An apology to the adoption community

A couple of days ago, I posted a news item about a woman who sold her baby. I made an aside at the end of the post, that was intended not as a flippant remark about legal adoption, but as a "discussion starter". We do that a lot around here - at Blogging Baby we aren't trying to just be a news clipping service, but to provide you with interesting, original content, and to engage you, our readers in discussion.

Some readers were offended by that remark, and lambasted me in the comments for it. I reacted defensively, and posted an economic analogy in the comments that really set things on fire. I was trying to raise a point about another user's comments, and compared the exchange of money for value in an adoption to the exchange of money for value in any other economic transaction.

Unfortunately, in the analogy I referenced buying a roast beef, and this was really, an absolutely terrible choice of words, given the context and the sensitivity of the subject, and for that, I do apologize profusely. I did apologize in my last post on this subject, but I apologized inadvertently in a backhanded way, which was certainly not my intent. So I will apologize properly here: I apologize for offending people in the adoption community, especially with the analogy, which clearly upset people.

I would like to make it clear, here, that my boss was very supportive of me as a writer. Some readers were so upset that they started a boycott of our advertisers; I am not making this apology to stop a boycott; frankly, I think that boycotting an entire site - especially one that has been very supportive of adoption and the adoption community - because of the opinions of a single writer, is not really the way to handle a disagreement. The disagreement was with me and what I said, not with Blogging Baby as a site, which I think offers tremendous value to all the parents who come here. My boss left it up to me, how to handle all this. And I am choosing, of my own volition, to apologize for offending some of our readers, because they are right, I was wrong, and I think it is the right thing to do.

People are sensitive, and this is a sensitive topic. Obviously, I do not think babies are commodities; nor do I equate employment to slavery. I am a mother of five, and my children are precious to me. However, I've learned a lot from this discussion about how people feel on the subject:

• I learned, particularly, that adoption is a very sensitive subject for a lot of people, and that when you write about adoption, you need to be very careful what you say so that you don't unintentionally hurt anyone's feelings;
• I learned that, in the "adoption community", there is certain terminology you just shouldn't use, and that there are philosophical distinctions between the concept of adoption versus the concept of "buying" a baby on the street - and that this is a serious issue that should not be taken lightly;
• I learned that, in this medium, words can be taken out of context and feelings hurt because you are not face-to-face, where you have the benefit of facial expression and tone of voice to temper your words. Had the initial conversation taken place with everyone sitting down over coffee together, I think it would have been a different discussion;
• I also learned that a lot of Blogging Baby readers don't know me personally, and therefore don't know that I am basically a very nice person, a caring mother, and a person who loves and reveres all children, as most of the people who read me regularly on my own site do. And therefore, that I need to be that much more careful how I say things, so as not to offend;
• Perhaps most importantly, I learned that when you've hurt peoples' feelings, intentionally or not, sometimes the best thing to do is not to attempt to defend yourself, but to simply take a step back and say, "Wow, I'm really sorry. I had no intention of hurting your feelings that way, and I really apologize for that";
• I learned that sometimes, when you make a mistake and hurt someone's feelings, they will not be ready to forgive you because you apologize, and that I have to just accept that and hope that those readers who think I'm some horrible person will, eventually, change their minds about me;
• I learned that the adoptive parents who come to Blogging Baby love their children passionately, and will defend them just as passionately when they feel their families are being attacked.

I also learned a lot from some of the comments made. In particular, I learned a great deal from Jen-Ex's comments. She made many excellent points, which helped me to understand the point of view of the adoptive parent much better. She made me realize that what I viewed as an issue of semantics is something that she and other adoptive parents have thought about, talked about and agonized over, and she helped me grasp exactly why people were so offended. So thank you, Jen-Ex, for your clear-headed comments that focused on the issue and explaining why you were offended.

Figlet, also, took the time to illustrate, by way of another analogy, why people were offended by my analogy, and Figlet, I appreciate you taking the time to do that as well. Your comment made me really take a step back and see it from your point of view.

Michelle made a great point too, one I hadn't thought of, which was that in the original story about the mom selling her baby, the woman who bought the baby, bought the baby, literally - unlike adoptive parents who are going through legitimate channels, who know they are paying for particular expenses associated with their adoption fees. Michelle, that's a great point, and I honestly hadn't thought of it that way, so thank you for making it.

Karen pointed out that she was hurt that this post (well, presumably more by my comments after the post) denigrated the legitimacy of the adoption triad. And you're right, Karen. A legit adoption is different that the mom selling her baby. This is the kind of discussion I was hoping to raise, actually, by ending the original post with, "What's the diff?" - it was intended as an invitation to discussion, but I should have just said, "What do you think", so as to make that clear.

Mortimer's Mom had raised a different perspective - that it hurts her adopted daughter for people to view her as a commodity that was bought, not a child who is loved. And you're right, MM - I would never tell my kids, "Well, we didn't get to by that new speedboat because we had to pay for your birth". Thank you for helping me to see it from your daughter's point of view.

Amber and the other moms who were so angered they decided to start a boycott also made me think, in that their actions made me realize just how much I had offended them, and how deeply they were hurt by my words. So, although I don't agree that boycotting an entire site for the opinion of one person is how I personally would choose to handle a similar situation, I very much appreciate your passion, and thank you for showing me how angry you were, so that I could think about why.

Halloweenlover brought up the point that selling a baby directly is not "adopting", it is "child-trafficking". That point is well taken, and thank you for making it.

And, in general - I really appreciate the discussion and all the points made. I didn't respond to every single comment at the time, in case you were wondering, because, frankly, I was feeling attacked, and I needed to take some time to just sit back and process all the points of view I was being hit with. I wanted to get my personal story - my experiences as an almost birth mom - out there, to share more about where I was coming from.

Having taken the time to really read through and think through every single one of your comments, I want to say, unequivocally, that I apologize, most sincerely, for hurting anyone's feelings or offending you or your children. That was truly, honestly, not my intent, but I am sorry.