How can an adoptee not feel like a commodity?

Question

Seems like whenever an adoptee says that they feel like they were bought and sold they are told otherwise. Besides the fact that adoption is a multi-billion dollar BUSINESS - how is it I'm not supposed to feel like a commodity when I come on Yahoo (and other sites) and see "what is the easiest country to adopt from," "what's the quickest way to adopt," "how does one unadopt," "where can I find a birthmom," "I want a healthy boy," "I'd like to adopt a girl," "I want an infant"? How are we supposed to feel like adoption was in our best interest when clearly it is about the interest of the adoptive parents?

Answer 1

K,

actualy where I come from you dont have to pay anything for healthcare

Answer 2

Think of it this way. The people who deliver families (to their natural birth parents) make tons of money too. Technically all parents paid a lot for their kids. The money shouldn't even matter. If your mom birthed you or your mom adopted you because she feel in love with you the moment she saw you. It really shouldn't matter.

Answer 3

Katherine J-  I am really sorry you feel like the only option besides adoption for you was being thrown in the trash, I think that is much worse than feeling like a commodity.

I don't know your situation, but the dichotomy trash bin or adoption is false.  

I find it very distressing when adoptees display these attitudes, that one and thank god you weren't an abortion, I don't know how people who feel that way can have any esteem for themselves...good luck to you.

Dory,

Yes, adoption is a business, just like there are all these families "waiting" for a baby, when thousands of older children wait in foster homes.  

Infant adoption is about procuring babies for couples by any means necessary.

What kind of society allows this moral corruption in an unregulated industry that deals in the selling of children?

Where is our sense of morality?

Answer 4

lililou being wanted, and being a commodity are two different things. Try and seperate them. There is NOTHING wrong with being WANTED. NOTHING at all. But there IS something wrong with money being exchanged for the delivery of a child.

Adoptive mom, denying that money was exchanged for my delivery would be accepting it and allowing it to happen to future adoptees. We wouldn't tell a slave to deny that they were sold, or traded, or at the command of another human, and to not "cast themselves in that light" right? And i'm not comparing myself to slavery, although there are many parallels, i'm saying, it IS what it IS. Money WAS exchanged for my delivery and people are willing to pay high dollar for the delivery of infants even on yahoo answers. Take a look, HOW MANY people are "desperate" to have a child and take whatever means necessary? how many are addressing the needs of the CHILD instead of their own needs? who's selfish? not the adoptee for looking at the reality of the picture and putting my foot down. For reforming laws so that it doesn't happen much longer in the future.

Answer 5

Ok, looks like you would prefer being thrown out into the trash along with your placenta and umblical cord.  Stop that attitude of yours.  That's extremely insulting to yourself and to other adoptees.  I'm one myself, and I do not appreciate your attitude.

Answer 6

I am adoptee and i dn't feel like a commodity. you know what i am so lucky that someone picked me out and took care of me for 18 yars and made me the person i am and i thank them for it. if you feel like a commodity i feel for you. i am lucky i feel. i could have been with unwanting parents and sisters and that would have been awful. my sisters were abuised and beaten till my grandmother took them she has 2 other kids herself. so you see i am not but one lucky girl goo dluck

Answer 7

I wish I knew how to answer this question for you because I too have felt like a commodity...in fact, a commodity that is supposed to be GRATEFUL for being "wanted" so badly that her adoptive parents have tried so hard to get me.

Nothing like being this year's tickle me elmo...huh?

Answer 8

I think you have misread some of the posts here.  People make statements like "where can I adopt a..." and "What is the easiest way to find a ... to adopt" because they are looking for a means to locate a child.  None of us look at the child as a commodity.  We see the child as a human being in need of love and a good home.  

Would you criticize a seriously ill person that came onto a site and asked what the best place to find a doctor that handles kidney or bone marrow transplants is?  It is a search for information, nothing more.

You also have to realize that there are some real idiots that come on these sites and ask questions like "How do you unadopt".  First, I doubt that these people are actually adoptive parents.  I suspect that they are jerks that come here to cause issues and rant against adoption.  (Makes you wonder why someone that is against adoption would take the time to visit an adoption site just to cause problems)

I agree that many people wouldn't adopt if it weren't for infertility issues.  People also wouldn't get kidney transplants if it weren't for kidney disease.

I hope that you don't feel like a commodity.  I hope that you feel just as blessed and fortunate as your adoptive parents feel.

I hope this helped.

Answer 9

Well, I am sorry that you feel this way.  I am an adoptive mother of two beautiful children.  My husband and I are unable to have successful pregnancies, but we are very loving and love children.  We decided to look into adoption, as we were going through the paperwork we decided we were not going to "take" any baby away from a birthmom.  Both of our children come from birthmothers who have had several other children (7 & 3) that were also given up.  

Adoption is a tricky thing that way...in most cases the adoptive family had difficulties like my husband and myself, and they are at an emotional time in their lives.  The things they say do not always take other people into consideration.  I once heard a saying that can be used in the case of an adoption and a funeral (two not very likely comparissons I know!)  "Welcome to the idiot zone"  I didn't think it was very nice at first, but I understand it now.  It is meaning that people do not understand what is going on, nor do they have any idea what you are feeling, but they feel like the need to say something, so they blurt out the first thing that pops into their head.  It id usually very silly, and could lean more towards hurtful.  

Because I am on the adoptive parent side of the issue, not the adoptee side...I can't possibly understand what you are going through...but please know that adoptive families (most of them) adopte a child because they want you.  They do not always have the proper wordings...nor do they use alot of tact in what they are saying.  

I do hope that your adoptive family has expressed to you a million + times how much they love you and what a blessing you are.  We tell our children that every day, and though they are not yet old enough to understand why we say that...we will continue to do so every day of their lives.  We do pray that one day we will be able to adopt again, because we do not believe a child needs our blood running through their veins in order to be ours.  But if not, we are very thankful for the two children we do have...and are very thankful to the birthmothers for giving us these precious gifts to love and care for.

You are a special individual...never forget that!

Answer 10

I think that if an adopted person is aware that their biological parents desplayed some neglectful or unloving actions, or that their biological parents actions make it look like they were truly unwanted, and not worth the work of parenting,

Then I think that adoptee will feel less like a commodity and more happy to have a home where they are wanted.

I think it's really hard if you meet your biological family and realize they were NOT abusive, were NOT neglectful, and actually wanted to keep you desperately.

Then it becomes a class issue. Members of the higher classes with more money wind up getting to have the babies while the younger moms without money suffer.

As an adoptee, it often inspires us to work for social change for families who need better support to keep their children.

And it also makes you feel like your adoptive parents only real reason for having you is the money, which is not really a good reason to lose your family.

Answer 11

wow, you are really bitter about being adopted. i'm adopted also, but i don't look at it like it was in the best interest of my parents. yes, they wanted a child because they thought they couldn't have children of their own. my birth mother was 16 and couldn't give me the life she wanted to so she let someone else do it. people look for the quickest and easiest way to adopt because they want to share their lives with a child that needs a home.

Answer 12

You must have been hurt pretty badly to feel that way.  Most people adopt because they want a child to love.  A wet kiss, a giant hug, the laugh of a small child having a blast at a birthday party...so many reasons.

My aunt and uncle adopted a neglected, abused baby boy who's mother was a drugged out prostitute.  He's a fine man, a minister, husband, father to two wonderful young men, and was glad he was adopted.

How can it be in the best interests of the "Adoptees", to take in a strange child, mop up puke, change dirty diapers and spend themselves broke for the next 25 years taking care of and educating the child?

Easy answer, they get the love, kisses, hugs, "hi, mom", all the things a child brings into a home.

Answer 13

When you come on yahoo you're also going to find many more questions in regards to pregnancy and parenting, AND money is also exchanged for the services of doctors and hospital use, etc.  Furthermore, I know many people that felt like they were nothing but window dressing for their emotionally non-existent natural parents.  Also, show me a natural parent who planned to get pregnant and have children because it was NOT "in their best interest" to do so, and I'll show you a liar.

Nope, sorry, your correlation is just an easy, old, and stereotypical  way for you to justify your own feelings of self worth.  If you're an adult with all your sensibilities then you are choosing to feel this way.

Answer 14

Maybe because so many of us were "got" and not born. "We got you at five days old" etc. Taking away the story of our birth, hides the fact were are real and not an object to be gotten.

Answer 15

I can understand how you would feel like a commodity, especially after reading some of the posts in the last few days "what is the quickest way to adopt?" "how much do I have to pay to adopt a child?" etc.  And the news is no better, with people saying the stars "bought" their babies/children.  It certainly does seem one sided, I am offended and I am not adopted.  But I understand that these people are coming from a place of love and just may not get the message they are sending.  My husband and I are looking to adopt from a public agency so I am not unbiased.  We would like to adopt a ward of the state, and are aware that the removal of the child from the home may have had a huge impact on the child.  But they are in the public system now and we would like to get them out of it, into a family life.  And yes, create a family for ourselves.

I worry about my future child/children and that they will feel like a commodity or like it was a trend to adopt when they came into our hearts.  As an adoptee, how would you recommend adoptive parents deal with this?

Answer 16

Whats so wrong about being wanted?

Also define on how this takes away from the best interest of a child.  Ive worked with many youth, where living with their biological parents, is definitely not in their best interest.

Answer 17

I am sorry that you feel like a commodity. I wish I could make you not feel that way. I tried for 8 years to have a child and went through all the fertility treatments ect. Everyone told me adoption was easier than that. Isn't. You may not have the physcial stuff but you still have the emotinal stuff. We check out several adoption agencies and went with a non profit one out of state. We attend their classes and put together a little photo alblum of ourselves to show birth parents. Oh and we prayed so hard that some birth mother would find us worthy to raise the baby that she couldn't. Children are gifts from God. Adoption is in the Bilble Eph 1:5  Says I have been adopted as God's child.  Moses was adopted and so was Jesus by Josphive.  Anyway, a birth mother finally did select us and I was there when my son was born and took him home from the hospital. But I did not breath easy until the birth father signed off and the courts made it legal.  I didn't want to lose my bundle of joy and love my gift from God. I get upset with the comments about birth parents having their children rip away from them or losing custody because they are drug abusers. Its not always the way it is. Adoption is something you do for the child to give the child what you can't. That does not mean money. But if you have to work all the time to keep the baby, you not giving the baby your time. Birth mother's are selfless to give up a baby. Its got to be the hardest thing in the world

I think you are a gift and I bet your parents feel the same way.

Answer 18

I don't get what the fuss is about.  My parents adopted me, and to them, it was always just another way of having a child.

Birth or adoption, either way we choose to have a child it's always a 'selfish' choice (I mean that in the normal way!) on the behalf of the parents.  I don't think many people disagree with you.

The only difference is that many birth parents get told it's a natural and loving thing to do, many adoptive parents get told that they're selfish.

Answer 19

You can start by refusing to cast yourself in that light.  

Yes, we wanted to have a child in our home and when we adopted our daughter, adoption was the only way to have that happen.  We could have refused to adopt or adopted somewhere else, but that would not have erased our daughter's status as an abandoned (legally an orphaned) child.  Someone else might have adopted her or she might have stayed in an orphanage until her teens when she would have been sent out on her own.

We had to do a lot of soul searching before we adopted.  We had to be sure we believed utterly that we could be good parents to this child and that she would be well-off in our home.  We had to believe that we could help her to deal with the usual issues children face as well as any special issues connected to the adoption.

To me and my family, she is nothing like a commodity.  She is a member of our family, and if the benefits to us as her family are more tangible and obvious than are the benefits to her of being here with us, that does not mean that there are none.  

I'm not completely sure why someone else's problems with their child, adopted or otherwise, or desire to adopt from one country versus another, wanting to a specific "sort" of child (boy, girl, infant, healthy), or, especially, to find a birthmom should affect you personally.  So someone finds out too late that motherhood isn't for her; my nephew's wife was abused, neglected, and ultimately kicked out by her natural parents, but that doesn't make me feel like I was less than my parents' child.  It had nothing to do with me; I'm just lucky to know my niece.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that inasmuch as it is impossible really to know what is going on in another's thoughts or feelings or whatever, an important key to happiness is assuming the best of others when there's a choice to do so and also just not taking on other people's problems or issues.  If you're like me (and most of us), you have plenty of your own "stuff" to deal with without taking on "stuff" that doesn't belong to you.

I hope some of this helps.  Have you thought about talking to a counselor at all?  That can help sometimes.

ETA:

Gershom, I also paid the doctors and the hospital when I delivered my birth child.  Is she also a commodity or is it only my adopted child who was supposed to somehow get here for free?  I don't begrudge working people a wage for their work, so I don't expect social workers, caregivers, doctors, or anyone else who had to be paid in order to be able to do the jobs they do.  (I'm a teacher, and I know all too well how it feels to have people acting like I should just be volunteering my time and efforts rather than expecting to be paid for them.)  We chose a non-profit agency, and none of the money we spent was to "buy" a child, any more than paying my doctor and hospital bills was buying my younger daughter.