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Adopting Awareness, Protecting Families
By Jessica DelBalzo (about the author) Page 2 of 2 page(s)
Child Protective Services has allowed family preservation to take a back seat to adoption, even though recent research has shown the many ways in which family support is beneficial. Because parents’ rights can be terminated once a child has spent 15 of the previous 22 months in foster care, CPS is no longer required to prove that the parents are unfit. Many parents say that they have completed everything they were ordered to do to regain custody of their children only to discover that their time was up. The slow-moving American judicial system is all that is needed to permanently separate loving families.
Why Not Adoption Reform
I am often asked why I would rather abolish adoption than reform it. The short answer is that I feel it is beyond reform. The long answer is that even if coercion could be eliminated and money was taken out of the equation, adoption would still be an unnatural and detrimental practice.
First, consider infant adoption. We know that infants are highly sensitive beings; they recognize their mothers by sight, smell, and sound. The mother is a source of comfort and security for her newborn baby. Even her rhythms are familiar. In addition to being denied all the benefits of a natural relationship with their mothers, adoptees typically lose out on the benefits of breast milk as well. While some adoptive caregivers induce lactation, the adopted people with whom I have worked are very skeptical about adoptive breastfeeding. Many have suggested that being forced to suckle an unfamiliar breast while coping with all the other stresses of adoption could be a traumatic experience in and of itself. From birth to bonding to breastfeeding, the removal of a newborn from his or her natural mother is directly opposed to every biological instinct we humans have.
Pre-verbal infants as well as toddlers and older children are all at risk of lasting psychological problems as a result of being adopted. Attachment disorders, difficulty establishing identity, inability to trust others, and feelings of abandonment are all common among adopted people, though these issues can manifest in varying degrees and at varying times throughout the adopted person’s life. Adopted children are over-represented in psychological treatment facilities. They are also more likely than their non-adopted peers to commit juvenile felonies, a fact which seems to signal underlying problems. Rather than helping children to escape troubled lives, adoption is the cause of additional trouble.
Mothers who have lost children to adoption are also likely to suffer lifelong consequences as a result. Numerous studies have revealed that the majority of surrendering mothers experience depression, grief, and regret, as well as more severe psychological maladies including post-traumatic stress and dissociative disorders. Mothers who experience modern open adoptions must contend with feeling subservient to their children’s adoptive caregivers; they report feeling at great risk of being exiled if they show raw emotions or develop “too strong” a bond with their children. The endless worrying and wondering that accompanies closed adoption is no better, but open adoption creates problems of its own.
Adoption Prevention
There are as many ways to prevent adoption as there are reasons to prevent it. Preventing unplanned pregnancy via sexual education and access to contraception is an important first step. It is also absolutely critical that we educate expectant mothers about the consequences of adoption and the importance of the mother-child bond. Emotional and financial support may be necessary, but the end result – a secure, contented newborn – is worth the trouble. The adoption industry treats mothers as though they are expendable, but everything we know about healthy child development says otherwise.
Social acceptance for extended family involvement and communal child-rearing can also help to alleviate the pressure to adopt a child away from his or her family. All parents can benefit from an extensive support network, but young mothers and low-income families stand to gain the most from increased assistance from their family members and community. The nuclear family model is relatively new and inherently less supportive than the tribal child-rearing that occurs in other cultures and the close-knit families of generations past.
Implementing guardianship rather than adoption for abused and orphaned children is another important step that can be taken toward the abolition of adoption. Guardianship is designed to place children in safe, loving homes while alleviating many of the problems inherent in adoption. Guardians do not receive parental rights, nor do they receive an amended “birth” certificate erasing the child’s past and replacing his or her family. They are able to make necessary decisions for the children in their care, but the expectation that the children are “as if born to” them is absent. This helps to alleviate the identity issues that so many adoptees face. It also insures that the guardians are acting out of concern for children and not out of the desire to imitate parenthood.
Of course, these are large scale changes that must be made by society as a whole. There are, however, many things that individuals can do to support family preservation and adoption elimination. Providing foster care for children in need can be a constructive way to help both children and parents. As a foster carer, you have the unique ability to protect children who need protecting while at the same time empowering their parents to get the help they need in order to reunite their family. You can also choose to open your home to a young mother and her child, allowing them to remain together while modeling healthy parenting. As a doula, midwife, or child-birth educator, you can help vulnerable mothers to feel more secure in their abilities while at the same time encouraging them to defend themselves against the adoption industry. Challenging public perceptions of adoption through activism, letter-writing, and public awareness campaigns are other ways in which individuals can make a difference in the lives of children and families.
According to Evelyn Robinson, an Australian mother and post-adoption counselor, her country has come close to eliminating the domestic adoption of infants, orphans, and abused children. Offering better services for marginalized families, acknowledging the damage caused by adoption, and providing more reasonable options for children in need has made a tremendous difference in the way mothers and children are treated in Australia. It is absolutely possible for us to achieve the same in North America. Not only should the elimination of adoption be a dream shared by all who care about children and families, it should be a goal for our lawmakers, social workers, and other professionals as well. My anti-adoption stance may make me a radical mama right now, but I firmly believe that someday, opposition to adoption will be as American as apple pie.
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