here is an idea: normalise the idea that adopting kids is a valid option even for parents who could conceive a child themselves, and not just an inferior backup option for parents who can’t
Just coming from an adopted kid, the benefits of adoption:
-When your kid asks where they come from you can literally say you pre-ordered them and waited for them to come in. My dad always equated picking me up from the hospital to ordering a sofa at k-mart and it always made me laugh. No need to explain pregnancy till they’re older.
-Your child will always know it was wanted and on purpose. My parents waited 5 years for me. They waited. For me to be born. I was wanted, from the moment I came into this world, by the people who raised me.
-You don’t have to pay for pregnancy or birth. Just adoption fees. No thirty thousand dollar hospital bill.
-You don’t have to give birth, or be pregnant, both of which objectively suck.
-The biological parents of that baby will be so happy that there is someone in the world who is willing to watch over their child. The relief that comes with that is overwhelming.
-You’re saving a child’s life that would otherwise potentially be stuck in the adoption and foster system for their entire childhood.I’ve always heard arguments about wanting the baby to be ‘yours’ but really. My parents are my parents. Just because I don’t share their DNA doesn’t mean I’m not theirs. When it comes right down to it, blood of the bond is thicker than water of the womb.
As another adopted kid, I second every point made here. When I’m asked if it’s weird having been adopted, the simple answer I always give is, “No, because I know for damned sure my parents love me and I love them to death too.”
Let a child into your life who needs a good life of their own. Consider adoption.
Also stop believing TV, Kids wanna be adopted and most of them aren’t gonna get with their adopted parents and then be like “well it’s been fun having you raise me since before I could talk and loving me for the past 12-15 years but fuck you now I’m going to find my real family and live with them forever and be a “normal teenager/child.”
America needs to stop putting blood relationships above every other type of family.
Also, as an addition to everything but especially the last point: TELL YOUR KID THEY ARE ADOPTED. The last situation only happens if its kept a secret because it becomes a grass is always greener scenario. If the child knows, it becomes a normal thing.
As a child who was adopted when I was 12, I was totally in support of my adoption. Actually the final hearing was postponed a short while so I could turn 12 & submit my own statement to the judge. I went through so many years of abuse, neglect, and abandonment. I *wanted* someone who *wanted* me. I love my Mama Bear with all my heart. She’s my world. She saved my life.
Consider adopting. There are so many children in the foster & adoption systems that are desperate for a loving home. I’ve also been through the foster system, and it is hell. Straight up. There is no money, too many kids for the system to handle, and social workers who have been so beaten down by the bureaucracy that they don’t try anything. And that is the Canadian system. I cannot imagine what kind of fresh hell the U.S. system is like. Save a child from that. And not only babies are options. Consider it. Please.
The way people dismiss non-genetic familial bonds is honestly such pervasive and insidious bullshit!! Literally the number one response to telling people I was adopted (particularly when I was young) was always, “oh, ooooooh, SORRY, I didn’t KNOW” — like I had been forced to admit something uncouth and embarrassing?? — followed by “so do you know who your REAL parents are?”
People are always asking if growing up adopted made me feel inferior, or insecure, or somehow bad. No, it never did! But you know what does?? This: “I don’t think I could ever adopt. I want a REAL kid. Oh, you know what I mean…. who’s really MINE, you know?”
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