As someone who does not really feel the need to have a child (fertility or infertility notwithstanding) this really makes sense to me, but I think from the opposite direction from you. For some reason people ask when I’m going to have kids, even colleagues and people I don’t especially know, like it’s compulsory. It makes me feel that it is the only use for a woman of a certain age. Also, men don’t get asked that question.

This is a really interesting post although I’m new to this adoption position. Honeybee, I hope I’m not out of line when I say that for a feminist, EVERYTHING is a feminist issue, even if it’s as a subset of all the other issues you mention.

Honeybee – My agenda is to prevent unnecessary adoptions and help keep families together. My agenda is also to support and empower those of us who have lost our children to adoption to speak for ourselves, thank you.

“The vast majority of adoptees will tell you they believe their birth parents (not just birth mothers) made the right decision in making an adoptive plan for them.”

1) What is your source of this “vast majority” statement, and
2) How dare any adoptee tell a birthmother if her decision was “right” for HER?
3) What “research” shows that mothers who receive counseling “go on to live their lives without regret for their decision” and over what time period of their lives were they studied?

And, finally, Honeybee – what does any of that have to do with the FACT that no adoption exists without one mother losing her child in order for another to gain one? That’s a fact, Honeybee, not a “rant”!

Our pain is our pain. I am sorry of you are uncomfortable hearing it, but do NOT deny any of us – no matter how small a “minority” you think we are – our right to our pain. No amount of counseling will replace our loss or for many of us, our realization that we were duped – by promises of openness or being told we’d “get over it” – or being promised our kid would have a “better life” or we’d have other children.

You haven’t lived our pain, and I hope you never do…Don’t speak for us! PLEASE!

Are you a mother, Honeybee? If someone took your child, would you not have an agenda?

Riben, M. (2007). The Baby Chase Pits Women Against Women: Who “deserves” to Parent? Associated Content, Dec. 22.

Riben, M. (2007). Adoption: Pitting Women Against Women, OpEd News, Dec. 22.

I agree that society pressures women to marry and pressures married couples to procreate; to be fruitful and multiply. Women are made to feel they are not complete without a husband and children. This, in turn, creates jealousies: a nasty word, but a sad reality.

I also agree that some infertility is environmentally caused and some caused by illnesses that are no one’s “fault.” However, the majority is PREVENTABLE:
- delayed childbearing – number one cause of infertility in Western cultures
- obesity – yes, this is one of the major causes of infertility
- sexually transmitted diseases
- multiple abortions
- incompatibility with one’s partner
- celibacy

These are all REAL causes of MOST infertility. To say so is not to be cruel, just factual.

The major cause, however, of adoption pitting women against women however is financial. Upper class women misogynously/misognysly (?) purchase the services of lower class women all the time, to do their cleaning, child care, etc. It is thus an very simple leap to hire them to carry their babies as surrogate handmaids, or simply feel “entitled” to take their children from them and consider it a favor…unburdening an impoverished mother and “saving” a child from living in poverty.

No one judges mothers more stringently than women do. There’s a female TV reporter whose name slips my mind who LIVES for stories like Casey Anthony or any mother who leaves a kid in a car or in any way harms a child. The veins bulge in her neck with fury and smoke comes out of her nose when she speaks of them.

The public as a while is far more harsh on mothers who harm or neglect their children than they are on men who do. It’s part of our dual gender standards.

Once judged as “unfit” others have a “right” to their child! Being single and poor are reason enough – just ask Nadya Suleman for whom a case is being built to have those children removed and placed for adoption — by “more derseving” women.

Yes, adoption pits women against women. Rich against poor. Married against single.

As Solinger said, adoption exists on the backs of women.

How about those who fight to hang onto children whose parents try to rescind an adoption? Loving, caring CAPABLE parents? They are indeed acting like children having a temper tantrum because they are unwilling to relinquish a toy!

I know some very wonderful adoptive parents, including some who adopted as a result of infertility but maintained an open mind and thus learned and evolved and discovered it was not all about filling their needs. They recognize the harm adoption separation causes mothers and adoptees.

I also know of many, however, who have also acted in very immature and unhealthy ways once faced with reunion because they feel threatened, which stems from their feelings of inadequacy about their infertility. Society plays a part – but many need to get therapy and get over it! Instead they call us BITTER and make their children feel “grateful” for being “rescued.”

Until we reduce the socio-economic stratification and level the playing field; until we provide necessary resources to all mothers and families in need, in this country and the world; and, until we begin to put into place educationl prevetive progams to stem infertility…we will have women exploiting women for their children in a reverse Robin Hoodism that takes from the poor and gives to the wealthy.

I have five grown sons with home I am totally comfortable. One brother I have no reason to doubt. Other than that, I don’t much trust men either. I understand how it is you don’t automatically trust the men in others’ lives, just because they themselves find them trustworthy. Trust must be earned. I’ve learned this the hard way, I’ve trusted way too easily and often. The other extreme would be to turn bitter and never trust again. I don’t want either extreme and so I make sure I don’t entirely close myself off from others. I leave the door to my heart ajar, just barely. At the first sign that someone (male or female) means me harm, it slams shut. They don’t get a second chance. I used to hand out second and third and tenth chances like candy at a Halloween party, but no more.

I like the way you write. Thank you for your honesty, it really made me think.

Last night I was looking for a photo and starting going through old family pictures. There were pictures of my parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and even further back into my family history. I can see that my sister bears an uncanny resemblance to my father’s paternal grandmother. I can see that I’m very like his mother. And I know all about these people, who they were and what they did, from the Cornish tin miner and the Victorian workhouse master onwards. No one has the right to deny me access to this history because I haven’t been in the care system. People like me just take this for granted.