Working Mother

Over at the New York Times’ Motherlode blog, there is an incredibly sad and disturbing guest post. titled Terminating An Adoption. It’s by a women who adopted a baby boy from South America when he was about a year old, and then 18 months later gave him up to another family because she didn’t think she could ever properly attach to him.

The mother, Anita Tedaldi, already had five biological daughters and a husband who was frequently deployed by the military. But she had always wanted a large family and both she and her family went through the extensive screening required by US adoption agencies. As for the boy, he had some developmental delays and suffered from attachment disorder, although with the help of therapy and a very dedicated social worker, was making progress. Nevertheless, Anita came to realize she just did not feel about this admittedly challenging boy the way she did about her biological children.

His social worker, his pediatrician and his neurologist all told me that he had come a long way, and that attachment issues were to be expected with adoption. But D.’s attachment problems were only half the story. I also knew that I had issues bonding with him. I was attentive, and I provided D. with a good home, but I wasn’t connecting with him on the visceral level I experienced with my biological daughters. And while it was easy, and reassuring, to talk to all these experts about D.’s issues, it was terrifying to look at my own. I had never once considered the possibility that I’d view an adopted child differently than my biological children. The realization that I didn’t feel for D. the same way I felt for my own flesh and blood shook the foundations of who I thought I was.

Eventually, a new family was found who had already dealt with attachment issues with their adopted daughter and was more than willing to take on the boy. Anita writes achingly about her decision to give him up and how incredibly painful it was for her, but she ws convinced it was the best choice for him. As an adoptive mother, it was also painful for me to read, and I admit to initially being horrified by her decision.

But then I re-thought my reaction. One of the main lessons Anita learned from her experience, and sought to impart to others, is that we all should be much more careful about sitting in judgment of other people’s parenting choices. My daughter was a charmer from day one–who’s to say how I would have reacted if she had major emotional or physical problems. I’m pretty certain I would rise to the occasion, but none of us really know what we will do in a crisis until we are tested. And I don’t have five other children to deal with.

As for the many commenters to the blog who pointed out that Anita almost certainly would not have given up a biological child with such issues–well, maybe more biological parents should do just that. I am often infuriated by social workers and judges who decide that a child should be reunited with his or her biological parents whenever possible, no matter how abusive or neglectful. Surely many of these children would be better off with a family that would properly care for them and love them. Again, as an adoptive parent, I do not believe that biological ties trump all.

That said, it still makes my stomach churn that someone would give up a child they adopted under the circumstances Anita describes. It particularly bothers me that this will play into the perception too many people have, that “adopted” children are somehow not the same as biological offspring, that adoptive parents are not “real” parents. And I agree with those commenters who in part blame the adoption agency, which appears to have done a poor screening job.

Read the essay and then tell me, what do you think?

Go to Source

No related posts.