Mar 05 2009
Thieving Thursday: Love is Thicker than Blood
It’s thieving Thursday and I know you’re all wondering: who will be the lucky blog? Who’s comment on someone else’s blog am I going to steal and then spin my magic on? Will it be the redoubtable JD , fresh from surgery and my horrific tales of needles gone awry? Or will it be Kathy of The Junk Drawer and my tales of the mighty iron bladder that nearly rusted out waiting for my ultrasound, one baby back. Fear not, men, it’s neither!
No, today the lucky winner is oldwestmom from foreverfamily who writes a darn fine blog on adoption issues. Although I don’t have any adoptive children myself, this topic is near and dear to my heart as my grandmother was a blackmarket baby and spent many years going in and out of orphanages. There are family members that were adopted (my grandparents had ten children and then adopted two more) and some cousins, I believe. To me, adopting a child is not different from birthing one.
Well, the subject was a safe haven law and the struggles for placing such an abandoned child because biological fathers or even other biological relatives can get gum up an adoption and leave a child in limbo for years (the example she was discussing was not abandoned by her mother and was soon after reunited) especially if those “receiving” the child get no useful information. My comment was thus:
“Not to sound harsh, but, if I ruled the world, this would be much simpler. If someone abandons a baby (or child) with no name or identification, put the baby’s picture and info on the missing/exploited children website and also compare it to all missing child reports for a set period of time (weeks or months NOT years). At the end of that set period of time (say three months), the biological parents are assumed to forfeit all claim, irrevocably. And the baby can find her own home.”
Yep, I’m a meanie. Later, it was mentioned that we needed that tie to the original parents, had to positively exhaust that end of it because what if another blood relative was willing to take the child?
My answer: So what?
/Steps on soapbox
Let me explain. I love my children, fiercely and completely, and I’m inherently protective of all children (as noted earlier this week). But I think we’d all be a sight healthier in handling children in general if we’d get over the notion that blood outweighed love when it came to family.Think about it. A baby is abandoned, say by the mother. They put the baby’s face (perhaps name) on the missing exploited children’s list with a description. They also compare the baby to all missing and exploited children listed for three months. If the baby was stolen and really belongs to someone else, who isn’t going to report their baby missing in three months? I’d be lucky to go 20 minutes. If you’re a blood relative that has a real tie to this baby, sufficient to justify taking in the baby over someone else, why didn’t the mother go to you? And where do you think the baby has been for three months? Why are you a better home than a foster/adoptive home?
And that last question is the important one to me. Why do we give so much credence to genetics? Many a biological parent has either beaten their children to death or stood by while it happened. Or worse. Why does our system work so hard to take battered children and reunite them with those that beat or sexually abuse or neglect them? Say the abuser is cured. First, it isn’t your butt on the line taking that risk and secondly, if they are cured, is it healthy for the child to spend time with the one that traumatized them?But this preoccupation with biological ties has bigger implications. Think how much time and effort and money and pain is expended on infertility and overcoming it when there are children in the system right now unloved and alone - instead of opening one’s home to an orphaned child. And, as for those that feel so strongly that abortion must be stopped, if they’d take that passion and energy and devoted it to the children we have now who need homes, if they took that time and money and energy and devoted it to helping children with food and services and healthcare instead of trying to mandate children have children of their own and add to the unwanted children pool, I think the world would be a whole lot better. And, I’d feel a whole lot sympathetic to their cause.
I think everyone wants to take care of the children already out there, but it’s too disconnected from most of us. Most parents love their kids. I want to make it “all” parents and I have no trouble moving the kids to different parents if that’s what it takes to make it so.
/Steps off soapbox
Don’t forget to vote in the poll. Tomorrow, I’m who YOU want me to be.
I agree with you. People who abandon a child lose the right to change their minds later, especially if they don’t claim the child for 3 months. And people who abuse a child really have no rights to claim parenthood. I agree with you about the “cured” parent, too. Doesn’t matter - you already traumatized that child, and he/she will always associate you with the trauma. Kids get PTSD too, from abuse, and the abusive parent, no matter how “cured”, will always be the trigger of PTSD episodes from there on in. Blood has no claim at all in the face of either of those scenarios.
I’m sorry, Bob.
Stephanie -
I am in tears right now. Seriously. It’s one part appreciation, one part (and the lion’s share of those parts) moved by your blog, and one part jealous because you say it so much better than me.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for taking time to post about an issue I feel is so important.
I can’t even express how difficult it was going through even just the process of becoming a foster parent, knowing that in the eyes of the courts, we were sort of the bad guy. I’ve kinda avoided blogging about it because I don’t want to scare anyone away from foster parenting, I am trying to keep some details of our case private, and I’m not sure I can even effectively convey the emotions we experienced.
While I wouldn’t trade my son for anything and we are SO happy now, those early days were some of the darkest of my life.
It is unfathomably difficult to come to terms…to know that according to the court, a life with abusive or neglectful parents is better than a loving and happy life with an adoptive non-relative.
All I can say is that THANK THE GODS the actual foot soldiers of the DFACS system (the social workers, GAL’s, etc) that deal with these kids day to day understand and are sympathetic. They know what’s really in the best interest of some of these kids.
http://foreverfamily.today.com
It kills me that we make it so hard for prospective parents, not that we’re not stringent in making sure they are good parents, but because we treat them like second-class parents - which they’re not any more than adoptees are second-class children (and it burns me that people still think the latter). If we are going to really solve these child abuse/neglect/orphan problem, we’re going to have to open our minds to the realization that love is the real test of parenthood and anything else, including biology, has to come second. Or children will continue to pay the price.
And, if you’ll look at the other commenters, people outside of DFACS also realize love comes first. I really expected someone to come on and argue with me, but my readership is so remarkable - they all see it, too. I think people who realize this make the best parents, regardless of a genetic link.
I am equally impressed with the commenters. I am brimming over with emotion right now.
You’re part of the solution, oldwestmom, bringing love into a child’s life. That it’s rewarding like nothing else is (as well as frightening and frustrating and all those other things that go with parenting) is just a bonus. You and your child are what family is all about.
I figured you ought to know some of the rest of us knew that.
I’ve had the opportunity to read Forever Family’s blog and comment. It’s wonderful to see that people are discussing this great issue of adoption. I’ve been thinking about writing on it for a while, but get caught up in my role as the attorney in the adoption process. I haven’t been able to figure out how to make that an interesting read for everyone else. So, commenting on other blogs about adoption is even better than my own post. It truly is a BEAUTIFUL thing.
I watch parents open their hearts and homes to children who are not related by blood. There is no difference in how they love and care for these children. And, that’s really what’s important–L-O-V-E.
I mentioned before that it’s the most rewarding part of my practice. Now, would I adopt a child in to my own home? You betcha! I’ve always said I would and made it clear to my husband that he would have to be someone willing to consider doing so before we even got married. The giving man he is– he was on board.
I took this stand so long ago because I was sick of arguing with so-called “pro-lifers” who love to throw out that ol’ line: “They don’t have to abort. There’s always adoption”. Really? Seems like a novel idea until I’d ask them if they would adopt. The answer was always, “No.” WHY NOT? You’re so emphatically against abortion and such a big advocate for adoption, right? All rhetoric and no conviction. It just didn’t make since.
As someone who believes in a “woman’s choice” (and I don’t know how this became interpreted to mean “pro-death or pro-abortion” because it’s NOT)– I thought about how important it was for people to be willing to take care of these children that are unwanted or with parents who are unable to care for them properly. Step up, pro-lifers and adopt!
/stepping off soap box
Davida
Davida, glad to have you on the soapbox with me (I feel exactly the same on every subject you mentioned). I can’t even tell you that there won’t be adoption in my own future and would recommend anyone stressing over infertility to serioiusly consider this (and I HAVE done this, several times). You don’t have to leave the country and you don’t have to mortgage yourself to the hilt. There are lots of needy children right now, right here.
You do have to be patient with the system, and you have to be dedicated to the children you bring into your life (and shouldn’t that be true of all parenting?).
But all of us can help remove the stigmas and the misconceptions of what the most important characteristics in a parent. A parent is a safe haven of love and acceptance. People who can’t/won’t do that should not be taking precedence (in my opinion) over those who will.
I’m glad I read this now. I have friends who are trying to adopt a special needs child from China right now, since they know many of those kids are abandoned because parents are mandated to have no more than one child, so they abandon ones with any “problems” to try to have another child.
Yet these parents, who have children and are great parents, run into road block after road block, and each one costs more money, each one is accompanied by letters saying something wasn’t written exactly right on a certain question, and they have a million steps to go through just to get approval. Just today, my friend told me the saddest part was that, though she wasn’t giving up, she knew other prospective adoptive parents probably HAD given up because the process was so expensive and exhausting.
And for each prospective parent who gives up, that’s another child waiting. It’s wrong. Plain and simple.