Adoption is complex both psychologically and sociologically. Adoption is practiced in some cultures and not in others - what motivates some cultures to transfer babies from one family to another?
How do those in power utilize "Positive Adoption Language" to create a "culture of adoption" in order to influence families to surrender their own children and grandchildren? How did so many people become infertile and how are those in the business of adoption and reproductive technologies exploiting their infertility? Are mothers being used as if they were only a source of babies for adoption, a kind of human breeding-machine? How do family members fare, after being separated for adoption? How do families with open adoptions fare? This adoption blog will address these questions and more.
In United States there is a large market for babies for adoption and few real orphans to be found that are young and healthy enough to be desirable for adoption. The lack of healthy orphan babies is no impediment to the adoption industry - when their customers have money, then babies can be "found".
The babies are often said to be "unwanted" - a veritable "crisis". Do moms really think of their infant sons and daughters are like some old junky sofa to be donated? One "birthmother" website states: “Adoption is not about unwanted babies — it is about unwanted mothers.”
Perhaps the most important device used to get more babies for adoption is to deprive moms of acknowledgement of their motherhood, their very humanity. This is easily accomplished through language. To make a Latino man appear to be "less than" human refer to him as a "spic". To make an African American woman seem "less than" human refer to her as a "nigger". To make a single mother or father appear to be "less than" human refer to these very real parents as "unwed mothers" "birthmother", "birthfather" or "birthparent". Few people would want to take the mother away from a baby, but just call this mother a "birthmother" and she seems to have the role of a placenta - MEANT to be discarded.
A person who was adopted at birth may say her mom DESERVES to be called a "birthmother birth object" for surrendering her. Do the people who adopted her also deserve some awful title for creating the "market" for babies? Some moms say they knew the ONLY way they would be permitted to keep their babies was if they were born with Down's Syndrome or some other health problem - and thus "unwanted" by so-called "loving" couples.
Today, people who want to adopt (puchase) a human baby have become very demanding. They are "goal-oriented" professionals, some of them quite skilled in negotiating. And - having put career ahead of family - the prospective adopters have plenty of money.
It's easy to take advantage of a mother who is suffering from the effects of pregnancy and childbirth.
"Dear Birthmother" letters are everywhere - cool, calculated attempts to make mothers feel inadequate and make the people adopting appear to be god-like. If a mother "just didn't want" her baby, would it be necessary to push her to "choose" adoption well in advance of birth and get prospective adopters lined up and calling THEMSELVES the "real parents"?
When her baby is born, the mother is the REAL PARENT, legally and otherwise. The people waiting to buy her baby (the purchase disguised as "adoption services") are simply prospective baby buyers - NOTHING else.
