be "better" (or we were told repeatedly that they were "better"), when the truth is not so? Or at least we believe the truth is not so?

Adoption example: If we'd parented, our birthdaughter would have been the eldest child, the only child for a while. When she was adopted, she became the youngest child... and then within 15 months she was a middle child. While it's not my place to dictate the adoptive parents reproductive choices (yes, the older and younger sibs are their biological children so it wasn't an adopt again choice), I feel queasy about the age spacing. The reality that she was placed into has changed.

Also, how about those who place out of mis-placed guilt, that they owe the adoptive parents something for getting their hopes up? (Yup, I felt that.)

I'm not trying to side-track this into a placement reasons thread, I'm just trying to answer your question.

I still feel that if we try to say this is "better" or that is "better" we're putting a possibly subjective measuring stick up there, and somebody's going to come up short.

To again take it out of adoption land - some people feel that different types of formula or diapers or whatever are "better" for different reasons. Any bias a person has are going to color their measurement. What's better to A might be worse to B, and mediocre to C.

And I hate to say that but that even applies in personal situations. Not that I'm trying to measure anyone's personal situation. But while some cases seem cut and dry (abuse, neglect, orphanages...) some aren't so... and some of us come from the not so cut and dry spectrum and we do worry because sometimes people take their personal experiences out and use them to paint with a broad brush.

As I said to the OP before... hearing you say "better" makes me cringe a bit, but I can't stop you from saying it or believing it. I'm not really the most PC person myself, I think PC gets posturing sometimes, but I try to be concious of how my expression might affect those around me. So yes, it's okay for you to look at your situation and think "better," but that doesn't mean that seeing you do that (without more personal insight to compare things) won't make some of us wince.

*I hope that sounded as clear and respectful as I meant it to sound. I still haven't woken up fully yet.*

[Cjmeck]

Originally Posted by opalwench

Honestly, I'm going to have to go with Belle on this one. Also, there's the fact that some people will help you if you tell them you have XYZ plan, but they aren't going to offer that help up while you're scrambling trying to get a plan together.

And while we may place because we believe our children would be "better off" that belief doesn't necessarily stick around. I mean, hindsight is hindsight, but I now know that speaking in terms of certain financial costs, adoption was more expensive (and more damaging to my credit) than parenting would have been. And I know if was also terribly expensive for my daughter's a-parents.

I think the problem sometimes comes that, if you compare X now to Y now you see Z, but if you compare X past to Y past you see Q so the road from past to now is long and winding and changes, and even throwing little differences (and parenting vs. placement is no little difference) can change things dramatically. (I think this might be getting into chaos theory land...)

Again, a non-adoption example... I crashed my car last month. I can talk about 20 things I could have done differently or whatnot that would have kept me from having the accident that I did (car + utility pole). But by changing that, we open up a whole new realm of possiblities... If I hadn't crashed my car into that pole then, well maybe someone would have rear-ended me two blocks later.

This isn't to say that I don't understand the sliding doors bit that the OP talks about... I'm very guilty of it. I relive conversations from elementary school, if I'd just put that bully in her place then, maybe she wouldn't have made me miserable all the way through to graduation... I relive stuff about my pregnancy and the adoption...

I think that the problem that we're getting close to here is the topic of hindsight and regret. "Better" does not always materialize as we thought it would, so despite thinking that a situation would be "better" it may not turn out to be so. Are we to be held to an original thought/hope that some one could be "better" (or we were told repeatedly that they were "better"), when the truth is not so? Or at least we believe the truth is not so?

Adoption example: If we'd parented, our birthdaughter would have been the eldest child, the only child for a while. When she was adopted, she became the youngest child... and then within 15 months she was a middle child. While it's not my place to dictate the adoptive parents reproductive choices (yes, the older and younger sibs are their biological children so it wasn't an adopt again choice), I feel queasy about the age spacing. The reality that she was placed into has changed.

Also, how about those who place out of mis-placed guilt, that they owe the adoptive parents something for getting their hopes up? (Yup, I felt that.)

I'm not trying to side-track this into a placement reasons thread, I'm just trying to answer your question.

I still feel that if we try to say this is "better" or that is "better" we're putting a possibly subjective measuring stick up there, and somebody's going to come up short.

To again take it out of adoption land - some people feel that different types of formula or diapers or whatever are "better" for different reasons. Any bias a person has are going to color their measurement. What's better to A might be worse to B, and mediocre to C.

And I hate to say that but that even applies in personal situations. Not that I'm trying to measure anyone's personal situation. But while some cases seem cut and dry (abuse, neglect, orphanages...) some aren't so... and some of us come from the not so cut and dry spectrum and we do worry because sometimes people take their personal experiences out and use them to paint with a broad brush.

As I said to the OP before... hearing you say "better" makes me cringe a bit, but I can't stop you from saying it or believing it. I'm not really the most PC person myself, I think PC gets posturing sometimes, but I try to be concious of how my expression might affect those around me. So yes, it's okay for you to look at your situation and think "better," but that doesn't mean that seeing you do that (without more personal insight to compare things) won't make some of us wince.

*I hope that sounded as clear and respectful as I meant it to sound. I still haven't woken up fully yet.*

I really loved your post, and I think I learned alot from you this morning.

[SchmennaLeigh]

Originally Posted by Leigh131313

But I have to ask.....If it's not because you think the child will be better off with another family (for WHATEVER reason under the sun, ie. Finances, two parents, age etc. etc.)....why would you place a child for adoption?

You know what Leigh, you're partially right. I was lead to believe my child WOULD be better off with two parents. But you know what? That's not a guarantee. It's just simply not. And I'm really tired of everyone refusing to discuss that adoptive parents divorce just like everyone else. Because, considering that was high up there, right along with finances, and that both of those are actually things that can change in the blink of an eye, then, no, it's not a guarantee that my daughter will be "better off" with the family that she has.

[lovemy2boys]

You know, I've been thinking alot about this thread, and I may be venturing into dangerous territory, but here goes...

I hate generalizations as much as the next person, but to heck with it...I am going to generalize...and when I do so, my generalization will be for people who specifially fit what I'm saying...

There are a great deal of aparents and bparents that for their own personal reasons do not show each other the love/kindness/respect that they deserve - and I'm not talking about them. I am talking about those of us in open, closed, semi-closed adoptions who truly care about the other mothers and fathers in our unique little adoption families...

I think many of us (and here is my generalization) really do try to learn so much about the other sides of the triad, and really do show respect to each other, that in an attempt to do so, we often put our own "worth" for lack of a better word on the back burner.

For example, the OP - good, better, bad, worse...ok - may not be the best word choices, but I get what you're saying...and I do this too. I find myself (especially with my youngest son's firstmom) slipping into places where I wonder if she should have parented...but she didn't, so my job is to give him the best life...Not the best life between ours and that which he may have had with his first family, but the best life that my DH and I can give him. And sometimes I spend so much time giving their firstmoms credit that I often lose sight of the fact that you know what? I'm doing an amazing job...I'm sooo far from perfect, but I am being the best mom I can be.

This goes both ways...There are firstmoms on this board that do the same thing...They tell of how wonderful their childs amoms and dads are, they tell of how their child is thriving and even when things don't always go the way it should, they say "You know what though? They are great parents, etc. etc." And that's great...And I bet that sometimes they do the same thing as me...They tend to give so much credit to the other family, that they may at times lose sight of the great mother/father/friend/sister/co-adoption ally that THEY are.

So what it boils down to, at least for me, is that the word "better" or "best" DOES fit in this whole adoption scenario....

But instead of saying that the child is better off with the adoptive parents, maybe the rhetoric could be changed and what we should aim for is that we, as parents, are giving these children the best life that we can possibly give them.

...and as for the divorce thing, Jenna - I agree with you. People get divorced every day, including adoptive parents. There are no guarantees in life. That's why we should all strive to do the best we can for these children and for ourselves.

[vbigelow]

Originally Posted by Leigh131313

First of all - In my situation I stronly believe M was placed because his birthmom felt he would be better off with us. She is now parenting her newborn baby - do I think that child would be better off with us/someone else?? NOPE! But life has changed and things are different now.

But I have to ask.....If it's not because you think the child will be better off with another family (for WHATEVER reason under the sun, ie. Finances, two parents, age etc. etc.)....why would you place a child for adoption?

I placed my son in 1970 because I was coerced, shamed, threatened and demeaned. I was given no choice, although I sure tried hard to find one. I was told that if I didn't sign the papers I would be put on the street (by my parents and the agency). I was told that my son needed a mother and a father; he would be called a bastard on the playground if I kept him and that he needed and education that I could not provide (...gee what about public schools and financial aid?). I might also add that I was heavily sedated (doctor's orders) whenever I tried to discuss my "options." Speaking of options, I was never told I had any even though programs did exist and I did ask the questions. I was isolated in the hospital and labored alone. I was beaten down. I was taken to court to sign papers with a 102+ degree temperature from impacted breasts and a plugged, infected milk duct.
Was my son better off? NO. He was raised by a father and mother in a two-parent family (with 4 bio sibs that followed). However the mother was mentally unbalanced and the father too weak to do anything about it. Their house was chaotic and dirty. My son was raised in a religious cult that did not value education. At 37 he spends his days going door to door invading people's privacy trying to get them to join the cult. His parents are now divorced. My parented children are all educated, well-balanced, productive loving people. Hmmm....better off? NOT

[abjbadopt]

Our daughter would have been raised in an orphanage had we not adopted her. I believe she was meant to be ours from day one and she has a much better life now!

I think it's ok to think this way if you have reason to believe it's true!

Also, "adoption issues" can be easy to get caught up in (I do it too) but our kids are just kids like everyone else. I think they just want to be normal and not have to think about adoption all the time. So we have to stop thinking about it all the time too...just a thought.