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this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2023
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chapotraphouse
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Alternatives to adoption that are not buying a human being:
Kinship care: a lot of people do this without realizing its an alternative to adoption, ex: being raised by a grandparent or other relative
Community care: most examples i can think of are indigenous children being raised by non relatives in their community so they can be raised in the culture but this can be applied to other groups, ie: its better if a poc is raised by another poc within their culture so they aren't separated from it, also they don't have to experience the awful abuse that is one's adoptive parents and entire extended family being racist to you (also made worse if the adopters are in a majority white area so you get the racism at school and home, ask me how I know
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Worse case scenario that isn't adoption that really wouldn't be as common as non adoptees think: guardianship, you don't own the child, you do not get to rename them, you do not get to have their birth certificate redone with your information which seals their old birth certificate - making it incredibly difficult to find their biological family if they want to, and you do not get to hide their medical information from them
At the end of day, the focus should be on the children and not the adults who want a child. Getting the child back to their biological family should be the priority. There really aren't as many "kids without homes" that non adoptees think there are and many of the "domestic supply of infants" as mentioned in the roe v wade overturning wouldn't exist if it weren't for systemic racism and the resulting poverty.
Also it is incredibly hurtful to think of adoption as your worst case scenario when you can't have a biological child. We are people harmed by the worst of capitalism, misogyny, and imperialism, not a last resort.
I don't think this. I would have be leaning adoption even if I could have a child before the information you've told me here. Because I thought it was the less harmful option due to antinatalist arguments (Not an antinatalist, but their arguments influenced me this way).
Anyway the options you present above arent really available for me. Im distant from my family and not active in my community. And unfortunately because of my autism and the way that childcare is corrupted by capitalism my options for working in childcare are limited. Ive done it before and talked a lot about how that experiance was ruined for me in vairous ways. Id be completly satisifed taking care of other people's kids in perpetuity if I could, I think.
I wouldnt do any of this anyway? Is this stuff inherent to adoption somehow in ways that Im not aware of? I guess what i was thinking of as "adoption" is just guardianship then. I would have no desire to erase the original biological family of a child I was the guardian of. I'm not insecure like that. I wouldn't want to own the child. I agree with your child-first philosophy here.
Also sounds like it would be better if I adopted (or did guardianship for?) a white child, even though before this conversation saying that phrase would have disgusted me as obviously racist lol. Since it sounds like the complications for poc children adopted by white parents are significant.
I mean, I agree with this, but we're a long way off from providing economic justice for everyone. And there would still be cases like teen parents who are simply not ready to raise a kid.
I thank you for your experiance as an adoptee though. But do you have sources that your experience is more than anecdotal?
I honestly don't see how this isn't framing adoption as your last resort before just not having kids?
If adoption or an alternative has to happen the priority should be the child, not the adults.
Yes. This is standard in the us.
Yes, if you are white it is better you raise a white child than a non white child
With access to better sex ed, contraceptives, and abortion there would not be a large domestic supply of infants. Also many teen parents do not want to give their child up for adoption but are coerced with financial incentives.
The current solution to this is not to buy a human being, it is to support struggling families via mutual aid or the previous alternatives to adoption mentioned. Obviously under the current system there are children in need but the system perpetuates the conditions that create children in need so they can be sold to white, wealthy families who want infants (i specify infants as they are the gold standard for what most adoptive families want and theyre the most expensive to adopt) so choosing to participate in it helps create financial incentives for the industry
I fucked up the formating so I have to put this down here, sorry
That is not what I meant by community care, a different example: you're a white person who grew up in say New Orleans, it would be better for you to raise a white child also from New orleans so they would be closer to their biological family and raised in a somewhat similar culture to what they would have anyway. This is preferable to you buying a Black kid from Haiti and raising them in a majority white area.
If youre officially diagnosed with autism it will heavily effect your ability to adopt in the traditional sense. The system is also incredibly ableist, which effects which mothers have their children taken away and in turn, also effects who can buy their child. If youre not officially diagnosed it probably won't effect you or if you have enough money
Also fucked up the formating again and can't do a quote for your last part, sorry
What sources do you want for my experience not being "more than anecdotal"? The examples of children being taken from their mothers due to ableism, racism, imperialism, and classim? How adoptees do better when not completely separated from their country of birth and culture to be raised by and around no one who looks like them? Adoption being a tool of genocide? Other experiences from actual adoptees and not the adoption agencies that profit off of selling us?
Genuinely asking
Other experiences of adoptees or preferably even data surveying them would be great yeah. The thing I'm curious about is your individual negative experience.
Sorry to give that impression. My later statement clarifies that adoption would (have been) my first choice regardless. That said, I do feel like your stance here kind of stigmatizes queer couples in a way I'm a bit uncomfortable about.
I agree with this. I think you're writing me off as a narcissist that I am very much not. I am very much a child-first person. I can see now how phrasing things as "wanting to have a kid" could be seen that way, even though its a very common desire. Im more interested in being involved in the care of children in any possible way because its the only thing that drives me. But I would also prefer to have the chance to have a child I am the primary guardian of because caring for other people's children can be a frustrating experience when they are neglectful or abusive. Honestly, my experiance in childcare, and one shared by many people I know who's experiance with their biological parents were negative, is that a person's biological family are often the WORST people for that child. "Parental rights" is a right wing dogwhistle for a reason, and a cover for abuse. I'm a community based childcare advocate (kids should have a variety of nonfamily adults in their lives so abuse has no place to hide) but getting us to that point is a long way off.
Thats awful. Can I just like, not do that though? Surely as the person doing the adopting I would have the choice to say "No, I dont want to erase this kid's past, that is not my goal".
I can see how this is true, but I also can't shake the feeling that there is something racist or "woke segregation" about this attitude as well? I have mixed feelings about it.
Agreed with the first part obviously. With the second part though, I'm a bit hesitant to say that a naive child who thinks they want to keep their child should be able to. I'm not sure they are ready to consent to that. If they have family who are able to help them then sure, but if they'd be the only caregiver? I feel like that almost always ends poorly for the child. Are we acutally being child-first here or are we being biological parent-first? Because there's a pretty big difference, and the two are often inappropriately conflated.
First of all, I would rather NOT have to pay money for a child because I find that system disgusting too. Children shouldnt be a market. But I mean, is your answer here to leave kids in the system? Surely a stable home is better for kids than the system? And again the more I write about this the more I want to say, what about kids from genuinely abusive homes. There are a LOT of those. And the more I read about your stance the more I think your stance is inappropriately weighting the rights of a biological parent OVER that of the child, while claiming to be child-first.
OK, so adopt/be a guardian for a local kid. Got it.
I am officially diagnosed and yes thats a concern of mine. Honestly I realize that none of this is probably ever going to be a possibility for me anyway. And that makes me very sad. Because I am very good with kids and I know I'd be a good father.
Itll take me a little bit to respond w sources cuz theyre saved jn a few different places but I'll do it sometime this weekend and also reply to the rest of this comment
OK sounds good take your time.
(1 )Im trying to reply in a different tab but it isnt sending so im going to try on this one in smaller comments.
Sources first
Adoptee and biological family voices
-UK did a study on adoptions from unmarried women https://committees.parliament.uk/work/1522/the-right-to-family-life-adoption-of-children-of-unmarried-women-19491976/news/164944/ongoing-legacy-of-historic-adoption-practices-revealed-in-published-evidence/ -https://www.thenation.com/article/society/adoption-parenting-choice/ -https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/why-families-should-think-twice-about-international-adoption-20230831.html
Examples of adoption and family separation as a tool of genocide (many of the articles also includes adoptee voices on how they feel about their adoption)
-Children separated at the US and Mexican border can be adopted by white families despite them having families who want them. https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2018/1009/Separated-from-parents-some-migrant-children-are-adopted-by-Americans -Korean adoptees are believed to be the largest group of adoptees. Adoption of Koreans made orphans and the mixed raced children resulting of US invaders raping Korean women started after the invasion and was increased under the US backed dictatorships of Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwa. Many documents were falsified to make it look like the children were orphans ““The falsified orphan family registry was very much an integrated part of an adoption system that turned children into adoptive children.”” Informed consent was not provided, “researcher assisting the DKRG with its application to the commission, says more than 90% of the adoptees whose cases he is dealing with had at least one parent – and that adoption agencies failed to get informed consent from the biological parents. At a time when international adoption was not well understood, social workers “did not make it clear to parents that adoption meant not being able to see their child ever again.”” In a poor country, financial incentives were given for selling children “If the child was released to the adoption agency, “the agency would pay the hospital bill for them”, he says. Shin estimates that hospitals would have received the equivalent at today’s values of about £1,600 for each referred child. The small number of hospital workers involved would have doubled their annual salaries through these illegal schemes, he says.” https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/sep/28/korea-is-hiding-our-past-the-adoptees-searching-for-their-families-and-the-truth
(2) “Children of sin” born from Belgium colonizer fathers and Congolese mothers were taken from their mothers https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/2/3/the-children-colonial-belgium-stole-from-africa -The Sixties Scoop was used in Canada and the US to take Indigenous children from their families. An important note here is that the white colonizers are the ones who force poverty on Indigenous people then steal their children as punishment for being poor rather than providing reparations or financial support. They are then removed from their culture which leads to cultural genocide. https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/sixties_scoop/ https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/sixties-scoop-americans-paid-thousands-indigenous-children-1.3781622 -The Romani/Roma face discrimination in Europe which leads them to being poorer and being investigated for child abuse more often with “Notably, the impact of preconceived conceptions and a social worker's view of the Romani community were noted in a research document known as the "Bratinka Report".26 This report found that 38% of social workers felt that the main obstacle to better relationships were the "unsavoury characteristics of the Roma."” Again the solution was to take their children and give them to white families rather than try to help the Roma. http://www.errc.org/roma-rights-journal/forced-removal-of-romani-children-from-the-care-of-their-families -During the dictatorship of Jorge Meijide in Argentina, pregnant women who were disappeared were kept alive until they gave birth. Then they were killed and the child was sold to a family the dictatorship approved of, “For decades, hundreds of children have been raised by the same people who were responsible for the torture and death of their biological parents.” https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/jan/16/tracing-stolen-children-of-argentina-dirty-war -In more recent news, the US murders an infant’s entire family in Afghanistan, while lying and claiming the father was a suicide bomber. The infant has living family members that want to raise her but a marine kidnapped her and the US is siding with the abductors as usual. Also important to note here that the US invaded Afghanistan, destroyed the country, then claims the child is better off with an American couple. https://apnews.com/article/afghan-baby-us-marine-custody-battle-b157557538b84b288a0a8415735e24ab
(3) -Ableism is used to justify taking children away from disabled parents in the same way eugenics was used to justify sterilizing them, “two-thirds of state child welfare laws include a parent’s disability as grounds for the termination of parental rights, meaning that a disability label can be used to demonstrate a parent’s unfitness.” https://www.theregreview.org/2021/10/26/powell-justice-for-parents-with-disabilities/
Who gets put into the foster care system?
-While, 9% of children are put in foster care due to sexual abuse and 18% from physical abuse, the vast majority, at 75% of children are put in the foster care system based off of neglect. Neglect which is often the result of poverty and both neglect and physical abuse rates decrease when families are given financial support. “Material hardship is associated with CPS involvement beyond caregiver psychological distress and parenting factors (Yang, 2015), and the association of individual factors (such as substance abuse or mental health) with maltreatment is reduced after accounting for poverty (Escaravage, 2014), meaning poverty alone is a driving factor.” Poor families are more likely to be investigated with the “Strongest hardship predictors of investigated neglect reports” being “food pantry use, difficulty paying rent, cutting meals, public benefit receipt, utility shutoffs, short duration of residence, and inability to receive medical care for sick family members.” No one should have to experience poverty as is, but to punish families for being poor by taking their children away, only to give money to the family that fosters them is not for the wellbeing of the child. -Lives and families can be saved with financial support “An additional $1,000 spent by states on childcare assistance per person living in poverty is associated with a reduction of 40% in hotline calls, 35% in substantiated maltreatment, 63% in removals, 50% in child fatalities due to maltreatment (Puls, 2021).” https://datacenter.aecf.org/data/tables/9906-children-who-are-confirmed-by-child-protective-services-as-victims-of-maltreatment-by-maltreatment-type?loc=1&loct=2#detailed/1/any/false/574,1729,37,871,870,573/3885,3886,3887,3888,3889,3890/19240,19241, https://familypolicynyc.org/2022/09/15/economic-hardships-research/
(4) -Who is investigated is also affected by racism, “One of the most striking findings in a recent study is that more than half of all Black children will experience a child-welfare investigation by the time they reach age 18—53%.” and this incredibly important paragraph “There are longstanding stereotypes that Black parents don’t really love their children, that it’s easy to separate the bonds of Black parents and children, that Black children are better off in the care of other caregivers—especially white caregivers. I could go down the list of all of the stereotypes that paint Black mothers as defective, as pathological, as neglectful, incapable of caring for their children. And those stereotypes influence people’s decisions about child abuse and neglect. There’s a whole slew of studies that show that doctors are more likely to suspect child abuse if the child is Black than white, with the exact same injuries. We could trace this back to the slavery era.” https://time.com/6168354/child-welfare-system-dorothy-roberts/
Sexual abuse and foster care
-While around 9% of children are separated from their families as a result of sexual abuse, “One study found that girls living in foster homes are a particularly vulnerable group. The investigation examined 155 adolescent girls in foster care and found that 81% had experienced sexual abuse. 68% of girls reported being sexually abused by more than one individual.” and “A Johns Hopkins University study found that children in foster care are four times more likely than other children to be sexually abused, and those who live in group homes experience an abuse rate of 28 times those of other children.” In addition to foster care increasing the risk of sexual abuse, there is no reason a child experiencing sexual abuse could not be removed from their abusers and placed in kinship or community care. https://helpingsurvivors.org/child-sexual-abuse/foster-care/
Family separation and queerness
-Children whose parents support them being trans are being investigated, the same system that determines what constitutes abuse is bigoted and will be used against any marginalized person. “Gov. Greg Abbott issued a letter directing the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) to conduct “prompt and thorough” investigations into the families of trans and gender expansive youth who’ve received gender-affirming care, asserting that the care can “legally constitute child abuse.”” In a way, this reflects on the previously mentioned examples of Indigenous and Romani children being taken away, because their ways of live (traditional native food, Romani camps) didn’t line up with that the white majority sees as fit, their children were taken to be “raised right.” https://time.com/6150964/greg-abbott-trans-kids-child-abuse/
(5) Effects of being raised by whites in all white areas
-Not seeing people like oneself growing up affects children's sense of identity and can give them poor self esteem. In addition to this, “Black children’s first encounters with racism can start before they are even in school, and Black teenagers report experiencing an average of five instances of racial discrimination per day.” Children of color, not “poc children”, should not have to navigate racism completely on their own with no connection to a community that can understand and prepare them for it. A white person choosing to buy a child of color does not make them less racist than any other white person and they often dismiss their children’s experience with racism as they make no effort to understand it. -White adopters also have no problem using transracial adoption as a shield against racism accusations or as props like in the Hart family murders. https://monroecountycasa.org/why-racial-and-cultural-representation-matters/ https://projects.apnews.com/features/2023/from-birth-to-death/mental-health-black-children-investigation.html https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/04/skinfolk-book-matthew-pratt-guterl-adoption-racism/673096/
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/05/us/hart-family-murder-suicide.html
(6)
I am a queer adoptee. Queer people can have biological children. Queer people are not entitled to another person’s child anymore than a cishet person is.
“Narcissist” is not an insult, having a stigmatized personality disorder is not an insult and it is ableist to act like it is.
This is anecdotal and the options you dismissed for yourself previously like kinship and community care center the child while not forcing them to be with their abusers.
Bringing up parental rights in a discussion about the reproduction rights of marginalized people and the rights of adoptees is disingenuous and irrelevant. As mentioned, these groups are more likely to have their children stolen from them to be sold to white, wealthy people. That has nothing to do with right wing dogwhistles.
The majority of children in the foster system are there due to neglect that can be solved through financial support. The minority of children experiencing physical or sexual abuse can be removed from their abusers via kinship care as priority, community care second, and guardianship last as I said before. The adoption industry does not need to exist.
Marginalized people deserve reproductive rights. Marginalized people deserve to not have their children taken away as punishment for being marginalized. In the comment that started our reply chain, I said that adoption was a tool for genocide and listed the examples of Indigenous children being taken from their families and Korean children being sold as spoils of war. Yes, I do care about the biological families rights. I prioritize the rights and wellbeing of adoptees first, and biological families second. You see adoption as the solution because you believe the propaganda that most adoptees are either being abused or were orphans which is just not true. I hope you actually take the time to read the sources and listen to the people you claim to care about.