Adoption vs. Childbearing

Ever since I researched adoption on a Wiki Walk (and then for one of my fanfics), I found out that 1) There are a huge amount of regulations and guidelines needed to ensure that the adopted parent(s) can take proper care of the kid before anything is finalized, and 2) There is comparatively much less information for people who want to physically have a kid.

Note: I am not talking about the "How to handle pregnancy/infancy/whatever" aspects or anything that takes place after conception/delivery. This will focus solely on the different mental approaches to "raising vs. adopting kids."

Please note that I am generalizing a lot. Most people who want to bear kids seem to focus on the best-case scenario (conception/delivery is fairly easy, no fertility or post-natal complications). Even the ones who think they prepare for problems have trouble focusing on specifics ("What if something goes wrong with my/our kid?" verses "What if my/our kid has a car accident, starts dealing/taking drugs, or needs braces?"). Ordinarily, vagueness helps because you don't know exactly what comes up, but an awful lot of biological-parents-to-be seem to think that mental preparation stops at "Whatever comes up, I'll handle it as well as I can."

Which means that when even a minor conflict crops up, it leads to a disproportionate amount of stress. Basically, they hope for the best and expect that they will be one of the, say, 90% of parents to whom nothing major will happen.

Whereas with hopeful adopters, they are informed about every possible thing that could happen and told to reflect on it, often making them far better at coping with unexpected stress simply because 1) They genuinely know what could happen, and 2) they automatically prepare to be part of the 10% worst-case scenarios.

Unfortunate Implications? Hoo boy, yes.

Let's discuss why.

edited 24th Feb '11 3:29:52 PM by Sharysa

Research backs this up, to a point: http://asr.sagepub.com/content/72/1/95.abstract

Basically, the authors of this study want to question the growing consensus that two-biological parents are in the best interest of the children (due to stronger emotional ties to one's own offspring). Controlling for socio-economic status, adoptive parents turn out to invest as much in their children as two-biological parent families, and more than other types of families.

"Investing" (money, time) in one's children isn't exactly what you were talking about, but it is similar. Basically the debate is one school of thought that says biological ties are naturally stronger than other types of parenting (step-parenting for example), and that biological parents are better able to care for their own offspring.

One reason given for this is due to the legacy effects of evolution. The idea is that we have some sort of natural bias in favor of our own natural offspring, versus step-children, adopted children or foster children in the same household. Another school of thought holds that society support biological parents more, so that non-biological parents face challenges that biological ones do not.

These authors have found evidence to the contrary that in fact adoptive parents invest just as much time and effort into certain child-rearing activities as biological parents, undermining the scientific consensus. They also argue against the conclusion that traditional, two-biological parent families are the ideal that society should strive toward and support the most.

So you've just opened a whole can of worms...

I should mention that I am myself an adoptive father of two very young children. I can personally vouch that we did in fact have to invest considerable time, money and effort into the adoption process, including a certain amount of training in both childrearing in general and rearing adopted children in particular. Since I dont have any biological children (that I know of!) I cant compare that, but I can say that my wife and I continue to try very hard to be the best parents we can, often under very difficult circumstances (my son is diagnosed with ADHD).

I don't doubt this at all.

My concern with adoption is how the bureaucratic system seems to frustrate normal development. If a mother gives an infant up for adoption and it takes two years to get the baby to parents who will invest as much labor as biological parents, well, baby's still missed the critical breastfeeding period.

“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard

Well, hasn't the consensus been more on the two-parent bit than whether the baby arose from said two parents having sex?

Also, I've been wondering if even the sensible biological-parents-to-be  ^*

don't seek out information because they think they shouldn't have to. It's a bit of a tangent considering the actual discussion, but still.

Basically, there seems to be an implication that biological parents "will figure out what to do on their own," as opposed to adopted parents "needing to know things before they happen (not that there's anything wrong with asking.)"

Which is unfortunate for both sides.

edited 24th Feb '11 4:40:06 PM by Sharysa

To be frank I feel the real reason is a lot colder then people thinking that 'natural parents are naturally parents'. The rigorously screening of adopted parents isn't because of biology. It's because of culpability.

If bio parents screw up their kid it only reflects badly on themselves. With adoption other people have an invested interest to see that the adopted parents don't fuck up.

edited 13th Sep '11 2:09:00 AM by joeyjojo

hashtagsarestupid

@Rott: I adopted my children from an orphanage- they had already been taken from their birth mothers due to child neglect. From a practical perspective, adoption was the best possible outcome.

Furthermore, children in adoption services already don't have parents because they would have been screwed up worse than a few development optimums from breast milk had they stayed with them. Adopting when possible is still the best possible option.

I'm not conversant with the stats on how many children are in orphanages because their mothers gave them up at birth vs. being taken away from their parent(s) at a later date. Nor on how long kids in each category can expect to be stuck there before adoption.

“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard

Either way, regardless of having had breastmilk vs. not having had breastmilk, there's not really any arguing against the fact that generally speaking having parents as soon as possible is a better option than not having parents.

edited 25th Feb '11 12:58:41 PM by Pykrete

Well, that's horribly logical.

RE Parents vs. No Parents: Yeah, I've read that kids who "age out" of the adoption system by turning [legal-adult age] end up completely unable to find jobs, housing, etc., because they don't know how to do things.

And that's assuming the orphanage was a good one, that gave them a decent education and kept the emotional baggage to a minimum.

I'd say Joey's right: Biological parents can "get away" with being bad at their jobs and only suffer if laws are broken, whereas adoptive parents and the agency that provided them with their child can be held legally liable.

And in the States at least, liability can come with a hefty side order of monetary settlement.

Well said, Joey.

If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~

Why thank you drunk

hashtagsarestupid

My presumption is that comparatively few are given up at birth, compared to the number that are taken away at a later date. Why?

It may be because people imply that those couples that give birth are expected to already have thought vigorously about the concept of raising children, where as those that want to adopt, hereby implying by others a “newfound” interest in raising a child, have to learn the ropes.

I’m just spitballing here; I don’t know much about the subject myself. I mainly come from the implication standpoint since I’ve seen the “Childbirth Bible” myself, which is more or less a tome on raising a child through the entire childbirth process. A friend of mine uses it for a class she’s in, and it’s practically as big as the actual Bible! I also say a lot is implied since there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of literature out there for those that are curious to adopt (which may also explain why the adoption process takes so much longer, but they may be completely unrelated).

It might also have to do with logistics. We can screen prospective adopters for parental fitness, and refuse to give them a child if they don't clear the bar, so we do. The same sort of oversight is not possible with biological parents, at least not without a massive invasion of privacy.

edited 26th Feb '11 10:26:47 AM by Karalora

@Newfable: Oh, trust me, there's LOTS of literature out there for prospective adoptive parents, I know because I was required to read a lot of it. But I've never heard of the "Childbirth Bible", is it available online?

Also, you may be interested to learn that the whole process of adoption, from choosing an agency to bringing our child home, took almost exactly nine months, giving us plenty of time to reflect on what we were doing (not to mention the money it cost).

Oh, I’ve no problem believing that, but I just find it strange that it doesn’t highlight shelves as easily as literature for parents giving birth to a child instead of adopting (then again, I don’t find myself in these aisles very often, which may be the reason why I don’t seem them very often).

I’m not sure if it is or not (the book isn’t mine, but was left at my place from a friend who was taking a class where it was required reading), but I was impressed by how in-depth it was, from even thinking about conception, to the first few months, to every month during the pregnancy, the pregnancy itself, to even a few months after birth. They even had a section for men and fathers-to-be, which I thought was a classy touch.

I’ll have to do more research when I get a chance to see if it’s online. If I do find it, I’ll post it here (though since it’s a fairly mainstream book with many editions to it, I doubt it’d be online to read).

Truth be told, it’s reassuring how in-depth the adoption process is. I never thought that they’d just throw a child at a couple who wanted one, but it’s nice to learn that it’s highly detailed for the better.

The quantity of adoption lit seemed sufficient to me, although the quality of alot of it left me dubious. A lot of anecdotal info, hypothetical scenarios, and some confessional-style autobiography, less actual research, but oh well.

Really? In my experience it's the opposite—adopted parents tend to think REALLY long and hard about kids and whether their lifestyle is suited for it (tying into "they have a much smaller margin for error than biological parents"), while the vast majority of biological parents think that if they have enough resources, they're fine. Until the kid is born and they realize they've taken on a two-decade-long-at-minimum responsibility.

Then again, I'm in California's Bay Area, where the general knowledge about adoption seems to be quite high.

Another factor I've realized: Perhaps adoption is hard because most  ^*

adopted kids are literally adopted as children, who already have distinct personalities and preferences that the parent(s) specifically needs to accommodate. Biological parents have nine months where the kid-as-a-distinct-person is essentially nonexistent, and then there's another 5-ish years for their personality to actually develop.

I'm extremely cynical about the entire concept of adoption. Doesn't click well with the rest of this shithole.

Potential adopters are scrutinized more than natural parents because trying to control natural births kind of borders on eugenics and all that fun stuff. I mean what are you going to do, confiscate a natural born child because its parents didn't read up on the required material? Childbirth is treated more as a right, while adoption is treated more as a privilege.

Considering that you have to go through actual screening to adopt, it doesn't make sense to me when people claim that an adopted childhood is inherently inferior to that of a child raised by their natural parents, and as a result, adoption is immoral, or a potential adoptee is better off dead than adopted .

They never travel alone.

I think that given the current state of the world, adoption is more moral than actually spawning more people into this already overpopulated world (we don't need more people, and you can give an existing child a home, rather than making more people, putting more drain on the world's resources). That said, I wouldn't want to interfere with the right to actually have a child the old fashioned way. Also, this is for a given situation in which all other things are equal.

To be honest, I wish that we could screen prospective biological parents like we do prospective adoptive parents. Though, yes, eugenics land whatnot are a possible side effect, though I'd favour sorting based on whether the people are competent to raise children rather than some genetic factor. An the bar doesn't need to be that high, just high enough to hopefully screen out some possible neglectful and/or abusive parents.

edited 12th Sep '11 5:05:17 PM by Balmung

I'm not quite sure what the issue here is. Basically, the children that are being adopted have most likely already been failed once. Also, they are usually currently in the care of the state. (Pregnant mothers choosing the parents that adopt the baby seems to be gaining some popularity, and I like the concept.) If the state, after taking the babies away from bad parents, has an obligation to make sure they don't fuck up the child's future any worse. So yeah, they are liable if they end up giving the child to someone who's just as bad as what they got taken away from.

Basically, they're trying to prevent another fuck up. And anyone who's prepared to adopt has no doubt put a lot of thought into that before deciding to go through with it. Also OP, if you adopt a child, you're raising it. Whether or not you raise a child has nothing to do with whether or not you carried that child to term.