Between the comments from adoptive parents discussing their children's parents of origin, the comments given to women asking for help about their crisis pregnancies, comments given by adoptees who don't need no other parents, and all the ugly hurtful things said... are you ever offended by the comments made in Yahoo! Answers?
snowwillow20
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Not very often, I know without women like like me who gave up there children at birth that adoption would be different. I carry that guilt around everyday.
I've learned alot here about how everyone feels about adoption. If I had, had a place like this 36 years ago, I doubt I could have gone through with the adoption.
What offends me is that with all the birth control and literature on adoption and how it effects the triad, and for some the abortion option, girls are still giving up their babies. I can't believe that family's are not giving the support to these young women to help them. Obviously they have never lived through adoption. No one knows the pain of adoption unless they have lived it. It hurts.
Anonymous
The one thing that I find offensive is to be grouped with women who neglected and/or abused their children.
I know that some children are taken from their families for good reason, I also know that some children are taken from their families for very poor reasons, and then of course there are mothers and babies who are separated because of money, greed, lack of information, compassion, support, etc., in other words family separation due to market demands.
I know early on in my experience with Yahoo! that I used to put out much more personal answers and because they were personal I took the comments very personally. Now, I don't put the personal stuff out there so much, therefore I don't get offended very much.
A world in which a young mother can lose her child to an unnecessary infant adoption is not a safe place; the Yahoo Q&A board reflects the world we live in. On the other hand, I've lost the most important person in my life, what else do I have to lose?
If I took too much offense I wouldn't keep answering questions here.
?
Yes, I do sometimes get offended. I also am shocked and sometimes hurt by the dismissive assumption that we are somehow no more than the persona that is shown online, and despite the fact that I have successfully lived for 42 years following surrender, raised 5 excellent children, have a successful marriage to a man who still thinks I am hot after all these years, and have many friends and spend a good deal of time laughing with them is all incidental to the point and that I am really just a bitter angry old birth-beeyotch. Actually, I am a pretty successful person, but am righteously indignant at being victimized by a system designed to dehumanized and debase me and my child.
Lori A
Mostly it makes me sad for them. I do get offended once in a while, but usually on behalf of the women I know who are reading here and struggling with their decision because it's still fresh.
The crack whore thing bothered me but I'm mostly over it. The one I can't stand is "well you signed the papers it ain't your kid anymore so quit making a big deal out of it, or quit worrying about them." To which I can only respond "your bill of sale may hold up in court but it won't in a dna test." Which I think is a rude response to someone who can not conceive but if that's the way they feel about a child's first family then that's what I use.
How could anyone honestly think that because you signed some papers that you have no connection to a child, no right to long for that child, no right to feel suffering? Maybe they don't realize that some who read here have just made that decision and they are looking for something to grasp on to that resembles hope.
MamaKate
Dear MPS,
Yes. I am occasionally offended by the ignorant and hurtful things directed at us FPs. The generalizations and the stereotypes (NONE OF WHICH FIT MY SITUATION) are not only offensive but most often simply WRONG. We are the used, forgotten, hurt and more often than not, the VICTIMS of the adoption machine. Our children are taught to hate or fear us when in reality MOST of us are GOOD AND LOVING PARENTS who were either left out in the cold and then taken advantage of when we needed support the most. (I fall into the rarer category of women who felt sorry for an infertile "friend" and hoped to be able to provide a family for them.) I was PROMISED over and over (and in writing) that the children would ALWAYS have a relationship with me. They even promised summer visits!
I am most offended by the "better life" BS. In my situation, I am the one who could have provided the private school, the pony AND the pool (not to mention the college educated parents, solid extended family, good health history, married parents, etc. etc.). I feel guilty EVERYDAY for thinking that I was doing a kindness for someone when in all reality, I was being lied to and used to get "the goods". I feel that I did my children a HUGE disservice and while I am suffering for it now, I am terribly worried about how the children will feel when the find out the truth about what their "parents" did to us.
The callous attitudes that are so often shoved unceremoniously into our faces (coupled with my personal experience) has caused me to become distrustful, angry, less empathetic towards certain types of PAPs and had truly shaken my faith in humanity. I was simply too caring (and full of adoption rainbow farts) to see the truth and fell headlong into the lies of "open adoption" and my concern for "friends" I thought were "less fortunate".
I am just as offended, if not more, so by comments made about adoptees. My children (as are so many others) WERE and ARE wanted and loved and I could have EASILY provided for them. They are being made to live a lie and being told God-knows-what. It hurts me to my very soul to know that so many adopted people suffer the cruel and heartless comments about "bitterness", "unwantedness", "ungratefulness" etc. on top of being kept from their truths. They NEVER ASKED TO BE ADOPTED.
I truly appreciate GOOD and UNDERSTANDING APs who not only love their children enough to be HONEST but also enough to SHARE them with their first families when it is appropriate. IMO any parent who can see their child as a PERSON, be HONEST with them, realize that a child's heart has more than enough room for multiple people, and treats them with dignity and respect concerning their feeling and truths is a REAL parent and not just "playing one on tv".
Even though there is still so much ignorance, jealousy and insecurity tossed around in adopt-o-land, I cannot and will not be "shamed into silence" by the petty and mean-spirited digs made to ALL sides of adoption, because I did not know that I had done anything wrong and I am fully aware that there ARE positive adoption situations out there. I believe that adoption has its place (I have helped to facilitate several FOSTER CARE adoptions for my GAL clients who NEEDED good homes and loving families) and I will continue to tell my story, volunteer my time and speak out against unethical practices in adoption until we achieve reform.