Does the adoption industry as it stand, CREATE bad adoption experiences?

Question

Also do you HAVE to be an adoptee to have a bad experience?

Reading horror stories from women who want their babies back, father who never even knew they had a child, Women who think it's okay to get paid to be a surrogate GIVES "ME" a bad experience. Seeing someome I care about suffer because he doesn't have his family history GIVES "ME" a bad experience.My dad being threatened out of his daughterGIVES "ME" a bad experience.

Bad experiences lead to change.

Does the adoption industry as it stand, CREATE bad adoption experiences throughout ones life Without making ones life a bad experience?

Answer 1

It doesn't take an adopted person or even a first parent, AP or PAP to see that there are plenty of problems in adoption.  Just scratch the surface to see the examples you've listed and it's clear that change is sorely needed.

Answer 2

Great question!!!

The INDUSTRY is the key word in your question.

I am an adoptive mother and I have a bio. brother that I didn't know about until I was in my late 20s.

My daughter's adoption was private and wasn't a part of the industry.  The lawyer that handled it was an adoptive parent and an adoptee and spent a lot of unpaid time making sure all of us were as aware of the consequences of adoption as one can be beforehand.  He spent a couple hours talking to my daughter's first mom alone and making sure she knew that she had rights and that she could change her mind afer the baby was born.  He hated the adoption INDUSTRY, but loved handling adoptions because he felt like he could make a difference.   I honestly believe that if all adoptions were handled by people like him, there would be a lot less adoptions, but the ones that did happen would have a lot less misery associated with them.

My heart breaks every time I hear of bad adoption stories.  It seems that so many of them are because people don't respect human life or realize that adoption is not a story from a book.  It is real people with real emotions.  

Bad experiences affect the way people see all members of the triad.  They cause fear which makes it harder to get legislation changed.  Fear which causes people not to adopt children that desperately need homes.  Fear which causes people to keep adoption in the dark like it's some evil satanic ritual. (complete with forged documents and sealed records).  Fear can cause bad experiences and can prevent good experiences from happening.

Bad experiences do lead to change.  The problem is that so many people don't want to talk about adoption or they want to play the blame game.  All of us in the triad need to speak up about the bad experiences and the good.  Blaming each other solves nothing.

Answer 3

No, you don't have to be any member of the "triad" to have a bad experience with adoption. You only need to have a heart. You have a big heart.

Best wishes.

Answer 4

Yes.  

State governments with closed adoption records contribute to the 'bad experience'.

It's true that the non-adopted can have 'bad experiences', too.  

But total lack of control over your life and experiences takes the cake, and adoptees are the only ones in that camp.

Answer 5

Dear L@r@,

I think you did a terriffic job answering your own question!

"Does the adoption industry as it stand, CREATE bad adoption experiences?"

ABSOLUTELY!!!!

"Also do you HAVE to be an adoptee to have a bad experience?"

Definately not. There are people who are not a part of the "triad" who have been touched by adoption in a negative way. My Best Friend is one of them. She lost her younger sister to adoption and it haunts her everyday.

I agree with you that these experiences needn't define the entire quality of one's life and that these experiences are the harbringers of change when they happen to people who will stand up and speak out.

Answer 6

THANK YOU!!!!!

As I have stated repeatedly, I am not a part of the triad, and I DO NOT KNOW how an adoptee or a natural parent feels. But I have learned SOOOOOO much from being on here. Finding out the immorality of the average adoption (there are always exceptions) totally DISGUSTS me. My heart breaks for them. I do not think that you have to be a part of the triad to be very intimately touched by the complexity of it.

I often feel like, because I am not part of the triad, that I am walking in enemy territory, with my head in the cross hairs. After all, I have not lived it, so how DARE I speak my opinions, even if they concur with the majority of people in this section. I see questions all the time like this one:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

"Why is it some people who are not part of the triad constantly answer on behalf of the triad?

seems odd to me. Kind of like having a guy tell me what a period is like!"

I may not have lived it, and that is a valid point, but I think that I can bring some intellegent points to the playing field.

Answer 7

Do I think the industry creates bad experiences? Absolutely!

Although I tend to bash the agency I worked with because it is so common with them, I do not place the blame on them alone. Agencies, religiously affiliated or not, domestic or international, are causing problems at every turn. Why?

Personally, I think it is because adoption has gone from an act that truely helps a child with NO other options to an act of supply and demand. Just an every day facet of living in a capitalistic society and it disgusts me.

Do I think you have to be an adoptee to have a bad experience? Definitely not though I tend to think  it is them that are hurt the most.

I myself am fighting for my son. I was lied to and pressured less than 24 hours after birth to sign on the dotted line and it has quickly turned into the worst experience of my life.

Do I think that in my case the APs were hurt too? Yes. Also I still hold resentment towards them for not understanding my position, they were also lied to as well. They were told I had given them permission to fly out when I hadn't. When I originally tried to handle this w/o court, the agency made them belive my mother was forcing me to get the baby back, and when I persisted, they portrayed me as drug addicted w***e unfit to raise a child. I don't think they really knew my true feelings until that day in court when they saw it for themselves.

They have their own issues and have gone through things I couldn't imagine and so although I believe they are doing the wrong thing, I can help but think they are victims in all this as  well.

I have learned that APs, first parents, and adoptees need to stop pointing fingers at each other and start raising h**l at those who are truely responsible.

Answer 8

i totally agree with you...

i am not an adoptee, but adoption practices left a very nasty taste in my mouth.  especially when fmoms and pregnant women are marginalized and experiences co-opted to better authenticate adoption, poor women rent out their uterus to pay the bills, and people bad mouth anyone who had a negative experience with adoption.