Messages By: btabury

<<<Just because you can't have children, isn't the reason to adopt.  >>>

Oh sooooo true! I wish more adoptive parents would understand this. Also the bleeding heart  "I want to give those poor children a good loving home" should not be a reason for adopting either. I think both of those types needs to examine their ulterior motives before they adopt. As Nancy Verrier in the very beginning of her book "The Primal Wound" those couples who are infertile need to examine the impact infertility has on them before they adopt with counseling, and altruistic parents with children already need to examine their motives for adopting "those poor abandoned" children.

<<<We come with many challeneges as being adopted. Like, " Did you pick me or Was I the first baby to come along?" Or " Why didn't my biological parents want me?'.  And of course the big one..".Who would I have been, had I not been adopted ?" Our self-esteem is challenged. >>>

Again sooooooo true! The adoption industry of course does not want to admit this, they send the new parents home with the child, and say raise them like you would any other child. But we arn't any other child. We are different, and we have different issues and while we can learn to over come these issues, it makes it much easier for both adopted parents and child if the parents are prepared for the fact that an adopted child might have some serious issues down the road. I know my relationship with my adopted parents would have been so much easier had they been better prepared by the agency. Of course being a product of the baby scoop era that wasn't likely to happen, and RARELY happens even now.

I suggest that all parents who want to adopt really research it, and do the HARD reading. Read the stuff that is anti adoption as well. Look at sights that are anti adoption and try and look at the prespective of the adoptees, mothers and adoptive parents who belong to those sites. Think about the things that may have gone wrong in their adoption process and ask yourself a big question before you adopt.

Would you want your child taken from you, coerced from you, MOST often because you couldn't afford to take care of them? Or would you want society to start educating and helping you to learn to take care of your child. Because the simple fact of the matter is that most adoptions occur because the mother is pressured into adoption because she is young and is poor. Yes there are those women who don't want a baby and give them up, drug addicts, abusers etc, but most of those children end up in foster care and not in adoption agencies.  Many of the women who are drug addicts, or don't want a baby period have abortions, when they do carry to term the child has medical issues and ends up with in foster care or if lucky enough to end up in an agency the adoptive parents are lied to about the childs medical issues and MANY times is returned when the medical issues start popping up.

My point is that adoption in this country is broken, it is a for profit industry about the buying and selling of perfect babies while many wonderful children need homes. Many of those with in the foster care system. If you really want a child to love, think about becoming a foster parent.

The adoption industry in this country is a $1.4 BILLION dollar a year inudstry!

A few really good books to read, are "20 things adoptive children with their adoptive parents knew" by Sherrie Eldridge and she also has "20 life transforming choices adoptees need to make" both are wonderful books. My favorite though is "The Primal Wound" by Nancy Verrier, I read parts of it with my adoptive mother and it was a healing experience for us both. We both realized that neither one of us was crazy, that there really was something there and it had to do with my being adopted. Anything by Betty Jean Lifton is great as well. Get to reading!

Awesome post!

I am sorry that you lost your daughter to adoption. Have you been able to find her?

I come from the baby scoop era myself, and found my parents years ago.

I keep thinking that maternity homes should be reopened, but with the goal of education and training so that young mothers can learn a skill so they can be employable, learn how to care for their child and other skills like finances, cooking etc. This way maybe we could keep mothers and their babies together.

While I agree that it is derogatory, I just have to say that be prepared for your son to hear it over and over, even from your own family.

I cannot tell you the times growing up where I was referred to as the "adopted" child. Of course never when my parents were around. I was introduced by Aunts and Uncles, cousins, friends of the family etc, as So and So's "adopted child". When it was said once that I looked like my mother my Aunt, in front of my mother said, well she's adopted so that isn't likely. My mother and I used to giggle when ever anyone said we looked alike. It was our own private joke and the Aunt ruined it.

As much as many people like to paint it, adoption isn't always a pretty picture. Prepare yourself for the heart aches that can and many times DO come with it. Prepare yourself now for those hurts, those slights and prepare you children as well.

I think it is always best to be honest and upfront that the child is adopted. But an adopted child will always have insecurities about being adopted. They may not always share those, or those insecurities may come out in various ways. On a side note even those grown adoptees who find out in adulthood that they are adopted, state that they always knew something was different about them. They had a sense of not belonging, so honesty is always the best policy. But be aware that it is can be a sensitive issue with us.

One thing that I hate more then ever is the chosen child bolony. It is important for Adoptive parents to understand with this story that first and foremost that in order to have been chosen, they had to be given up. Which can and usually does imply to the child that they were not wanted. A great book for adoptive parents to read is 20 things adopted kids wish their adopted parents knew by Sherrie Eldridge. It is an awesome book and a must read for adoptive parents. My parents were actually very honest and in that it was a good thing. I was told from a very early age that I was adopted, of course it would have been hard not to know that, being my parents are white and I am not. My parents made my adoption story into something special, it was always a big thing at the birthday for the birthday child to have his birth story be told, and my parents talked about bringing me home.

Will you please read the book "The Primal Wound" by Nancy Verrier! It really will help!

As for agencies preparing families they don't, they tell you to take your newly adopted child home and raise them as you would any other child. But we arn't any other children, we are different and The Primal Wound can help you understand how and why.

I read passages to my Adoptive mother and we both cried together. She said she wished she had known. Good luck!