I’m a birthmother AND an adoptee. Isn’t that special?

We said this would happen.

Two boys (unrelated) have been “safe havened” in Nebraska: Their ages? 11 and 15 years old. The parents of the 11 year old, and the aunt/guardian of the 15 year old, won’t be charged with abandonment, as their actions are protected under Nebraska’s safe haven laws.

Now let me make it clear that I am not standing in judgment of the adults in this situation: They may well have been at the end of their respective ropes. These boys may well be difficult, if not impossible, to live with. It may also be that these adults tried to get help, but couldn’t, and in an act of desperation, safe havened the boys.

But as in other safe haven cases, we may never know the truth. Safe haven removes any sort of due process in the act of relinquishing/termination of one’s parental rights and responsibilities. As a result, the normal responsibilities of parents and guardians to their offspring/wards, are severely weakened.

Under such broad safe haven laws, there is no reason for a disinterested parent or guardian to prove that s/he is unable to provide the care that a child needs. Children are now in a most precarious state in relation to their caretakers: One false move, and the kid can be dumped.

Similarly, the state is now faced with the real possibility that many children will be similarly dumped into the system, with the state having no leverage in getting parents/guardians to re-assume their responsibilities.

Is this what the baby safe haven folks really wanted to happen? Inquiring minds want to know.

Bastardette recently blogged about the tragic case of Jessica Scovil, an almost 9-month old baby who died after being left in a hot car by her foster mother.

While I am inclined to believe that Jessica’s death was a tragic accident, I am disturbed by the media’s insistence on referring to Jessica’s parents, Evelyn Carver and Robert Scovil, as “birthparents“.

Jessica had not been adopted by her foster parents. So why is the media referring to Jessica’s parents (who were working to get her back) as anything other than “parents”? To call someone a “birthparent” when their parental rights are still intact is not only inappropriate, in cases like this, it is just plain cruel.

Jessica Scovil had parents. The state took her away from them because they believed it to be in her best interests to be fostered by someone else, at least temporarily. But the state’s care for Jessica went horribly wrong, and she is being returned to her parents as a corpse.

Jessica’s obituary lists her parents as her parents. Her birth certificate lists her parents as her parents.

But the media can’t seem to get it right. In fact, it looks like nobody got it right in this case:

The state took Jessica away from her parents.

Jessica’s foster mother accidentally took away her life.

And now the media has taken away her parent’s “parenthood”.

Rest in peace, Jessica.

Foster Care, Jessica Scovil, death, birthparents, appropriate adoption terminology, Evelyn Carver, Robert Scovil

Oh boy, this is getting good.

First there were the rumors that Bristol Palin was secretly the mother of Sarah and Todd Palin’s youngest child.

But now the Palins are admitting that seventeen-year-old Bristol is five months pregnant and will be both parenting the child and marrying the child’s father.

Even more incredibly, the Palins have issued a statement on the matter in which they equate pregnancy/parenting with “growing up” and “the responsibilities of adulthood”:

“Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. We’re proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support.”

This couldn’t be happening at a better time. (For me as a blogger, anyway.)

First we have the Wall Street Journal’s “deputy Taste editor”, Naomi Shaeffer Riley, encouraging McCain to use his connection to adoption to woo evangelicals.

Then we have the suspicion cast on Casey Anthony, mother of missing toddler Caylee Anthony, intensified by reports that Ms. Anthony had considered adoption for Caylee whilst pregnant. Paradoxically, this has resulted in a great deal of hand-wringing by those who decry both teen parenthood and immature young women being encouraged by their own mothers to not relinquish their children.

And now we have the Governor of Alaska and candidate for the vice-presidency of the United States asserting that being a teen mom is going to make her daughter “grow up” into “the responsibilities of adulthood”.

Right.

What we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is a perfect example of the convoluted havoc that the issues of adoption, reproductive rights, and motherhood plays on our minds. Over the past week we have learned the following:

1. Adopting children is a noble thing and a Christian obligation, even if in some cases it is tantamount to kidnapping and human trafficking.

2. Adopting children makes a good campaign story, even when “the story” is not true. It is also a good way to make a somewhat tainted candidate look good to evangelicals.

3. Considering placing your child for adoption, on the other hand, is a bad thing, because it makes you a more likely suspect in the disspearance (possible death) of your child.

4. Discouraging your daughter from placing her child for adoption is likewise a bad thing, because you are encourging your immature daughter to care for a child she doesn’t want, and this is going to lead to your daughter doing something bad to the child.

(Still following me? Good.)

5. But if you are a state governor who is the running mate of the “adoption candidate” for the presidency of the United States, you are going to promote the idea that your teenage daughter’s pregnancy is a sure-fire path to adulthood and maturity.

Mixed messages, to be sure, and now I have a headache. Some analysis after my family barbecue.

To be continued. . .

As if things couldn’t get any stranger in the adopto-sphere, The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that Casey Anthony, mother of missing toddler Caylee Anthony, originally wanted to place her daughter for adoption but was discouraged from doing so by her (Casey’s) mother.

(The headline for this story reads “Caylee Anthony wasn’t a child who was wanted, court records show”)

This revelation brings several things to mind:

1. That Casey even considered placing Caylee for adoption is, for prosecutors and the media, evidence of guilt. Apparently, if a woman is found to have expressed any sort of ambivilancy about pregnancy and/or parenting, this is taken as evidence of her increased capacity for abuse, neglect and homicidal tendencies.

(Don’t believe me? Consider the case of Tabitha Walrond who briefly considered abortion while pregnant with her son. Ms. Walrond was eventually convicted of criminally negligent homicide after her son died of malnourishment because Ms. Walrond did not produce enough breast milk. The prosecutor argued that Ms. Walrond’s consideration of abortion “. . .is what led the defendant to a road that led [to her son's] death.”)

2. Pro-adoptionists and baby-dump advocates may well start screeching that this is what happens when women are discouraged from placing their kids for adoption and/or safe-havens are not available.

3. The general public is going to follow the lead of prosecutors and the media, and continue its negative assumptions about birthmothers/first mothers. Paridoxically, they are also going to go along with pro-adoptionists/baby-dump advocates in blaming Casey’s mother for nixing the adoption plan.

Myself? I think that the fact that Casey Anthony considered adoption for Caylee is irrelevant. This case (as are most cases involving the abuse/neglect/kidnapping/death of a child) is a one-off situation: A set of unique personalities and circumstances gave rise to (what may be) a heinous crime.

As some commenters in various forums have noted, it is not unusual for women to experience ambivalance about a pregnancy, particularly when they are nineteen years old and single. But in the end, those who carry to term typically keep and raise their babies, even if they had seriously planned on relinquishing whilst pregnant.

It goes without saying that these women almost never kill their children, abuse them, nor go for a month before reporting their child as “missing” to the authorities. But since the “a-word” has been mentioned, common sense is likely going to have very little to do with how this case is tried in the media.

On the day of the release of UNICEF’s report exposing the corruption in Nepal’s adoption industry the WSJ.com published this piece of squishy adoption tripe from their “deputy Taste editor”, Naomi Shaeffer Riley. In it, she encourages John McCain to build bridges with evangelicals on the topic of adoption.

(Incidentally, Riely fails to mention that the McCains have brazenly “exaggerated” the circumstances of their daughter’s adoption, and the fact that this adoption took place while Mrs. McCain had a prescription drug habit that eventually resulted in her stealing drugs from an international charity.)

According to Ms. Riley, Evangelicals are renewing their committment to adoption: Dr. Russell Moore (dean of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary)is writing a book that declares adoption to be a “priority” for Christians. Youth evangelist (an adoptee whose birthmother was “homeless, mentally ill, and a prostitute”) Tony Nolan, speaks at Christian concerts, encourging people to adopt and raising money to help local families with adoption expenses. Focus on the Family ran a public awareness campaign entitled “You are God’s Plan for the Orphan”.

What is curious to me, however, is that while indeed Christians are called to provide for the orphan, they are also to provide for the widow. Support is to be given to the most vulnerable without any strings attached (i.e. you don’t care for the widow and the orphan by taking the orphan away from the widow).

There is also the not-small matter of these coveted children not actually being orphans. As noted by UNICEF, it may be that as many as 80 percent of children in “orphanages” in Nepal aren’t orphans at all. Instead, they are simply “product” in the international adoption industry. The fact that Christians are more-than-bit-players in this evil charade is an indication that something is terribly wrong.

Are there real orphans who need families? Yes, there are. But most of the children in the “system” (whether domestic or international) are not orphans. Some of them were born to families and parents who could not, or would not, care for them. But many of these children were removed from their homes because their parents lacked resources, not love and committment. Still others were taken from their parents and families as the result of fraud.

We must care for the poor, not covet and steal their children.

Drat those Ten Commandments.

The globalization of the adoption industry has caught the attention of UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund): A study shows that only four out of every Nepali children adopted are adopted by a Nepali family. One NGO representative states: “The vast majority of children in centres don’t need to be there. They have family…The first priority, therefore, should be to reunite 80 percent of the children in institutions with their families, not to re-open intercountry adoption.”

UNICEF believes that such corruption “has created a culture of child abuse”.

After being uncermoniously (and mysteriously) nuked by their former ISP, Advocates For Children in Therapy are back at advocatesforchildrenintherapy.org .

The organization in their own words:

“We are an educational and public advocacy organization dedicated to halting the dangerous cruelty done to children by Attachment Therapy (AT), its associated Therapeutic Parenting practices, and other unvalidated, pseudoscientific interventions.”

Their previous URL is not redirecting to their new site name, so if you have links to this organization on your own websites, please edit them accordingly.

An abandoned newborn in Argentina was apparently rescued by a farmer’s dog and cared for alongside her puppies.

I wonder what the NCFA’s position on this is?

This essay was actually a post to alt.adoption back in (I believe) 1997 in response to numerous stories about potential adoptive parents who were “heartbroken” after investing huge amounts of time and money in pursuing “adoption situations” that “fell through”.  (In other words, they paid a lot of money and attention to an expectant mother who then decided to parent her own kid.)

I’ve always felt that adoption professionals who encourage this investment of time and money between strangers are being horribly irresponsible. This (slightly revised) essay remains a call to common sense in adoption practice.  While I am less enamored of infant adoption than I have been in the past, I also still believe that prospective adoptive parents are also vulnerable to the machinations of the adoption industry (though not so vulnerable as first parents and children). It is for them that I reprint this piece.

Lotto Tickets (2008 Edition)

If you are thinking about adopting, or are trying to adopt, you’ve probably spent some time getting scared by all of the horror stories out there. Many a prospective adoptive parent has written about spending huge amounts of time, money and energy in pursuit of adopting a child, only to have things “fall through”. Something has always bothered me about these stories, and finally I figured out what it was:

Adoption has become a lotto ticket.

Potential adoptive families find (or are found by) a prospective birthmother. Prospective birthmother has something they want, and something they are willing to risk money, emotions, and energy to get.

So the prospective adoptive parents buy a lotto ticket, in hopes of winning the “prize” of the baby. They pay for an apartment, furniture, maternity clothes, food, doctor’s visits, etc. They drive the prospective birthmom around to appointments, listen to her tales of woe for hours on end, and take her out to the movies. Each time they take her out, each dollar they spend, is another lotto ticket for the “chance” of parenthood.

Finally, when the big day arrives, and the baby is born, the big draw takes place: Will she or won’t she relinquish? If she doesn’t relinquish, it is back to square one, with more lotto tickets being purchased for other “prizes” or giving up on the lotto entirely. If she does relinquish, well, hot dang, they’ve won the friggin’ lotto!

Frankly, this whole system seems wrong to me. For one thing, when people are willing to be parted from their money, confidence games abound. Women who have no intention of relinquishing their children or who aren’t even pregnant have found that the “adoption” con is one of the easiest, because most states do not require a prospective birthmother to repay any support given to her. Plus, if illegal payments to the prospective birthmom were made, the prospective adoptive parents are unlikely to incriminate themselves by reporting her.

If we want to clean up this mess of exploited prospective adoptive parents (and birthparents, who are more often the losers in the adoption industry, anyway) we need to stop this nonsense of potential adoptive parents paying for the care and upkeep of a pregnant woman. Potential adoptive parents should stop greedily buying lotto tickets for babies, and instead insist on working with an ethical adoption agency that provides pregnant women with the assistance and support that they need. If prospective adoptive parents insist in only working with ethical agencies, women will start using agencies themselves, which is probably a better way of handling adoption in the first place.

Prospective adoptive parents need to stop being so involved in the lives of prospective birthparents. They need to stop being best buddies during the pregnancy, stop being present at labor and delivery, and stop taking custody of the child when s/he is only a few hours old. Mothers, even those who are considering relinquishing their children for adoption, need to feel empowered as mothers:  Having someone in the hospital room assuming care of one’s baby is not empowering.

(In fact, I often wonder if those mothers who change their minds days or even weeks after relinquishment would NOT be changing their minds if they had been permitted to be the sole parent of their child in the beginning, and to relinquish the baby on their own terms, on their own time. I truly think that many of these women “change their minds” because they were not permitted to mother their children completely, and thus panic when they realize that they never had control over the child and their situation.)

To those trying to adopt a child, I say: Please, in your desire to parent a child, be sensible. Don’t give money tostrangers because they may give you something you want. Don’t assume the role of “parent” with all its emotional baggage before a child is even close to being yours. Don’t set yourself up for disapointment: The lotto has terrible odds.

Some years back I wrote a little essay for alt.adoption called “Lotto Tickets”, in which I decried the tendency of some prospective adoptive parents to “romance” prospective birthmothers with gifts and dinners and “emotional support” in the hopes of claiming their baby.  (I am actually working on revising the thing and should have it up here soon.)

So imagine my surprise when I saw this this headline from TheCabin.net:

LITTLE ROCK Attorney General Dustin McDaniel said Friday he’s confident a proposed constitutional amendment to create a state-run lottery and an initiated act banning unmarried couples from fostering or adopting children could survive any court challenges.

Well, I thought it was amusing.