A comment left on this post on a blog I’m contributing to these days has raised a concern I am amazed has evaded me for all this time I’ve been reading and writing on adoption. It comes from a reader named Julie who claims psychological testing for prospective adoptive parents as her agenda in the adoption world, and I must admit this is a new one on me.
I would agree with you if prospective adoptive parents were psychologically tested. Unfortunately, this is not the case except for a tiny handful of agencies across North America.
Having done my research on the psychological caliber of adoptive parents – particularly those who suffer from infertility – I have learned that your presumption is dangerous one.
Until psychological testing becomes a standard in the adoption industry, I will worry far more for adopted children than I do for those being raised by psychologically challenged biological parents.
Adoptive parenting requires far more skill and empathy than parenting one’s natural children.
Wow.
I’m temporarily at a loss.
Okay. I’m over it.
Being that I’m often accused of spewing … although most often by people for whom spew is a lifestyle … I might as well strap on that lather (or leather?) for a minute here:
RAD! FAS and FAE! ADD! PTSD! “A parent is the perpetrator in most homicides of children under the age of 5” … and that is almost ALWAYS a bio parent! therapeutic foster care!
Whew.
Oh, wait. There’s more … but don’t take it from me, check out the day-to-day of some adoptive parents who will spend their lives trying to make up for the damage done to their children by institutions and bio families.
Any yet, someone actually worries “far more for adopted children than I do for those being raised by psychologically challenged biological parents.”? Now, that’s a new planet inhabited that doesn’t look much like this one.
The “psychological caliber of adoptive parents”? Excuse me? Let’s see the research that indicates that the “psychological caliber of adoptive parents” is in question in any but the most miniscule of numbers, then compare that to the millions of children in the world in need of families.
And, do da word “homestudy” ring a bell?
Infertility hasn’t been considered an indication of insanity, a punishment for sins or a personal failing for a very long time, and I am concerned by the thought that any of those old chestnuts could be once again finding fertile soil for roots.
Break out the kindling and tie that barren woman to the stake, boys! According to our test, she’s low in the psychological caliber department, so damned well don’t deserve to live … or parent!
And the last statement: Adoptive parenting requires far more skill and empathy than parenting one’s natural children.
Does anyone really believe that parenting one’s “natural children” comes naturally to all parents? That a wondrous bounty of love and caring pours forth from some genetic fount that guarantees each child a special place in the hearts and minds of their biological connections that protects them throughout childhood and provides for everything necessary for a healthy and happy life?
That parenting biological offspring is a breeze, while being mother and father to an adopted child is a task that demands skills and empathy so much above and beyond the need of “naturals” that ever more tests must be passed and bars must be raised so that only the most perfect should be allowed to add a child to a family? And what is perfect?
Not only does any walk around the Real World block reveal that biological parents do terrible damage to their children in big numbers on a daily basis while adoptive parents tend not to, one idea of psychological perfection might scare the bejeezus out of someone else, while the quirks in a family could suit an equally quirky child to a T.
I’ll get to UNICEF, trotted out with pride in another comment, later.
A collection of my short stories:
I'm in this one, too ...
And I'm in here, as well ...
Paradise Preoccupied 
Julie sounds like a real Darwinist to me. Here’s what i get from her statement:
Physically incapable of breeding = shouldn’t be allowed to parent.
Sounds to me like she could use a little psych eval…
Or, at the very least an invitation to join us all in the real world.
Sandra, I wanted to mention reading your other post about your foster son and was finding myself admiring how you have continued to love and support him in a difficult situation.wow! That is what I love to see in this world. A Mom who does not give up.
The whole bio. vs AP competition makes me squirm, as
well as mixing infant adoption cases with foster/adopt
type cases.Then the fertile vs. not fertile and throw in some religious misinterpretations and we have an all out war.
I think there are cruddy bio parents and I think there are cruddy adoptive parents and fosterparents.
“One” cruddy parent who is bio,adoptive,fertile,non~fertile or whatever, is ONE too many IMO.
Oh, and now I have yet ANOTHER blog to follow-the one you mentioned!! eep;~)) Just when my housework was getting done.
This topic is being discussed similarly here:
http://soulofadoption.com/forum/index.php?topic=26690.0
Ahhhhh, people and their crazy agendas. These are the same people who will say they advocate for the child. That’s BS. Who they are advocating for is birthfamily. I wonder if this is the same Julie who thinks women like me are infertile because unborn babies don’t want to be born into this awful world (and not because of that little thing called cancer I had growing on my cervix).
Funny thing is, both times I adopted, they had FULL ACCESS to my psych history. It is mandatory! Sure I’m kooky. I have my problems. But, guess what…..it doesn’t make me unfit to parent. It makes me a pretty normal, sensitive person.
I’m so glad you are on top of your facts, Sandra. You’ve got a great point about children dying at the hands of the families they were born into.
Well, I was going to go our and buy some gear for our soon-to-be-adopted child today, but what with feeling a bout of the crazies coming on, and an appointment for me and my diva ovaries to be burned at the stake later this afternoon — well, I have to say, I’m just SWAMPED.
Sheesh.
People like this Julie broad with her fear and her prejudice make me shake my head in dismay that there are still such people running round this world with their blinders happily on in this day and age.
It’s either that, or start drinking in the morning…
I have one bio and one adopted child (young adults now) and I am pretty sure they will both say I am a nutter;~))
Help me out here, people …
Is it “Nuts IS in the eye of the beholder” or “Nuts ARE in the eye of the beholder”?
Either way, most of our kids will, at one point or another, insist that we are … or we is … or something …
Nuts (adj) is in the eye of the beholder.
Nuts (noun) are in the eye of the beholder.
Yet…
Some beholders are just plain nuts and think that normal is nuts. There should be a theory of relativity for nuts.
“Either way, most of our kids will, at one point or another, insist that we are … or we is … or something ”
Amen, S!!
I have seen Julie post in other areas and I have yet to figure out if she’s living on another planet or just deliberately provacative.
CinnamonOpus,
Drinking in the morning? Hmmmmmmm, it has merit……..:)
Wow, you seem really mean to me. Maybe you are not, and I just don’t know you well enough.
M. I see you here and can I just say your comment hurts, as I think well of you, but I know the Julie this comes from and I have a lot of respect for her, even if Julie and I disagree at times.
In fact Julie and I disagree a lot of times, but I would never mock her or suggest she is a provocatuer. She is a person who has done a lot of research and has a lot to offer. Ha Ha Julie actually hates me, but I don’t hate her. I can’t hate her, she has done too much for adoptees that deserves respect, regardless of what our personal beefs are.
I think you OP are missing the per capita part of the equation, I mean absolutely more bio parents abuse children than adopted children, no question, we adoptees make up, depending who you are asking 1-3% of the population, but per capita, we are more likely to be abused. Not that this means many or even most adoptive parents are abusive, just like not many or even most bioparents are abusive.
But why you want to be so mean-spirited about it? I would like to know, if you want you can email me at joymadsen21@yahoo.com.
But to make fun of a person in pain? I don’t get it, in fact my last blog post was inspired by this one.
I am an admin of an adoptees forum, we have to remove certain adoptees because they are too viscious, too abusive, it is very sad to me, and not at all humorous, or not-understandable.
I don’t get your hubris, at all, please explain.
Joy,
Being a mother who has dealt with the fallout of birth parent abuse and neglect, I can get mean when it comes to defending a child’s right to a life of safe love and caring, and I suppose some assume that I am a mean person when I get stroppy. Others find me ten shades of cuddly pussycat, though, so maybe I’m just a complex individual with many facets. Does that explain going a bit hubristic from time to time?
Now, can you explain where you get information that says that adoptees are more likely to be abused? And no one here is confusing raw numbers with ratios; we all understand that there are fewer children adopted, but haven’t seen anything indicating that abuse or neglect is higher in the adopted population — just the reverse, actually.
I have seen the many places data on murders of children being more likely in “households with unrelated adults” being passed off as adoption-related, but people here are too bright to miss the fact that these stats are always about the boyfriends, new husbands, dates, whatever, of bio mothers killing … and raping and beating and on and on … kids. Such attempts at besmirching adoption could be taken to be much more “mean spirited” than any valid assessment of total rot that casts the infertile as some sort of sub-human species out to loony their way into parenting then wigging out on unfortunate children who would be oh-so-much better off with crazy bio parents or in institutions.
Joy, you are right that all adoptees feelings are valid and to ridicule seems cruel. I found your blog and I plan to follow it. To Julie,(((hugs)))) and I hope I did not contribute to your pain.
Everyone’s feelings are valid and everyone experiences pain. It’s not a game show where “my pain is bigger than your pain, so I win” world. Would anyone trade their pain for someone else’s? That might look a tempting proposition, but could likely turn out to be a bad deal.
Joy,
If I were presented with “research” from someone that purportedly “proved” the case that white people were superior to black people or men were superior to women or Catholics are “holier” than Muslims or anyother prejudiced, narrow-minded attempt to make one group superior to another, I would call the person deliberately provacative and I would, in turn, be mean and exhibt significant amounts of hubris. In my opinion, Julie is exhibiting a ferocious prejudice against infertile people.
Similarly, if someone presented me with “research” that was said to “prove” that white people abuse more than black people or McDonald’s workers abuse more than IBM professionals or that immigrants abuse more than citizens, then what you term mean and arrogant would most likely present itself here, as well.
In the same vein as your “please explain”, I would like to ask you a question: If someone said to you that women who blog, due to the stressors and tension of deadlines and dealing with oppositional opinions, are more likely to abuse their children and should, therefore, have to undergo psychological testing before receiving permission to procreate, would you be so quick to call anyone with an opposing opinion “mean-spirited”?
Joy, I don’t want to hurt you. But, shit lots of people’s comments, including the one I referenced hurt me. I don’t like having my cancer experience invalidated. I suffered a great deal with that cancer and it could have KILLED me. THAT is why I’m infertile and not any other reason.
Tisha infertility does not = adoptive parent. Plenty of people who are infertile don’t adopt. btw I was adopted by infertile people.
Being an adoptive parent is not something that happens to you, it is a state you go out of your way to acquire. There are a lot of complexities to relationships formed by adoption, and unfortunately the difficulties are often ignored.
If someone said to me about the women who blog thing, I would think they were just being silly, although, I did not spend time on the internet when my son was little, so I suppose I did think there was some harm in it.
Adoption is serious, it has serious repercussions it is not the same as bio parenting. Taking on another’s child is not an act to be taken lightly.
Sandra- I found your answer as flip as your post, I guess you think that is edgy or hip or something, there are a lot of people under that impression Tama Janowitz or whatever she calls herself springs to mind.
Where do I get my information? When I was new in reunion, (I was 18) I spent years in the University Library trying to make sense of what had happened to me, why it had happened to me, and read I kid you not, every social work journal related to adoption from the 40’s onward (that the uni had) This was pre-internet I never imagined that people would be requesting citations from me over 10 years later. There are some studies on the internet, but I fear suggesting them as they would be dismissed as soft evidence, you can google it if you like, you can read the studies at your own uni. library, or suscribe to a social work/pshychology research library.
No one can stop you from holding the opinions you do, it is absolutely your right, no one can force you to do the research or to care for that matter.
I watched an interesting show yesterday about a book written about slave ships, and the abolishionists efforts to educate the general public about how inhumane they were. I am not comparing adoption to slavery by any means, but it is strange to think that at one point it was difficult for many to accept slavery was wrong. Where I did see the parallel to adoption, is it is so difficult for many people to accept that adoption is difficult to experience. Maybe because we are raised to be so materialistic and the losses in adoption are so unquantifiable.
I mean how does one measure the loss of identity?
I would like to think that adoptive parents enter into adoption with reverence and acknowledge the gravity of separation, even necessary separation from one’s family.
Of course, that is a lot to ask of people, and not all adoptive families are wililng to do that.
I understand that it must get frustrating when so many people call adoptive parents baby-stealers, and other things that are semi-hysterical, it irritates me when other adoptees tell me that we should have been shot rather than adopted, and I have been told that. I don’t engage with those people, but I do think something quite serious must have caused feelings so strong, and don’t dismiss them either, in fact I am quite sorry for anyone who believes they are better off dead than adopted.
It just frustrates me when people responsible for our (adoptees) care, think our pain is funny or crazy, yes, it may make you uncomfortable, trust me it is uncomfortable from this side too, it may not be universal, but it is part of the adoption continuum, it is very real. Sorry to go ON, but this is a subj. I am very passionate about.
I would do psychological testing in a nano second and expect the same to be done of any people planning on having a biological child. I’ve had social workers in my house to testify that I can raise an adopted child – to have my sons, I just had to have sex.
Infertility equaling the need for psycological testing is absolutely insane in my opinion. I’d be really ticked off if I was infertile and someone suggested that.
Lisa S.
Joy~
“Tisha infertility does not = adoptive parent. Plenty of people who are infertile don’t adopt. ”
I didn’t say infertility equals adoptive parent. On Sandra’s blog at another site, Julie wrote specifically about infertility. She also made a statement that adopted parents are more dangerous than psychologically damaged biological parents.
I myself did not mention infertility at all in my comment.
“If someone said to me about the women who blog thing, I would think they were just being silly, although, I did not spend time on the internet when my son was little, so I suppose I did think there was some harm in it.”
Joy, I didn’t mean for you to take my analogy literally. See, I was using it to make a point. The point was…………if someone says something offensive and ridiculous to you, you become offended. I was attempting to point out that perhaps you are not experiencing Julie’s comment in the same way I, Sandra and others experienced it and that is causing your confusion over the tone of our posts.
“Adoption is serious, it has serious repercussions it is not the same as bio parenting. Taking on another’s child is not an act to be taken lightly.”
I’m wondering: why are you lecturing me on the seriousness of adoption? Just what was it that I wrote that makes you think I take adoption lightly? Where did I say that adoption is not painful, not “heavy”, not different in some ways from the biological experience? Where did I say that my child’s pain re: adoption is silly or fanciful? Did Sandra say that? Have you even read through her posts? Have you read her posts as she processes her respect and sadness for her children’s birthmothers, her children’s loss of country,loss of extended birthfamily, their loss of their birthmother? Or are you simply reacting to one post?
Joy, you’ve done research. That’s terrific. My point, however, is that I’ve seen people present “research” on those things I mentioned in my reply. White supremists have their “research”; religious fundamentalists have their research; terrorists have their “research”. If research is so conclusive, why do people (bio or adopted) raise their families differently? Or put their children in daycare/keep them home? Or choose to breast feed/bottle feed? . Or let them watch tv/not watch tv? Or co-sleep/seperate sleep with their children. Research means you are reading the opinon of a fallible human being who is trying hard to be objective. I’ll take my real-life experiences, and those of the people I trust, and my own God given common sense and, yes, both sides of the research and I’ll form my own opinion, thank you very much.
Yes, Joy, I can understand where you would be frustrated with people not listening to adoptee’s concerns. Sometimes I feel that people don’t give adoptive parents any credit at all. Many others accuse adoptive parents of the very discrimination, lack of consideration and respect and miserable character that they themselves are protesting. Sometimes, it seems as people don’t want you to have an opinion about adoption unless you’re an adoptee or a birthparent. So, if you want to point out that adoptees have pain, go for it. I believe it and I’ll support your right to say so to the nth degree.
Just don’t expect adopted parents, or at least THIS adopted parent to take ridiculous and obnoxious hypocrisy like Julie’s without comment.
Joy,
I’ll take a few more minutes to attempt to reach through your well-defended barriers to communication on the off chance that you might have some capacity or inclination to hear a tune you don’t know by heart.
You classifying my response highlighting my experiece with children damaged by bio parents as “flip” at the same time I’m spending the last bit of time possible with my foster son, a boy who has been and will continue to be a victim of horrors no one … and especially never a child … should have to suffer proves to me that your investment in a narrow, self-centered agenda is far too great to ever dilute with truth beyond your personal experience.
Given the pain I’m experiencing now, the fear over what T may face in future and the reality of his life as it is with all the inherent dangers coming with the circumstance he has no control over at all as a pawn in the hands of biology, I have very little tolerance today for existential ponderings of identity loss from adults. There is another side to your coin, Joy, and understanding its weight might aid you in understanding why some people have less “reverence for the gravity of separation” than you think worthy.
No one thinks adoptee pain is funny or crazy, and taking that tact may help you feel justified in your close-mindedness but it’s not accurate.
And finally, data on adoption from the 40s has nothing to do with present day adoption realities. Sure, if one wants to wallow in what was often the tragic history of adoption, it’s there by the tub-full, but aside from for those who experienced that first hand, it is not today’s reality. Insisting that it is is the same as postulating that marriage today is the same as it was pre-WWII.
I am passionate, too, as is everyone posting here. Cornering the market is not an option.
mmmmm kay, never mind, have fun, sorry to interrupt, carry on!
I guess this is what I don’t get. Someone storms onto your blog, scolds us all for our horrible “insensitivity”, characterizes us on her own blog as people so miserable that we would laugh at a child’s pain, makes several comments completely off-target from the message posted or the comments that ensue, accuses everyone of not respecting her pov or experiences, minimizes ours, makes contemptuous comments about your “flip” attitude and then leaves the discussion with a comment and attitude far “flip”pier than any seen heretofore.
What’s that about? Why do people who are so intimately acquainted with pain and discrimination ignore it when it’s perpetrated on others? Why do people so knowledgeable about the obstacle to truth that discrimination is then practice their own form of discrimination? Why do people fight so hard, write so eloquently, advocate so passionately for respect and the right to be seen individually for their own unique personality and abilities and then deny it to others? How can people who have been so marginalized turn around and say “Most adopted parents are of poor psychological caliber” or “Look at those adopted parents who laugh when adoptees/birthmothers wail in pain”? How can they not say “Hmmmmm, someone once said bad things about me and it was wrong and not the truth. Maybe I shouldn’t assume anything about this person until I know them better?”.
I don’t get it. No matter how many times it happens, I just don’t get it. I just had to get that out.
And, now dear friends, as so mentioned, carry on 🙂
For the record since you so erroneously attacked me on another blog for leavig this conversation when my ideas came up for “review” as IF I was scared off by your sound criticism. PFFFFFT.
I left this conversation because you and your commentors made it clear that you simply don’t care, in fact on your other blog one of them commented that they dismissed empirical studies all together and only cared about adopting children.
And you call me close-minded? I mean what do I know about adoption except living it every second of my life for 35 years? I can see why I am so easily dismissed [/sarcasm]
So what? You don’t care, I can’t make you, unfortunately that is a part of life on this planet, I can’t change it and am not going to argue with you, as I am not foolish enough to think I could make you care.
When I first came across your blog I thought perhaps you had simply not considered some aspects of what adoption can do to people, now after having a dialogue with you and seeing you on other people’s blogs I realize it is not that you haven’t considered them, it is simply you could not care less.
Suggesting that adoption would stop sexual abuse against children for example, que ridicule.
But whatev.
Whatev, indeed, Joy.
Perhaps it comes down to an apples/oranges thing. My focus is on the children of the world who could benefit greatly from family. I care, and I care greatly and passionately. Yours comes from another direction, apparently having something to do with being adopted and now being 35.
Snide assumptions on my parenting on other blogs and “I can’t make you care” comments here, along with your claim of being “dismissed” when that is so clearly not the case, probably do indicate that one of us is unwilling to hear what the other has to contribute. I’d say that would be you. I’m sure you will disagree, bring up the holocaust again or throw in some provocative non sequitur.
As you so eloquently put it, whatev.
Wow, I guess I have just missed a lot by not reading here while my life was crazy. I just have one thing that I want to comment on (and if memory serves me right, Sandra, you should have something to say about it, too?).
I totally feel like a broken record since I have mentioned it so many times on my blog, but I adopted because of 4 years of infertility. I was told I would never have biological children without the “big guns” treatments. I am now pregnant for the third time since adopting (with no treatments).
It drives me nuts when people try to use a woman’s inability to conceive to convince her that she can never know what it really feels like to be a mother. Playing on that insecurity is just cruel. And I can tell you from experience, it is totally false.
Are there differences in the experiences that bring people to motherhood (adoption or pregnancy)? Yes. Does that make you love an adopted child less? Nope. Not in the slightest bit.
So many people want to tell adoptive parents that they just can’t ever understand because they haven’t been there (been adopted, placed a child…). But then they tell us what our experiences as parents will be–how limited our capacity to love is–when they have never adopted. How is this different?
Well put, MN.
The “you can’t possibly understand” stance is a well-established ploy to gain the upper hand, and since no one can completely understant the perceptions of another it’s true enough in a sense. It does not, however, convey carte blanche, greater wisdom or clairvoyant powers.