Truthful adoption quotes

I have, in my association with adoptees and birth/first/natural/biological mothers had some really validating conversations.  Here are some quotes from conversations I have had, used with permission.  This list will be added to as the conversation is not over.


"No , you are missing the point. The EXPERIENCE of extreme loss of mother at birth and beyond, at the point of separation, and ongoing, is a physical and emotional and psychological experience, it is not an intellectual experience. it is not a knowing and a rational (that is something else onto, and that comes along with genetic bewilderness and displacement) . It is a loss of their complete world, their wholeness, their mothers heartbeat, feelings, thoughts, rhythm, the mothers, and other of those around them, voice and energy. their familiarity.. bonding starts at conception, in utero. it is bonding of heart, mind. they know.they feel. they come out expecting to be with this world they have grown in, the world they have formed as forming themselves, and lose this and are taken into a foreign world, before they can speak, before they can react, beyond emotional development. Their ID is developing and their whole world has been ripped away. They go into shock. Their only way to cope is to cut off from the old world. and go into a new. and to only know grief as a living normal from their first beginning into this material world. (as I imagine it would be) adoption was meant to be about the care of orphans when there was no other choice. not creating orphans for the life style or moral disposition of culture or as 'remedy' to infertility of others.  We expect these children to live with the greatest fear all children have, the loss of their mother, that their mother didn't want them, it underpins all our horror tales in childhood, and we expect them to be happy about it. "  ~Kim



"Mothers are NOT interchangeable any more than our children are interchangeable." ~Melynda

"On rejection... it is not so much the mother rejecting the child, but society rejecting the mother." ~Liz

"I agree that a mother and a father who are sealed to each other and neither partner has ever cheated on the other *IS* the ideal situation in which to raise a child. The Family: A Proclamation to the World clearly states: 'Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity.' However, we live in a fallen world where sometimes, we don't get the 'ideal' or even that to which we are entitled (to use the language from The Family: A Proclamation to the World). Sometimes, a parent dies. Sometimes parents get divorced. Sometimes parents who are sealed in the temple and married, fail to live up to other covenants.

"Do you have any of those situations among your own family and friends? Do you have any siblings, cousins, parents, uncles or aunts, or friends who passed away or got divorced, leaving behind the other parent to raise children as a single parent? Have their been any cases of infidelity in your family? (You don't have to really answer those questions in this public space, I am just asking you to relate this to your own life).

"If we, who claim to be God's people, are to fully implement The Family: A Proclamation to the World with absolute exactness, then the LDS church should urge *every* parent who is single for whatever reason (death, divorce, etc. - not just single expectant parents), parents who are not sealed to their spouse (part member families), or a parent who has cheated or been cheated on by their spouse 'do the right thing' and place their child(ren) for adoption in a home that has a mother and a father who are sealed in the temple and and have never participated in infidelity of any kind. After all, it clearly states children are 'entitled' to this kind of home.

"However, both you and I both recognize this to be a laughable suggestion, that EVERY parent who is single, not sealed to their spouse, or has been cheated on should relinquish their child(ren) for adoption to a sealed-in the temple couple. The push (social coercion) for single expectant parents to live to a different standard than all of the rest of the LDS membership is indicative of the black and white thinking our culture tends to engender. 'There's a right and a wrong to every question' sounds great in a hymn, but real life is a bit messier. There tends to be grey areas in which we have to use common sense, compassion, and our judgement.

"Socially engineering a substitute 'ideal' through the removal of a child from their biological kindred is NOT ****always**** the answer. Indeed, even the LDS church recognizes this. One of their primary arguments against same-sex marriage is, (as they state in their recent amicus curiae), 'Both social science and our own experience have taught that children thrive best when cared for by both of their biological parents.' This position is rather ironic considering their stance on urging single expectant parents give their infant non-biological people to raise.

"I love this church with all my heart, but this is one of those areas where efforts to socially engineer a substitute 'ideal' comes in conflict with some of our fundamental beliefs about the centrality of family and the importance of family preservation through genealogy and temple work.

"I don't know how this Gordian knot will be unraveled, what I *do* know is it is duplicitous of us, as the Lord's people, to say that 'Biological family matters!!!! They matter so much we spend MILLIONS of dollars a year helping people seek out their biological kindred dead. Family matters, except in the case of those girls who get themselves pregnant, then biological families don't matter to her, the father, OR their baby and she should give their baby to a couple who is sealed in the temple because, after all, that child is 'entitled' to parents who are sealed in the temple and don't cheat on each other.'

"Family matters. Mothers and fathers matter. Children matter. None are interchangeable, even when a parent is single (for whatever) or not sealed to their spouse."  ~Melynda