Quote:
Originally Posted by Oleg Bach
Just being a realist. There is only one kind of father..the father of the child..Terms like biological father are Orwellian to say the least...That particular term is an affront to nature and reality...Of course adoptive parents want to be real parents and pretend that it is their child- but it is not...Those that PRETEND....are doing a disservice to the child..reality can not be swept under the rug.
This might be a brutally cold thing to say..but it is true...what ever womb the child emerged from is the womb of the mother..the surrogate mother no matter how sweet their intentions are is not genetically related to the adopted child- the child is NOT an offspring...In the old days- "unwed mothers" were hustled off to give birth in secret..and the child given up for adoption...This in nature can only be described as coercion and theft of an offspring.
Funny how some "parents" will try to choose a child that looks similar to them in genetic structure- the whole affair starts off in bad faith...and selfishness. Natural mothers and fathers should be encouraged to raise their own off spring. Instead there is an institutional way of doing things- like "the child will have a better life" or....in the "best interest of the child"- all of these mantras are not based in reality but in some hap hazard prediction of a gloomy future- if the child is left in their natural state...Those who can not have kids...have been dealt a blow by nature...and nature owes them nothing.
If you are sincere and want to take on the responsibility of raising a child that is not your child..It had better be done in the spirit of helping the child and not for selfish reasons...It is this selfishness that brings about problems later as the child grows..The child is not similar to the un-natural father or mother...They will tend to be different...Those that expect a child that is not born of their body to be like them...harms the child..
If you are bound and determined to adopt...be prepared to raise a person that is and always will be genetically estranged from yourself...Adoptive parents should have access to the real parents...they must understand who and what they are...To adopt a child and not know anything about the kids genetic make up is foolish....If you truly love this infant stranger...you will except them even if they appear defective in your estimation...
Out of my four kids- one was not mine...Never did I expect this child to call me dad...He had a father...never did I attempt to take the place fully as his father...I was not his father- It was always up to him to make up his mind who was more relevant in his life...the real father or me..the surrogate...In the end he understood who his father was...and who I was....He in later life adopted me....
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Actually, Oleg, I think you make a bit more sense in this post, though I still disagree with quite a few aspects.
First of all though, I did find your original post extremely insulting and do believe you posted it to deliberately provoke a reaction. The bit about the lunatic mother and father who might have criminal tendencies was just plain nasty and extremely hurtful to us adoptees as it made me feel as if you considered me and other adoptees to be the lowest of the low. I think you owe every adoptee on here an apology for saying that. I can tell you that my original family is as of high quality as my adoptive family.
However, I can agree with a lot in this post - you actually hit the nail on the head on what is "wrong" with the modern form of adoption - i.e that there is more of an emphasis on creating a family than on actually helping children who need a family. The laws surrounding adoption reflect this fact.
I don't totally agree with you in one regards in that I believe one does need to separate the the "entity of adoption" from the personal motives for adoption.
So, as I've said many a time - I do believe that the entity of adoption MUST ONLY be for helping children who need a family.
However, where I do differ from you is that I have NO problems with an individual wanting to adopt because they wish to love and raise a child to adulthood,in fact, it is vital that that is at least one of their reasons for wanting to adopt. However, I do believe that they are a resource ONLY to be used when a child needs parents and mustn't let their wish for a child blind them to the reality of what adoption or its alternatives should be about. Also, I don't necessarily believe that the modern form of adoption where the child is "as if born to" the adoptive parents is the only way to go. The more informal adoption practices of the Polynesian society and even the cases of "adoption" found in the bible are very different to today's forms of adoption.
Also I don't agree that adoptive parents are "pretending" to be parents per se, because of the simple fact that it is up to a child to decide who his/her parents are** (see below) - having said that, I get the impression that you are meaning more that adoptive parents shouldn't pretend that they are the only parents that exist or have ever existed in their child's life, i.e. that though their child may now be their child, they will also always be the child of another set of parents whether they or their child choses to acknowledge those other parents or not. After all, that IS the nature of adoption - a child born into one family and raised into another.
I do agree with what you say about about natural parents in that they should not be actively discouraged from parenting which is, as I've pointed out many a time on here, one of the major problems with the scene in the US. I think the NCFA birthmother training scheme and the "Missing Piece" document created for Pregnancy centres are very coercive works that are designed to separate children and mothers from each other. This tract was written in 1999 as a recommendation to pregnancy centers on how to reform women's thinking re adoption. This document admits that they believe that:
Counselors must be trained to give women sound reasons that will counter the desire to keep their babies.
http://www.heartbeatinternational.or...sing_piece.pdf
Before anyone goes "Oh my god, you evil anti-adoptionist" - I have made it clear all along that I have problems with the modern form of adoption. I have no problems with people raising children unrelated to them but I do think the healthiest approach is when there is acknowledgment and acceptance of the child's past as well as the future. If we look to the cases of adoption in the bible, they never hide the origins.
**As I said above, there is only one person who decides who their parents are, whether in adoption, or not, and that is the child. No-one has the right to tell anybody who their parents are or should be. So if an adoptee considers only their adoptive parents to be their parents, then those are their parents. If an adoptee considers all four of their parents to be their parents, then all four of those parents are their parents. If a person decides great uncle and aunt John and Jane are their parents, then John and Jane are their parents.
So, again, I do disagree with you telling people they aren't parents because really the only people who can decide that are the people's children. It is not your place to tell them that as you are not their children.
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