When you hear PAPs or APs talking about adoption, what's says 'entitlement' to you?

Question

Another answerer posted this in response to my answer to a PAP who had bad credit, and no savings and wants a baby:

"To adopt a child costs around $13,000, this is not a small amount of money. When you adopt, you have to prove you are financially able to pay for the child, did someone make you give them your tax returns and prove that you were financially able to pay for the child you had. Did you have to go through a back ground check to have your child. Did you have to give 4 reference names and addresses of people who know you and have them fill out the form and send it back on your behalf before you were able to have a child. No, you were just able to get knocked up and have a child when you couldn't afford it. Maybe someone should have stepped in and said you are not worthy to have a child!"

Having been taken from a wealthy family, and raised in a poor one, I'm partial to PAPs who are responsible in every way, adopting children.

Who 'deserves' adopted children?

Answer 1

...for me, it was when i was told, "do you know that you are the LAST chance for her to be a mother??!"

i should have opened up a baby-making business:

"LAST-CHANCE BABIES BY TISH!!! COME AND GET YOUR NON-DRUG ADDICTED BLACK BABY!  KENTE CLOTH RECEIVEING BLANKET AND AFRO-PICK INCLUDED!"

man, do you know all the money i could have made for college??? oh wait, i changed my mind. so i guess that would have made me a scammer... scratch that idea...

i just cracked myself up....ROFLMAO!!!

and i might not have had to provide 4 reference checks, but i had about 4 people who felt it was appropriate to ask me if i was a prostitute, used crack, had an STD and how many s*x partners i'd had in order to "pass the test" of this obnoxious woman who wanted my kid....  i'll write about this more on the adultadoptees, site.

BTW, if $13K is too much for her, then perhaps she should get out of the parenting business, ahora!

Answer 2

Wow that quote came from someone gagging on her sour grapes.  Call me old fashioned but lets leave it to Mother Nature to decide. This worked for all our millions of years evolving.

This is not someone I would entrust to adopt.

Answer 3

I don't think anyone deserves to be a parent.  I think it is a priviledge.  I will never fully understand infertility because I was able to have children.   I think too that if an adoptive parent adopts a child then they should fully support the child.  Adoptive parents are held to higher standard.  They are often presented to natural parents as being the better parent.  They have money, status, and marriage where as the natural parents do not.

Answer 4

I doubt this is the typical belief with Adoptive parents. I think it's unfair to act like it is. People who deserve adopted children are the ones who are chosen and that will accept child for who they are no matter what.

Answer 5

I believe people don't deserve to be parents, otherwise we are saying parents that are abusive deserve to be parents.

On the other hand I believe that it is a great privilege to be a parent, one that comes with many blessings if you are willing to put in the time and effort into raising a child.

I hope one day I get the privilege to have children and raise them, because it will indeed be a blessing.

Answer 6

I know you have to do all these steps in order to adopt but you also have to do all these steps when your a natural father fighting for the adoption to be stopped. The funny thing is my son make around the same amount as the couple who has his son. I wished all parents would have to do this before they left the hospital that way all children go to a good home. what do you think?

Answer 7

I'm sorry...but I don't think adoption should be about "who deserves to adopt children."  Rather, it should be about a child deserving loving parents & a stable home.  Yes, that includes children living with biological families.  Money doesn't make a loving home. LOVE does.  

Society assumes that the best place for a child is with their biological families.  That's a HUGE shift from the "baby scoop era", when society believed children were better off with wealthier, married parents.

Because only about 4% of unwed moms chose adoption, there is a 'shortage' of babies available for adoption.  With a high 'demand', agencies can be pickier when choosing PAP's. After all, you are asking to raise someone else's child!  How is one to decide who would best parent a child (if not the biological mom)? Are the current methods fair?  What is fair?  Words like 'shortage' 'supply' 'demand' make adoption sound like a commodity deal, doesn't it?  

Conversely, there are more than 130,000 children in foster care waiting for families.  Some as young as 6 months to 2 or 3 years old.  Many of these children are not special needs children, but may need counseling, which is provided by CWS.  Yet no one is rushing to give these children homes, families, or become their parents.  

No, biological parents don't have to 'prove' fitness, unless the courts finds them unfit.  Then they have some of the same hurdles to keep their children that PAP's have to adopt.

Comments like, "you were just able to get knocked up" are cruel, & probably born of frustration.  The sense of 'entitlement' expressed by some PAP makes having a child seem more about them than their prospective children.  The best parents put their children's emotions & well being first.  

To have a child is a natural human desire for most people.  It's terribly sad & painful & disappointing when a couple discovers they can't have children.  I get that...

But that is not a reason to ignore the ethical issues & emotional consequences that adoption creates.  Which is what adoptees' in this forum are trying to raise awareness about.  We have been silent all our lives...for fear of hurting our parents...for fear of being judged "ungrateful"...because we constantly get messages about being "rescued", "saved", "given a better life", & because no one wants to hear ALL our opinions & emotions - only the 'GOOD' emotions, the "happy" stories.  

Some of us had great AP's, some ended up in abusive or alcoholic homes or with divorced parents.  Many of us have found our natural parents.  Often we discovered our (b) parents loved & wanted us, but had committed the sin of becoming pregnant before marriage.  Some have no interest in reunions.  We are not one voice, but many...

How do we as a society balance the needs of children who's parents are unable to care for them with the deep desires of PAP who want children to parent?  Denying the realities of all members of the triad is not going to resolve these issues.  Name calling won't either.  

We need to talk openly, honestly, and most of all. COMPASSIONATELY with one other.  Put ourselves in the other person's place.

Imagine how it feels to grow up not knowing who you look like or get your smile or your interest in music or science from or your medical history (when you find you have an illness, or worse, YOUR CHILD has an illness), or your own heritage.  

Imagine the heartbreak of discovering that you can't have children, when you've looked forward to having a family some day.  And no matter how much or how long you try, it can't happen.  Part of our identity as women is wrapped up in our ability to bare children.

Imagine carrying a child for nine months.  Feeling that child grow, the first kicks, turns, stretches inside your body.  Giving birth after hours of labor or surgery.  Looking at the whole little person that just came out of your body, feeling overwhelmed with love, sadness, & a million other emotions, then giving that baby to someone else to take home...& going home alone.  

I, myself, can't imagine ever being able to do that.  I'm not strong enough to bare that pain.

Answer 8

That quote definitely reeks of entitlement

It also proved one of the biggests myths in adoption - that adoptive parenting is no different to natural parenting.  The two are just not comparable but people will still try it, to attempt to prove their entitlement to someone else's baby