There's a few things I'd like to add now on the topic, being calmer and have given some more thought on the issue.
Babies are NOT possessions to be fought over. It makes me sick when this happens, especially because some of the ones doing the most and the nastiest "fighting" are the very ones who are complaining that adoptive parents treat them as possessions that can be bought and sold. I have to include myself in this fighting to a point as I have sometimes (ahem...as in last night for one) given in to the insults and had my say. The best I can say about my behavior at these times is that it's always been defensive. Ya, I know. "You started it" is a poor excuse. I admit that.
What the mothers of loss who do this "on the offensive" need to understand is that their anger is more often misdirected than not. What do they hope to gain by insulting the general population of adoptive parents? They were insulted? Well, I'm sorry but I wasn't the one hurling those insults. Does it change the past to spew back the insults now? Do they really feel better? If so, WHY? It makes them no better than the people who treated them that way. They were called birthmothers and worse so now call us adopters? They were insulted when people told them the pregnancy was their fault so now infertility is automatically ours?
A couple of notes here. I am not judging anyone's choice to have sex before marriage. Most people do. If they were not treated with compassion while facing the consequences of that choice I am sorry. For me, though, it's a fact that every person who makes a choice has to deal with whatever might come next because of it. That's why teens shouldn't have sex in my opinion. This too isn't a judgement. It's an opinion based on the fact that most are not ready to deal with the potential consequences of it. Sex is for adults because it has potential adult consequences. Simple as that.
Anyway, now that I have that out of of my system I'll finish my thoughts on entitlement. Having a baby is a priviledge, not a right, for ANY parent. It makes no difference how you got to be a parent. No one is entitled to a baby. It happens that people who become parents through both conception and adoption sometimes get the priviledge of parenting without deserving it. Unless a "good parent detector" is invented that's not going to change. THOSE are the people who shouldn't get to be parents. I guess I could sum it up like this: good people who are or would be good parents deserve the chance to be parents.
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2 comments:
How interesting that I came across your blog today...as I was just commenting on another blog that I don't think it is helpful when APs are called "adopters" who aren't willing to see the truth or worse called "baby stealers" who treat their "adoptlings" as possessions. I have never understood what this hopes to accomplish. All it does is alienate us. I don't appreciate being called names and having assumptions made about me by people who know nothing about me other than I adopted a child. I happen to agree with "most" of what these blogs are trying to say, but being called names makes me click off and find something more productive to read. Great post.
i wish there was a detector for good parents. that part is spot one.
i agree with kris that name calling gets us nowhere, and i also agree with what a lot of the criticism against the present adoption system. i like how you've parsed the two issues, cuz they really are separate
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