Why do some people think that being with the natural parents is always better?

I couldn't agree more with you, I always remind people that they can take precautions or, in case it's too late for any other recipe, they still can choose adoption, but that would mean admitting to one selves their incompetence.

On the other hand, I've seen adopted children that eventually find their biological parents and are taken advantaged or psychologically abused. Not to mention this could happen within the family anyway (biological or adopted). This is why formal institutions on adoption try to choose adopting parents that are more or less psychologically balanced and givers (not rich, but certainly emotionally speaking).

Authorities always try to persuade and help biological mothers NOT to leave their children. I live in Greece and the number of children in Care Centers waiting to be adopted is extremely larger than the parents applying for adoption. There are also children with health problems that are usually unwanted by adopting parents, due to extra care and financial burden. The waiting list is also large and the procedure is very time-consuming.

This leads to a large number of illegal adoption, where it is highly possible that children meet hard circumstances with no official guarantee whatsoever, regarding their future or their personal right to know about their roots.

Another thing is that people consider adoption as a big taboo, because of the way they are tough about creating a family. Tough situations in your everyday life are:

- Where are you from?

- You really don't look alike your parents!

- If my biological child were alive, it would be more loving, caring and grateful than you are (these are words of my adopted mother)

Listen to this:

A stewardess that left her child in the Care Center, without signing up for adoption. She would come on weekends to see her daughter but every Monday she would take her back. Eventually after FIVE years, the child had become so stressed that she used to hide and refuse to see her mother. Why on earth couldn't this woman sign the damn paper and waited for 5 long years for her child to live in there with no family at all? It's SO selfish it makes me want to cry.

A police officer who left his baby (that was hermaphrodite) until the surgery, so that his family wouldn't see it.

Another man who was never adopted and lived in the Center until 18, he finally found his biological mother who now was pushing him to take of her, give her money etc, as she was really old.

So you see human relationships are NOT blood neither just a sign on the wall. It needs love and really know yourself before you can decide for another human being.

I've only lived with one set of them (in this case, my Adoptive Parents), so I have no way of knowing who was better - even trying to compare them is ridiculous. I suppose the only person truly qualified to make that judgment is someone who has lived with both sets, and has weathered an equal number of life challenges with both sets guiding them through each. They'd be able to say if their natural parents were better, or their adoptive parents were better. But even then, it would only apply to their individual life. It could be totally different for anyone else. I think (generalizing here) it comes down to people's opinions, good or bad, coloring the way they're going to see adoption in general. This is then going to translate favorably (or unfavorably) to the APs or the Natural Parents. In turn you're going to get people who think the child is better off with the APs, and those who believe the child is better off with the Natural Parents. Some people are simply always going to believe that the Natural Parents are unfit drug addicts; others are just always going to believe that APs live on two acres with a pool and a golden retriever. Sure, once in a great while you'll probably run into the sterotype but I would guess most people are much more in the middle, and most of them (APs or NPs) would make great parents.

I don't think anyone would suggest that being with biological family is ALWAYS better. Children should NOT be left in abusive or neglectful homes, and their safety and well-being sometimes makes it necessary for them to be removed.

On the other hand, though, the biological family should not be ASSUMED to be abusive or neglectful until they've actually been proven unfit through their actions. Innocent until proven guilty.

Families should be kept together when possible, not ripped apart to make another family. In some cases (like your examples,) that is NOT possible. Children need safe and loving homes. Most biological families can provide that, though-- those who can't are the exception, not the rule. Adoption should be for the exceptions, not pushed on mothers for being too young, too poor, too unsupported, too whatever.

Natural parents aren't always better, but they deserve a fair chance without prejudice against them.

My husband adopted my daughter and it was the best thing for her. Her biological father took off the day I found out I was pregnant and it was the best thing for her. He was abusive, emotionally and physically, he was controlling, he was a drunk, and he had another daughter that he almost killed 3 or 4 times when I knew him because he was playing controlling games with her mother and would throw the little girl in a car while drunk and get in speeding reckless fights between him and the mother.

Yeah, my daughter is better off without her biological father.

I don't think adoption is "the worst" (I'm all for adoption actually), but I also don't think that you can judge an entire class of people based off these examples. If a person is a horrible human being and a negligent 'parent', then that's just who they are. Whether they are natural or adoptive is completely irrelevant really. Complete strangers who don't have children at all are also sickos who abuse and torment children. Its all about the person, not their parental status.

it's not always better.

It's just what nature intended.

Of course, based on human decisions and choice, nature's plan can go wrong. As per your example - abuse.

That doesn't automatically mean it WILL go wrong if adoption doesn't occur.

Being unadopted doesn't guarantee abuse. Human choice does.

No one here supports a parent abusing a child.

You are assuming that children would be abused had they not been lost to adoption. That's wrong and offensive to many.

These thing happen less with adopted parents because they are monitored more. Most children find it very hard to move in with a stranger and become their child. These cases are very rare and serious consequences follow. The only reason that people say that is because children find it hard to call someone else "mummy and daddy"

hope this answers your question

Urban Gandhi

Old and worn out question, no one thinks that. Why do assume that people do? Either your sister is repeating the worst stories and making it sound like they are the ONLY stories, or it's all you're listening to.

Lets jump into the present for a second. Should a baby be taken away by a social worker because the mother speaks an indiginous language and the child was born in the U.S.? It was declared neglect that the woman didn't speak English. http://www.nnirr.org/action/index.php?op=read&id=2...

Oh, wait, that wasn't your sister was it? The social worker who decided that a white couple would be better parents? How does that work anyway, the child can't relate to their language either (scratch head)

ETA: I just wanted to add that after reading about the stewardess, it got me thinking about my step fathers situation. his wife died leaving him with two very small children. He tried everything, family, friends of family, day care, it was all too much for him because he owned a business and was needed there also. He put his kids in a home for a few years, they were well cared for but still in a home. should he have "just signed the papers"? He ended up marrying my mom and brought his kids home to be raised by him. He had a lot of years with his kids before passing away. Just curious.

Your examples are extreme. I don't doubt they are true, however.

I have never heard any reasonable person say that all children should always be raised by natural parents. Some children will need to be raised by other people.

The needs of children must be the determining factor. Do they really need a different home, or not.

The problem has been that we have an adoption industry which is meeting the needs of adults who want to acquire children.The adoption industry is booming...and largely unregulated, and world-wide.

EXACTLY! If those children had been adopted perhaps they'd be alive today and their parents wouldn't be in jail. People have these overly idealistic ideas about so-called "nuclear:" (biological) families and think they are the only way, but not all families are functional. People need to stop stigmatizing adoption.