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Adoption or abandonment?

by Nancy Sepulveda

Gone are the days when unwed mothers were scuttled off in secrecy to a home for “bad girls,” disguising their ballooning bodies until, after hours of excruciating labor, their newborns would be snatched away the second the umbilical cord was cut. Yet the image of adoption as a cold, clinical process of shame and regret has persevered.

In reality there are many adoption options, including open and semi-open arrangements. It could be an ideal solution to many unwanted pregnancies, if its stigmatism within some cultures did not prevent its pursuit.

The Latino community often still frowns upon adoption, and fewer domestic Latinos are adopted annually. This disapproval seems less rooted in concern for the mother’s experience and more in the perception that it is evidence of a sinvergüenza: “what kind of woman could give up her own flesh and blood? No tiene corazon!”

Moreover, the focus on familia and the belief that nobody could care for a baby (or a grown man) more than his madrecita is a cornerstone of Latino culture. Latinas are seen as nurturers, providers, makers of the home (even if she is not a homemaker). The reverence for the ultimate mother figure (the Virgen de Guadalupe) alone is testament to the value of maternity in Latinidad. So it’s not surprising that many Latinos might equate adoption with abandonment, and write off a birth mother as a woman who does not cherish the paramount values of family and sacrifice.

But I would counter, that to give a child up for adoption is the ultimate unselfish sacrifice. It is more inconvenient, more indiscreet, and more painful than simply aborting an unwanted pregnancy (calm down, fellow Pro-Choicers; just making a comparison).

A birth mother has recognized that she is not ready or able to provide the resources a baby requires, yet is not denying that baby its own future choices. She has committed to dealing with morning sickness, mood swings, back aches, exhaustion, frequent urination, swelling, stretch marks, and all the other joys pregnancy brings (not to mention the pain of childbirth). She’s done so, perhaps in the face of disapproval from relatives and friends, while navigating the awkwardness of well-meaning people peppering her with questions on name choices and nurseries, all without the eventual promise of a new miracle in her life to “make it all worth it.”

She’s also not the woman with seven kids who neglects or abuses them all – or allows her novio to do so…

No, adoption is not for everyone. Obviously it’s a big decision that requires careful consideration of many factors, and ultimately not everybody should choose it. But it’s time to stop the judgment and denigration, and re-examine the assumptions we make about those who do.

Contributor, Nancy Sepulveda

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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of
the author and should not be understood to be shared by Being Latino, Inc.

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Posted on January 18, 2012 at 8:00 am in Cultura, Lifestyle   |  RSS feed

9 Responses to “Adoption or abandonment?”

    
  1. Nicolas
    January 18, 2012 at 3:00 pm

    I don’t agree with the banket statement “the Latino Community frowns on adoption”. I’m Latino, I don’t look down on adoption. I know plenty of Latino kids who are or were raised by someone other than their biological mom and/or dad. There is no shame in doing the best you can for your kids, even if your best doesn’t keep up with the pinche Joneses. So what if you can’t afford to give your kids all the crap that the consumer-driven media feeds you? Does that mean you’re not fit to be a parent? There’s something that only you as a parent can give your child. Not to say that foster parents are incapable of being good parents, they are a Godsend. I’d just like to hear more about the young parents out there today who HAVE beat the odds and made it happen. I like to hear more about the struggles our parents & grand-parents endured to feed us & house us. Just cause you got the short end of the stick, doens’t mean you can’t still hit a homerun. Have faith, struggle and beat the odds. But if you’re one of those people who is just not willing to let having a kid cramp your style, then maybe adoption is a good thing for you, moreso than for the baby. After all, if you can’t step up, parenthood is probably not your cup of tea. But if you CAN step up, the world is yours my friend! Sky’s the limit. You’ll be amazed. It’s really a decision, not a choice.

  2. Mirah Riben
    January 20, 2012 at 10:45 pm

    Families should not be separated unless there is no alternative and that includes no extended family ale and willing to help. Adoption loss and separation create lifelong grief for the mother and feelings of abandonment for the child, no matter how well cared for or loved.

    Open adoptions are unenforceable promises that are often broken, and even when kept it is painful for mothers to watch their children call someone else Mommy.

    Encouraging adoption is like encouraging bottle feeding over breastfeeding which is previous generations was pushed on immigrants as the modern and more educated, “classy “sophisticated thing to do. Adoption likewise takes something beautiful and natural – a mother an child – and instead of supporting it tries to substitute it with something that makes supports a mega billion dollar industry. in the case of adoption it exploits mothers who are marginalized by age, marital status, finances and commodifies their children to meet a demand. it should not be encouraged.

    Do not let Latina women become brood stock for the wealthy and their children loose their heritage and pride in their language and cultural heritage. A moral, healthy society supports mothers of all ages and finds resources to help struggling families remain intact.

    Mirah Riben, author, THE STORK MARKET: America’s Multi-Billion Dollar Unregulated Adoption Industry

    • Nancy Sepulveda
      January 21, 2012 at 5:51 pm

      Mirah, I appreciate your feedback but find it a bit biased (perhaps not surprising given the title of your writing.) While adoption is certainly not a perfect solution, the unfortunate reallity is that there is NO perfect solution for unplanned/unwyanted pregnancy. Open adoptions are more than “unforceable promises” — they are legally mandated provisions approved by both parties and a court of law.

      I would argue that rather than being “marginalized by age, marital status and finances” through adoption, a greater number of women are marginalized by repeating a cycle of poverty and lack of education as a result of choosing to keep a child that they are not emotionally, physically or financially ready to have. Not to mention that many more children suffer abuse and neglect at the hands of people who were not ready to be parents (and take the stressors of employment, relationship and financial strife out on their children) than there are children who suffer abandonment issues after being placed in a loving adoption.

      To compare adoption to bottle feeding over breastfeeding is absurd, though you struggle to do so by likening one to “beautiful and natural” and the other to “a commodity that supports a mega billion dollar industry.” You could argue that about ANY social construct. Heck, you could say fashion designers, textile producers and magazines take something natural (nudity) and turn it into a billion dollar industry (clothing) and yet I doubt you’d be heralding public nudity for the sake of not supporting the clothing industry. The only similarity between breast vs bottle and parent vs adopt is that both scenarios indicate options, both of which are viable, successful, and should be utlized via individual choice without judgment.

      You also make the faulty assumption that remaining with biological parents ensures that children will not lose their “heritage and pride in the language and cultural heritage.” But statistically speaking, with every generation of American-born children, families are more likely to lose their cultural heritage and non-English language regardless of experiencing adoption. On the other hand, many adoptive families make conscious efforts to connect their adopted children to the culture of their heritage. And call me a sell-out if you will, but I would rather a child lose the non-English language of his ancestors but gain a healthy, happy upbringing than remain in a bilingual birth family but endure a lifetime of loss and sacrifice.

      It’s all about balance. As I clearly point out in my article, ADOPTION IS NOT FOR EVERYONE. But neither is parenting.

  3. Tina
    January 25, 2012 at 3:38 pm

    My latina coworker’s 12 year old daughter gave birth to a son. Four generations are crammed into their trailer. Tell me, Mirah, can you think of no better options for that child and her son?

    • Maria
      January 26, 2012 at 8:23 am

      I think it’s not up to you or anyone else to judge Tina, live your life and stop worrying and sticking your nose in other families business. Adoption is liken to bottle feeding vs. breast feeding. The whole point of adoption is to provide babies and children for barren women. I don’t particularly care for the article’s generalization of Latina’s and their abusive child beating novio’s, that is untrue for the most part, careful with generalizations and making race based articles.

      • Nancy Sepulveda
        January 27, 2012 at 11:16 am

        Maria, please re-read the article. I was very careful to never ever state “ALL Latinas” or “Latinas in general,” and instead use terms such as “many” or “some.” Moreover, I was sure to include the statistics and data to support my claims (via hyperlinks. You are welcome to click on one for further information.) Recognizing an established pattern and commenting upon it is not the same as making blanket generalizations. You should also not isolate a single sentence in a 500-word article (abusive novios) as an example of the article’s overall tone. Unfortunately the claim that there are men who abuse their girlfriends’ children CAN be supported. Open a newspaper.

        And, I hate to point out the obvious, but this article was published on a site that specifically seeks to address issues and topics of concern to a particular ethnicity (Latino is not a race), hence Being LATINO, not Being People or Being Human Beings. So you cannot expect to NOT encounter articles with a specific ethnic-based perspective.

        Thanks for reading!

  4. Stephanie
    February 2, 2012 at 6:44 pm

    Thank you for your article. At the same time that it’s important to raise the issue of adoption in Latina(o) circles in general, from an adoption standpoint, it’s also important to think about Latino adoptees raised in non-Latino households. I’m one of those (sort of–I am Colombiana, my adopted father is Chicano and my adopted mother, White–the social workers thought they were doing the right thing, that it was “close enough”), and for me, it’s been a lifelong quest to understand more about my Latino ethnicity, specifically, what it means to be Colombiana. But the quest has been at times arduous, getting brown backs turned on me and inquisitive looks for looking like I belong, sort of, but not sounding like it, as if it was I that had done the abandoning. Doubly sad for me. In fact, I have found it difficult, nearly painful, to even try to speak Spanish, for fear of appearing…more like I do not belong. At the same time, to the White community, I am a person of color, a Latina. So, while it’s important to have discussions about adoption in the Latino/a community, I think it’s also important especially to think about the ways that we can embrace our adopted “gente.”

    • Nancy Sepulveda
      February 3, 2012 at 3:07 pm

      Stephanie, I agree with you 100% — it’s not just about being accepting of those who choose to place a child for adoption, but also accepting those who have been placed.

      I do have to say, from a personal perspective, I too have experienced that lifelong quest to learn more about ‘being Latino,’ feeling stuck between two worlds and not belonging to either, what it means to be Mexicana or Boricua or Dominicana, not speaking the language or not speaking it “properly’ — and I was raised in an all-Mexicano home; I’ve encountered many who have had similar feelings. I’m not trying at all to lessen or discredit your experience — I am not adopted, and so I would never be so assuming as to think I could truly understand and relate to your experience. Rather, I simply think it’s important to note that many (I’d say a majority of) Latinos struggle with issues of identity and “who am I” and labeling themselves and being in two worlds at once, and so you are certainly not alone in that respect and may have tackled similar sentiments even if you’d been placed in an adoptive family of Colombianos. I think it’s a constant, natural natural discourse as a result of the fractured narrative of ‘Latino-ness’ in this country, and all the simultaneous efforts to politicize and demonize and harmonize and promote and scapegoat and separate and unify our people…

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