Would you give up your family and loved ones forever?

Question

if it meant you could have more money and material things?

Answer 1

Wow! What an interesting question...I'm an adoptee who's adopting. I have an amazing adoptive mom! I would never want to be separated from her...she is my family, and I believe she was my intended family even as I was growing in my birth Mom's stomach. I believe that was God's plan all along.

I'm sorry you have issues with your parents, but if you think adoption is about material wealth you're wrong. In fact it's insulting to both sides of adoption. Birth parents don't give up someone they love more than anything because they can't afford Disneyland.

I know my birth family now and yes, I'm thrilled to know them! I wish I'd known my sister and brother growing up...But both my parents were addicts...Alcohol, drugs, and prescription.My birth mom to this day is homeless. And no, she doesn't want help finding a home, the shelter has tried to do that.My sister and brother grew up knowing her yes, but also got ripped out of there at 2 and 6months to go into foster care. My father died of an overdose some time ago.

Yes, dare I say, I was better off!

I have issues with being adopted like everyone else. I went through a myriad of emotions this year with reunion, it was hard!

I think though you have this idea that adoption is simply a selfish act on everyone's behalf as do some other angry adoptee's on this board and I think it's sad because while anger at being adopted is perfectly natural, your idea that we'd all be better off with out bio parents is a huge mistaken judgment .In fact I think it you'd do research on what it's like to grow up with addicts, or yes, in severe poverty, or with abusive parents, you'd find many who aren't fit, and many kids who would've loved to have grown up in a different home, safe and looked after. To this day my bio mom believes giving me up was the only selfless thing and right thing she's done in this life time. She takes great pride in seeing the person I've become and the opportunities I've had. She'd be the first person to say she could never have raised me.

There are adoption therapist's you can talk to, I have one for reunion.

I

Answer 2

I wish I had known that my children would have too. I was promised they would not. My choice would certainly been a different one!!!

BTW: Love the new 'do!

ETA: Is it really a "better life" at that kind of cost?!

Family = Priceless

Answer 3

As an adoptee Im pretty offended by this question. I didnt give up my family. My family was deemed not fit to raise me. I was adopted to provide the love and security a child needs. I am very grateful for being adopted. 1) so I wouldnt have lived with people who probably didnt want me to begin with 2) because God graced me with wonderful people who loved me unselfishlessly and 3) I knew I wouldnt become another statistic who's parents continue to have children to cripple the already stretched medicaid system.

I didnt give up my birth family, my birth family gave me up. That is the case for so many... adoptees, unless from foreign countries, are adopted based on need, not to have more materialism.

Answer 4

Nice one, I like this question.

If you asked me that today I would probably say yes, but not for money. If you had asked me that 30-40- years ago I would have said no, I still had hope for my family.

Your right this is what adoptees are expected to do.

Answer 5

have you ever considered that parents who give a child up for adoption are not just doing it so their kid can be richer? Has it ever occurred to you that they genuinely feel they are not capable parents and their child would be emotionally and physically healthier without them?

Why don't you ask kids who wish their parents had given them up? Kids who were raised in slums, crime, drugs, physical, sexual and emotional abuse, kids whose parents hated them, kids who never knew what it was like to be in a normal, happy home? You should thank God there are goodhearted people in this world who are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars to save a child they didn't conceive from that kind of misery. How dare you make such a wonderful thing as adoption into something bad?

Answer 6

Me? Yeah.  But then, you've heard about MY family.  h**l yes, I'd give them up for money and stuff [ok, ok, I'd give them up for free...but if I could GET the money and stuff, I'd sure as heck take it]!  But I wouldn't expect anyone else on this Earth to feel that way, especially about folks they haven't had the chance to get to know yet.  Heck, THAT family might just not be psycho.

Answer 7

Oh, good grief, no. I most certainly would not. Nothing, ever, could take the place of my husband, my family, and my coming baby. But, I'd like to point out that what you said about children being adopt being expected to give up love and family is just not true. Not all birth mothers give up their babies because they feel they don't have enough to give them a good life; some (not all) birth mothers don't WANT their babies, they don't love them, they don't have the ability or the desire to give the child love and family...but people who really want a child CAN offer these things. Please don't judge so quickly. Adoption is not about things or money, it's about who can offer the most love and time and family to a child.

Answer 8

SURE! I mean why not? Didn't I already have to do this as an infant? Surely it can't hurt any worse as an adult...

Answer 9

NO!!

Lillie, amazing question!

ETA:  Meri, thanks for the book suggestion, can't wait to read it!

Answer 10

Everything is replaceable EXCEPT family.

There is no substitute.

Answer 11

Money means nothing without my family. And even if I were poor, I can't for the life of me see how my children would be better off with someone other then me - even if they were as rich as Bill Gates. You can't buy real love.

Answer 12

Absolutely not! What is money without someone to share it with? Love is forever & it never waivers!!! Money comes & goes, & greed will make it disappear! But LOVE is forever, when it comes to family!! I have 5 wonderful children here & the first 3 things they learn to say is Please, Thank You, & I LOVE YOU!!! Those are the most important things to me.

Answer 13

Never. my family is more important than anything money could buy.

Now, I have an ex-husband that it wouldn't take much persuading to give up. Any takers?? Please....

Answer 14

Which family?  The one I was born to, or the one I grew up with?

Answer 15

No I wouldn't.  

I can't stand the hipocrisy in adoptoland either :(

Answer 16

I couldn't do that. I mean sometimes I want to get rid of my boyfriend but I couldn't ever let my son go. It's hard for me to let him stay the night with his grandma. Some people just arent ready for family and that kind of life style so it's easier to just let it go. Also sometimes it in the best interest of the child for the parents to let them go, maybe they couldn't provide the way they wished they could. Even though, some people feel like nobody wants them, it could only be best for them.

But I couldn't leave my family behind, they mean so much to me. Especially my son.

Good Luck and I hope my answer worked.

Answer 17

No.

The problem is that many people don't think of adoption this way.  They talk about what's "best for the child" without any understanding of what that really is.  They focus on tangibles, without regard to intangibles.  

They would rather take children out of their families, their culture, their country, rather than finding ways to make it possible for people to stay connected to their heritage.

Answer 18

no, i would not.

but can you elaborate on how adoptees do this?  okay, i get it, i didn't before.  thanks

Answer 19

No, not for material things. Sadly, my adopted children aren't really benefiting in the material things department, at least according to them.  

But you made me think about other reasons for adoption.  I know that some women place their children (or are talked into it) 'so they can have a better life'.  But there are also the children like mine, whose mother died, and whose father gave them up.  If it was me, I'd prefer to be with my father, no matter what. My children, they say they hated their father, he was a bad man.  

When I was a foster parent, a number of the children I got to know wanted to go home, even if they were removed due to abuse.  So not only would they not leave their parents just to get more stuff, they wanted to stay with their parents at the risk of further abuse.  

Honestly, when I think about what it would have taken to make me leave my family when I was a child, it might not have taken all that much. My father was an alcoholic and our home life was a mess. It's not a good idea to make life changing decisions in the midst of a very emotional stressful time.  If I'd gone, I would've missed that my dad sobered up,  our family healed, and we're all doing very well now.

Answer 20

I watched Maury and it is amazing how many father's are listed on the birth certificate and are not the true father and they do not find out until the child is 4, 6, 8, 10.  I think many people do not live with their family, today so many families are blended.  

Adoption will always occur it is the woman's choice.

Answer 21

This is probably whats going to have to happen to US families in order for our gov't to prevent US citizens doing it to children from other countries.   Great question but unfortunately it will fall on deaf ears to those deperately trying to get a child.

Answer 22

No. Never.  I have a great family.  I would never, ever give them up for anything in the world.

Thank God I was adopted.  Without that, I wouldn't have them.

Answer 23

No way!!I love my family.What would I do with all the money and material stuff without anyone to share it with?No way.I love my family,and always will even if I dont have a single penny.:)!!

Answer 24

family and loved ones are more important than that stuff.

Answer 25

Of course not. And neither would my two adopted children.

I am trying to support and help them through their grief caused by their adoption. I am trying to help them learn that their adoption does not mean that they have been rejected, that they are more valuable than money or material things. I am trying to help them understand why they were wasting away in foster care for so long. I am trying to help them understand that this has nothing to do with financial purposes and everything to do with not being starved, beaten, threatened, left in a car seat for days on end, and not witnessing daddy hitting mommy in front of them.

So no, even at the small age of 5 my son would never give up his safe family, no matter how much he might grieve his family of origin. He actually has more sense than that.

Answer 26

No, of course not.  But many adopted people were placed for adoption simply because the parents were unmarried and/or didn't have a lot of money.  In some cases, they felt the "time wasn't right."  I can't imagine giving away my child over a little money and time, when a couple of years later those issues so often resolve.  This is especially so when the mother is a student.  It would kill me to look back 20 years later, knowing my own son or daughter wasn't with me because I didn't have the foresight of a couple of years' time.  Giving my child away, after all, wouldn't be the same as getting a babysitter for a few years while I gather up a degree and some money.  It's permanent.  I would have now given away my (most likely) first born.  I'd be pretty devastated to look back on something like that.  Knowing that the adoptive parents had more money would be no consolation whatsoever.

The idea that adoption is a *guarantee* of a better life is so untrue.  Some of us got a good life, others most certainly did not.  Some ended up poor or abused or dead -- circumstances that adoption was supposed to circumvent.  All ended up being separated from their first families, no matter the circumstance that led to it.  As a former social worker who worked with foster children, I know that even when a child's family isn't safe, it's still devastating to the child to be separated.  I'm by no means advocating that children remain in unsafe homes (biological, foster or adoptive.)  I AM, however, recognizing the loss that goes with it.

Anyway, I think that the hope for more money and material things is the worst reason to break up a family.

Answer 27

Fantastic question, Lillie.  The reason given for placing a child for adoption is almost always "to give them a better life". What is meant by that is to give them a life that has the things that more money can provide.  The question is...is that life REALLY better?

In my own case...I think not.  If I could have answered this question as a baby, I would have said, No....but no one asked me what I wanted.

Answer 28

Would I give up my family? No, I wouldn't. Are all adoptees expected to go through this? Actually, no, many don't.

My family sponsored a boy in Kenya who had one grandfather. No aunts, uncles, cousins or parents. And he was considered 'lucky' by his tribe to have that one grandfather. The average age of a person in Ethiopia is 18.1. People don't live that long, most people die by the time they are in their 30s or 40s.

Many kids adopted internationally have no one. And, in countries like Russia, China, and certain Eastern European countries, children are abandoned at very young ages. They have no family to give up, they only have family to gain.

Now, I'm not saying there are never any shifty deals going on in other countries, but if you research the adoption agency you use well enough, then you can ensure that these kids really are orphans in the truest sense of the word.

Answer 29

Let's see I left my house, property, furniture and sold my truck to move from maine to texas. I arrived in houston with a military duffle bag and a backpack in nov 06 to stop my daughters adoption. I am $130,000 into the battle and spend approx. half my in come to travel to nc for 8 hours one weekend a month with my daughter till trial in oct.

  So i guess family is more important than money or material things to me. but I'll never agree to children being treated as a commodity either.

Answer 30

No I wouldn’t. Also not all adoptive parents are rolling in cash. My parents aren’t and never have in fact there were times we went through tough times. Like when I was in about 7th grade we went with out a car for a 1 ½ but I would never wish to have been adopted into a family with more money.

Though i would have given up my natural "family"  in a heartbeat for more money, after all who would want to be raised amongst ignorant , closed minded people or an addict mother, not me that's for sure.

Answer 31

NO.

Been there - made to do it - would NEVER do it by my own choice.

Money and material things mean nothing.

But as it's already been said - those that are desperate for a child - any child - don't often think deeply about what adoption means for an adoptee.

And for those that think that being pregnant is just an inconvenience or that the timing is all wrong - and choose to give their babies away thinking that the child will want this - again - need to think more deeply about what adoption means for an adoptee.

*sigh*