Oct. 22nd, 2011 12:01 am
Yes, but ...
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textualdevianceThis rant about abortion rights is well worth a read.
I do have to quibble a bit about the adoption thing in it, however.
Most adoptive parents are pretty much exactly like us (on the surface): Infertile, childless, middle class or more, and yes, white. The race issue is a separate thing (and largely connected to issues of class and secondhand teaching of cultural identity) but I think the rest of it is key to understanding why healthy infants are the most wanted by adoptive parents. Simply put: Most of us are rookies, and we have no damned idea how to handle a kid with special needs. Giving one to people who are that clueless isn't just cruel to the parents, but to the child as well.
I have no doubt that some adoptive families want perfect designer babies. But most of us just want a kid who isn't going to die in five years, need constant care, torture the cat or never be able to leave home. Parenting is never easy in the best of circumstances, and throwing people in the deep end of Advanced Parenting just as a matter of principle strikes me as, frankly, pretty stupid. If the goal is for the child to be in a safe, healthy home, giving her to people who don't know how to handle her needs is probably the absolute worst thing you can do.
Do I know how to handle a baby born with drug addiction? No. Do I know how to handle a baby with brain damage? No. Do I know how to handle a four-year-old whose father raped her? No. Do I know how to handle a kid who's autistic, can't move or feed herself or will never learn how to spell her own name? No.
Could I learn these things? Possibly. Should I learn them on the job when doing that job well is so critical? Fuck, no. There are a ton of things that I could and likely will pick up as I go, including handling some mild special needs. Hearing impairment? Dwarfism? Club foot? Needs daily meds of some sort? Bring it on. I can handle that. Fetal alcohol syndrome? Severe attachment disorder? Not so much.
As I've mentioned before, I have a great deal of respect for those experienced folks who are not just willing but able to care for kids who have these needs. I ain't one of them. And neither are a heck of a lot of other adoptive parents. That doesn't mean they're selfish or vain. It means they're realistic. I'm not against taking on a child like that because I'm lazy or afraid she won't go with the drapes, but because I'm not so damned full of myself as to think I can take on anything and do a good job of it. I'm going to screw up enough as it is with a relatively healthy and resilient kid. Screwing up when the kid is already fragile to begin with would be disastrous. Not gonna go there.
Two other notes:
-This is one of the reasons I'm in favor of abortion rights. It's so much kinder to put some of those really fucked up babies out of their misery before they have to suffer one day out here. We euthanise irreparably broken and suffering animals. Why are we so squeamish about doing that with our own species?
-I really dislike the tone of some of the pressure I've heard on this. It comes off as if pushing infertile couples to take on special needs kids is sort of a punishment. Like since we sinned by being barren, we ought to be paying penance by raising a more difficult child. Considering how much of the adoption world is dominated by anti-abortion people who believe the pain of pregnancy and/or childrearing is an appropriate punishment for fornication, I shouldn't be surprised by this. But it's still grating, not the least because they're not considering the needs of the child at all. (And of course, a lot of these same people also believe that a child's suffering is appropriate punishment for their parents' crime of being poor. Bleh.)
I do have to quibble a bit about the adoption thing in it, however.
Most adoptive parents are pretty much exactly like us (on the surface): Infertile, childless, middle class or more, and yes, white. The race issue is a separate thing (and largely connected to issues of class and secondhand teaching of cultural identity) but I think the rest of it is key to understanding why healthy infants are the most wanted by adoptive parents. Simply put: Most of us are rookies, and we have no damned idea how to handle a kid with special needs. Giving one to people who are that clueless isn't just cruel to the parents, but to the child as well.
I have no doubt that some adoptive families want perfect designer babies. But most of us just want a kid who isn't going to die in five years, need constant care, torture the cat or never be able to leave home. Parenting is never easy in the best of circumstances, and throwing people in the deep end of Advanced Parenting just as a matter of principle strikes me as, frankly, pretty stupid. If the goal is for the child to be in a safe, healthy home, giving her to people who don't know how to handle her needs is probably the absolute worst thing you can do.
Do I know how to handle a baby born with drug addiction? No. Do I know how to handle a baby with brain damage? No. Do I know how to handle a four-year-old whose father raped her? No. Do I know how to handle a kid who's autistic, can't move or feed herself or will never learn how to spell her own name? No.
Could I learn these things? Possibly. Should I learn them on the job when doing that job well is so critical? Fuck, no. There are a ton of things that I could and likely will pick up as I go, including handling some mild special needs. Hearing impairment? Dwarfism? Club foot? Needs daily meds of some sort? Bring it on. I can handle that. Fetal alcohol syndrome? Severe attachment disorder? Not so much.
As I've mentioned before, I have a great deal of respect for those experienced folks who are not just willing but able to care for kids who have these needs. I ain't one of them. And neither are a heck of a lot of other adoptive parents. That doesn't mean they're selfish or vain. It means they're realistic. I'm not against taking on a child like that because I'm lazy or afraid she won't go with the drapes, but because I'm not so damned full of myself as to think I can take on anything and do a good job of it. I'm going to screw up enough as it is with a relatively healthy and resilient kid. Screwing up when the kid is already fragile to begin with would be disastrous. Not gonna go there.
Two other notes:
-This is one of the reasons I'm in favor of abortion rights. It's so much kinder to put some of those really fucked up babies out of their misery before they have to suffer one day out here. We euthanise irreparably broken and suffering animals. Why are we so squeamish about doing that with our own species?
-I really dislike the tone of some of the pressure I've heard on this. It comes off as if pushing infertile couples to take on special needs kids is sort of a punishment. Like since we sinned by being barren, we ought to be paying penance by raising a more difficult child. Considering how much of the adoption world is dominated by anti-abortion people who believe the pain of pregnancy and/or childrearing is an appropriate punishment for fornication, I shouldn't be surprised by this. But it's still grating, not the least because they're not considering the needs of the child at all. (And of course, a lot of these same people also believe that a child's suffering is appropriate punishment for their parents' crime of being poor. Bleh.)
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The trouble with so many of these fundies is that they think they *are* helping - by 'spreading the message'. After all, once you've accepted the good news that God loves you, your life ceases to be shit, right? (No one ever sticks around to find out.) Or they hand out coats in December, and think they've 'helped'. They simply can't get it through their heads that so many women and families need more than a coat - more than a bag of groceries at Thanksgiving. They need day-to-day assistance, with damn near everything...some need the help minute-to-minute. And they simply don't understand the level of stress that would be avoided if there was simply one less mouth to feed (and clothe, and educate, and discipline, etc). Which still wouldn't *solve* problems, but would certainly avoid a truckload MORE on top of what they're already facing. And that doesn't even begin to touch on the physical and emotional stress of pregnancy alone, and let's not even get into domestic violence issues.
Your rant is absolutely truth, too. I know that I'm not equipped to handle anything like that, either. One of my deepest fears with my first pregnancy was that we'd have a handicapped child - and that it would destroy our lives. We could barely afford to have a healthy child - having a child that needed thousands of dollars or more of care would have been fatal for all of us. And I'm not emotionally equipped to deal with that either. I would be one of those 'horrible' mothers who sent their deeply mentally- or physically-disabled child into group care, because I do not have the resources or stamina for round-the-clock care. I'll be frank - if I wanted to be a special-needs nurse, or a teacher, or a caretaker....I'd BE one of those things. I would most certainly resent being forced into that position not of my choosing....and how would that be good for anyone? I mean, in so many other areas, we tell people, hey - you're in a bad situation? You hate your job, you don't like where you live....change it! But it comes to something like this, something so deeply quality-of-life-affecting, and we say, 'gee, guess you've got to suck it'. And not only that, but we imply that they somehow deserve it. Or that they should then be so saintly about it that people will say that they *did* deserve it, because the child needed someone so wonderful and self-sacrificing, blah blah blah. We're never allowed to say 'I can't handle this' without being shunned, told that we're not worthy of the community.