If I become a parent I want to make
the decisions about how to raise my child.
I want to enjoy forcing them to eat to eat spinach and drink milk. It is important to me that they learn a
second language and take piano lessons.
If they are my biological children I know I am going to have to drag
them into a psychologist’s office before kindergarten to get tested for
ADD/ADHD. This before a teacher would
get on my back about them struggling to sit in a chair or concentrate on school
work. I want them to have a good sense
of humor so I would probably expose them to books and shows that other parents might
deem “inappropriate.” My dad read me
Kurt Vonnegut’s Welcome to the Monkey
House as a Bed time story and our bonding time includes watching Conan o’
Brian.
I would
want these family times and decisions how to raise my children to me made
between me and a spouse, and no one else, even if we adopted. However, I can also understand the other side
of adoption. A birthparent, especially one
who gave up the child for economic reasons would want some involvement in their
child’s life. They want to watch the
child grow happy and healthy. They might
want to see if they develop similar looks and interests. Giving up a child would never be an easy
thing to do, for a woman it might be a choice she thinks about every day.
Adoptive
parents becoming panicky at the thought of parent-child families being
disrupted by the birth-parents is a legitimate issue. At the same time they should maintain a right
to keep up to date on the growth of their child, and for some a few pictures a
few every year might not be enough. Anita Allen makes strong case with the couple
of Sue and Brad being roped into an uncomfortable situation with their daughter
Lynn. In this case the birth parents
wanted to fuse the families more closely then the adoptive parents would have
liked, leading them to cut physical contact.
I agree
with the couple’s choice. The situation
seemed to be getting out of hand and it was starting to interfere with their
life as a family. I think there would be
a lot of other good reasons for couples to make a similar choice. I know a case were a parent was very abusive
and all contact was cut off with the mother. Her children, now pre-teens, are
still upset by this decision by their adoptive parents. But knowing the background of the mother it
was the best choice.
Anita’s
ideas are convincing as they show that not all open adoptions are a good
thing. If I had to make a decision about
an open or closed adoption I would try to go with an open adoption but would
probably limit visits to a few times a year.
When the child is born if the birth parents tell me what they want me to
give to their child as a parent, like a good education or if they want me to
take them to church I would do my best!
However, after they are born I do not think the birth parents should
have much of a say in how their children are raised. But I do think they should have a right to
keep updated on their child and possibly see them at least once a year.
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