q       Janet Rogers Deets q       Adoptive Mother of 6 children (5 special needs) q       Graduate from Sam Houston State University q       Bachelors in Criminal Justice q       Licensed Social Worker q       Director of Family Services at Alternatives In Motion since 1986

I have been concerned about society’s poor opinion of women who chose adoption for their child since I first held my six-week-old daughter in my arms.  I looked in her face and marveled that someone could love a little baby so much that they would actually allow her baby to grow up calling another woman “mother”.   In the following years, I wondered who this “first mother” was and cringed every time I heard that a birth mother had “given her baby away” or “didn’t want her baby”.   Society painted a picture of an uncaring mother who was devoid of the normal emotions associated with every other mother on the planet.  I knew that the woman who gave birth to my daughter could not be that person.  Who would even consider an adoption plan knowing that they would be judged in that light.  Better to leave the baby in a dumpster, schedule a termination, or raise the baby in poverty or an abusive home. 

Several years ago, the media was flooded with stories of “dumpster babies” whose desperate mothers chose to dispose of the child instead of face the consequences of announcing the birth.  In most cases, these women had hidden their pregnancies from their family and friends and lived nine months filled with a mixture of denial and fear.  The end result was often a fatal one for the precious child they carried within their bodies.  Their desperate act created a sensation in the community and extensive news coverage.  The public cried out for an answer to this epidemic.  Fire departments, police stations, and hospitals blanketed our city with pleas for any mother considering abandoning her child.   They offered her a safe place to “drop her baby off” with no questions asked.  Although this seemed like a plausible opportunity to avoid announcing to others that she had given birth to a child, few mothers would actually trust these public agency’s claims of anonymity for the birth mother.

Our agency received 5 calls in the past month from young women whose babies had been removed from the mother’s care and placed in custody of Children’s Protective Services.  These young mothers contacted our agency to plan an adoption for the child.  Each and everyone of the mother’s verbalized a desire for adoption since early in their pregnancies; however, they did not pursue adoption because their family and their friends told them they were a bad person because they even considered “giving their baby away”.  They were told things like, “Give it to me if you don’t want it.” Or, “You got pregnant, now you have to pay the consequences.”   Not one of these young women heard one supportive word about planning for their child’s future through adoption.  Two of the mothers were using drugs and alcohol during their pregnancies…and the persons who were against adoption knew this and condoned the mother raising the child.  Unfortunately, by the time we were contacted, their options were severely minimized because CPS was in a position to make decisions and a planned adoption was not in their child’s future.

In most cases when a birth mother chooses to respond favorably to “Give it to me if you don’t want it.” Permanency planning is not a part of the situation.  Most people offering this out to mothers are enamored of the idea of bringing home a little baby.  Months or even years later the excitement and newness has worn off and the “friend” shows up on the mother’s doorstep returning the child and she is again faced with parenting a child when she is unprepared.  Again she begins the process of finding some place for this child.   Many children are “placed” in this manner many times during their lives…until they are so lost that they begin looking for a place of their own.  The places they find often place them in the same situation that their birth mothers were in at the time of their birth…pregnant (or have a girlfriend carrying their baby), alone, and unprepared to parent the child.  A circle unbroken because its links are one unprepared parent giving birth to a future unprepared parent giving birth to another unprepared parent.  Our welfare rolls are full of generation after generation of  “at risk” adults producing “at risk” children because society is uneducated about the benefit of planning for a child’s future through adoption. 

In both situations, the dumpster baby and the “at risk” generation, adoption should be a viable alternative.  Society does not offer support for a mother to make this plan for her child.  Society sees adoption planning as “the easy way out” or “giving away” the baby much the same way that we give away a dress that is no longer in style or does not fit any longer.  They imply that a woman who would consider adoption for her child as “an un-natural mother” who “does not want her baby”. 

Hours and hours of news media is spent on examining the reasons and the trauma associated with a desperate mother abandoning her baby in hotels, airports, and dumpsters.  Millions of tax dollars, in Texas alone, are spent maintaining Children’s Protective Services for abused and neglected children whose mother’s would have considered adoption if she had known more about the process and if society viewed adoption in a more positive light.  Yet, promoting adoption appears to be a taboo…indicating that the media and society embrace the belief that there is something wrong with the idea. 

Imagine a young woman finding out she is pregnant and there is no father available to help raise the child.  She is living at home with her parents and knows that when her father finds out, she will be kicked out of the house.  She could never live in the same house with her parents if they  knew about the pregnancy because of the shame.  She thinks about adoption but knows that her parents would never accept the idea because they would not want their grandchild to go to strangers.  She has no job.  She has no education.  She has transportation.  She wants to go to school.  She hides the pregnany until she goes into labor.  She is alone when she gives birth to the baby.  What does she do? 

Adoption is rarely the alternative that appeals to the mother.  We get call after call from young women seeking abortion information for an unplanned pregnancy.  When we explain that we are a child placing agency and ask if they would like adoption information, the answer is usually, “No, I want information about abortion, I could never give away my baby.”  Where does that reasoning come from? 

What a difference the media could make in thousands of children’s lives if they devoted one day in 2003 to promote adoption in a positive light.  Newspaper articles, radio public service minutes, and newscasts  working together to enlighten mothers about the services and the counseling that is available.  Interviews with birth parents and adoptive parents would show the mutual respect they have for each other…as well as the love they share for the child.  Interviews with adult adoptees, with adults who grew up in the child welfare system, and with adults drawn from the general public could show that  that children of adoption respect their parents for making the decision.  Many of our birth parents tell us that they feel positive about adoption because they themselves were adopted.  Another segment of our clients state that they are choosing adoption because they want their baby to have a stable home, a home to grow up in far better than the one where they were raised. 

November is National Adoption Month.  A month set apart to give recognition to the process that has saves the lives of thousands of children every year, the process that many couples use to build their families, a process that is literally as old as Moses.  Celebrating the choices made by thousands of mothers, like the mother who placed her infant son in a basket and floated him down the river into the waiting arms of another, mothers who love their child enough to put their personal prejudices behind them and the security of their child before them.  A great idea, National Adoption Month; but, is it enough?  Does it do enough to eliminate the stigma associated with the mother’s sacrifice?  Does it do enough to make a mother think first before she places her newborn son in a plastic bag into a dumpster?  Does it enlighten the parents of the pregnant, alone, and scared young woman enough to support her in an adoption plan?  Does it reach the friends of the drug abusing mother  so  that they encourage adoption rather than making her feel like her only decision should be parenting?

Can the media effectively change the public’s opinion of adoption and opinion of the mothers who chose adoption for their child(ren)?  I think it can, it has done a bang-up job with sex., drugs, and violence.  What can America’s policy makers do to encourage the media to embrace the idea of educating the public about adoption in addition to informing the public about the actions of desperate young mothers who feel they have no alternatives.