For Rose

Nat’s first birthday is Wednesday.

That’s right, one year ago on Friday, we got a call around 4 pm telling us a baby born two days earlier might be in need of a family. We had to say we wanted her or didn’t want her within about 2 hours, over the phone, sight unseen, mother unmet, very little known.

We said we wanted her.

The next morning at 10am, her mother signed relinquishment papers and the agency told us to come get our daughter. We did.

Three days later, we went back and met her mother.

Lately, there have been a lot of conversations on adoption and birth parent blogs about…well, adoption and birth parents.

I have commented here and there, but I wanted to get a bit more out there, in a bit more detail. So in honor of Nat and Rose’s big day a year ago Wednesday, here’s a little about those topics.

It is hard for me to decide what to write about Nat’s mother. I guess, first I’ll say that more and more these days, I just call her Nat’s “mother,” as long as the people I’m talking to know what I mean. I have found that a slight to her bothers me much more than anyone’s dumb adoption ideas about “real or unreal” mothers. I know I’m Nat’s real mother and so is Cole and so is Rose and we are all clear about that and so I’d rather bolster Rose’s status to a stranger than defend mine.

In my own case (not necessarily yours), I just don’t see what needs defending by using politically correct adoption language. Either the person I’m talking to gets it or not. And really, the people I talk to tend to “get” me as Nat’s mother much more than they “get” the concept of open or noncompetitive adoption triad relationships.

And that brings me to the main point of this post (as close to a point as it gets, anyway). I want, above all, not to betray Rose. But it is often quite difficult to decide whether telling or not telling her story is the greater betrayal.

When I tell people about Rose, nine times out of ten, they are instantly judgmental of her.
Fine, I think, they don’t realize that I’m on her side. They think judging her is doing me a favor. So I tell more. I tell it in a sympathetic way, as a correction to their judgment. And eight times out of ten, they get argumentative with me so as to preserve their original judgment.

The fact is, Rose’s story falls into what sounds to the average middle-class listener (Black or white, it doesn’t seem to make much difference) like a stereotype so well-worn as to have transformed itself into common knowledge; common sense; the obvious. According to this common sense, Rose is an obviously unfit mother who doesn’t deserve Nat anyway. Thus, when I tell her story to elicit empathy or even admiration, I most often get smacked with something entirely the opposite.

And that’s when I feel like I’ve betrayed Rose by telling her story.

Without going into details, I’ll just say that Rose is a poor, Black woman. And that alone is a crime in many, many, many people’s minds. I have read enough about the foster system in the U.S. to know that plenty of women lose their children to protective services for no greater crime than race and class. Really. I’m serious. (This book is a good start if you want to learn more.)

And the place in which Rose lives (Chicago) is one of the very worst for women losing children under the aegis of “neglect” when in fact our society would rather tear children from their families and put them in a rich(er) person’s house than help their families out of poverty. To the child welfare system poverty=neglect, regardless of a parent’s intentions or attempts to provide for a child’s needs.

Recently, in a firey and impassioned debate about the ethics of adoption in someone else’s blog comments, a strong critic of domestic infant adoption declared that while aforementioned adoptions are just wrong, wrong, wrong, foster-adopt is really right and ethical because it takes a child whose parents had a chance but failed and gives her a new home with good parents.

I find it notable that when people start critiquing the ethics of adoption, they tend to find the sort of adoption they know most about to be the most egregious violator of ethical principals, while taking at face value the claims of other forms of adoption. Because the foster system is not necessarily a place where children go when their unfit and undeserving parents fail. At least not always. For some populations, almost never.*

One example in the book I linked above really stood out for me. A woman had been caring for her mentally ill sister’s children for years in her own small apartment. Everyone was healthy and well cared for (even the kids with special needs). For years. Then her foster case worker changed. The new case worker did something upsetting and the aunt/foster mother complained to the case worker’s supervisor. The day after the complaint, the children were removed (by the disgruntled case worker) from the only home they’d ever really known and lost the competent, loving woman who cared for them as a mother.

The reason given?

Her apartment was deemed too small to house the children. Never mind she’d been housing them for years.

This stood out for me because as some of you might recall, when we had our final walk-through for our own foster license, our social worker declared Nat’s tiny nursery to be acceptable to house three children.

So when I read that case about the kids being removed from the home of their working-class Black aunt because it was too small, all I could imagine was that child welfare then put those kids in the home of some middle-class white strangers like us, in an equally (or maybe more!) cramped room.

Rose’s story is not being told on birth mother blogs. At least, not on any I’ve read. And Rose is not just like one of those women, but Black. She is different, the reasons she came to adoption are different and the way she chose and went through with adoption was different. And sometimes when I read these debates about adoption reform going on at various adoption sites, all I can think is “but that wouldn’t work for Rose.” And until we have the socialist utopia of my dreams in this country, in which everyone has access to quality healthcare, childcare, truly equal education opportunities and family support regardless of race, class or gender (in other words, not anytime soon) the kind of adoption our family did (and is doing again) needs to be available the way it was for Rose when she needed it. The idea of reforming it to somehow protect Rose from her own decision seems downright paternalistic to me. Rose is a grown woman who made a difficult decision and took great personal risk to carry out her plans for what she, as Nat’s mother, decided was in Nat’s best interest. It is not my business to second-guess her.

And when I read arguments about adoption reform (or even abolition) which don’t take women like Rose into account, it is then that I feel I am betraying her by not telling her story.

What I want to say is, reform racism, reform poverty, reform sexism, reform inequities in healthcare access and education, but until they are reformed, leave this kind of adoption alone. Abortion is already all but lost as an option for women like Rose. Don’t touch adoption! Because without it, some women will end up with no choice but to take a very slim chance against losing their children to a foster system that will place them at its convenience, not based on the mother’s judgment of her children’s best interests, as infant adoption can do.**

Does the fact that some women have no options but losing their children to the foster system or placing them “willingly’ in adoptive homes suck?

Yes! It sucks mightily! It is one of the worst symptoms of one of the worst aspects of contemporary U.S. society.

Will I work with all I have in me to change it?

Yes! I will! And I will raise Nat to understand these things, to respect and hopefully love her first mother.

But not adopting her would have helped no one. NO one. Not Rose, not Nat. And certainly not us, who would have missed the chance to parent without this kind of adoption. Because, to insert a bit of our story into this mix, only certain kinds of agencies doing certain kinds of adoptions will work with glbt parents.

Under the circumstances (which, to review, I think suck), our agency does as ethical a job as possible. First and foremost they are not-for-profit. Their mission is to save children from foster limbo by offering adoptive homes immediately after birth. This is one of their promises to birth mothers on their website:

If you decide adoption is the right choice for you, your child can be immediately placed in a loving, permanent home that you have chosen. Or if you prefer a closed adoption, we will choose a qualified family for you. We provide the degree of comfort that's right for you. We do not utilize foster care.

So I am still not going to tell you Rose’s story per se. But I am turning and turning over in my mind some way to see that Rose’s side of things—women like Rose’s side of things—gets heard. It’s a tough question, but I’m working on it. So watch this space, there may be more to come.

*Yes, I realize that some children do come under protective services because their parents did awful things and deserve to lose them. I realize that foster parents are contributing a vital service to children. We may even foster children ourselves someday—we have a license to do so now—but I am talking about the “system” here, not every individual case.

**I will admit that my own little adoption-reform fantasy is that all open adoption agreements should be legally binding. Adoptive parents should not be allowed to break their pre-placement agreements without court intervention. If the first parents turn out to be bad for the kids somehow, let a court declare it so. That seems reasonable to me. I am sick to death of hearing these awful stories of first mothers promised the moon and then left high and dry by freaked out adoptive parents who need therapy, perhaps, but not to run away from their promises—especially when their children’s well being is at stake.

Comments

[sster]

Wow, Mama Shannon. This is so on the money for me. What you have discussed has been glaringly absent from the current discussion.

[Lisa]

This is a really good post.

I think when you are in situations such as Rose might be in, or such and D and I are in, there are many layers to it and I'm glad to see you recognize that.

You hear a lot of people talk and debate in hypotheticals about some of these tough issues like adoption and disability stuff or poverty or whatever. And if they are not directly involved (or even sometimes if they are) they sometimes come up with these pat answers that either blame the person or throw the baby out with the bathwater (adoption abolition).

The truth is, we can complain and discuss hypotheticals all day long, but some people have needs now and have to live in the system now. It is important to work it from both ends, the personal and the political.

For us, we might bring D food and slip a staff member a bit of a tip to get D taken care of, but this is not the solution to the systemic problem of institutionalized bias in disability funding. Doing one without the other doesn't make sense to me.

For you, Cole and Rose, you might be fighting for more equity and options for people in Rose's situation but Rose was in that situation RIGHT NOW and adoption was there for her. She worked the system she lived in to the best of her ability. I'd hate to make that harder for her and others.

This is one reason why people who support charities but don't get involved in a systemic solution to get the charity out of business bug me. Charities are fine in the short term to help people out right now, but most charities and those that support them should be steadily working on the policy side to make themselves obsolete. You'd be surprised (or maybe not) to know how few of them ever really want to go out of business.

But I think I wandered off topic, there. Happy birthday to Nat, and I'm thinking about Rose as well.

[barb]

great post.

[Marisa]

Thanks, Shannon. Very well put. It's clear how much you care about Rose. Happy birthday - to all four of you.

[Jo]

I am not quite sure how to convey the depth of my feelings on this issue. Adoption seemed to be such a simple equation when we started down this road more than a decade ago. But it isn't simple, no matter how you go about it. Our son came to us through the foster care system, with a birth mother who was a heroin addict,(bad mom, take away her children, we will teach her!)So few people understand my grief at her loss, the system that let her down, and my son. How I wish it could have been different, I would give him up if I could have given him the family he was born to, but for her and him it is too late. She is gone now, a victim from first to last and I mourn her life and death.

[Susan]

You're on a roll this week, Shannon; this is a great post. You've got such a great way of articulating what's wrong with the big picture while being loving towards all the individuals. I don't understand, really, why people get threatened by the thought of more love surrounding us--our adoptive families are formed out of relationships and it only makes sense that love could, should flow around those relationships.

Happy birthday, Nat.

[Susan]

Oh, and one more thing: I love what you said about feeling the need to defend Rose to others. The few things we know about CG's first family include a few details that I rarely share with other people in part b/c the reaction they elicit is an eye-rolling, how-could-they-possibly? sort of judgemental attitude that drives me bonkers. First off, most of the people making that judgement can't possibly fathom the circumstances that went into choices made about CG's best interests, and secondly, CG's first family is, well, CG's family. And I don't brook uninformed criticisms of me and mine.

[peri]

Very good points ... especially the simple, stark truth in: "But not adopting her would have helped no one. NO one."

I definitely agree ... trying to hold all adoptions to some mythical 'ideal' standards is both pointless and dangerous (dangerous for the children) when we don't actually *live* in that 'ideal' world.

Interesting blog. Nice to meet you.

[Jess]

Mama Shannon, I dream of one day being as wise as you.

What a wonderful, true post.

[afrindiemum]

happy early birthday to nat. i'll be thinking about her and mama rose tomorrow.

and GOD, YES woman! this is exactly what i've been trying to say.

i'm linking to it on my blog.

this part -

"Rose’s story is not being told on birth mother blogs. At least, not on any I’ve read. And Rose is not just like one of those women, but Black. She is different, the reasons she came to adoption are different and the way she chose and went through with adoption was different. And sometimes when I read these debates about adoption reform going on at various adoption sites, all I can think is “but that wouldn’t work for Rose.” And until we have the socialist utopia of my dreams in this country, in which everyone has access to quality healthcare, childcare, truly equal education opportunities and family support regardless of race, class or gender (in other words, not anytime soon) the kind of adoption our family did (and is doing again) needs to be available the way it was for Rose when she needed it. The idea of reforming it to somehow protect Rose from her own decision seems downright paternalistic to me. Rose is a grown woman who made a difficult decision and took great personal risk to carry out her plans for what she, as Nat’s mother, decided was in Nat’s best interest. It is not my business to second-guess her."

rings so true for me. we are in a very similar situation.

and if you need any help on your project of getting nat's mother's story told, count me in. these stories need to be heard.

[Amy]

Great post. Thank you. This does seem to be the story that is missing in a lot of the online adoption discussion.

[Beth]

Happy birthday to Nat! I can hardly believe it's been a year already...I remember so clearly the day that you posted about getting the call from the agency.

I really feel where you're coming from about wanting to defend Rose to others. It's the same with me when people talk about Elisa's birthmother: people nearly always say negative things, about how she's irresponsible, immature, etc, and it's so hard for me to hear those things. Because you know, I'm not a fan of all the choices she's made in her life, but the circumstances of those choices are far more complex than most people ever imagine. And in any case, they're completely unrelated to the depth of the emotions she feels for this baby and the sadness about being in a position that made adoption the best choice for her child. It's all heartbreaking to me.

[Stephanie]

I have to echo everyone else in saying thanks, Shannon, for writing this. Everything on your blog has helped me immensely as a prospective adoptive parent, and beyond that, just inspires me as good writing always does. Your honesty in addressing all the issues around adoption has considerably dispelled the fear and intimidation that I feel in beginning this process. Also, I really appreciate your perspective on the "foster care adoption good/birthmother-relinquished infant adoption bad" idea. You respect for Rose as a human being and competent decision-maker is so heartening. Best wishes to your whole family and happy birthday to Nat. :)

[PhoenixRising]

"The idea of reforming it to somehow protect Rose from her own decision seems downright paternalistic to me. Rose is a grown woman who made a difficult decision and took great personal risk to carry out her plans for what she, as Nat’s mother, decided was in Nat’s best interest. It is not my business to second-guess her. "

You said a mouthful there.

My child's birth family is made of hardworking, tough people who, upon the birth of my daughter, were faced with difficult choices that no one I know well has ever had to face. (Disclosure: My sister in law is a birth mom, one of my kid's friends' moms is also, I'm from a working class background, I'm not refering to the choice to not raise one's child.)

That's a part of why I get this awful feeling in my stomach when I hear anyone with good intentions say anything that expresses sympathy for that family, implying that they must have had no alternative but to abandon this beautiful child.

While I share the intent to hold in compassion those who are most deeply affected by our world's inequalities, it comes out sounding like 'the poor inferior things'. And in reality, complex ugly reality, other families in their village whose children were born with similar medical needs made other choices. Like setting off on a three day bike ride with their baby to reach the free surgery center.

So there are always alternatives, and there are always tough choices involved in any placement of anyone's child. Those choices don't belong to society, the government, adoptive families, or the child welfare system. Women all over the world, throughout human history, have made the choice and lived to tell about it.

This is why I am tempted to vandalism by the 'Adoption Not Abortion' bumperstickers. No, stupid, they're both painful choices...that belong only to the woman who grew this particular human in her body. Why exactly is this hard to get?

[Lisa V]

Wonderful post, wonderful comments.

[N]

Ahhhhhhhhh. I agree and disagree.

You said: "What I want to say is, reform racism, reform poverty, reform sexism, reform inequities in healthcare access and education, but until they are reformed, leave this kind of adoption alone."

Yes, yes, and yes... we need to eliminate racism, poverty, inequities... but I don't think that precludes reforming adoption at the same time. Personally I am not for ELIMINATING infant adoption, but I AM for reforming it (even while "isms" still exist) rather than "leaving it alone."

I want to see reform not because I want women "protected from their own decisions," but because I want them to make INFORMED decisions. I don't know Rose's story and don't need to... I simply hope that she got all the info she needed to make her decision. But for many of us, we did NOT get all the info--the info on the parenting resources that ARE out there, the info on how to make single motherhood work, and the info about how adoption will affect us throughout our lives. And that absence of information in infant adoption needs reforming... whether or not the "isms" ever get reformed.

[N]

One final thought...

While the agency you used may have been ethical, many are not so good. So perhaps, in your and Rose's case, there is nothing that needs to be reformed. But when we're talking about infant adoption as a whole, I have to say that there is much room for improvement... the very fact that unethical agencies DO exist and practice means there is a need for reform. The fact that agencies using unethical practices get GRANTS from the GOVERNMENT, for heaven's sake, means there is a need for reform. Again, maybe not in your particular agency... but in adoption as a whole, there is still a need.
JMO.

[Overwhelmed!]

What a powerful post! Thank you so much for your insight.

[Lionmom]

Happy birthday, Nat!

I try, Shannon, to be as open as you are. I want to be filled with love and understanding and a fire to change the inequalities of the world. It used to be the force that drove my life and work, and it is still my foundation. I think.

But it's hard to find that place in myself sometimes these days. Because what drives me now is parenting my hurt children. And while I can objectively understand that the women that abused and neglected our girls were also abused and neglected, I still have to fight the hate from finding a permanent home inside me. The intellectual side of me knows and understands that these women will forever be the mothers of my daughters; that bond has a primal pull no matter what was done to pull it to its limits. But my whole body burns when someone refers to the birth mothers as the real mothers. I can't stop the judgmental thought that a real mother, no matter her circumstance, would have put her kids first. I struggle with the bitterness of being the unreal mother when I spend all day every day dealing with the damage done by their real mothers.

I know you are talking about a different type of adoption than we live, and I read your caveats. But your powerful post left me feeling defensive and with a need to explain. It's hard when your ideals and reality are in conflict.

[terri c]

Happy, happy birthday to Nat. And love, and respect, to Shannon, Cole, and Rose.

[Away To Me]

I'm from Manuela's blog. Thanks for wording for me, what I could not or have not been able to word clearly myself; It is not my job to second guess her decision to choose adoption for her child, but we are responsible to make sure it is her choice, not someone elses enfluence... namely money hungry agencies. We are working with a wonderful potential birth family and I hope this works out for all of us. If they decide to place I will be sad for us, but I will be happy for them, because they were able to come to a decision to parent, knowing they had other options available to them (adoption).

[erin]

thanks for this post, one of many thoughtful and illuminating ones i have read here over the past year. and i have to say, as someone who has worked with kids in the foster care system in several different US cities, you are right on the money. i do think that there is some kind of fine line between poverty and 'neglect,' but the system gets it wrong far more often than not. so much of the system is driven by fear and mistrust of other people's decisionmaking. and ill-considered judgments that are almost necessarily informed by racism or classism wind up becoming self-fulfilling prophecies that impact the remainder of a child's life. i agree with you-- any option for a mother to avoid entangling herself and her baby with the system is necessary.

[StacyG]

What a wonderful well soken post.

Happy birthday Nat!

[kim.kim]

I don't think you are the person people have in mind when they talk about adoption reform. You agree with adoption reform as far as I can see. You are living adoption reform by respecting Rose and by not slamming the door on her and by not pretending that she's not Nat's mother. You are already in a reformed adoption just by being respectful and loving.
I am not as political as other natural mothers, I don't have the fight in me any more but I do see a need to legally enforce the open adoptions so that mothers don't get closed out as soon as the adoptions are finalized. I don't agree with closed adoptions, the ones where the child has no idea what his or her mother looks like, sounds like and acts like, they just scream of wrongness. They are not in the child's best interest, if you can see a way where they are then I am open to learning.
And you are right, the welfare system needs to be reformed first or hand in hand with adoption reform. People have to stop agressively advertising for babies and mothers need to be encouraged to seriously consider parenting as a first option and find ways to make it viable.
I think you do agree wtih reform, perhaps you saw some radical stand taken somewhere and it scared you off. But you are like those women who say they agree with equal pay and equal rights but aren't really a feminist. You have the official stamp of not being a doofus from me! Love how you talked about Rose on Nat's birthday, you made this mother feel very happy to read that, thank you thank you thank you.

[Emma]

I know this is an old post, but I just read it for the first time (because of the link from the most recent post).

One thing that struck me is that two of the changes in adoption law that you suggest seem to be in place at least in some states. One being a revocable "surrender" (I hate that term). In many states, if not most, there is a time period after the birth mother signs the papers where she can change her mind. In NY, I forget if it's 1 month or 3 months, while in NJ it is only 3 days. But that part of things is definitely out there. I'm surprised to learn that IL doesn't seem to have such a law - I had actually been under the impression that all states did.

The other one is an open adoption agreement being legally binding. It is, here (NY). Any terms that are agreed upon in the surrender (which the adoptive parents have to sign) are legally binding exactly the way you suggest - if problems come up it's up to a judge to change things.

I'm not 100% sure how the second piece applies to domestic infant adoption, especially of out-of-state babies. I know it applies to foster children when the parents decide to surrender to the foster family. I don't expect there's a difference in the legal enforcability of the two, though.

---

Personally, I feel *very* similarly to Lionmom, and I appreciate her post because it makes me feel a little better to know there are others out there struggling with that dissonance.