How many times have you heard it said, seen it written, written yourself perhaps, that adoption is as much about loss as it is about gain? In admonitions to potential adoptive parents, it’s a litany I’ve used, even putting the words in bold type in the introduction to the book I wrote on US infant adoption. (Don’t bother buying the book, as the money goes to Adoption.com, the company that has already screwed me badly. Just about the whole thing is available online, so you can read it for free if you’re interested.)
It is vital that people coming to adoption understand this simple truth and acknowledge the loss even while their focus may be on what they, themselves are gaining.
It’s that “and” that seems to be a sticking point in discussions on any stage in the adoption community, and while LOSS is so often shouted loud and clear and repeatedly to assure its being heard in all corners and way up into the third balcony, “gain” often barely rates a stage whisper.
Does this mean, then, that the ratio of loss to gain is so much higher than the other way around? Some, most certainly, would insist that is exactly the case; that adoption is founded in loss and that loss overrides any gains that may drift along in its wake.
For many, this is true … for birth mothers, for example. Lifelong suffering from adoption loss is rarely even remotely compensated by gains in many cases, and those who relinquished in the days of secrecy and lies are some of the most vociferous voices on loss as the most important aspect.
Some adoptees, but most certainly not all, focus almost exclusively on what adoption cost them, as well, going as far in a few cases to insist that anyone would be better off dead than adopted.
Adoptive parents are often set out as the big gainers, the reapers of the little that can be right about adoption, the most likely to put the positive spin on the story, and in some circumstances, that’s accurate.
That assessment, however, ignores a big part of the picture.
Adoption does not only happen in middle-class America where expectant women are making choices between parenting and going off to college and infertile couples are praying for a newborn they can catch on its way into the world. Even in that scenario, however, there can be gain all the way around. The gains may not outweigh the losses for everyone involved, but that does not negate those gains.
Contrary to much of what is conveyed in blogs and forums, there are birth mothers who are glad they are not parenting, who feel comfortable with their decisions and who go on to lead rich, full lives with no more regrets than the usual adult human carries around on a daily basis. They’re not found lingering on adoption-related websites, but they do exist, and in some numbers.
Adoptees by the thousands … by the hundreds of thousands … not only accept the circumstances of their upbringing, but rejoice in their families, and revel in the lives that found them.
Somewhere between 50 – 200 million children in the world have been orphaned by AIDS alone. Very few of these kids are available for adoption due to politics, geography, religion, custom and other reasons not always having anything at all to do with the welfare of children, and some cite that as a good thing, but those that do find safe and loving families experience gain.
As I said in a reply on a recent post:
When a child who needs a family gets one, that’s a gain. Yes, the loss of family in the first place is a factor, but that being the reality for millions puts it in the “way things are” category, not filed under adoption. Adoption is a correction, a remedy. (Not the only one possible, certainly, but a darned good one, nonetheless.)
There are more than half a million children in foster care in the US, and for many of them adoption is a hopeful dream. Kids coming out of abusive families and in serial placements long for family … real, permanent family … and for them adoption is a solution — it is gain.
Loss and gain may not equal out in every case or for every person involved, but in the big picture … the one that believes that every child is entitled to a family and the more that find one, the better … adoption is as much about loss as it is about gain, and vise versa.
Anticipating some of the fallout that is sure to come, I’ll add that by family in the above paragraph I don’t mean a desperately poor grandmother trying to raise 18 orphaned grandchildren on less than a dollar a day. Yes, I understand that many feel those sorts of blood ties trump everything and that only elitist thinking would suggest a child is better off in a rich, Western country, but when the reality is that the grandmother will often have to make ends meet by selling her grandchildren into slavery and prostitution I do see the gain side of adoption quite clearly.
A collection of my short stories:
I'm in this one, too ...
And I'm in here, as well ...
Paradise Preoccupied 
I found an interesting article online that perhaps fits in with this topic – it’s called “Nature in Adoptive Parenthood”:
http://parenthood.library.wisc.edu/Leon/Leon.html
I think it’s the situations such as poverty and AIDS that make it so so many children end up without a home and family are more tragic than adoption itself.
Same with abuse. Abuse is a sad terrible thing. But it’s not the fault of adoption and adoption doesn’t have to be a negative thing.
Folks seem to be focusing on the wrong issues and not on the individual needs of children.
Which happens right in America’s foster care system. It’s deeply depressing and upsetting.
Thank you for presenting this side.
It needs to be out here on the web.
I appreciate your clarity and passion.
-Jess
Would you please define adoption for me? When reading this I have a feeling that you and I define adoption differently and that within itself could be where much of the disagreeing I’m feeling from reading this could be coming from.
Adoption, to me, is the legal transfering of parents onto a child.
I just looked it up on wiki:
Adoption is the legal act of permanently placing a child with a parent or parents other than the birth (or “biological”) mother or father.
I don’t see how THIS ABOVE is whats saving people. Helping people, overweighing the losses or even comparing to the losses.
-Providing homes to children who need them
-educating children
-feeding children
-giving children a security
-for REAL orphans like the children orphaned by aids that you talk about giving them a secure place to grow and be loved by people who care for them…
-providing for children and their families can all be done without adoption can it not?
Why does the legal act of permanently placing a child with a parent get the credit? Couldn’t all of this “good” that you talk about STILL be done WITHOUT adoption?
Asking with sincerity and respect trying to understand where you and many others are coming from.
“Loss and gain may not equal out in every case or for every person involved, but in the big picture … the one that believes that every child is entitled to a family and the more that find one, the better…”
I see you aspire to the big picture… but retreat to one aspect. I was one of those children who should have been entitled to a family… and was found one… and I am indeed grateful for many things.
The larger view comes to me through increased experience and reflection on experience. Adoption as socially constructed is contingent and must be intelligently criticized. This is obvious. And it is hard to carry out.
I’d like to say more here but am bone tired… Yes, adoption has fine aspects… and does do some good. There are indeed gains. But adoption still needs to be looked at carefully. I’m not seeing the care here yet… but then I’m just meeting you.
Gershom,
There’s the expanded wiki def.
“Couldn’t all of this “good” that you talk about STILL be done WITHOUT adoption?”
I’d be interested in your thoughts on alternatives.
mdiebel,
” Adoption as socially constructed is contingent and must be intelligently criticized.”
Of course.
Given the stridency of much of the criticism, I do tend to address concerns about throwing the baby out with the bath water … if you’ll excuse the indelicate turn of phrase given the context … but most certainly advocate for the continuing evolution of adoption toward ethical practices.
Thanks for clarifying and expanding on some of the issues that came up in the comments from a few posts ago. I posted a response there which is still in moderation presumably due to time zone differences — what, you don’t blog 24/7? 🙂 — but I think that you’ve responded here to at least part of what I was asking there.
About your comment above on adoptees (“…not only accept the circumstances of their upbringing, but rejoice in their families, and revel in the lives that found them.”): I think that for many adoptees, these actions are not incompatible with feelings of loss. I mean, in a way they’re opposite, but nevertheless many of us feel both of those ways if not at the exact same time, then very close together in time.
I think that is why many adoptees feel torn, as if they have to choose to feel either one way or the other, but not both. This seems dangerously similar to the idea of having to pick sides/loyalties, with feelings of loss and sadness and loyalty to birth parents on one side, and feelings of luck, happiness, rejoicing and loyalty to adoptive parents on the other side. Although many adoptees do make this choice and choose one or the other, it doesn’t seem like a particularly healthy one to have to make.
Sang-Shil,
I’ve approved all comments, so yours should be up by now.
What you describe sounds very much like the process for children of divorce. Since that also often manifests as loss, especially for the kids involved, it seems a fair comparison and is one I have experienced personally. Being placed in the middle of a sometimes rancorous situation is certainly not healthy, and children will always take on the pressure of feeling a need to side with one parent over the other. Issues of loyalty, concerns about the welfare of the absent parent, guilt over assumed responsibility for the turn of events, a sense of powerlessness over circumstances and such arise constantly.
That’s an interesting point that you brought up about divorce, since I have no personal experience with it. It certainly does sound like loss, and I’m sorry that you had to go through it.
Sandra,
What a wonderful post. The biggest problem I have had in these discussions is that so many people want to think that ALL adoptees are angry, that ALL adoptive parents are greedy and feel entitled, and that ALL birthmothers have deep, emotionally scarring, therapy worthy pain. I have pointed out many times that not everyone feels this way, and I’ve been accused of attacking people, and that they aren’t really telling the truth about how they are feeling.
Again, I really love your blog and your writing. It seems like a safe place to have an intelligent discussion.
S,
In reading Sang-Shil’s post, I was thinking to myself “ya know, that sounds alot like children of divorce”. And then you made the same point in your next comment. Man, do great minds think alike, or what? (my thoughts to your thoughts, my thoughts to your thoughts, wooo-oooo)
Seriously, though, you both have great points. Yes, there is tremendous, and often inbalanced, loss in adoption. This I know, this I’ve seen and this I’ve felt…..
Gershom,
You have a good point. There ARE alternatives to adoption and they need to be presented clearly and considered carefully. Adoption is NOT the answer in some cases, it IS the answer in other cases and CAN be the answer in others.
“for REAL orphans like the children orphaned”.
Are you saying here that you feel adoption would be an option best utilized for only those children whose biological parents are both dead? Or, alternatively, no child should ever be seperated from their biological parents while said parents are still living? That is not something I can agree with 100%. I think it’s a great goal, but, as a public school employee, I see WAY too many parents who:
1. don’t care to raise their children. Even when provided with the tools to do so, look you straight in the eye and say “I can’t be bothered”. And that’s a quote i’ve heard more than once, btw. I hear it from at least two or three parents each year. The teachers who I work with hear it too. And it’s heard everywhere, not just “poor” districts or “ethnic” districts. It’s a problem that transends class and SES level.
2. can’t raise their children because of dire circumstances that I don’t think the vast majority of people raised without true want can really understand. Children die and suffer, millions of them, EVERY day for want of food, medicine, and shelter. And each child that dies has a mother. A mother who most likely is watching her child die. Should it happen? ABSOLOUTELY not. We should be putting programs into place YESTERDAY to globally relieve that type of destitution. In reality (and by that I mean what IS instead of what SHOULD be) though, even if we had a proposal that the world could agree on TODAY, it would take DECADES to implement. The ugly, unfair, needs-to-be-changed, in-your-face- truth is that, even in the time it takes to post these comments, children are dying around the world for lack of essentials. To say they should be denied the option of adoption because it is “unfair” just does not jive with me. I would more likely say that we should continue to provide loving, stable homes for these children while we do all we can, individually, as a nation and as a world, to relieve the suffering of millions and millions of people.
There are other scenarios, of course, where children are not necessarily better off with their biological parents, but I’m beat as all get out and just can’t type anymore, kwim? 🙂
BTW, Gershom, this is just my opinion. I know that your opinion may differ a little or even a lot. I acknowledge that you have all the right in the world to form your own opinions and I appreciate that you are willing to ask questions to get a better understanding of what alternative opinions might be. It makes for great dialogue. Thanks 🙂