Adoption is a legal solution to a spiritual problem

I wrote a poem called "Adoption is" and wanted to expand the poem with a blog.

Today I will focus on how adoption  can be viewed as a legal solution to a problem that, in my opinion, is spiritual in nature.

I am not enough

This is one of many thoughts that a pregnant woman has when she is considering relinquishing her child for adoption.  It is the central theme in my own relinquishment and in my daughter's relinquishment.  If either of our mother's believed they were enough, then adoption would have never entered the scene.  Believing we are not enough is a spiritual sickness.  It's a way of not loving ourselves. It's a society sickness when people tell a pregnant woman that she is not enough because she does not have enough a) money b) maturity c) support or d) love to raise her own child.


I am not going to argue the point that there are many things necessary to raise a child and that in some situations a woman may not be have the proper tools to parent, but it is my belief that the sickness of "I am not enough" is behind all the other obvious fears of lack behind relinquishing.  If women believed they were enough and their families believed it and society backed up that belief with proper support, then adoption would be a much rarer occurrence.

Give up your child and you can have a "fresh start"

More spiritual sickness falls under the belief that handing your newborn over to others will somehow magically wipe your slate clean.  And the slate of the child's.  The child will never look back again and you, as the woman, surrendering will never have regret over not being a mom to your child while you pursue your "dream" career and of course, travel and meet Mr. Right without the cumbersome baggage of a kid.

It would be a different world if all women everywhere supported other women having babies to keep and raise their own children.  Instead, there is a spiritual sickness within adoption agencies placing advertisements for vulnerable women to relinquish their newborns by promoting the lies of "open adoption" and "a fresh start".
 
It would be a different world if people understood immediately adoptees' need for their true history, without judgment, condemnation and laws that stop a minority segment of society from knowing and understanding themselves.  We all deserve our true history and I can tell you from personal experience, the slate was not wiped clean when adoption changed my name, my location, and my personal data.  I'm sure my mother could attest to the same thing.  Her slate was not wiped clean when she remembered my black hair every Christmas and the regret of never holding me in her arms.

My rights are paramount over your rights

You can never legislate feelings, blood, biology or love.  But adoption tries to do this by ending all legal rights of a child to his original family.  The heavy hand of the law ends all legal relationships with the original family, including inheritance.  Why?  It doesn't seem necessary to me.  It seems kind of like hitting a fly with a hammer when a fly swatter would do.  But we Americans have our rights and our rights include ownership of a child.  Our rights include changing the child's name.  Our rights include making sure nobody else can come waltzing into our homes and take our property.  Adoption is the hammer when legal custody would do.

Legal custody is not perfect, but it does not change a child's name.  It does not alter history.  It does not amend birth certificates.  It is legal non-fiction.  It tells the story without fictionalizing it like adoption does.

Conclusion

If each one of us valued the other person's original identity, heritage, name, and blood and we backed up those beliefs with fair laws, and legal proceedings that did not steal another's birth right, the world would be a better place and I suspect adoption would become a much rarer occurrence.