It was interesting to read that Comic Mom was adopted herself. I'd like to know the story behind that...it might explain some of her bitterness.

She never does offer a suggestion about what to do with the unwanted children; she just says they should stay with their birth parents. I guess she'd be pro-orphanage.

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I think this line is the key: "my own natural mother, from whom I was separated for over 34 years". And then later:

"Social workers and media eager to help them
began so successfully deeming people parents
who weren’t that we began, in the latter part
of the twentieth century, to refer to 'parent'
as a verb, as if everyday I wake up and decide
whether or not I’ll be parenting my children
today. In reality, parenting is done at
conception."

Sounds like she maybe has some personal issues, and some unresolved anger at her adoptive parents....

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Well, if it weren't for the kooks, what the heck would be comment about?

I love the characterization that parents adopting children are forcibly separating the child from its biofamily. Thank goodness for those willing to adopt children, I think, for, in most cases, the biofamily have forcibly removed themselves from the child.

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I find it interesting that she never once mentions children adopted after their parents died, or ones whose parents are in prison. She only addresses children ripped from thier rightful families when in actuality, children are not take from their parents willy-nilly like she would have us believe, they are removed when thier parents are deemed unfit and placed into the foster care system until such time as their parents are once again able to care for them or surrender their parental rights so that they may be adopted. No child can be adopted without their parents' (or at least their mother's) consent.

She also seems ridiculously hostile towards infant formula, to the point where I, as someone who was incapable of breastfeeding my son due to lactation issues, was quite offended.

I'm sorry she feels deprived of her birth parents, but it certainly doesn't make it wrong for loving families to adopt children.

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Rachel, children are taken from their parents for many reasons, sometimes there isn't any proof other than a call from an anonymous caller saying that something is wrong in that home. Workers are over worked, they are human and sometimes they make mistakes. Usually those children go home fairly quickly. But children can be taken "willy-nilly" if a Social Worker says it should be so. The State CAN take away parental rights AND put the children up for adoption without either parent signing anything, IF the State determines that is what is best for the children.

I do agree that this woman is whacked. Adoption is a wonderful way to create a family. I don't think that blood ties or cultural ties matter as much as Ms. Smith Vaughn seems to think it does. Children need love, food, clothing, a place to sleep, and more love. You can love a child not related to you in any way. You can give him everything he needs, even if she was born in a different culture. I'm sorry that she feels so separated from her adopted family, that her heart is so small it can't encompass those with out blood ties to her.

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That poor woman -- she has more issues than my grandfather`s Life magazine collection.

On one hand, she seems to be making a pretty strong argument for the traditional family -- but then I couldn`t figure out if she was also trying to make an argument for single motherhood?

She says this: "Single pregnant women were called everything from "unwed" to “neurotic” to “feeble-minded”.

Well, um....yes, they would be "unwed," wouldn`t they? Does she think babies should stay with their biological mothers, even if they are unwed? What exactly is she trying to say?

The first part of her piece made me angry -- the entire piece just made me feel sorry for her.

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I'd kinda like to see a counterpoint from her adoptive parents. ("Don't adopt; they just grow up ungrateful and whiney!")

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I agree with Matthew and others that she has some very big personal issues and her premise is based on her feelings. Key phrases: "When my own natural mother, from whom I was separated for over 34 years, called the Office of Vital Records in the state in which I was born, she was told that she could not obtain my birth certificate; the worker’s exact words were “it’s as if you never had a child.” Does anyone believe that God wants mothers to be treated this way?"

"The truth is more lasting: Parents are created at natural conception and do not change throughout a child’s life."

"My own father was not allowed to communicate with my mother while she was locked in her maternity home prison. It’s hard to be a good dad when you’re never allowed to see your child.Studies show that separation from our mother, even at birth, can have devastating effects on children."

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It isn't even that much fun to poke holes in what Tricia Vaughn Smith is saying. So much of it seems to be based on fear, hate and ignorance.
Oddly she doesn't address the kind of adoption that I am hoping to be a part of. Older children who have been surrendered by their parents to the government or who have had their parental rights taken away by the courts.

Becca, while it is true that Social Workers can remove children from a home and it may even be true that this has been done in error or even for malicious reasons, I do not believe that it is at all common. Where I am from, the courts and children's services system view permanently terminating parental rights as a last resort.

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I'm adopted - a "family" adoption. Without taking up 3 paragraphs, my birth mother couldn't keep me, her first cousin and his wife didn't think they could have children and it seemed like a good solution. It was in many ways. In others, not so great but that was not the fault of either my birth or adoptive parents. Notice I don't mention birth father. I know who he is (or was) he's beneath contempt.

My folks gathered me up from a Catholic orphanage where my birth mother had been paying for my care while she worked and took care of her terminally ill mother. The nuns tried but from what I've heard, conditions there were grim.

She might have been able to wait until her mother died and then tried, as a single parent working for next to nothing in the middle of the depression, to raise me. I still probably would have been spending most of my time at St. Mary's with the nuns. I think her solution was brave and in my best interests.

My mom and dad, like so many "childless" couples, went on to have my kid brother before the ink dried on the adoption papers.

I don't think this woman has a clue and she sounds very sad as well as angry.

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Tricia Smith is right on with her comments. Clearly she has a much better understanding of adoption than most people in the US. The latest baby-crazy-woman-tries-to-cut-fetus-out-of-mother is simply a not very slick manifestation of the weird, fair game attitude towards mothers and their babies in the US. Mothers should be protected, whether from the murderous fathers of their babies, or from adoptors who crave a baby, any baby soooo baaaad. Non-orphan adoption is a last vestige of both radical patriarchy and slavery and needs to end. Caring people would mentor mothers who need help, not loot their babies to play house with.

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Uh, Mourning Dove, and what happens to those kids the birth mothers really, truly DON'T WANT? The ones they were guilted into not aborting?

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" You've just managed to piss of most of the civilized world."

I guess that civilized world is going out to buy ANYTHING you WANT, when you want it. Now we wouldn't want to piss off the delicate senses of civilized consumers.

It speaks volumes about those who are so
pro-adoption and they turn against the very adoptees adoption is supposed to serve.


Six Bible Facts:

FACT 1: God NEVER answered the prayers of ANY barren women in the Bible by adoption. He answered their prayers by giving them their own pregnancy and in His timing.


FACT 2: The pharaoh's daughter was a pagan. Her god was not the God of the Hebrew people, There was no covenant sanctioned between her and God.

FACT 2a: By faith, Moses refused to be called the son of the pharaoh's daughter.
- Hebrews: 11:24
Proving Moses would never have broken a covenant if it were sanctioned by God.


FACT 3: "adoption sanctioned by God in 38 places???"
Oh please, not one of those 38 places is about infant adoption, taking children from their living mothers or making contracts with state governments. Adoption in the bible was always between "adults" who had the ability to agree to it and speak for themselves.

God's firstborn (Israel) was NOT adopted ! It was the Gentiles He referred to as His adopted sons, through the death of His son.
It is a spiritual adoption NOT a physical adoption made by contracting with state governments and paying money to get what you want.


FACT 4: God would never sanction lies:
as in falsified birth certicates or teaching a child they are someone they are not.

FACT 5: God would never sanction a closed adoption system - It would have prevented Moses from doing God's will with his own people.

FACT 6: God would never sanction the buying and selling human flesh trade of adoption.

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I find it ironic that religion on one hand will speak about family values and on the other hand own and operate adoption agencies and or condone the separating of mothers and their infants. Shame on them!!!!!!!
Pandora's box has been opened and there is no stopping the horrors that have been unleashed.When religious leaders have no respect for the sanctity of Mommy and baby can we expect anyone else to?
Also,Our government is in deep with the adoption industry as they just passed "The INFANT adoption awareness act" and monies for more 'Homes for unwed Mothers. These programs are not for children needing families, they are for needy people feeling entitled to another womans child.And our government will tell a Mother why someone else is more worthy to parent her child than she is.Our government is trying to bring back the baby scoop era of the 60's.Also, there is a need for healthy white infants for the clients of the adoption trade.There is indeed money to be made because of the need for the supply to be met by the demand for infants.
And why shouldn't adoptees and Mothers of adoption loss be angry? Also, many mothers are finding out at reunion that these so called more worthy adoptive parents were abusive, divorced, went on welfare,were substance abusers, abused alcohol, drugs, had affairs. A good mother will sacrifice herself but will not sacrifice her child. Mothers are finding out is that they were lied to and coerced into losing their babies to the adoption industry.
For those few Mothers that can not raise their own child there is such a thing as legal guardianship. When the child becomes an adult the decision can then be made if they want their name changed by the act of adoption.That way adoptees and their Natural Mothers can find each other and then decide what their relationships will be like.Mothers were never promised privacy from their own children. Show me one paper signed that states that she was.You can't because it never happened.Mothers agreed to not raise their child not to never have a relationship with them.The adoptive parents were led to believe or wishful thinking, by the adoption agencies that the children they were adopting would be the same as if they had given birth to them and would never have a need to find their natural families. Wrong.Remember the movie Roots? and how far people will go to find their families? The same need is there with adoption. Seems like a lot of people were lied to.
Follow the money trail and it will lead you to Washington and the adoption industry.
Perhaps what we need is someone to throw the money changers out of the temple again and get back to churches teaching true family values and get out of the adoption business.

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What else could I expect but vicious, derisive lack of understanding (and decent manners)when someone dares to tell the truth about the adoption mind-set and industry in this country? I heard a young woman in my employ state that, if she were to become pregnant before she finished college, she would "give the baby" to a teacher of hers who has not been able to conceive. What kind of society do we live in that takes the bond between Mother and child so lightly as to make a woman believe she can treat her own offspring like a gift to another?

Tricia Smith is so right on the money. I have the evidence of my own adult surrendered child to back me up on this. I was a pregnant teen in 1961 and I was treated like dirt, forced to surrender my child, and my motherhood and my grief over the loss of my child was treated as non-existent. My daughter was treated as a care-taker for the emotional needs of her infertile adopters. That is still the prevalent formula, today, especially with the ultra-conservative agenda we have going on.

When the churches give "help" to a pregnant woman it is the same as judging her, finding her morally wanting and harvesting her baby for those deemed "more worthy." What a joke. WANTING a baby does not make someone entitled to the child of another and helping a young Mother to keep and raise her child sounds like a sounder Christian precept than the alternative. Had it not been for the Puritanical concept of a child being illegitimate, there would not be such a moralistic fuss when unwed pregnancy occurs. Would the Jews have taken Jesus from Mary had Joseph not been waiting at the door to rescue her? Would they have given the infant Messiah to a "More Worhty" infertile Jewish couple?

God makes families, not man-made institutions like adoption. It is a way to break families, not build them. Solomon knew that a child belonged with its true Mother when he made his decision. Moses knew he belonged with his true family when he discovered what his roots were and who his family was.

It is only modern man who has decided he can go The Almighty one better by manipulating families to suit the agenda at hand. Funny...Hitler tried that too.

I defy any of these people who have used terms like "whack job" and other nasty terms to criticize Tricia Smith and her article to go years without knowing if your precious baby is alive or dead, or to be delegated to the role of a distant "family friend" as in open adoptions and hear your child call another woman "Mommy." I defy them to go a lifetime not fitting in with the people who you call your family and wondering why you weren't good enough for your Mother to keep you. No adult understanding can erase the pain of that child who asks, "Why, Mommy?"

The lack of campassion and understanding exibited by the respondents to this blog is all I can expect from present-day "Christians" and their ilk. The love of truth went out of this religion and this society a long time ago.

Adoption is very seldom a good answer for anyone except the adopters and the people who profit from that adoption. Adoption is a cultural icon in American and we need a lot more iconoclasts like Tricia Smith.

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Regarding the comment about what do mothers do who are guilted out of having abortions: this is similar to the conditions in the '50's and '60's when abortion was illegal and birth control was forbidden to people who were not married. Pregnant women without wedding rings were fired from their jobs, thrown out of obstetricians' offices, expelled from school, shunned and shamed mercilessly, blamed for everything that was wrong anywhere, often even prevented from marrying their baby's father and having a scandalous less than nine-month pregnancy. They were shipped off to maternity institutions far from their homes where their babies were snatched from the delivery rooms by greedy adoptors who then claimed to be noble and heroic for "rescuing" the babies. This would seem to have much in common with somebody starting a fire so he can run in the burning building, rescue the occupants and be a hero. (Note also that in the '60's, at least some of these "heroes" were infertiles who had figured out a way to dodge the draft...)

It was a situation that society setup--both the rules and the punishment, the punishment being forced adoption of babies of single mothers. If this had happened somewhere else, we would call it by it's rightful name, which is Torture. Destroying a real family to cobble up a fake family has widespread repercussions, and is cold and ugly, not warm and fuzzy.

We need to take a close look at non-orphan adoptions. Adoption is currently a classic example of overkill. Every pregnant woman needs to be protected by laws that prevent her from being approached or contacted or spoken to in any way about adoption. This law needs to keep adoptors and the baby business away from her and her baby until her baby is at least two months old. It's the moral thing to do.

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Remember the story of "The emperor has no clothes?Pretty much the same thing when it comes to the truth about adoption.The victims will be blammed and asked what is it that she did to cause this to happen.
Pretty much that is why those with low self esteem will not come out to speak up about what was done to them in adoption. The problem with that is that it plays into the agenda of the victimizer. For myself I have lived too many years to care what others have to say about me and besides what can they do to me that is any worse than what was done?
Only in America will towns lead groups to try and find a lost child and give the Mothers and fathers condolences and yet when a Natural family speak out about the abuse of adoption they will be looked at like they are nuts. This however is what those that are afraid of the truth coming out will resort to.
The National Council for adoption is in tight with the Bush Admin.and they are in the pockets of the adoption agencies. Interestingly, they state that they are wanting to protect Us Mothers by keeping the adoption records closed.We know who they are protecting and it isn't us. It never was.It is called CYA,
The thing they didn't figure on though is that we never forgot and we are no longer the scared young women that they figured would keep us silent. My integrity will not allow me to be silent when I see they are continuing the same abuse that was heaped upon good women and children of the past and attempt to bring it into the here and now. I would even consider leaving others in their denial if in doing so it didn't hurt anyone. However, secrets and lies hurt good women and children so I and others that have been brave enough to come out of the fog will continue to speak out.
Have a nice truth-filled day.

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#6. Does Tricia Smith advocate unwed Mothers keeping their babies? Well, DUH...yes she does and so do I! I guess there are still a lot of Dan Quayle's out there. Before adoption became such a big thing, all children were expected to stay with their Mothers,married or not. Many young Mothers are exemplary parents with just a little bit of support and aide.

#7. Why is is necessary for a child to be "grateful" for what they should take for granted? Their lives and their nuture are not things over which they shoud be carrying a sense of obligation for the rest of their lives. What a burden this society would have the adoptee bear.

#9. So much of the distaff comments on this blog against what was written seem to be based on ignorance of the real feelings and problems of those who lost to adoption, fear of losing faith in a societeal icon and a total lack of compassion or understanding for the huge number of people hurt by adoption.

#11. So you think that Ms. Smith would find fault with stepfamilies? You're missing her point by a mile. At least stepchildren KNOW who their real parents are and don't have to pretend otherwise. You were really reaching with that one.

Now, to address the repeated theme of the "unwanted child." Many of us became pregnant at an inopportune time in our lives. Our babies weren't unwanted, just unplanned and our pregnancies were treated with disdain by others. You should be a fly on the wall at some of these support groups for Mothers Of Loss to Adoption. You would hear how many of us desperately wanted to keep our babies but were coerced into signing away our hearts. And it still happens, today.

How many young Moms of today hear the mantras about finishing school, lack of funds, "wait until you are established," etc.? These babies are NOT as "unwanted" as you would think. It is just that the people who stand to gain from the Mother's loss want her to see her present condition as never-changing and impossible to surmount. Very few of these babies are unwanted...just, as I said, unplanned. (Adoption, like suicide, is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. We don't stay young, impecunious, and single forever.)

I went on to raise two children, starting at age 19. My financial situation was no better, I was only 3 years older than when I lost my daughter to adoption, and I still hadn't finished my education. The only thing that allowed me to retain my parental rights and raise my children was that almighty wedding ring on my finger. My family would not have to suffer the imagined horror-filled reactions of their neighbors. Yes I was young and inexperienced but so what? I did a damn fine job...ask my children.

You know what? the children I raised turned out a lot better adjusted, more mature and more responsible that the one I didn't. She has a multitude of emotional problems. BUT, she had two married parents with money, now didn't she?

C'mon, you adoption apologists. You don't "build" a family on the crushed heart of a Mother and the pre-verbal grief and confusion of an infant. You HAVE one by the grace of God/dess and if you don't, you weren't meant to.

Tricia Smith has LIVED the pain. How many of you have? How many of you hide your true feelings to spare your adopters or to stay true to the party line? I have LIVED the pain. How many of you are wishing the Mothers of your adoption-acquired children would just fade away and die? How many of you Moms are walking around in a glassy-eyed daze trying to hold on to the myth of how "heroic" you were to let your child go into the hands of genetic strangers? How many of you adopters, especially those who have gone on to have your own children, are keeping very silent about the noticable lack of the blood bond between you and your adoptee? How many facilitators and attorneys are rubbing their hands together in glee as they see this society continue to accept and even support the destruction of one family to form a faux one? $$$ talks, here! No amount of denial will persuade me that the above-mentioned people who suffer from adoption are not legion in numbers.

I have no more of a problem, by the way, with Gay people adopting than I do with heterosexual people adopting..I don't think ANYONE should do it. IF you MUST have a child, then there are plenty of older and special needs children in foster care whose extended families have not come forward to help. A legal guardianship of such a child, one truely in need, would be very gratifying, I would think. Why an infant unless you are trying hard to pretend that you "had your own?"

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It would be good to properly educate yourselves instead of trying to negate Tricia's words and experiences.

Do the homework. Read about adoption... the history of adoption written by social workers, historians and sociologists.

Why not learn the truth? Why perpetuate the propaganda? The adoption industry has decided what it wants you to know about adoption.

It doesn't want the public to know the truth.. the dark side because if it did, it would not be singing the praises of a man-made institution that has failed miserably. An industry that makes over $1.4 BILLION a year from separating mothers and their children. An industry that depends on the public's ignorance for their salaries.

The truth is that adoption hurts people. It is based on myths and lies.

To learn the truth read: "Fallen Women, Problem Girls," by Regina Kunzel. Read: "Wake Up Little Susie," and "Beggars and Choosers," by Rickie Solinger... both highly respected professors and historians. Read: "Death By Adoption," by Joss Shawyer. There are many others.

Go to the experts and learn what it is. it is best not to push the very profitable agenda of the industry.

Ask a mother who has lost her child how it feels, how it has negatively affected her life. Ask her if she had a real "choice." As her if she was from the Baby Scoop Era of the 1960s. (In order to have a choice you have to
have at least two things from which to choose. These mothers had only one:
adoption.)

Ask an adoptee what it really feels like to be adopted. Did it ever feel injurious? Did they ever feel free to talk about their feelings about being adopted? Did they fit into the family in which they were adopted? Did they
feel like other people who were not adopted?

Get the answers. Don't believe everything in the newspapers and the media.

There is no such thing as the "loving option of adoption."

Let me share this...

SOCIAL WORK AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS," published by the National Association of Social Workers (1964)

"Because there are many more married couples wanting to adopt newborn white babies than there are babies, it may almost be said that they, rather than out of wedlock babies, are a social problem. (Sometimes social workers in
adoption agencies have facetiously suggested setting up social provisions for more 'baby breeding.')"

Think about it.

It makes me sick to my stomach to know that social workers (with the social DUTY to properly advise mothers of their choices) viewed "unwed mothers" as baby breeders and wished they had more. Just because a mother isn't married does not mean she does not have a legal right to HER child.

The legal and civil rights of these mothers were completely ignored and abused. How would any person like it if their natural mother was removed from them for this reason?

I usually ask people who question adoption, "Which one of your children would you willingly 'give up' to adoption?" These mothers didn't willing surrender their babies either.

During the Baby Scoop Era, after WWII and before Roe v. Wade, there was a very strong MARKET for WHITE babies for infertile couples.

Not much has changed since then except the methods that the industry uses are much more clever and manipulative. New terms, new methods... same old coercive practices. Under the spell of adoption myths...

KarenWB
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948-1998)
"Article 25: (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection."

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QUOTE FROM POST #11 "Well, yes, adoption IS sanctioned by God. The Bible refers to the concept of adoption in at least 38 places. In the Old Testament, God calls the nation of Israel "my firstborn son...my treasured possession...my child." Sounds suspiciously like adoption to me!" END OF QUOTE

Being fairly well schooled in Bible lore, I have to say that, with this quote, the proof-texting is obvious. "even the Devil can quote the scriptures"..to back up their own agenda. The Christian church of today is deeply into adoption and, of course, therein lies the use of scripture to perpetuate the misconception that adoption is sanctioned by the scripture, ergo by God.

The references in the Old Testament are largely in the context of the place of importance in the Jewish religion of the Israelites. They were considered, (by themselves) to be "God's chosen people." It was their duty to adhere to the Laws and worship God as the only true God. I see nothing that likens this to adoption in any of those references. I challenge this as being more than just obscure. It is taking one thing and making it mean another..ie., "proof-texting."

If we are to believe (which I personally don't...my right) in the infallibility of the Bible, then why are the geneoligies of Geneisis and other books so important? Does it remark that Seth was "adopted" by Adam and Eve or Isaac by Abraham? The only REAL references to anything even distantly comparable to adoption are ones in which the outcome is in favor of the natural heritage of the child.

Sarah had Abraham take a concubine and conceive a child with her in order to have a baby to raise. God circumvented that "first surrogacy" by causing Sarah to conceive at the age of 90 (or thereabouts) and she gave birth to Isaac. Hagar was sent out into the dessert with her child. Hmmm. Two natural Moms there and not an adoption anywhere.

Following the line of reason which turns these scriptures into pro-adoption messages could lead one to the erroneous conclusion that the goat sacrificed to God by Abraham in lieu of his son, Isaac, was Abraham's adopted child.

The oblique and cloudy references to scripture which use comments about the church and Jesus or the children of Israel and God are very frail and tenuous "proofs" of the Almighty's approval of adoption.

The closest thing to real adoption that I see in the entire Bible is in the New Testament, the acceptance of Joseph as Jesus' step-father. Even with that, he knew who his real Father was and was in communication with him. Jesus's human heritage was also covered in the New Testament.

It has long been scientifically proven that human babies are NOT just blank slates on which you can impress a relationship that is not there. Whether adopters and adoption facilitators want to believe it, bonding does begin in the womb. To survive, an infant will take nurture where he/she can get it. But there is no subsitute for the smell, feel and sound of their own Mother. They will "attach to" and love those who nurture them but the primal bond is still with the natural Mother. If knowing the truth about that is uncomfortable, I'm sorry. But the truth will set us all free.

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