Do you think that widespread confusion about the differences between foster adoption and private adoption…?
…have made Adoption reform, or any other type of meaningful discussion next to impossible?
When someone can claim that a person has no business being a parent because they left their 2 year old child somewhere to go drink, and correlate that to the supposed benefits of private newborn adoption, maybe we are spinning our wheels. How can we change this?
I doubt it will change because infant adopters and hopefuls love to play the abuse card.
"What about all the kids burned with cigarettes and live without heat?!", they whine. Of course they personally have NO intention of adopting any of these children.
But they sure are handy to exploit when you need ‘em, however.
By educating the public on the differences.
It irks me when people counter with abuse in adoption debates and discussions. For debate class I had to take the opposing side to "private newborn adoption" and I kept having to counter the whole abuse thing. It was irrelevant and it seemed like it was "common knowledge" that all birthmothers were crack-ho’s. I was just like "what the heck?" Nothing was making sense.
In order to truly exterminate this way of thinking I say we have an afterschool special! (hahah… no…)
For adoption reform to be possible we need to define the border between ethical adoptions (foster care adoptions) and adoptions destroying an adoptee’s culture, sense of being, and using coercive tactics.
This kind of goes along with the whole adoption/abortion thing, it’s really hard to combat. I tell friends and people who would be interested in the subject the difference between private and fc adoption before I say something. I hate to be interrupted with "but in cases of abuse…"
Let’s face it, it’ll take a heck of a lot of work to get this fixed.
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The plain truth.
In the UK there is no such thing as private adoption but there are some people in the UK who think foster care adoption is also private adoption as foster carers can adopt the child their fostering after a year if that child has been freed for adoption. However a social worker still has to be involved which means it’s not a private adoption.
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You make a great point. There are so many news stories about abused children and the need for safe, permanent homes for these children that people just assume that all adopted children came from bad homes.
Domestic infant adoption is a completely different situation – abuse is almost NEVER a factor. But the dominant commentary and marketing themes reinforce the abuse angle, so that’s what sticks in the minds of the general public.
I think we have to state very specifically what type of adoption we are critiquing and seeking to reform. Most on this board seek to reform domestic infant adoption, and there are others who are working for international adoption reform.
No one is against providing a safe and permanent home for abused children.
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hi anna.
yes. and i think it goes both ways. i was adopted when i was 9mos old by my foster parents. i was placed with them when i was 3 mos old but i was abused and no one else from my bio family wanted me and some of them couldnt have me because of criminal records and stuff. i have all my records now..my bmom had 5 court dates and didnt bother to show up to even one.
so people usually assume that my bmom was this nice young girl who made an "unselfish decision" which is not at all what happened. my bmom left me alone in an unlocked apartment for two days and i was apprehended because i was in filth and had cigerette burns all over my body.
social service came and got me, my bmom didnt give me up.
i get tired of explaining the differences between foster adoption and private adoption too. they are noooot the same thing.
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True there is some confusion between the two among those who know nothing about adoption. Reform will Never come if it’s handled the way it is on here. There is little or no respect for the others point of view on here and there is a lot of insults being slung at other members.—- If we can’t talk about it without openly insulting another persons point of view then reform will Never happen.
I agree there is a big difference between newborn adoption and foster care adoption—until coming here I had never thought about it.
I am not in the adoption business.
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I do think it has made it an uphill battle, that’s for sure, to educate others on the importance of adoption reform. The stereotypes are pretty deep in society about adoption and the different roles . . . i.e. . . the drug addict, screwed-up first mom, the saving, wonderful aparents and the grateful adoptee.
The most I think we can do here is to keep pointing out the differences whenever we can. To point out every chance we have the vast differences between private and foster adoption. And not just here in the adoption section, but in our everyday life too since I believe if we start to change the outlook of the public in general we will begin to see more change.
Trying to change the opinion of someone who desperately wants to adopt a newborn and has their set views on the greatness of adoption can sometimes be like trying to poke a hole through a brick wall with a toothpick.
But if we start to pick away at the stereotypes outside the adoption world and clearly show the differences that exist in adoption and the unethical and coercive reality of private adoption, we might have a better chance at getting people to listen and learn.
At least that is what I hope for.
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I doubt it will change because infant adopters and hopefuls love to play the abuse card.
"What about all the kids burned with cigarettes and live without heat?!", they whine. Of course they personally have NO intention of adopting any of these children.
But they sure are handy to exploit when you need ‘em, however.
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Adoption is a preventable disorder
Answer deleted due to excessively candid response.
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No, I don’t think it has made reform next to impossible, but it certainly hasn’t helped ease the path to reform either.
Also, leaving a 2 year old child somewhere to go drink isn’t always a bad thing, depending on the amount of drinking involved, and the place the kid was left, and how far away the drinking is happening.
We can change it by getting involved at the ‘handing out kids’ end of it all, which is why I’m hoping to study Social Policy and Management (with either Psychology or Sociology, since it’s joint honours) at uni. next year (and which means I should be spending a lot less time on here than I do <wry g>).
ETA@Pip: I disagree that there’s no such thing as private adoption in the UK… depending on your (generic) definition of private anyway. Kids can still be handed over independent of Social Services, rather than having everything arranged through the SS or an agency, and it’s that bit to me that marks the difference between private and not-private, since the SWers and legal involvement comes after the fact.
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I think that there is a general muddying of all the issues in adoption, putting them all into one giant pot and labeling it ADOPTION has lead to a LOT of problems. I also don’t think that it is accidental. When the Adoption Awareness Act was being pushed by Jim DeMint, it was originally touted as being a way to find "forever families for the children languishing in foster care". However, when it passed, it was labeled the Infant Adoption Awareness Act. How many infants do you think are "languishing in foster care" today? If they are there for a nanosecond, they have little time to languish due to the number of eager paps lining up to get their mits on it!
I think that most agree that there are children in foster who need a good home. They trot those children’s pictures out in the mall, in the schools, in the banks and everywhere they can to show how important adoption and adoption welfare can be. However, that does NOTHING to change the fact that infants are where the interest and the money lies.
One of the things that the NCFA announced is how they intend to get around that and get those domestic white infants into the market, and that is the threat of the POSSIBILITY that these children of unmarried mothers MIGHT some day end up in foster care…better to be proactive and wrest them from them BEFORE they become damaged goods and go down in cash value!
this sounds cynical, I know, but if you are in this arena long, the cynicism is a natural outgrowth. There is no way to be an activist in Adoption and NOT become cynical about the abuses and machinations the industry uses to stay in business!
I think that one thing that can be done to help this is to be very, very specific what we are referring to. For instance, Surrender is one legal step which actually has nothing to do with adoption. A surrender is a totally separate legal issue. After Surrender, Termination of Parental Rights ends the natural parent’s legal (not moral or physical) connection to the child. Therefore, when the records are sealed really has NOTHING whatsoever to do with the natural mothers. It has to do with adoption and the natural mothers have nothing to do with adoption. Understanding the legal steps and the differences in the processes is a huge step toward insuring that what we are discussing is understood and not so easily mistaken.
There is a difference between the BSE and today, closed vs, open, varying degrees of openess, and domestic infant/ international/foster adoptions are entirely different animals and cannot be addressed simply under one universal umbrella.
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