Feminist perspectives on adoption

[Tizwaz]

Just been having a discussion about adoption there were a few of us present and many adoptive roles covered- two adopted people,a birth parent (by choice not force), an adoptive parent too. We are old friends plus some newer friends and our friendship unrelated to these roles, we are all mothers/ step mothers of children between 5-22.

We were discussing whether voluntary adoption in the USA or other places can be in the interest of the birth mother or whether it is something imposed by the combination of social/cultural pressure and reduced or not present welfare systems.

I am interested in others' thoughts or from those with more knowledge of the systems or countries where this happens.

I think that the situation in the US must lead to women giving up babies for adoption that they would not give up if they live in a society which saw single motherhood as valuable, saw young mothers as a positive group, provided adequate social support for people with caring responsibilities and provided better structures for combining work and education with caring responsibilities. Another crucial factor would be treating a baby as a family responsibility, so that part of having a child would be accepting that you might also end up having major responsibilities for caring for a grandchild if your child of either sex became a parent at a young age or if your grandchild was disabled.

On the other hand, the US seems to have more open adoptions, which is something which seems much rarer in the UK.

Experience of a US open adoption here:

www.nytimes.com/2005/09/11/fashion/sundaystyles/11LOVE.html?pagewanted=all

A difficult read all round:(

Sounds like the mother needed support years earlier. Hard for them all now.

I also wonder how it relates to all women not having equal access to safe, free, legal, easily accessible abortion services?

I'm not referring to UK!!

I just mentioned this book on another thread here but I found it very interesting

The Girls Who Went Away by Ann Fessler.

Its about the culture of adoption in America in the 40's/50's and 60's when dealing with unwed teenage mothers. I was shocked to see that 60% of teens were having sex with no access to solid information on birth control. Single unwed mothers were the lowest of the low so they were encouraged to give the baby away for the good of the child and then told to forget about the baby. Its a heartbreaking book, but really opened my eyes.

Yes suppose that was what we were thinking about and wondering whether anywhere had a more positive model of voluntary adoption or whether it always came as part of a system that punished women the most and had reduced access to contraception,abortion and few benefits for single parents.