How come people only see the "good side" to adoption?

I think there are good and bad aspects to adoptions. But I think people think of the good side because they may be familiar with a situation where children needed to be rescued from the situation they were in. My very best friend's mother is in the process of adopting 3 beautiful little girls through foster parenting, who desparately needed rescueing from their biological mother's lifestyle. They have been abused and neglected. I am sure their mother loves them. I am sure she wanted to keep them, but she has serious issues that she has been unable to overcome and her daughters have suffered tremendously as a result. So even though the children were not "unwanted" they were not safe. This woman who has grown grandchildren cared enough to totally rearrange her life in order to give these little girls what they needed most, a healthy stable environment. I realize that this is not the case wit all adoptions, but when I think of the good side of adoption, I think of this woman and these children.

Let me speak from the other side of the house, as an adopted child. When I was adopted in the late 50's there was no such thing as an open adoption, all were sealed meaning when the adoption was final one year after the child was placed a new birth certificate was issued and there was no record of an adoption having taken place. Well there was a record but it was a sealed record and unless the adoptive parents or some other family member told the child would never know. I always knew, there was never a time I didn't know. There are plenty of reasons for my knowledge. In part because I looked nothing like my adoptive family. It would be 23 years before I fully understood the reasons for the disparity in looks. But also, my family made no secret of my adoption and would 3 years later adopt another child as well. Is adoption easy. Of course not. It isn't easy on the adoptive parents who have in many cases tried for years to conceive a biological child and failed. In the case of my adoptive parents my mother suffered through 7 miscarriages. It isn't easy on the adoptive child who indeed will always wonder about their "real" parents and why they weren't wanted. If the adoptive parents handle this discussion properly it will not be problematic but rather the child will grow up understanding that this was an act of great love and great sacrifice on the part of the natural mother and father. The child will know that they were loved greatly and that is why they not only have loving parents in their adoptive parents but somewhere in the world other biological parents who love them as well. As for the biological parent(s), is it easy to give up a child? In most cases of course it isn't and I don't think anyone has ever said it is. I met my biological parents when I was in my early 20's. I knew a bit about my mother and nothing about my father when I was growing up because the adoption agency told my parents. Most of what they told them was wrong or my mother twisted it to her own perceptions. But my biological mother was 15 when she got pregnant with me, my father was 17 and had just joined the Army was shipping off and didn't know she was pregnant. There is a much longer story but suffice it to say that through it all she also didn't want to give me up and when he found out she was pregnant 1 month before she gave birth he tried to stop the adoption. In the 50's fathers had no rights though so he lost. The adoption went through. I have my original birth certificate. It says "Baby Girl" and her last name. No mention of a father. It says illegitmate birth. My weight and length. That is it. My biological mother never saw me, not once until I was 23 years old. Just as a side note my biological parents married 3 years after my birth and had 5 more children. According to my siblings my mother went into mourning every year on my birthday. So is it easy, no. My mother once told me she always regretted giving me up. My response was always that she did the right thing at the time. I know that this is hard for you right now. I know that you love your child and miss him. But please consider some things, just as I asked my mother to consider some things when she laid her regrets before me. While my life was far from perfect with my adopted family I had many advantages that I would not have had otherwise. These included acess to great schools and education, college, secure family life, travel, two parents throughout my childhood, a home in a safe and secure neighborhood, food on the table, access to medical care (I needed this). My list goes on. I know that monetary advantages aren't everything but you cannot raise a child on love. Harsh I know but true nonetheless. You have to ask yourself who will you help and who will you hurt by fighting to overturn the adoption? I understand your angst and hurt, I do. Know that most adoptive children seek their roots at sometime in their life. Keep the door open for the future.

If the adoptive parents are well prepared what an adoption means than I am in favour of adoption. But these parents should be prepared for the worst scenario. What if it is a difficult child? Are they going to accept the child as if it was their own? I would onley adopt if it is for the benefit of the child. © ronaldinu 2008

Adoption with all its faults has changed for the better over the years. When I was young it was commonly thought the adopted kids were destined to become bad. As in the bad seed. My mother fully expected either my sister and I to turn out wrong. We didn't. I'm finding the celebrity adoptions rather irksome. Especially coming from Angelina Jolie. While it is great she's giving these kids a home and love, has anyone seen her even hold her biological kids? Seriously. The same with Madonna. Each adoption story is personal to every family. My sister and I were unwanted so the adoption was our best option. I have siblings I've met who never were adopted and virtually all of them have problems.

I think being able to see the "good side" of every problems is a gift not everyone can see. I can't see the "good side" of many things, and one of them is abortion. But being able to see from other's point of view, I think I know why they said that there is a "good side" of this phenomena. They actually though that the children had the better life chance if they are adopted, because it means they would be raised up in the family which actually loves them, other than the mom who thrown them away. I think it is just one better options among the worsts.

I have one adopted brother but he was already 14 years old when came to us. He knew that he has to lose his parents for his own sake. We did not force him, he just saw the necessit to belong to another family that could send him to school, feed him and give him a better future without anything in return. there's a good sisde in adoption - that is when adoptive parents are good. But the bad side is when you have to force someone to give up their children so that the adoptive parents could have the chance to have children. In our case, my adopted brother knows his real parents and he is always free to come back to them anytime he wants.

Adoption is like any other "transaction". It has it's good side and it's bad side. When a woman get pregnant unintentionally and knows she can't support and give the child the kind of life she wants for it, adoption seems like a very good answer. When children loose their parents for one reason or another, being adopted even if it means being separated seems like a good answer to their interim caretakers. In spite of the bad side of adoption it's still seen as a better option for children than the orphanages of the past. But of course this opinion is not coming from one who has been adopted.

I have 2 friends who were adopted. One knows that her birth mother was 16 and had no way of raising a child. She was adopted through the standard pre Roe v Wade adoption agencies of the 60's. The other was adopted from an orphanage in Europe. The adoptee assumes that the woman who gave birth to her was just to young and poor to raise a child. She sees the woman who raised her as her mother. I have a friend who adopted from China. The child was obviously loved as she was dressed in a beautiful red dress before she was dropped of at the orphanage. Due to the one child policy her family couldn't keep her. For good or bad that is the reality of these peoples lives. While living with your natural parents is usually preferable, it's not always possible. I think it's better to be adopted than to spend ones life in an orphanage. This is a subject close to my heart because if I ever get married I would like to adopt an orphan.