An adoption education
“At BEST, adoption is a tragedy and not something to be celebrated.”
This was my first experience with an anti-adoption advocate. My gut reaction was instantly defensive, and I had to read her full extensive comments several times to fully understand what she was saying. This eventually led to a Reddit rabbit hole and TikTok time suck about the adoptee experience and the ethics of adoption. This was not my first foray into understanding the long-term effects of adoption. Over the last two years I have read innumerable articles about adoption trauma and several books with first hand narratives from adoptees. But this was the first time I’d heard of adoption being considered altogether unethical.
I understand that taking a child from their home and placing them in a new one comes with trauma. I know that adoption is emotionally and logistically complicated. I did not know that there is a movement to end adoption altogether. Like many of you are probably thinking right now, I questioned if this meant we are just supposed to leave children in unsafe home environments. And no, that is not what these folks are proposing. They are advocating to leave the door open for family reunification whenever possible and, if not possible, then permanent legal guardianship should be pursued instead of adoption.
Forewarning here that I am not an expert on any of this and am still learning myself. My understanding is that the main difference between the two is that with legal guardianship the birth parents maintain their parental rights but agree that the child will be raised by the guardians who are responsible for their love and care in every way a legal parent would be: medically, financially, emotionally, socially, educationally etc. With adoption the birth parent’s rights to the child are terminated and assumed by the adoptive parents.
The argument for guardianship over adoption is founded on the fact that legally, when a child is adopted, their history from birth until adoption placement is erased. They are no longer legally connected to their birth family; a new birth certificate is issued and their name can be changed, further distancing them from their birth parents. Understandably, significant trauma often ensues as the child becomes aware of their first family and life with them, though much of that trauma is still going to exist with permanent guardianship.
Thus began the tail-spinning of my emotions as I questioned if we were doing the right thing by trying to adopt Strawbaby. Was I being selfish because I wanted her to legally be my daughter? Was I participating in child-trafficking, as some of the more extreme anti-adoption advocates were suggesting? Prospective adoptive parents spend tens of thousands of dollars to adopt – if the birth parents were given that money would they be able to keep their child(ren) instead of giving them up for adoption or having them removed? It is undeniable that the American adoption system has its faults.
“Mommy, mommy!” Strawbaby shouted from her car seat behind me.
“What is it, baby?” I asked glancing at her reflection in the rearview mirror.
“I love you!”
“I love you, too.”
“And Daddy and Chacho and Basco and Racha and…”
This is one of Strawbaby’s favorite things to do: list all of the members of her family. Everyone she loves and loves her in return.
“And everyone loves me too!” She concluded.
“That’s right!” I agreed.
“Yeah, that’s right.” She smiled confidently.
Here’s the thing: Strawbaby is a part of our family. Do I need that legally pronounced on a piece of paper? Probably not. But I also know that if we choose not to pursue adoption, as she gets older, she will question why her last name is different than ours. In a situation where she may inevitably grapple with feeling like she doesn’t belong – I want to do everything in my power to let her know that she absolutely does.
From where I stand now, I maintain that adoption is complicated and nuanced and that always and never statements are not helpful. That each child’s situation needs to be taken into consideration and that in many cases permanent legal guardianship is absolutely the best way to go. I whole-heartedly agree that adoption trauma needs to be treated, that adoptive parents should undergo trauma training, that adoptees should maintain relationships with their birth family. I will never keep Strawbaby’s history or her birth family from her. We will do everything we can to support her in the ways that she needs just as I did for Adelaide and continue to do for Jackson.
Is adoption a tragedy? It’s complicated but I don’t think so. Circumstances that require a child to be separated from their birth parents can be tragic. The day we picked up Strawbaby was one of the most traumatic of my life and that’s saying something. But the year we’ve spent healing together, loving each other, and experiencing shared joy, will hopefully be the start of her leading a healthy, supported and stable life (certainly, not without bumps in the road). All this to say that I can see now how celebrating adoption can feel insensitive, but I also know that we can cultivate joy from the soil of our trauma and I will not curb the happiness I feel at having the honor and privilege of raising, loving and protecting our little Strawbaby. Our daughter.
