Bitch Ph. D has a post talking about the book, The Girls Who Went Away, which is about the (mostly white) women from the 40s-60s who got pregnant and then gave up their children for adoption.
There is an interesting point to be made about the drop in newborns available for adoption that corresponds to the increasing acceptability of single-parenthood and female sex outside of marriage. (Which I suspect some people will read as "Oh well that means we need to make single parenthood LESS acceptable. Shame the sluts!"
The reason I call this "Not Enough Orphans" is because not only the post, but the comments, really make it clear that adoption is can be absolutely fucking painful because in a lot of cases these children are absolutely wanted by their birth mothers. These are not little adorable cast-off orphans.
I'm particularly struck by comment by madmama.
I placed a child for adoption 13 years ago. Open adoption. I would never have considered closed adoption. In the paralyzing years following, I have lived in poverty (partly because I was so overcome with grief I could hardly get up each day, face the only work I could find after the birth, when, still bleeding from giving birth, I was hired at 7/11), dealt daily with a grief and loss and wondered why these people I chose to care for my child were so eager to take my baby but offered me no help. (Legally they couldn't, I know the reasons why, but it was a thought process. Also there was a governmental process to provide easy access to adoption, no such easy process to help me keep my child. In fact a woman at the pregnancy crisis centre said to me at the time, "Wouldn't it feel good to give a couple the gift of a baby?" Even then I thought she was full of shit, I thought, my baby is nobody's present. I never returned. But I had no other help.)It's an interesting dimension to the "family values" discussion is that many groups are eager to push the line that adoption is an option, but why aren't these same groups willing to offer significant governmental assistant (the way France or Finland does) to supporting motherhood in this country?
The number of women in American who a) accidentally get pregnant and b)genuinely do not wish to become a parent and c) would not choose to have an abortion, may bit just a tiny fraction of all adoptions.
It's an interesting question that if an accidentally pregnant American woman were suddenly whisked away to, say, Sweden, would her decision about whether to keep the child or whether to consider either adoption or abortion change? Does anyone know the rate of Swedish children available for non-relative adoption in Sweden? And what percentage of those children are newborns?
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3 comments:
Shame the sluts? Pah-leeze.
"It's an interesting dimension to the "family values" discussion is that many groups are eager to push the line that adoption is an option, but why aren't these same groups willing to offer significant governmental assistant (the way France or Finland does) to supporting motherhood in this country?"
I don't get you here. First, I am not sure how the two are related. Second, why does supporting abortion mean you should also support socialism, or at least socialist programs? Are you saying that to be consistant, adoptions advocates should call for the reinstatement of the old welfare system?
Jim in Cleveland
You don't find it to be a tad bit hypocritical to say you support motherhood but not support governmental policies that support motherhood?
And if a certain percentage of women are only giving up their children for adoption because they feel they can't afford to be mothers, isn't that a societal problem? Because it's not like other countries haven't come up with different solutions. It's not unthinkable to have nationally funded daycare (amongst other ideas).
It depends on what you mean by "governmental policies that support motherhood." We saw what 30 plus years of the welfare system did to families, primarily black families. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Personally, I work for the government and know that governmental policies often cause more trouble that they solve.
That said, I think I do support government policies that support motherhood--just not in the way you refer to "supporting motherhood." Policies that make the father expendable make it harder for a mother.
Jim in Cleveland
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