Mothers with mental disabilities?
My opinion is that either we should decide as a society that we'll give mothers with any kind of disability whatever support they need to play a role in their child's life, OR we should be up-front and tell disabled people that they will not be allowed to raise a child, so they might as well get sterilized and save themselves the trouble. Instead, I've seen too many cases where CPS took a baby but told the mother it was because of some (frequently trivial or even total BS) thing she did wrong, leaving her thinking that if she had another baby, and either didn't make any mistakes, or didn't have some anal-retentive social worker distorting and exaggerating every mistake she made, then she'd be able to raise her baby. So, these women end up enduring pregnancy after pregnancy and heart-breaking loss after loss, because CPS just can't be honest and tell them to get sterilized. Oh, and if someone's a little unstable to begin with, how sane will they be after having their babies taken away?
Of course, I'm looking at this from the mother's perspective. So, what do you kids think? What if you found out that your birth mother was mildly retarded, and that CPS had told her that they took you away because her apartment wasn't clean enough, so she had 6 more babies, and CPS kept finding something she did wrong to use as a reason to take them?
One of the women I knew who went through this was a sweet person, but didn't know stuff like where meat came from. She kept baby books of her ultrasounds and the newborn pictures, and whatever pictures she got after the babies were put in foster care. She gave me a box of maternity clothes and baby things, since I was pregnant with my first child. At the time, I wasn't sure how much of her story to believe, and I'm still not, but since then I've heard too many similar stories to doubt that some of the details are true.
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Goose and Gander
I kid you not, yesterday afternoon I was sitting on my porch thinking, "Why aren't serial-sperm-droppers sterilized?" I don't mean the men who father many children with the same woman... I mean the many men who sow their seeds with strangers because "that's what men do". [I think many of us adoptees are by-products of such male-whoring and aborting their "family role". These men are often known as "Deadbeat Dads".] In fact, the terms "unwanted" or "crisis" pregnancy are usually the ones that leave a female pregnant, scared and without a father for the child or man suitable for marriage.
[This double-standard in sex really gets to me.... ]
I fully believe Family Preservation MUST be a social-standard all families need to embrace, and I believe it should be part of the "sex talk" parents have with their children. I think it's wrong to force a formal family separation with sons or daughters because the mother has emotional or physical disabilities. In this sense, that's the whole reason and meaning behind extended family -- one's family should be the FIRST resource for help, not the greatest source of rejection.
On a personal note, I have an older friend who is involved with a man who's "emotionally disabled" daughter got pregnant and married. The couple struggles with almost every aspect of daily-living and that child is often at the grandfather's/my friend's house. I got a letter from my friend months ago telling me, "This is a case where I believe adoption would have been the best decision for this family."
<hmmm>... really? For whom? The woman who refuses to re-marry and never liked children, or the mother, father and child who are learning how the power of love can survive anything?
Makes me wonder what the hell is being taught about "the virtues" behind adoption... and how much better is it to be aborted by a woman before-birth, than it is to be abandoned by an entire extended family, after-the-fact. Given the choice, I think sterilization is a much better permanant solution.
"I fully believe Family
"I fully believe Family Preservation MUST be a social-standard all families need to embrace....."
And this is where: family planning, adoption, moral obligation and the courts collide. Of course you are absolutely right with this statement. And I believe this is where our society began, many years ago. Was adoption even a first option back then?
Adoption has only become a way of life since humanism became a way of life.
Adoption, as we know it today was born, not out of need for the child, but out of evil sins of the fathers that are overlooked in favor of the selfish wants of a want-to-be mother. Like so many have said, we make more money in this society than we know what to do with, so why not buy a human being? What next?
It was very popular, in the 50's, to buy an orphan of the Korean war, and the Holt's made it possible with their new law, named after them. I do believe, out of a good Christian heart, they truly wanted to do God's work. The problem was when they made it easy for others to follow along, without the same desire. The Holt's had MANY MANY problems raising those Korean orphans. And today, we still haven't seen the book about the children's trauma after they were taken from one culture by Harry and placed into another, where Harry went back and forth to Korea, making adoption available for many more. Don't you suppose those babies felt abandoned by Harry every time he disappeared for months and then died from his efforts? His duty, IMO, was to stay there and nurture those 8 orphans he led to trust him. Read their story. Find them today. Only two are really willing to be
in the public eye as the ongoing Holt legacy survives. God bless Grandma and Grandpa Holt in their innocent longing to serve the Lord, but God help us where it all ended up. The vision to adopt 8 babies from Korea is NOT a vision God gave everyone in America. IT was THEIRS! But the people who have used it to say, this is what God wants me to do... well, look at the abuse and KNOW this is not God's will, but people making things happen.
"Makes me wonder what the hell is being taught about "the virtues" behind adoption..."
The four cardinal (hinge) virtues are Justice, Courage, Wisdom, and Moderation.
Is justice being taught? For what crime is justice/adoption brought against that baby/child, parent, ap? Is it the sins of the fathers' ill laid sperm; or is it God's will that every conceived child is a human being?
Courage: Is it taught, the courage it took for that mother to walk away from her own flesh and blood, thinking it was the right thing to do; or was that flesh and blood ripped out of her trembling arms to satisfy the lustful greed of those who have the money and nothing more to buy with it, and has turned to buying a human being?
Wisdom: The Bible states that, if you do not have wisdom, seek God for it. It is a gift and a promise of that gift from Him. How many involved in your adoption or my adoptions do you think were wise, or sought wisdom for the life of a child? Is it taught by the ones who took you, or took my money and gave me a child, that we should be wise and take time to be wise in this endeavor to own a child?
And Moderation: We can all shudder at the rampant speed in which one child is ripped from its family and placed with another one! Moderation is a principle of life! Moderation is the process of eliminating or lessening extremes. And now we are seeing the extremes of abuse in adoption because of the extremes OF adoption.
Good point, Kerry
IN A WORLD OF WHY,
Teddy