Anger and Adoption

Over at Dawn's there was a brief storm about the appropriateness of anger when a potential adoptive placement "falls through" is "disrupted," a mother who had considered relinquishing her baby "changes her mind" or simply "decides to parent" her baby...whatever language you like. I don't like any of the language to describe this. It all seems really loaded to imply that someone made a deal and went back on it, when I think of pre-birth "matches" in adoption as part of a process of decision-making for a pregnant woman/new mother, rather than a deal that is made, then "broken."

Let me say that again, because I really don't find that view carefully articulated in many adoption blogs or in other adoption literature.

I think that when a woman finds herself in a crisis pregnancy, visiting with adoption professionals, potential adoptive parents and counselors should be viewed as part of the process she needs to go through in order to decide what to do about her situation. If she "picks" prospective adopters, I think that means she has identified people she'd feel good about giving her baby to if she decides not to keep her baby and raise it herself. I do not think it means she has chosen a family for her baby. I think she has identified one way she might go when she is ready to really decide one way or another.

Dawn makes it clear that she believes adoption professionals are responsible for portraying "matches" this way to prospective adoptive families, so they will be prepared if a "match" they thought would happen doesn't happen after all. And I agree with her. Our adoption preparation was clear about this. We were told to expect a 50% "fall-through" (that's what our agency calls it, much to my chagrin) rate with pre-birth "matches."

And so we did expect that. We expected to be matched once, have that mother decide not to relinquish, and then be matched again, and end up adopting. We told ourselves this would happen and planned for it to be part of the over all adoption preparation experience for our family. Our agency does not allow prospective adopters in the delivery room (I know many people cherish the opportunity to see their child born and I can certainly understand how powerful that must be, but I have to agree with adoption reformers that it is coercive and shouldn't be allowed, however nice it may have been, after the fact in many cases). Our agency doesn't even allow travel to the city in which the babies are born until after final relinquishments are signed. In these and in more explicit ways they make it clear: a "match" does NOT mean propsective adopters are "pregnant" (as I have sadly heard so many waiting parents describe themselves). It only means a pregnant woman has an option she feels good about if she decides not to parent her baby, which she has not decided yet.

I see a very different attitude about this time and again among waiting adoptive parents and I cannot tell you how it makes me squirm every time I see it. I always want to comment to the effect of "this is NOT your child yet!" but it never seems appropriate in that moment of excitement of being "picked."

And it's not just respect for pregnant women considering adoption that makes me squirm in these cases. Cole will often squirm when she sees or hears it and say "they aren't protecting their hearts very well." There's definitely a selfish motive behind expecting a "disruption" too.

Ultimately, however important it is for agencies and professionals to make these attitudes clear to prospective adopters, I feel that it is up to individuals to choose the better path in reacting to a "disruption." And that is where my strong feelings about anger come in.

Context
On Dawn's blog, I made the following comment:

I really don’t understand anger as a response, anyway. Disappointment, sorrow, even loss and grief, maybe, but anger?

How could I be angry that someone didn’t give their child to me? That seems like a really entitled reaction. No one is entitled to any child–not to bear one, not to be given one born by someone else. Yet it seems like a lot of prospective adopters really feel they “deserve” a baby one way or another. That’s weird to me.

To be angry that a parent who had once considered adoption changed his or her mind seems to assume that prospective birth parents are less worthy of full personhood and agency than prospective adoptive parents. That in turn seems blatently classist, ageist, racist and/or various other “isms” as appropriate to the situation.

Not to mention it just plain makes a person look small.

Then I got in some trouble from Christine, who felt entitled to her anger over her own experience of disruption and took issue with what she perceived as me calling her small, (etc.).

But I think Christine's anger had more to do with her agency's and social worker's handling of the situation and that is not the kind of anger I am talking about.

Christine also mentioned anger at loss of control, due to infertility. That's also not the kind of anger I'm talking about.

She also compared my hypothetical anger at homophobia's negative effects on my family or family-building decisions, for example, to her anger at the circumstances of her adoption experience.

But that's not the kind of anger I mean either.

I think there is a big difference between anger at systemic injustices like homphobia, or even private, personal injustices beyond our control like infertility and anger at a particular woman who decided not to give me her baby.

Frankly, my mind truly boggles at the very notion. No one is obligated to give me her baby. As a prospective adoptive parent, I felt this way, as a current (and prospective again) adoptive parent I feel this way, as a mother, I feel this way. To me, Nat's mother is a heroic figure who did something that took incredible trust in me. As much a leap of faith as adoption was for us--taking a baby and agreeing to parent her without knowing her at all--the leap Nat's mother made is infinitely more faithful. All she had to go on was five sheets of paper (mostly covered with photos and very little text) and the word of a stranger (the agency placement counselor) that we could raise her child well. If she had decided she couldn't make that leap--well, who the heck am I to blame her? (We only had to wait overnight once we had said "yes" to Nat. Legally final relinquishment can be signed 72 hours after birth in our state, and Nat's mother came to agency one day post-partum. The agency called us to see if we'd take Nat, should her mother return the next day and sign relinquishment. Once we'd said yes, merely waiting overnight was difficult, so I can only imagine how it might feel to be matched several weeks, even months, in advance of a birth. It would be hard! But we felt it as a waiting-to-see-what-happens hard, not a waiting-for-my-baby-to-be-born hard.)

It's true, we haven't been there. We haven't experienced a "match" that "fell-through" (again, Gahh! with that language!). But if we did, I would expect to feel some disappointment, maybe even some grief or a sense of loss. Maybe. On the other hand, if we were "matched" it would mean the mother involved was someone we had decided we could love and acept into our family, so I think I'd feel mostly happy for her or concerned or helpful towards her first and foremost. I also think that having adopted once, and being on the waiting list to adopt again pads this whole thing, emotionally. Because we know through experience that there will be a baby for our family. We need not grasp at or count on any particular baby. And if we did "fall in love" with a particular baby, pre-birth, how much more must her mother be in love with her, having carried her for nine months and given birth? I would think our love would only increase our empathy for the baby's mother, not lead to anger at her.

Again, I realize this is all hypothetical. And as Dawn put it clearly, we can't keep ourselves from having emotions, we can only decide how to act upon them. If I did find myself feeling angry at someone for not giving me her baby I think I'd use that feeling to learn more about what was really upsetting me, rather than going off on the internet (or in person beyond my closest confidant, for that matter) about the badness of this woman or her unfitness as a parent, as I see so many people in that situation do. I would, in short, be very careful about adding to any discourse that is at bottom, "first parents are less worthy of basic human dignity than adoptive parents--and that includes people who merely considered adoption once."

That discourse gets enough press already. And the only thing I see at itsbottom is indeed ageism ("young people aren't good parents") racism ("white people can parent Black babies better than Black people"), classism ("being poor=child neglect") and other "isms" as I said in Dawn's comments, that allow some people to decide they deserve other people's children.

Some readers may be all ticked off at me now but I hope not. Or if they are, I hope they'll at least consider what I'm saying. I know some folks use their blogs to "vent" but I am troubled by venting in such a public way when it hurts a whole class of people by reinforcing unjust stereotypes of those people.

Think before you vent. And then think about where the anger is really coming from. It's in the best interest of the child you will have someday if you adopt. It's in the best interest of my child. So I'm asking. Please.

Comments

[Nancy]

Well said, Shannon, as always.

I appreciate what you said about systems bearing some responsibility for setting appropriate expectations. As a social worker (not working in the realm of adoption), I have seen much damage done to individuals and communities by the systems they must navigate. Much could be done at the systems level to prevent the development of unnecessary expectations.

And yet we all walk this earth of our own accord and must take responsibility for our own emotions and responses.

My heart goes out to those who have felt despair or disappointment during their process to adopt. I feel even more deeply, however, for all the people who suffer as a result of displaced anger. Each time a woman is disparaged by potential adoptive parents because she didn't "give up her child when she said she would," the entire adoptive community suffers. Anytime any of us spread upset and anger, the whole world suffers.

[redzils]

Amen - I read your comment at Dawn's and agree that anger at someone who chooses to parent seems . . . ridiculous. Thanks for helping me understand your perspective and adoption in general a little better. . . .

[starlight]

I agree with a lot of what you've written, but not everything. I haven't read blogs of adoptive parents who have written hateful things about mothers. So I can't comment on that part.

However, I can comment about my own experience: meeting a mother whose baby had been in foster care for six months while she thought about keeping or placing her; a mother who saw her baby every week, and had a relationship with her; a mother who ran out of the room in tears the day we met her; a mother who looked so much like my sister, I wanted to fold her in my arms and take care of her and her baby.

I can comment on the social worker: the one who said the mother just couldn't decide what to do; the one who said there were several steps to relinquishment, and that nothing was final until the State stamped the papers; the one who called each week and said things like, "she signed the papers but has three days to change her mind" and "the three days have passed, but she really still has two weeks because the state has to approve them" and "once the State approves them, she can't change her mind" and "come now because the State stamped the papers and we received them today;" the one who said, "she wants to talk to you on the phone after you get here."

The social worker who said, "now that you've signed the papers for placement, the only step left is finalization. The mother can't change her mind;" the one who said the mother was on the phone, and she was thinking about changing her mind; the one who said, "you can take the baby home, but you would have to bring her back if the mother rescinds her relinquishment;" the one who said, "well, the mother's family has a lot of money, so you wouldn't likely prevail in court (which we wouldn't have done, anyway)."

We left the baby there. We were sad, terribly so.

We know that it was nearly a month before she finally signed the recission papers, during which time her baby remained in foster care.

We were very, very angry with the social worker. We think that she was trying to coerce the mother into making a decision. We think that she knew the mother was going to keep her baby. We think the agency was tired of paying for private foster care. We think she used us as the catalyst to force a decision. We know that she lied to us about the finality of the paperwork. When she said that the mother had decided to keep her baby, she said, "I forgot that the mother has two weeks to sign a recission of relinquishmnet." Yeah, right. That social worker was a liar and a manipulator, and we had the right to be angry with her behavior toward us, and toward the mother and her baby.

We've moved past that anger. We let the social worker know in no uncertain terms what grief HER behavior caused our family. We also let the head of the agency know about her unprofessional and coercive behavior.

We were not angry with the mother. We sent the mother a card and wished her well and told her that she had done the right thing for her baby. We told her we would miss the chance to be the baby's parents, but she had a relationship with her baby that we didn't have. I don't know if she ever got that card.

We think about her and the baby from time to time, and wonder how they are doing. We would have liked to see pictures of the baby growing up.

I'm really sorry that most of the posts you see about "disrupted placements" are so negative and hurtful. But not all adoptive parents are vultures, and not all adoptive parents are unfeeling. I don't personally know any who are horrid, but I know that doesn't mean they aren't out there.

Too many assumptions are made on all sides about the others involved in adoption.

[Christine]

I agree we've been talking about different things.

As I'm understanding this, you're talking about anger in general. I'm talking about anger specific to the grieving process.

Because of my job, I've done a lot of research into grief and in ways to help people through it. In my experience, anger in grief almost always lands someplace whacky.

After my cat died, I was angry at him because I felt if his heart disease had been worse and symptomatic, I would have treated his renal disease differently and probably saved his life. Angry. At my cat. My dead cat, at that.

I was once, along with 2 other doctors, subject to the most unbelievable, insulting verbal abuse from a client. None of us had treated his dying dog. None of us had even met the man. But he was infuriated at all 3 of us. The only person he wasn't angry at was the doctor that had actually been treating the dog. After he got through the loss of the dog, I saw him as a client with his new puppy. He was actually a really nice man.

One of the worst things you can do to someone who is grieving is invalidate their feelings, no matter how irrational you feel they're being. It's how people end up getting stuck in the process. It would not have occurred to me to look at that client, a human being who was in a tremendous amount of pain at the time, and say, "Hey, you're being an ass right now."

When M. decided to parent her son, we did not lose a child. We had no child to lose. I understand that, understood it at the time, on every level. What we were grieving was the loss of our own hopes and of the possibility. That the point I was trying to make, apparently poorly, when I said that coming to adoption via infertility is a different experience. With no explanation for why we couldn't get pregnant, for three years we hoped for a child and experienced the disappointment. Not one time, but every single month.

So when someone is hopeful that they may be adopting a child, and the mother or father decides to parent, they are feeling a loss. And if they vent in anger and sadness at that moment, I don't think that judging them in that moment is appropriate.

I agree the internet may not really be the place for venting. Partially because it's likely that you will offend someone, but mainly because total strangers on the internet don't know that you're a person with a good heart who's going through a bad time.

[cloudscome]

Great post, again. I would like to carry this around and quote you all the time. It is so hard to know how to respond to potential adoptive parents that feel a "matched" baby is theirs already. If you don't congratulate them you are a downer. I need to figure out a nice way to say "But it's not your baby yet, his/her mother is still working things out...." maybe that's it.

And what the social workers are saying is a huge part of the problem. That is where the industry machine really cranks into gear. It's so clear to me now.... and was a total blind spot a year ago.

[starlight]

Christine, what you said about "being stuck" in grief is so true. My sister and I were just talking about this yesterday. Her friend has kind of been edged out of a program she started and ran on a volunteer basis for ten years. The person replacing her is a paid person who is already changing things around. The friend is having a hard time with this, but her colleagues just keep telling her to "let it go." My sister actually said almost exactly what you did about grief.

Cloudscome, when we were hoping to adopt the baby I wrote about above, my mom was all set to send out her picture to friends. I told her to hold off because she wasn't our baby until everything was finalized. It seemed like false advertising or something to me.

[lorrie]

Jane was 36 and her 15 year old daughter Ann was pregnant. Jane and daughter decided to place the baby with us, we knew each other slightly. It was to be an open adoption of course.

Baby daddy, age 15, said no. He would not sign the papers. If Ann tried to make an adoption plan, he would claim the baby.

Ann kept the baby. Baby is 9 and doing great, but has never seen her father. Her father has never paid a dime in child support, sent his child a birthday present, nada.

Angry at Jane and Ann? Hell no. Angry at babydaddy?

Yeah.

Not b/c baby was denied a "good home". Jane's home is good. Angry b/c a father used his biological imperative as a club, then failed to follow through with the responsibilities of parenthood.

[Kathleen]

I agree with every last word you wrote...in a perfect world. Now let's talk about the real world.

You wrote: And if we did "fall in love" with a particular baby, pre-birth, how much more must her mother be in love with her, having carried her for nine months and given birth? I would think our love would only increase our empathy for the baby's mother, not lead to anger at her...

I find it hard to believe that even you would not feel a twinge of anger if the child's parent(s) decided to parent in very bleak circumstance.

There is this idea that staying with the first parents is always a triump of love. The crux of it seems to be that the ability to get pregnant, somehow, equals the ability to parent.

Is there no room for anger at a system where DNA can be, and is, used as weapon with which to wield power and control? Any questioning of that seems to lead to charges of being elitist, racist, classist, etc.

I have no idea what the answer is to this complicated issue. But, personally, I cannot make peace with an answer that involves blocking out parts of reality because they are uncomfortable.

[shannon]

Kathleen, YES there is plenty of room for anger at the system. I think I made that clear--I certainly meant to when I said anger at the system (agencies, unethical professionals, etc.) is not what I'm talking about. I see plenty of room for all kinds of anger. I'm livid about the conditions that are tolerated in this country that led to my own child's relinquishment.

What I have a problem with is anger towards the parents, expressed rudely in public, that reinforces existing stereotypes about poor people, people of color, teenagers, etc.

[mamamarta]

i agree with everything you write, but i am not nearly as befuddled as you at people who feel such mixed-up anger, even when their anger is, objectively speaking, inappropriate and misdirected.

i agree with a previous poster who said that coming to adoption after infertility is a fundamentally different experience than coming to adoption as your first route to parenthood. i even think that coming to adoption after primary infertility is different than coming to it after secondary infertility.

i'm not saying that it is right for infertile prospective adoptive parents to direct their anger at a mother who has made the choice not to place her baby with them. it is not right. i am simply saying infertility is crazy-making; that grief is not logical; that when you are in the midst of it, it is not always easy or even possible to make cold, clear distinctions between *this* type of anger (the acceptable sort for those not mired in grief) and *that* kind of anger (the unacceptable sort). it all gets mushed together, and takes on its own logic, one that is probably impossible to see from the outside. it can be a destructive logic, i'm certainly not trying to argue that it is healthy or right. it absolutely does not make misdirected anger okay. but to me, there's nothing confusing about it.

i also think that trying to quantify and compare pain is useless to the people who are feeling it. adrienne rich wrote, in a poem for audrey lorde:

"They can rule the world while they can persuade us our pain belongs in some order ..."

i think that people involved in adoption who are in pain, for whatever reason, deserve our compassion (of the humble sort, the i-really-have-no-idea-what-you-are-going-through sort) as well as our clarity. they need and deserve both.

[Tammi]

Shannon,

I really thought this was a well thought out and well expressed argument.

I do not have a personal experience or stake in the issues of adoption or infertility (except viewing my sister's challenges with infertility). However, I have trained and worked with issues of diversity and discrimination as part of my job. I am in a mixed race marriage and am raising a bi-racial child.

What I see you talking about is an issue of entitlement and anger resulting from a misplaced sense of entitlement. Whether that results from misinformation from workers in the system or cultural bias, when we start to recognize it we have a responsibilty to name it...as you have done here.

So many of us with privilege and power don't even recognize we have power much less see our misuse of it...because we have power we don't recognize that others aren't as well equipped. We may think everyone's experience is equal to ours...bad things in their life are entirely their own responsibility. Hence the name calling and misdirected anger.

Thanks for making me think about this. This and other parts of your story have helped me realize the silent biases I had regarding first parents.

- Tammi