Post by goggly on Apr 29, 2011 9:36:00 GMT 10
Hi cheserasera some of the points you made don't work that way in Australia, but do sound like the American system. Here we only have open adoptions which invovles up to four information exchanges and four meet ups with the birth family each year. Also as adoptive parents we have to commit to talking and informing our kids about where they came from. I know my child has known from about two years old of their adoption and we talk about it frequently.
Adoption is a hard situation for all parties, it is the best and worst of all outcome for these kids. It appears from the outside such an easy process – a child needs a family, you want a child. However the complexities of how that comes about and the loss along the way for the child and the birth parents need to be carefully considered. The one person who doesn’t get a choice in any of this is the child that has to live with all of these decisions made by adults before they could talk.
The US system has some great aspects to it, but I think it is dangerous to select the birth parents before the baby arrives. There is so much heartache for everyone involved in that process if it doesn’t work out and everything is so variable - until the birth you are still only dealing with a “concept of a child” rather than a living, breathing human. What happens if that human is not the sex that you thought it would be or has a physical or mental disability? Will the family selected before the birth still be appropriate, or more the case, still want to parent that child? If not, where does that leave the child and the birth mother? At least here all parties are focussed on that child and by getting to know it and the birth family is able to focus on getting the best possible family for that child.
It also takes time to establish as a new family and I think that would be really hard if you had a close relationship with the birth family. I know friends who have a surrogacy arrangement with a family member that have issues with the birth mother wanting to have a say in all decisions that they as parents expected to make. It is tricky to manage. Would you be comfortable for the birth mum to be deciding where you sent your child to school?
The system in Australia is not perfect, everyone agrees on that. But as a couple in this process I’d rather be waiting here with my government department calling the shots and applying the same tests to all families and children than at the mercy of a private adoption agency representative who sees the allocation of children to families as a money making venture.
Adoption is a hard situation for all parties, it is the best and worst of all outcome for these kids. It appears from the outside such an easy process – a child needs a family, you want a child. However the complexities of how that comes about and the loss along the way for the child and the birth parents need to be carefully considered. The one person who doesn’t get a choice in any of this is the child that has to live with all of these decisions made by adults before they could talk.
The US system has some great aspects to it, but I think it is dangerous to select the birth parents before the baby arrives. There is so much heartache for everyone involved in that process if it doesn’t work out and everything is so variable - until the birth you are still only dealing with a “concept of a child” rather than a living, breathing human. What happens if that human is not the sex that you thought it would be or has a physical or mental disability? Will the family selected before the birth still be appropriate, or more the case, still want to parent that child? If not, where does that leave the child and the birth mother? At least here all parties are focussed on that child and by getting to know it and the birth family is able to focus on getting the best possible family for that child.
It also takes time to establish as a new family and I think that would be really hard if you had a close relationship with the birth family. I know friends who have a surrogacy arrangement with a family member that have issues with the birth mother wanting to have a say in all decisions that they as parents expected to make. It is tricky to manage. Would you be comfortable for the birth mum to be deciding where you sent your child to school?
The system in Australia is not perfect, everyone agrees on that. But as a couple in this process I’d rather be waiting here with my government department calling the shots and applying the same tests to all families and children than at the mercy of a private adoption agency representative who sees the allocation of children to families as a money making venture.