Yay or Nay

Several people have asked me whether I am pro or anti adoption. Before discussing my feelings, let's look at the politicking behind these terms. (This is a rough, "party line" style review, not a case study. Please understand the statements that follow are generalizations. Your experience may differ)

To be "Pro-Adoption" means adoptions are useful, necessary, and ultimately beautiful. They allow the creation of families that would otherwise not exist. This stance means supporting networks that help place children in strong families that can properly care for them. This view is realistic in its acceptance of "circumstances of necessity" in which parents cannot raise their children.

Being "Pro-Adoption" also tends to belittle the horrendous experiences of the first family and the adoptee. It ignores the fact that adoptions can only begin with incredible pain, and many leave significant baggage for the child to deal with later. Being blindly "Pro-Adoption", only seeing the beautiful, wonderful, miracle of adoption not only ignores, but in fact condemns, anyone who speaks the truth of their painful experience. It also undermines our appreciation of families without children. Many people who choose to adopt describe a deep need to parent. Some, however, talk about how much they "want a family". This ignores that most of these people already are a family. The difference is raising children. I'm not coming down on hopeful adoptive parents. But I am highlighting a big social message sent to families that they are incomplete without children. There are a lot of people who have children because it's the next thing to do.

Birth fathers tend to be pushed aside for fear they will derail an adoption plan. He may be allowed to participate if he fully supports every decision made by the first mother, but if he desires direct input he will usually be shamed or threatened into leaving. This is for fear the father may with to parent, thus destroying the beauty of a prospective adoption.

To be "Anti-Adoption" means seeing through all the salesmanship of adoption agencies and recognizing the truth; adoption hurts. Everyone involved gets scarred in one way or another. This view is usually accompanied by a dogged determination to see nuclear families maintained and given the resources necessary to provide stable homes for their children. It's about keeping children with their parents and keeping women protected. Many adoption agencies are for profit businesses. They provide service to their customers while attempting to reduce their output and expenditures as much as possible. Who are their customers? Future adoptive parents. This reduces birth mothers and children to commodities. Women are taken advantage of, children are bought, and the adoptee is usually left to pick up the pieces.

Being "Anti-Adoption" typically ignores one, blatant, truth; many parents are not capable of raising their children. For all the arguments about the way things "should be", lobbying government to change adoption laws or increase funding for WIC doesn't help the children who are in need now. This view also tends to have a very rigid view of what families are and can be. Very often there is a huge focus put on keeping children with "their real parents". This is a devastating message not only to adoptive parents, but also to step- and extended family members. It tends to ignore the things that adoption can get right. Instead the focus is on victimization and pain. This focus can be so intense that it actually victimizes people who speak of a positive adoption outcome. The "Anti-Adoption" rhetoric is less frightened of men than it is angry at them.

First fathers tend to be condemned if they participate in an adoption and if they allow the mother to parent alone. Anything less than a wedding ring is unacceptable. This ignores how many relationships between men and women are unstable.

The question stands; am I pro or anti adoption?

I'm neither. I'm pro-child.

I neither support nor protest the institution of adoption, nor adoption agencies as a whole. I support ethical behavior, and well scrutinized decisions. Each child's needs are different, and each family's situation is different. To be either pro or anti adoption across the board means keeping some children from what they need to be happy and healthy. No matter what, someone is losing. The only way to avoid this is individual discernment. Every situation must be taken on its own as something new. There is no cookie cutter solution.

Unpleasant Truths

A growing number of people have been telling me I don't exist.

As hilarious as that sounds, I find the experience to be frustrating. Often it is angering. It isn't the statement itself that upsets me. It is the assumption behind the statement. Carte blanche statements carry weight only because the person making them believes, truly and fully believes, that s/he know me better than I do. I find this infuriating. Allow me a brief indulgence as an attempt to avoid future confusion.

I do not want to parent. 

Now that is said, I assure that I really do exist. It is uncomfortable to encounter others whose experiences and ideals diverge significantly from our own. People often respond with fear, anger, or disbelief if the incongruity is severe enough. That does not, however, make other people monsters. Nor does it make them nonexistent. If I were a linguistically creative individual I might try to invent a new word to describe these sort of beings. Fortunately I don't have to, as we already have one very suitable.

Different.

As scary as it may be, difference is more than just skin tone, the music we listen to, or even the political pundits we favor. Our differences can run so deeply as to effect the way we perceive, sort, and give meaning to our experiences in the world. Much more important than just knowing how thoroughly different we can be is knowing that's okay. Let me say that again.

We're different. It's okay.

What I find terribly humorous (here I display my gallows sense of humor) is how the differences that draw the most vitriol are typically the ones least scrutinized. When something one considers to be a given the shock is much greater when that assumption is challenged. A good example of this in modern western society is gender identity. For the overwhelming majority of westerners gender breaks down as follows:

Penis = Man

Vagina = Woman

Most don't give it much thought and leave their understanding of gender at that equation. When confronted by a person who identifies as gender queer most people are either confused or threatened. What's so hard about gender? See the equation above, problem solved, right? Wrong. More often than not the person who has grappled with the question at hand will have a much more nuanced, and often more sensitive, understanding of the concept being investigated. If gender is more than genitalia we have to ask what it means to be a wo/man. An invitation is given to deeply probe our understanding of ourselves, others around us, and the world at large. It is a daunting journey, but I feel a worthwhile one.

Deeply questioning status quo belief structures and patterns is something I feel all people can benefit from. It helps us develop our imagination as we try to understand how these beliefs shape not only ourselves and our understanding, but indeed how they shape and change the world around us. For my part, I'm tired of accusations about the moral quality of a person who thought and worked his/her way through a difficult question to better understand him/herself. Especially so when the accusations are nothing more than echoing the simplistic beliefs, like penis = man. In my experience the accusations become particularly base and hateful when sexuality gets involved. Whether we like it or not, that inevitably links to procreation. When procreation gets involved in the conversation things quickly get out of hand, just as when discussing sex. Instead of having a well thought out idea or a notion that needs more questioning, the conversation degenerates into "good" versus "bad" and "selfless" versus "evil". Frankly I'm tired of being told I'm evil because I'm honest about myself.

I genuinely believe that if hopeful future parents (inclusively, all future parents) were asked as frequently, judgmentally, or invasively about their plans to parent as I have been about my desire not to parent these conversations would go differently.

Take a few minutes and ask yourself; do you know what it means to be a woman, what constitutes woman-ness? No, making babies is not an acceptable answer. Dig deeper. Ask harder.

Do you know why you want to parent? Not why society wants you to parent, not why evolution wants you to parent. Do you know why you want to parent? Have you ever asked?

Trying to be Human 101: Dignity

"I always thought of dignity at being similar to ego" Athena said. We were talking about a series of posts I have lined up, and one of them relied heavily upon one's understanding of the word dignity. It was then I realized how important relative context will be. Before we proceed to the real meat and potatoes awaiting we must first be certain everyone knows what I mean when I speak of "inherent dignity".

The dictionary reference above has a variety of meanings but none of them quite capture my thinking. All the definitions refer to rank, merit, and relative position as governed by outside forces. What I wish to discuss, however, is dignity inherent to being human.

I believe all humans are born with dignity. The best definition I can come up with is something like this:

Dignity is the inalienable, intrinsic worth of a human. That dignity is deserving of appreciation, recognition, and admiration. The worthiness of a human cannot be measured against another as all are of equal value. Neither can this worthiness be diminished by actions of the individual, nor actions taken against the individual. Respecting the dignity of others also means recognizing that the worth, value, honor, merit, moral/ethical standing, and importance of those around us do not hinge on our opinion.

To borrow a Taoist perspective, nothing a person does can ever make them less "person". They will always have person-ness, just as a tree will always have tree-ness and a squirrel will always have squirrel-ness. The essence of being isn't contingent on qualifying value assessments. The same is true of human dignity. A human, in fact all humans, will always have human dignity. It may be ignored, abused, and taken for granted, but never removed, and never diminished.

None of this means that people don't try to reduce, damage, and destroy the worthiness of those around them. In fact, seeing worth as both intrinsic and indestructible appears to place me in a minority. Of course some will play devil's advocate and ask questions like "did Adolph Hitler have intrinsic worth?" or "was Genghis Khan worthy of admiration as a human?" My answer is a resounding "yes". I have no praise for these men based upon their actions nor the choices they made in their lives. Let's face fact; Vladimir the Impaler was a decidedly cruel and twisted individual. But none of them could shake their humanity. It is possible to simultaneously have worth and make evil choices that debase one's ability to see the worth of those around them. Did you note how I phrased that? Evil choices, not evil people. People cannot be evil. People are people. Sometimes they do horrible things to one another. That fact makes me both angry and sad.

For those of you who give any traction to the judeo-christian perspective, let me give one last little tid-bit to act as an example:

The good Samaritan. Most of us have heard the story. Most of us were told it meant to treat people the way you want them to treat you. That completely misses the point of the story. Let me break it down. First off, we start with the man who was beaten and stripped, robbed, and left by the side of the road. There are very important connotations to the man being unconscious, bleeding, and mostly naked. He can't speak to identify himself. His clothing can't indicate his nationality. He's bleeding, and may be dead, which would make anyone who touched him (should he be dead) unclean and require ritual cleansing according to Levitical law. The road where he was left is, in fact, less a road and more like a small path on the face of a cliff with a precipitous plunge down to a river at the side. So we have a couple guys from the local temple that pass by, humorously, on the "other side of the road". Eventually it's the Samaritan who takes pity on the man. The gent from Samaria picks up him, takes him into town to an inn, cares for him, and then pays to have the locals care for him until he's healed.

Here's where everything we thought we knew goes to hell.

The Samaritans were, at the time the parable was told, at war with the Jewish nation. There were several occasions when the Samaritans scattered human remains in the courtyard of the Jewish temples, intentionally desecrating them. Here's the fantastic part. This story was told to answer a question from a local Pharisee (Jewish holy/political figures at the time). There was significant controversy at the time about what the "neighbor" in "love your neighbor as yourself" meant. A lot of people thought "neighbor" only applied to fellow Jews. Some of the more radical people of the time believed it meant everyone. So in asking, "who is my neighbor" the response is this story about an enemy of the state being the only person to show concern for a fellow human. So, who is my neighbor? Who am I to love as completely as I love myself? My worst enemy. The person I hate and fear the most.

In modern day terms it's like telling a staunch militaristic, socially conservative, family in the United States to love Al Qaeda militants.

Why am I bothering to mention any of this here? You guessed right. The person you fear, loath, and hate the most has just as much dignity as you do.

The Magic Number

I'm often tempted to stop writing all together. I often feel I don't have much left to say. Naturally I haven't said everything there is that can be said about adoption, first families, male roles in adoption, et cetera. There will always be more to add, just as there are new birth fathers every day. The story doesn't stop until humanity does.

But one can encounter a point of diminishing returns. After a while it seems there is only so much I have left to say. Other men have their own stories to tell, their own perspectives to help illuminate the shadowy corridors wherein first fathers so often disappear. When I stop these men will continue the good fight and keep talking about their experiences. The torch will be passed.

Except that it won't. When I stop writing, no one is writing. When I stop telling my story, sharing my perspective, silence is left, ignorance flourishes.

What's a man to do but continue to slog forward?



As you've probably noticed, I'm participating in the 2011 Adoption Interview Project. I have learned from Heather, the wonderful woman organizing it, that I'm the only birthfather participating. There are over 120 bloggers signed up. That's where I found the inspiration to continue, to take this a bit more seriously again. That's where I came across the magic number.

0.83%

Among a community built around open adoption, sharing our stories, finding commonality, and demystifying adoption I represent 0.83% of the Adoption Interview participants. Taken to a larger context it gets downright silly. To the best of my knowledge I am one of two English speaking birthfathers to have publicly written about that experience. As far as I know I'm the only one keeping an (admittedly sporadic) active blog. Let's be generous and only look at the USA. If I am, in fact, the only English first father blogger in the United states, that means I'm one in approximately 512 million.

0.00000000319% of the population.

Keep in mind that there is a birthfather for every child placed in an adoption.

There were 57,466 adoptions in the United States in 2009 that involved public agencies. That number does not reflect private adoption agencies nor adoptions that took place without agency aid.

Let us assume that some of these children are born to the same men, and also that some men's children are not accounted for in that number. For the sake of argument let's call it 55,000 babies were born to new birthfathers in 2009. I have a hunch that's a very low number, but I'm hedging my bets here to avoid sounding inflammatory. If this math actually works out it leaves me with one question, a question that only gets more staggering the longer I think about it:

Where are the other 54,999 men of 2009? Where are the 55,000 men from 2010? Where are the half million men from the early 2000s?

Over the course of generations we're looking at the strong possibility of several million birthfathers in America. I know I'm not the only one.



Right?

O.A.R. Seven "Ignorant" Questions

Better late than never. This has been sitting as a post to be finished for quite some time. It seems there's been something of a fire lit under me today so I thought I'd finish it off and post it. For your reading pleasure, my answers to seven questions asked of the Open Adoption Roundtable bloggers.

1. If open adoption is so great, why do so many people suck at it? By this I mean, not honouring commitments, closing the adoption, telling the other family they’re not “doing this thing” correctly or playing the “for the sake of the child” card?

There is a very simple reason some people suck at open adoption: integrity. To function an Open Adoption requires a lot of integrity on everyone's part. The biggest expression of that, in my experience so far, is in the form of honesty. Many people aren't very skilled at being honest, be with with others or with themselves. When entering an extra-familial open adoption the participants must decide whether or not to trust each other. Let me say that again. In the average open adoption all people involved make the decision to trust one another or make the decision not to trust one another. It is a willful decision. There simply isn't enough time in most open adoptions to build enough trust. A leap of faith is being made by everyone involved. The only other option is a disingenuous foundation that, if continued, will doom the relationship.

2. From the standpoint of first parents, open adoption sounds like something that could prolong suffering. Could this suffering potentially outweigh the good of knowing where your child is? Who helps the first parent?

I'll answer the last part of this question first. Who helps the first parent? The typical answer is a sad one. No one. In broad terms most first parents are taken for granted and very often taken advantage of. Help doesn't come easily and rarely comes willingly. The stigma of adoption alone is enough to drive most would-be supporters away. For those interested in sticking around most disengage after a few months. The intensity of the pre-adoption is experience is difficult to believe, even for those who have already been through it. Agencies and support groups exist to provide resources for some, but these are often the exclusive domain of first mothers and very frequently only available when still pregnant. Post adoption support services are very, very rare.

The truth is an open adoption can prolong confusion and suffering when roles and boundaries become muddled. The confusion of developing what role "first parent" is going to take in a first parent's life can be profound and emotionally paralyzing. When handled well the cost is greatly outweighed by the benefits. A first father can know with certainty that his child is happy. A first mother can see her son or daughter smile, laugh, and play. The knowledge, rather than the guess, that the decision to place for adoption was a good one that resulted in healthy relationships is the best aid I can imagine for the healing process a first parent goes through. In my case confusion, hurt, fear, and ambivalence disappear when my son smiles and waves at me.

3. I’m guessing kids are not hung up on how many relatives they have. Tell me that the thing that hangs up the public all the time about open adoption and other unconventional relationships—two mommies, two daddies, three, four, parents—is the least of your worries because it seems to me it is.

As a first parent, even considering adoption marks one with a bigger stigma than being part of a non-traditional family. After being told, in as many words, that I am evil I no longer put much stock in the general population's opinion of status quo.

4. Do you ever feel like you should give this child back? Does the thought ever seize you totally as you watch your child with her bio-family: “ooops?” (OR for f-parents: Do you ever feel as though you need to take this child back? That nothing is stopping you beside an agreement that feels false? Does that feeling go away?)

I have never had the feelings you describe here. I have mourned that I made the decision I did. I have mourned the loss of my worldview, self definition, perceived control of my life, and many other aspects of living as part of the adoption process. I have mourned that I was in a position that made those losses and decisions necessary. I have never wished to take my son from his mother and father. They are his parents. There is no grey area there. Athena and I are his first family, and here I'll explain why I use that term. We cared for Festus with every resource we could pour into his well being and development for as long as we could. For eight months (we discovered Athena was pregnant at four weeks) our lives revolved entirely around making him the healthiest and happiest baby we could. We continue in that commitment, as his first family, but we are not his primary family. We cared for him first chronologically, and we cared for him with absolutely everything we could. At the end of those eight months, after his birth, we were absolutely desolate. There were no resources left. Professor Plum and Ms Scarlet's arrival at the birth center was, in part, like the cavalry riding over the hill to win the day.

5. How do children ever cope with knowing they could not be kept? When they see their natural parents having more kids, what do they think? Who helps the child in this situation? Both sets of parents?

There are too many assumptions in this question for me to take it entirely seriously. Instead I'll point out the assumptions being made and why they should be called into question. First is the notion that a child must cope with being placed in a loving, well resourced household. Plenty of people I know are adopted and many more raised by their grandparents without significant thought on how hard it is to live in a world where poverty can effect people's lives. When was the last time you lamented the fact that you're so poor you had to work for a living? Is it terribly tragic, or simply your life?

Do first families continue on to have more children? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It shouldn't be assumed that the first family will go on to have more children and the choice to place for adoption was a question money or emotional retardation alone. Pardon my cursing, but frankly birth parent's aren't universally the emotionally stunted fuck ups we're portrayed to be in daytime television. Frequently they're simply victims of statistics. A sexually healthy relationship between two adults commonly results in sex between two and three times a week for people in their late teens to mid twenties. If it's a committed relationship that will result in roughly 130 couplings per year. A condom with 99% efficacy means there's a statistically supportable argument that couple has had one child and is gestating a second within one year's time. It is improbable, but statistically viable.

6. Can you say comfortably that some surrendering mothers could not cope with an open adoption or do you think that it should always be the standard?

As in question number one it's all a question of the individuals involved. There is no standard open adoption. That's why it can work. The experience being discussed here is so intense and personal it must reflect the individuals and have the ability to grow as they do. If anything I believe the very idea of a "standard adoption" should be abolished. We're talking about families being created. Each and every one needs to be understood and handled as a unique case with singular needs.

7. Is there ever a reason (aside from extreme/illegal behaviours) to close an adoption totally?

This question reminds of why I hate it when people ask me if there is ever a justifiable reason to take a human life. Of course there is. I'm truly excellent at creating the worst case scenario which can justify all sorts of behavior. I think of it as something of a chess game I play against myself. A sort of testing of ethical waterproofing so to speak. Is it worth talking about what these factors may be? In my opinion, not really. I can come up with good reasons for Professor Plum and Ms Scarlett to cut off all contact with me until I'm blue in the face but it won't mean anything. It would all be conjecture and fantasy with no actual substance. Drugs, sex, lies, theft, mental/emotional/spiritual abuse, and wearing the wrong colour neck tie are all immaterial until they carry the weight of a real life situation with all the intricacies and realities therein.

Congratulations. . . I'm sorry.

I wonder how it is that the word "congratulations" has become the go to sentiment for a person who has just given birth. In many circumstances it makes sense. When speaking to a member of a first family it is among the most painful and infuriating words in the English language. For more thoughts related to this word and the subtext it can carry, see my ramblings here.

I remember being congratulated by a few people when sharing the news that Athena was pregnant. Apparently those people didn't bother to read my body language or look at my face when sharing the news. Everything about me said "despair". Yet the congratulations continued. Each time it was like a stab in the gut. Every iteration like another blow to a nail pinning me to a board. "Congratulations" meant "you should be grateful". Saying congratulations meant this should be good news and I don't have the right to have mixed feelings.

The next time a person you know gives birth think a little about what you really want to say to that person before speaking up. If that person is in a difficult situation "good luck" may be the better choice. "I'm sorry" can even be appropriate. "Congratulations" doesn't fit every situation. Think a little longer before speaking. Or speak a little less frequently. It will give you a chance to listen more carefully to what others sound like when saying such things. "Congratulations" can be the salt in a wound.

"Congratulations" could mean "fuck you".

Thoughts on Child Centered Adoption

***I'm still on medication. Please forgive me if this post derails or doesn't make sense. Please point out mistakes or areas that need clarification. I don't want you to ignore my mistakes. I want you to help me make them better***

In discussing the "right-ness" or "wrong-ness" of adoption I've discovered a trend. People tend to speak directly for children when children cannot speak. It's not uncommon to hear people say things like "your baby wants to be raised by you," or "all a baby wants is to be loved." In the former I'm paraphrasing statements I've heard from people who are pro-parenting/anti-adoption and the latter pro-adoption/anti-parenting depending on your person taste for terminology. I take serious issue with this proclivity even though I don't doubt that I've been guilty of it myself. These statements are troubling because of the processes one must go through to make them.

At first glance it looks a lot like compassion. To speak for the child one places him/herself in the child's position and attempt to understand the fullness of that experience. From that exercise s/he then speaks from that experience on behalf of the child. The ability to put oneself in "the other guy's shoes" is fundamental to compassion. That exercise has many practical applications and generally keeps humans from treating one another poorly. Unfortunately in the adoption related debates I've encountered that is this tool has been turned around. Instead of compassion it is used to fan the flames of conviction. This may be due to the strength of the emotional experiences encountered when applying this tool to adoption.

Most people, in my experience, involved in adoption debate have been involved in an adoption plan. The parties involved are typically a member of a first family, adult adoptees, current or prospective adoptive parents, and on rarely adoption workers. In these situations everyone has an experience to bring to the table. On the part of first families those experiences are, uniformly, emotionally intense and often traumatic. On the part of adoptive families the experience is often one of great joy muddled with the pain of infertility and loss. Very often both sides of the adoption equation have lost children yet that commonality is rarely discussed. That is something I wish to address, but not now.

After all, the point of this post was discussing child centered adoption, right? So where's the child in all of this? Well that's precisely the problem. Adults are jumping through a lot of mental hoops trying to understand the experience of the child in order to speak for their experience. Bringing their own experiences into the process of imagining the experience for the adoptee adults have amplified reactions. Before the adult can attempt understanding the adoptee experience s/he is typically overwhelmed by his/her own emotional experience. That's when people start speaking for themselves through the voice of the child. That is not only disrespectful to the adoptee experience. It disallows for adoptee experiences that differ from the adult's perceived experience. I consider that malicious behavior.

There's another level to this. The question of how a person does compassion is important. I described the exercise of "putting yourself in the other guy's shoes" as fundamental to compassion. It is a necessary step. Compassion doesn't stop there. That's how we teach compassion to children. An adult requires an adult understanding of compassion. "Spare the rod, spoil the child" isn't what I'm talking about. The real point is abstraction. Early compassion says I know your experience and I will behave how I wish others had behaved toward me. Abstract compassion says I don't know your experience and will behave with respect and kindness toward you.

Why can't I know your experience? Why must I assume I'm ignorant? Because there are billions of neurons and billions of discrete experiences that separate my experience from another person's. I can never know the full subtlety and depth of another person's emotions, thoughts, or choices. This is why I try to speak only for myself. When I do speak for others I attempt to do so in terms of probabilities (Billy probably doesn't want cockroaches in his sandwich, birth fathers probably aren't universally jerks). I do this because I believe no one has the right to speak for another in positive terms. At the very best we can make guesses but must do so with full admonition of our ignorance.

How does this apply to child centered adoption? It means in the often heated debates about whether adoption is right or wrong I put a few lingual filters in place. Let's take my paraphrases above as examples. When a first family member says "your baby wants to be raised by you," I hear "I wish I chose to parent." When I encounter the same statement from an adult adoptee I hear "I wish my first family had chosen to parent me." These are very valid statements that cut to the quick of the emotional experience they represent. There are more reasons than I can imagine for a person to have these desires and they are legitimate. Similarly "all a baby wants is to be loved" from an adoptive parent arguing against openness says to me "I wish my love is all my baby ever needs."  This, too, is a legitimate desire. Wanting things and experiences, if honest about the needs they're attempting to address, is perfectly healthy. Knowing desires are often terribly unrealistic is also healthy.



I can feel my brain starting to fog over, so I'll wrap this up quickly if, perhaps, tangentially. No doubt you, the observant and critically engaged read that you are, have noted that I've not spoken to whether adoption is right or wrong here. That's intentional. I'm not concerned with whether adoption is the correct choice or a morally abhorrent choice at the moment. My concern is how we speak about adoption and how that reflects our attitudes toward each other. Adoption is polarized on many levels and I'm growing tired of seeing people turning their past injuries into weapons to further injure others. It feels like an east wing versus west wing cancer ward battle to the death. We've all been taken by surprise*. We've all been hurt by the same thing** and are in various stages of healing. A little kindness doesn't seem like so much to ask for. I suggest you be a trend setter. Tell someone that you don't understand, but you care anyway. Tell them you'll never fully know, and you love more deeply because of it.

*Whether it be unplanned pregnancy, infertility, unethical adoption workers, or even being raised by "the wrong family" and encountering stigma externally and internally everyone involved in adoption has encountered a situation in his/her life that s/he would not seek.

**Adoption hurts people. So does chemotherapy. No one wants it, even if s/he needs it.

"How Could She. . ."

I've heard the question "how could she do that?" more than I care to. It never fails to impress upon me how certain many people are that their ideology is the right one. Because they've never found themselves in a position to seriously consider adoption they "could never do that" and "can't imagine how a person could do something like that." I think my favorite is "something has to be wrong with you to abandon your own flesh and blood." I often overhear these things said before people know I'm a firstfather.  I'm directly told these things after I've informed them.

The prejudice runs deep. So deep it's considered okay to tell someone they're inherently broken, nigh inhuman, because s/he made a difficult choice. James Gritter has once again addressed these attitudes in a book. I haven't read it myself, though it's now on the list. Fellow blogger Luna reviewed the book and answered a pair of questions about her experience here.

"As Gritter points out, the more compassionate query is what dire circumstances led to such a difficult and life altering decision (p27). Gritter suggests the question 'How could you…' may only be appropriate when posed by an adoptee. 'A question from his soul deserves an answer from hers,” he writes, even though it is “an experience for which there is no adequate language' (p31)." - shamelessly stolen from Luna.


I love that turn of phrase Gritter suggests. "What dire circumstances. . ." It cuts to the quick of things very well. Most often that's exactly the case. Pregnancy occurs surrounded by chaos and a time-limited inability to parent. But here is where the standard version and my story diverge, yet again. I could parent. I don't know how all the details would have worked out but I could have made it work. I chose not to.


My earliest memories of my projected future in childhood involved parenting. In kindergarten I imagined growing up a raising a family much like my own. In second grade I replaced my future career of psychology for my father's in the pastorate. By the age of eight I had changed my mind. I didn't want a family with children. I didn't want to raise children. I couldn't imagine being responsible for another person's life. In the years following my attitude toward parenting has changed a little but not enough to convince me that it's an endeavor I want to participate in. That's the truth of it.


I don't want to parent. I've never been able to integrate it into my sense of self despite years of being told to do so. Much like trying to talk a man into being a woman it just didn't work. It's either there or it isn't. While varying shades of grey exist I don't believe it can be significantly altered nor fabricated. That is why, for as long as my sense of self has been tied to my own experience, I have no identified as a father figure.


I consider myself extremely fortunate that Athena feels the same way. Even more so I'm lucky that both of us were being honest in discussing children before her pregnancy. Our "dire circumstances" were being in a situation neither of us wanted to be, ever.




I think that's all for today.

*******************

Disclosure:

This post is probably a bit scattered and almost certainly rather negative. Life circumstances are pushing me around a bit and my stress is on the rise. Car trouble is teaming up with low funds to make for a less than joyous week. Hopefully you'll find me in better spirits next week. Until then I hope you have a sunny and relaxing weekend. Good luck to you all and be gentle with each other. It can be a tough world. No need to make it any harder.

A rant about relationships

I promise I won't make a practice of this. I swear I'm not making a regular feature on picking apart comments read elsewhere. Unfortunately I really need to get this out of my head!

I was just poking around reading some blogs by adoptees. It's a very different lense on the adoption experience. Specifically it's one that I feel I need more of if Festus' adoption is to remain child focused, not me focused. So I'm stretching myself a bit and trying to grow. Good for me. I came across a post regarding a facebook group called "Birth Mom Missions." I haven't looked into it personally. I'm a conscientious facebook objector. In the comments section I read the following:

"My head is spinning. I just read over there that God gave Jesus to Joseph for adoption because he couldn't raise him.


God hadn't finished college yet? God was too immature to stand by Mary?"

There are so many things wrong with that statement I don't know where to start. I won't even get into the question of an omnipotent/omnipresent being who is incapable of doing something. There's just too much dumb there and I don't want to get anymore on me than there already is.

But here we have yet another example of the classic stereotypes coming out. The adoption had to happen because he was too immature to stand by his woman. Granted this is an intentionally ridiculous example. But the sentiment remains. This picks at a wound that has been on my mind a lot lately. There are a few common assumptions about why domestic adoptions happen.

1) Money. The first-family can't afford to raise a(nother) child.

2) Drugs/Domestic Abuse/Chaos. The first-family is unfit to parent.

3) Youth. The first-family is in high school or early college and they're "just too young."

4) Dad's a Jerk. The first-father won't commit to staying with the first-mother.

The money issue is often a very real one. It often ties in with reason #3. After all there aren't many people in high school or their first few years in college who are financially comfortable enough to be independent, let alone be able to care for a child. High schoolers don't make that much money. Drugs/Abuse/General Chaos is also a factor not to be underestimated. All of these factors can be very real players in making an adoption plan. As much as I hate to admit it so is #4. There are some guys out there that are just jerks. Plain and simple. It's also true that women can be jerks too. I may be a misanthrope, but I'm a misanthrope of equal opportunity. But there are many more reasons than just four that an individual or couple decide to make an adoption plan. Perhaps parenting isn't right for them. Maybe the parents are in such different places in their lives they can already see no one would be happy if they "stay together for the child." Maybe, just maybe, there are relationship that should end before a child is brought into it.

I chose my words very carefully in the description of assumption #4. The first-father won't commit to staying with the first-mother. There's often a strong emphasis on the first-father's will here. The implication is that if the first-father would "man up" and "put a ring on it" he could live out his days happily with the first-mother and their child. Because he won't commit he has made the willful decision to be unhappy in the relationship. He should decide to be happy and then the adoption would be unnecessary.

It is at this point that I feel I must remind the reader that presently over 51% of marriages in the United States end in divorce.

I don't want to see that number go up. I don't believe that a person can decide to make a relationship work. Unfortunately sometimes things just don't work out. Sometimes love isn't enough. How disappointing a story would Romeo and Juliette be if the strength of their love made their respective families resolve all their differences and they never encountered another problem so long as each of them loved the other enough? No one would buy it because we know it doesn't work that way.

I think it's time that we put away the faerie tale and have a face to face with reality. Most romantic relationships fail. Sometimes someone is at fault. Sometimes circumstances just don't work. Most of the time someone feels very hurt, betrayed, and abandoned. Whatever the reason for the end of the relationship it always results in the same conclusion; the relationship failed.




That makes the ones that work so much more valuable.