When folks want adoption subsidies, but aren't interested in any financial or social supports for family preservation, it really speaks to how we view one another's humanity & our own entitlement.
We aren't entitled to other ppl's children, no matter our desires or reproductive journey. I say this both as an infertile woman & an adoptive mom.
I am not a saint for adopting. I hate when ppl suggest I am. I wanted to be a parent, I chose to adopt a legally free kid, because those kids are really in need of stability and permanency. I wish Hope had the chance to be fully raised in her family of origin.
And if that family had received the way around support they needed, she probably would have. The issues were complex, not just financial. BC we have an open adoption, I see up close what the needs were. I wish they had been available.
We are open connected and have so much love, but the wounds are real, and 6 years later so fresh, it hurts.
I get the call, the driving desire to parent. And I really, really don't like to be judgy, but the reality is that when we pray for the delivery for the delivery of a child through adoption, we are tacitly praying for a family's failure to thrive.
We pray to benefit from that failure to thrive. I'm not sure I'm OK with that when you turn the rock over and really look at it.
We pray for another's crisis and to provide a solution to take that 'problem' off their hands. It should be sobering. It should give us pause. It should make us think about what it would take to relieve the crisis & save a family.
Not every family will make it, and yes there will still be an unfortunate need for adoption, but it would be a wonderful thing to see a dominant narrative about family preservation over adoption.
One time I asked Hope what her fantasy life would be. W/O doing a beat: "To still be with my dad." I was shook, & still think about it today, years later.
Her fantasy did not & does not include me. It centers her family of birth, her birth parent. In a more perfect world, my daughter would never have met me BC she would not have a need to.
Yep, she loves me (I adore her). We love the life we have created, but we were created, in part because we as a society failed her parents. Yes, they to bear responsibility too, but I believe with help, they could have thrive instead of failed.
So as we observe #NAAM2019, and some of us pray for the children we desperately want, consider that or prayers center our desires over #familypreservation. I'm guessing that's not the holy homeboy's ideal scenario.
#goinpeace #adoption
#goinpeace #adoption
@threadreaderapp unroll please.
